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This is sort of a sequel to a piece about the ancient Mediterranean megaflood that did really well on here last month - so, with my fingers crossed it's not too

This is sort of a sequel to a piece about the ancient Mediterranean megaflood that did really well on here last month - so, with my fingers crossed it's not too obnoxiously self-promotional of me to do it, I thought I'd give this one a punt as well. Also, thank you to those who left comments saying you didn't like that former piece's introduction. I agree with you! It was rambling and a bit self-indulgent and I should have just got on with the story. This one does that (I think). Cheers.

klyrs 4y ago
Thanks, I think this is great! I've often wondered if the "great flood" myths and the legend of Atlantis have any factual basis carried on in oral history. The Zanclean flood stretches credulity beyond reason (as fun as it is to think about a story passed down from the first Hominins), but this event happened recently enough to ponder links to mythology... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessair
- greatpostman 4y ago
  Platos account of Atlantis which was destroyed ten thousand years prior matches geological artifacts of huge climate changes/end of the ice age. I’d say the evidence point to his stories legitimatacy
  - throwaway568 4y ago
    Relevant: https://www.q-mag.org/the-great-plain-of-atlantis-was-it-in-doggerland.html https://www.q-mag.org/the-great-plain-of-atlantis-was-it-in-...
- neaden 4y ago
  Great flood maybe, but we don't have any actual proof that Atlantis was some ancient legend vs something Plato just made up and said he heard from someone else since there are no previous accounts of it before him.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Also, please bear in mind that there's a good reason to suspect that Plato bent a lot of things to suit his goal of trying to explain philosophical concepts. Socrates is often hailed as one of the greatest western philosophers but we have almost no record of his character outside the dramatizations written by Plato. We're almost certain he was a real person but if Plato is to be trusted he was extremely against any preservation of his discourses - almost everything we've got on him comes from Plato describing his mentor. So Atlantis might be much the same - the story of a city lost to flooding (maybe even the same root story as the biblical one) repurposed and embellished to express a philosophical point.
    - neaden 4y ago
      While I agree with you about Plato, I think you are underestimating our other sources on Socrates. The historian Xenephon was also one of his students and talked about him in his works, including Socrates' trial and death. The playwright Aristophanes also parodied Socrates in one of his works and while it is a parody what it is parodying is consistent with what we know of Socrates' philosophy as presented by Plato and shows he was a fairly well known figure at least among the play going audience.
  - akomtu 4y ago
    There should be some traces of it still. Per the legend, the last day of Atlantis was the day Sahara became a desert, so inspecting it should reveal something. Also, "Atlantis" is a made up term (by Plato?). Again, per the legend, that nation called themselves "lanka" and I wonder if Sri Lanka ("Holy Lanka ") was named this way for a reason.
- joshuaissac 4y ago
  The Gunditjmara Australian story "Dreamtime" recounts the eruption of the now-dormant volcano Budj Bim about 37,000 years ago.[1][2] So it is possible for accounts of historical events to be transmitted orally over a very long period of time. 1. https://www.awe.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/national/budj-bim https://www.awe.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/nation... 2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/study-dates-victorian-volcano-that-buried-a-human-made-axe/11991290 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/study-dates-victorian...
argomo 4y ago
No offense, but I couldn't get into this piece due to the upfront clutter. Some readers may find it charming, but the privilege comment, the chart tweet, the subscribe button, the references to various novels... I just wasn't finding a good starting point to latch onto the content promised by the (excellent) headline. It felt like I had jumped into the middle of a podcast where the hosts are bantering and not making much progress on the discussion.
- bandibus 4y ago
  That's a fair comment, thank you. I originally wrote it that way because it was for longterm readers, with a bunch of callbacks to previous stuff, as you mention there. But for first-time visitors, it could be seen as clutter. I've cut some of that out, and I think you're right. Cheers!
- imilk 4y ago
  Just scroll past the 2nd picture and start reading.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Just... do that thing that nobody does on a normal basis, nor should they be expected to. Just. Has to be one of my favorite words.
    - munk-a 4y ago
      Whether you think wearing my mouse wheel down to actually get to the directions for any recipe posted on a blog is good or not - it certainly is normal... and ditto for websites having a lot of above the fold advertisements.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        >recipe posted on a blog is good or not - it certainly is normal. and pretty much universally abhorred by anyone but SEO types > websites having a lot of above the fold advertisements I wouldn't know about these. I have an adblocker. seems like a cheap price to pay to prevent unnecessary wear&tear on your mouse wheel.
formerkrogemp 4y ago
It's great to see the follow up piece! I enjoyed the read, and I think many others will too.
- bandibus 4y ago
  Thank you! :)
EGreg 4y ago
Megaflood? I thought the Biblical flood had no evidence for it
- simonh 4y ago
  There have been many floods in many places throughout history, including the Mediterranean and Middle East. There is no evidence specifically for a global flood with all the very specific characteristics of the biblical flood, or the Mesopotamian flood myth it’s almost certainly based on. That doesn’t mean these mythical floods had no basis in fact, and weren’t inspired by real floods. It just depends how literally you take the specifics of how they are described in the sources.
  - labster 4y ago
    Right. If you lived near a lake in the endorheic basin at the end of the Danube, it would sure seem like the whole world had flooded when the Black Sea came flooding in. Protip: the Bible can still be the literal word of God, because omnipotence implies the ability to use simile, metaphor, analogy, symbolism, and storytelling tropes.
    - simonh 4y ago
      As well as inconsistent and even self-contradictory.
      - arkey 4y ago
        Could you give some evidence for that? Could you reference specific inconsistencies and contradictions?
        Jedd 4y ago
        Have you genuinely been unable to identify any? They're manifest and generally well documented. A nicely topical example, given we've just had Easter, would be around the time of the crucifixion -- was it at 9am on the morning of Passover, or midday the day after passover? The gospels provide conflicting timelines - Mathew, Mark, & Luke say 9am on passover, John says the afternoon the day after passover. There are myriad other contradictions around the descriptions of the crucifixion mythology: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Contradictions_in_Jesus%27_crucifixion https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Contradictions_in_Jesus%27_cru... This may be a useful jumping-off point for other inconsistencies: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions
AndrewDucker 4y ago
"look west to where the Netherlands used to be" - should be East.
- bandibus 4y ago
  Oops! Thank you. :)

klyrs 4y ago

Thanks, I think this is great! I've often wondered if the "great flood" myths and the legend of Atlantis have any factual basis carried on in oral history. The Zanclean flood stretches credulity beyond reason (as fun as it is to think about a story passed down from the first Hominins), but this event happened recently enough to ponder links to mythology... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessair

greatpostman 4y ago
Platos account of Atlantis which was destroyed ten thousand years prior matches geological artifacts of huge climate changes/end of the ice age. I’d say the evidence point to his stories legitimatacy
- throwaway568 4y ago
  Relevant: https://www.q-mag.org/the-great-plain-of-atlantis-was-it-in-doggerland.html https://www.q-mag.org/the-great-plain-of-atlantis-was-it-in-...
neaden 4y ago
Great flood maybe, but we don't have any actual proof that Atlantis was some ancient legend vs something Plato just made up and said he heard from someone else since there are no previous accounts of it before him.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Also, please bear in mind that there's a good reason to suspect that Plato bent a lot of things to suit his goal of trying to explain philosophical concepts. Socrates is often hailed as one of the greatest western philosophers but we have almost no record of his character outside the dramatizations written by Plato. We're almost certain he was a real person but if Plato is to be trusted he was extremely against any preservation of his discourses - almost everything we've got on him comes from Plato describing his mentor. So Atlantis might be much the same - the story of a city lost to flooding (maybe even the same root story as the biblical one) repurposed and embellished to express a philosophical point.
  - neaden 4y ago
    While I agree with you about Plato, I think you are underestimating our other sources on Socrates. The historian Xenephon was also one of his students and talked about him in his works, including Socrates' trial and death. The playwright Aristophanes also parodied Socrates in one of his works and while it is a parody what it is parodying is consistent with what we know of Socrates' philosophy as presented by Plato and shows he was a fairly well known figure at least among the play going audience.
- akomtu 4y ago
  There should be some traces of it still. Per the legend, the last day of Atlantis was the day Sahara became a desert, so inspecting it should reveal something. Also, "Atlantis" is a made up term (by Plato?). Again, per the legend, that nation called themselves "lanka" and I wonder if Sri Lanka ("Holy Lanka ") was named this way for a reason.
joshuaissac 4y ago
The Gunditjmara Australian story "Dreamtime" recounts the eruption of the now-dormant volcano Budj Bim about 37,000 years ago.[1][2] So it is possible for accounts of historical events to be transmitted orally over a very long period of time. 1. https://www.awe.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/national/budj-bim https://www.awe.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/nation... 2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/study-dates-victorian-volcano-that-buried-a-human-made-axe/11991290 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/study-dates-victorian...

argomo 4y ago

No offense, but I couldn't get into this piece due to the upfront clutter. Some readers may find it charming, but the privilege comment, the chart tweet, the subscribe button, the references to various novels... I just wasn't finding a good starting point to latch onto the content promised by the (excellent) headline. It felt like I had jumped into the middle of a podcast where the hosts are bantering and not making much progress on the discussion.

bandibus 4y ago
That's a fair comment, thank you. I originally wrote it that way because it was for longterm readers, with a bunch of callbacks to previous stuff, as you mention there. But for first-time visitors, it could be seen as clutter. I've cut some of that out, and I think you're right. Cheers!
imilk 4y ago
Just scroll past the 2nd picture and start reading.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Just... do that thing that nobody does on a normal basis, nor should they be expected to. Just. Has to be one of my favorite words.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Whether you think wearing my mouse wheel down to actually get to the directions for any recipe posted on a blog is good or not - it certainly is normal... and ditto for websites having a lot of above the fold advertisements.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >recipe posted on a blog is good or not - it certainly is normal. and pretty much universally abhorred by anyone but SEO types > websites having a lot of above the fold advertisements I wouldn't know about these. I have an adblocker. seems like a cheap price to pay to prevent unnecessary wear&tear on your mouse wheel.

formerkrogemp 4y ago

It's great to see the follow up piece! I enjoyed the read, and I think many others will too.

bandibus 4y ago
Thank you! :)

EGreg 4y ago

Megaflood? I thought the Biblical flood had no evidence for it

simonh 4y ago
There have been many floods in many places throughout history, including the Mediterranean and Middle East. There is no evidence specifically for a global flood with all the very specific characteristics of the biblical flood, or the Mesopotamian flood myth it’s almost certainly based on. That doesn’t mean these mythical floods had no basis in fact, and weren’t inspired by real floods. It just depends how literally you take the specifics of how they are described in the sources.
- labster 4y ago
  Right. If you lived near a lake in the endorheic basin at the end of the Danube, it would sure seem like the whole world had flooded when the Black Sea came flooding in. Protip: the Bible can still be the literal word of God, because omnipotence implies the ability to use simile, metaphor, analogy, symbolism, and storytelling tropes.
  - simonh 4y ago
    As well as inconsistent and even self-contradictory.
    - arkey 4y ago
      Could you give some evidence for that? Could you reference specific inconsistencies and contradictions?
      - Jedd 4y ago
        Have you genuinely been unable to identify any? They're manifest and generally well documented. A nicely topical example, given we've just had Easter, would be around the time of the crucifixion -- was it at 9am on the morning of Passover, or midday the day after passover? The gospels provide conflicting timelines - Mathew, Mark, & Luke say 9am on passover, John says the afternoon the day after passover. There are myriad other contradictions around the descriptions of the crucifixion mythology: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Contradictions_in_Jesus%27_crucifixion https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Contradictions_in_Jesus%27_cru... This may be a useful jumping-off point for other inconsistencies: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions

AndrewDucker 4y ago

"look west to where the Netherlands used to be" - should be East.

bandibus 4y ago
Oops! Thank you. :)