- VARNA, Bulgaria (AFP) - Could
Noah's Ark be buried beneath the Black Sea?
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- A joint US-Bulgarian venture hopes to unearth the remains
of a lost civilization, which could clarify the timing and site of the
legendary biblical flood.
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- The "Akademik," which will set sail from August
15-31, will use sonar technology to comb for traces of the Provadiyaska
and Kamtchia river mouths in the Black Sea. Numerous towns are believed
to have been situated along both rivers.
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- The supposed ante-diluvian society, predating those of
Egypt and Mesopotamia, is believed to have been submerged by the Black
Sea at the time of a massive flood 7,600 years ago. The flood transformed
a stillwater lake into the saltwater sea.
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- US geologist Robert Ballard, famous for having discovered
the remains of the sunken Titanic in 1985, is directing the expedition.
He supports the belief that the great biblical flood occurred in the Black
Sea.
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- "We are looking for evidence of settlements where
people had been living before the flood," he said.
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- Exactly what might
surface?
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- "We don't think that Noah's Ark could be
found,"
Ballard told AFP, even if this particular flood could have propagated the
myth of the biblical one.
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- Inundations occurred all over the world 7,600 years ago,
but "this was the flood of the floods," Ballard
emphasized.
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- His Bulgarian counterpart, geology professor Petko
Dimitrov,
agrees. "Organic sediment which develops in times of ecological
catastrophe
has been found. It dates back 7,000-8,000 years, and this is the time of
the Flood attributed by the Bible."
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- Rivalling theories exist,
however.
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- Deltcho Solakov, a researcher at the Bulgarian
Oceanography
Institute, has pointed out that the Bible cites Mount Ararat, located south
of the Black Sea in the Caucasus region, as the site of Noah's sunken
ark.
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- In further defense of this theory, Ballard claimed that
when glaciers melted at the end of the Ice Age, water flowing from the
Mediterranean surged over the Bosphorous at a speed 200 times greater than
that of Niagara Falls, precisely because of the difference in the water
levels of the former lake and the Mediterranean.
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- "The best place to find perfect ships is the Black
Sea," said Ballard, citing its depth of 2,000 meters (6,500
feet).
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- In 1972, a neolithic necropolis containing "the
oldest tomb discovered in Europe to this day" was discovered near
Varna, further proof according to Dimitrov that this lost civilization
exists.
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- The necropolis on display at an archaeological museum
in Varna dates back to 4600-4200 B.C. It contains 294 tombs and about 3,000
gold objects, 200 copper objects, various tools made of flint and stone
and numerous religious and funerary objects. The most decorated tomb
belonged
to a middle-aged man, either a priest or tribal chief, who was surrounded
by 900 gilded objects.
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- A Bulgarian-Russian expedition also unearthed a round
vessel from the Black Sea in 1985. Made of clay and sand, its inscription
has still not been deciphered, but it's been nicknamed "Noah's
bowl"
by archaeologists.
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- Much remains to be explored, according to Ballard. At
the moment, "we have better maps of Mars than of the Black Sea,"
he said.
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