The Universal Deluge by Michelangelo (1509) Fresco 280x570cm. The Sistine Chapel. So... where does the myth originate? Let us move to the British Museum in the year 1872. Its curator, George Smith, discovered three very special tablets among the more than 25,000 written in cuneiform that were stored there, all of them coming from the imposing library of the palace of King Assurbanipal, in Nineveh (near of Mosul, in Iraq). Although they had been waiting for years to be translated, it was not until 15 years before this script, typical of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, was read and translated for the first time. In this way, it was possible to know what these peoples told us without having to go to the facts -many times distorted- that the Bible showed us about them. These three tablets corresponding to the seventh century B.C. they told the story of a Flood before the one in the Bible, and were part of a legendary epic, the Gilgamesh Epic. One of them told the story of Utnapishtim (equivalent to the biblical Noah), who saved his life, that of his family and that of all animal species after a flood sent by five Babylonian gods. His ship landed on Mount Nimush and then he sent out a dove, which returned when it found no land. It seemed like confirmation that the Universal Flood really happened. Much progress has now been made in Biblical and Mesopotamian studies, and most scientists accept that there was no such apocalyptic Flood, no Noah existed, and no dove was sent... The reality is that the Genesis passage is made up of different accounts fused together by one or more scribes during the 5th century BC. These stories collected ancient traditions about it, such as the version of the Poem of Gilgamesh from the 18th century BC. that, five centuries later, the scribe Sin-leqi-unnini incorporates the episode of the Flood. construction of a ship after the disaster.
Gilgamesh poem A probable explanation for the myth: Both the Genesis and Gilgamesh versions of the Flood have Mesopotamia as a common setting. We know that God placed Adam and Eve in Paradise, which in those days was associated with the fertile lands located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In addition, the episode after the Flood, that of the Tower of Babel, is also located there. A quite probable hypothesis is that which some geologists from the University of Colombia raised in 1998:the glaciers melted causing the rise of the waters of the Mediterranean. This caused a violent flood as water flowed through the Dardanelles Strait into what was once a freshwater lake in what is now the Black Sea. This fact caused the disappearance of thousands of square kilometers, reaping the lives of thousands of men and animals. The flooding of the Mesopotamian plain by the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the violent flooding of the shores of Lake Euxine probably fueled this universal myth. Many are still looking for physical evidence of the ark around Mount Ararat, where Genesis places it. The numerous expeditions to find it have been unsuccessful and none have been able to provide a single piece of evidence that is scientifically supported. We are probably in front of one of the most extraordinary myths conceived throughout history, throughout the millennia...
Satellite image showing the Black Sea (center image) and the Mesopotamian Plain a your left Information based on various sources. Mention especially the article by Javier Alonso López in National Geographic History. https://franciscojaviertostado.com/2014/01/31/the-universal-deluge-really-existed/