back to article Lost ancient civilisation's ruins lie beneath Gulf, says boffin

Refugees from a lost civilisation whose ruins and relics lie submerged on the seabed deep beneath the Persian Gulf may have founded ancient, advanced Middle Eastern societies thousands of years ago in the time before the Pharaohs. According to Jeffrey Rose, a Birmingham uni archaeologist, recent excavations and discoveries …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    bible

    ive always wondered how much of history is actually hidden in the bible. a while back, dureing a rather heavy smoking session, me and some friends discussed the possibilty that the garden of eden was actually atlantis, and as mentioned in this report was eventually submerged and the people left "paradise" to start anew in a much more hostile land. Over the course of thousands of years the story was changed and adapted to suit the currant lawmakers. if this is correct, we might have been right. I wonder what else is hidden in the bible, under all the propoganda and nonsence?

    1. Code Monkey

      "Inspired by events"

      It's fair to say that a lot of the Old Testament was inspired by events - for example the great flood appears in other ancient texts; though I refuse to dignify all the supernatural humbug as "events".

      1. Shakje

        And let's not forget...

        there's not even any evidence for the Exodus. The Bible is far too unreliable to be a primary source, and until events are confirmed by other means I don't think it's that much use historically except as a culture reference. I think you also have to be careful to assume that because something appears in other religious texts it is true. Remembering that many religious texts share other details which could be interpreted as having simply come from the same source mythology.

        1. Mike Moyle

          Re: the Exodus ("And let's not forget...")

          I've generally held to the idea that, if Egypt suffered a series of unfortunate calamities within a short period of time that impacted food production -- locusts, insect-borne diseases among the cattle, crop-damaging hail, etc. -- that expelling large populations of foreigners who don't worship the "real" gods (and were probably the ones who pissed them off!) to go fend for themselves in someone else's fields would be a logical food-conservation measure.

          ...Sort of a "Get your people out!" rather than a "Let my people go!" scenario, but that doesn't play as well in the hinterlands...

          But, them, I'm a cynical old SOB...

    2. Martin Gregorie

      Further reading

      If you want to know more about the correlation between the Bible and history, you could do worse than start with Werner Keller's "The Bible As History" - still in print and available as a paperback from a giant Internet Bookseller everywhere.

    3. bob's hamster

      A currant lawmaker?

      "Over the course of thousands of years the story was changed and adapted to suit the currant lawmakers." I expect that a currant lawmaker has a similar role to a sultana lawmaker (looking after the rights of the dried fruit) or am I wrong?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Richard Taylor 2
          Pint

          but

          A primary source would be grapefully received.

  2. Aron
    Welcome

    beliefs and facts

    Dilmun is in fact Bahrain. In ancient times the Babylonians and Indians believed it to be a major gateway to a pleasant afterlife owing to the sweet freshwater surrounding the island. That's why we find over 200,000 tombs on the island of foreign origin.

    As for the Garden of Eden, cmon, are we talking history or fiction? This is strictly a Bible story that relates to very wide region from Euphrates to the Ganges according to Josephus.

    1. raivn
      Stop

      history or fiction?

      over time, history becomes legend, legend becomes myth.

      don't be so quick to dismiss accounts of the past just they appear in religious texts.

      1. Reality Dysfunction

        ook

        sounds like its all just one big wheel of time.....

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Ammaross Danan
      Go

      Rivers

      "the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are both mentioned"

      Ever consider the rivers received their names based on the rivers mentioned in the Bible, rather than the other way around?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Garden of Eden?

    OK, maybe not.

    Insert your own made up location:

    Atlantis?

    Camelot?

    El Dorado?

    Cockaigne?

    Valhalla?

    Avalon?

    Shangri-La?

    .....

    1. Richard 116

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      Sheffield?

      1. AC-This-Isn't-Facebook

        Title

        Bradford?

    2. Christoph

      Or maybe

      Numenor

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      The G-spot

      Well I've never found it.

      1. hexx
        Happy

        what title?

        try on females

  4. Charlie Stross
    Alert

    Post-glacial inundation

    Let's remember that, at the end of the last ice age -- 12,000 years ago -- sea levels were much lower than they are today (the water being locked up in the ice caps that covered most of Europe and North America). Given the early human tendency to live in lowlands/near bodies of water, that means that many mesolithic and neolithic settlements have been submerged; for example <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Doggerland">Doggerland</a>, the huge low-lying fertile basin that stretched from between the Wash and the Thames to Germany.

    We know next to nothing about the settlements of these lands because their remains have been under water (and silt) for thousands of years.

    1. Herbert Meyer

      harry turtledove said...

      "Down in the Bottomlands". Harry said it what is now the Mediterranean Sea.

      And someone else said the Black Sea.

      Same idea, different place on the map.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Joke

      Primitive societies.

      >Given the early human tendency to live in lowlands/near bodies of water

      You mean like most of the world's major cities? That would explain a lot about 'city folk' :)

    3. breakfast Silver badge
      Joke

      Inundated kingdoms

      Doggerland was actually less of a low-lying, fertile basin, more an enormous but very secluded car park.

  5. Woodgie

    No one mentioned

    David Gibbons yet.

    http://www.davidgibbins.com/

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We're saved

    Hvase they found the Zero Point Energy source and grav drives yet?

    1. thecakeis(not)alie
      Joke

      @AC Are you American?

      They have! Sadly, they burnt out the ZPM opening the 'gate to Atlantis and have failed to cough up any new ones.

      Bring on the glowy plastic energy saviour!

  7. rictay

    Ice Age melt down

    This is old news as it has long been speculated that the origin of Sumaria and other ancient places lay out there under the Gulf waters.

    It must have an incredibly fertile place with a mild and stable climate for all the millenia of the last Ice Age. No wonder we have legends of a perfect place in our folk memory. It certainly fits the bill for the Garden of Eden.

    I surmise that the ending of the last Ice Age was not a gentle drip by drip affair, but rather a number of catastrophic ice sheet collapses. Low lying land caught by a one or two metre sea level rise would soon disappear under the waves. An ice sheet collapse would probably trigger major climatic events to go along with sudden sea level rise.

    These events would have been extremely stressful to cultures used to millenia of peace and plenty. Hardly surprising that we should have ancient memories, as legend and myth, of drastic events like expulsion from perfect places and Flood Myths.

    When remains of ancient cultures are found beneath these waves, perhaps people will have more respect for our ancient legends and myths. These were probably eye-witness accounts of events far more disastrous than our present global warming scares.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Ice Age meltdown.

      "I surmise that the ending of the last Ice Age was not a gentle drip by drip affair, but rather a number of catastrophic ice sheet collapses."

      No need to be so cautious. I think the idea of such events in the Great Lakes area of Canada is fairly mainstream. It's all thousands of years before recorded history, but *not* before the first "cities" like Jericho, so it is perfectly plausible to imagine a continuous aural history from that time, eventually being committed to "clay tablets that happened to survive", which is simply *our* definition of recorded history.

  8. Julian I-Do-Stuff

    Well well well

    Who else but The Register could possibly provide such an unrivalled combination of Playmobil re-enactment, PARIS-based tittilation and aeronautical lunacy and journos who care enought about obscure stuff to know that to leave out the Dilmun-Bahrain connection would have been to miss half the fun of the story... as well as in depth IT coverage (occasionally).

    ... and, of course, readers who quote Josephus.

    Trebles all round!

    PS If scientists get to be good old fashioned Boffins here, how about a suitable Reg-style epithet for archaeologists? Bone-botherers?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Well well well

      "PS If scientists get to be good old fashioned Boffins here, how about a suitable Reg-style epithet for archaeologists? Bone-botherers?"

      'Boners' maybe?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    timescales are phenonemal ...

    So all of *recorded* human history can be streched over ... 10,000 years (being generous).

    Our species is 12,000,000 years old ....

    How many civilisations could have risen & fallen in that timescale ?

    1. markfiend
      FAIL

      Our species is NOT 12,000,000 years old...

      From wikipedia ("human" article) "Anatomically modern-appearing humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago."

      So you're out by a factor of 60...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Re: Our species is NOT 12,000,000 years old...

        Nonetheless, time for the Reapers anytime soon then, eh?

      2. thecakeis(not)alie

        @Markfiend

        Anatomically modern Homo Sapiens are only about 200,000 years old...but I believe that the Genus "homo" is at least a million years old. I seriously doubt that we only reached "behavioural modernity" 50,000 years ago, however. I'd be willing to bet a fairly large sum of money that timeframe is closer to 100,000 years.

        I guess the question is “what is human?” Genus Homo? Homo Sapiens X? Only Homo Sapiens Sapiens? What about our descendant sub-species? When Homo Sapiens Sapiens fragments once more into Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Homo Sapiens Novus, will Homo Sapiens Novus be “human?”

        I vote that anything of genus “homo” be called “human.” After all, there’ sreasonable evidence that some of the other subspecies (Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis) may actually have been smarter than we are. (Although less capable of spamming babies and climatic adaptation: thus their extinction. Well, unless you are a believer (as I am) that the last remnants of Neandertalensis were likely absorbed into the invading Homo Sapiens Sapiens populations.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Alert

          Wha........

          Pardon?

        2. Allan George Dyer
          Pint

          Pan narrans?

          (Storytelling ape, thank you Terry)

  10. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Stop

    There is _nothing_ submerged under the Persian Gulf.

    I would advise closer study of the other literature available at hand.

    The Pnakotic manuscripts are wrong! I would also add that the G'harne Fragments are a clever hoax. There is NOTHING there of any value or relevance to humanity.

    Just leave the area alone!

    1. Reality Dysfunction

      where do you work?

      the laundry?

      1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
        Alien

        Where I work...

        A laundry.

        Nothing more, nothing less.

        And that is _all_ we do at our shop, contrary to popular speculation.

        Nothing more to see here, move along.

    2. thecakeis(not)alie

      I disagree.

      There is quite likely a metric ***-load of oil submerged under the persian gulf. There's only one way to know for sure...

  11. Alan Firminger

    Persian Gulf ?

    I know where you mean 'cos I am an old man. And the CIA currently call it the Persian Gulf.

    The Times Atlas of the World, 1983 edition, labels it The Gulf .

    Locals prefer the Arabian Gulf .

    There is politics in every name.

    1. breakfast Silver badge
      WTF?

      There is politics in every name....

      What, even Godalming?

      1. JCL

        How about Staines?

        Staines on Thames - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-11665197

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "played a not dissimilar role"

    Are you suggesting that the Bible "story" was lifted almost complete from an older religion? Heretics!

  13. The Indomitable Gall

    Gilgamesh?

    Odd that there's no mention of the epic of Gilgamesh here....

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Where are the aliens?

    It's always about now that we get told that actually aliens are responsible...

    1. Ammaross Danan
      Alien

      Of Course!

      Of course it's Aliens! Didn't you watch the documentary with Nicholas Cage: "Knowing"?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The truth...

      ...Is actually far worse than that.

      Oh the horror, Oh the huge manatee...

      We are not ready for the truth. I would advise no further looking.

  15. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Thumb Up

    @ Further reading...

    Better than that book is "The unauthorised version" by Robin Lane Fox.

  16. Graham Bartlett

    "There is _nothing_ submerged under the Persian Gulf."

    Or rather, there is, but the Benthic Treaty with Blue Hades means that getting it could be a terminally bad idea. (Read "The Jennifer Morgue" if this passed you by.)

  17. Harry Stottle

    Graham Hancock's been preaching this for years...

    now go to http://www.grahamhancock.com/archive/underworld/ where you will find Graham Hancock's been promoting this idea since 2002 or earlier and has been trying to get archaeologists to look under the water. Major vindication of his ideas...

    1. Paul Johnston
      Joke

      Ah Graham!

      Him along with Eric Von Daniken!

  18. Luther Blissett

    Scientific dateline to last ice-age melt

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/01/sea-level-rise-jumpy-after-last-ice-age/#more-28721

    indicates the melt started at least 18,000 years ago, and has caused sea levels to rise at least 120m.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
      IT Angle

      Re: "caused sea levels to rise at least 120m."

      Well in that case:

      Given that the Gulf has an average depth of around 50m and is nowhere deeper than 160m, it is therefore a racing certainty that most of the sea-bed was inhabited by humans. You don't need faith and/or tinfoil headgear. You just need to look. At some point, robotic technology will allow archeologists to do this relatively cheaply.

      1. cpage
        Happy

        Easier way to explore

        Sounds like it would be easy enough to put a dam across the mouth of the Gulf and then pump it out? Would also provide quite a lot of fertile ground, which some countries around there might like to populate.

  19. Johnny Canuck
    Happy

    obviously

    These settlements are the remains of the space-faring Atlanteans who crashed in the are millenia ago! (says the man with the poor grasp of geography and history)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      Johnny Canuck,,,

      you are too close to the truth. Do you hear the helicopters?

  20. Christoph

    Don't excavate yet

    We shouldn't be digging in those ancient undersea ruins yet.

    We have to wait until the stars are right.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Shellfish r us

    No need to add in all that extra stuff in need of explanation. Instead, merely assume that humans were "uplifted" by a race of ocean-living beings, such as, say clams. Now could any religion assume such a thing,,,, oh .... wait a minute ...

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