An official look at the mystery of the flooded cities of the Black Sea region

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

According to seismic survey and geological survey data, buried valleys of paleo rivers are traced on the Black Sea continental shelf: Dniester, Southern Bug, Dnieper, Don, Rioni and other rivers. They testify to the draining of a large part of the Black Sea in the Middle Pleistocene and final formation in the Late Pleistocene, increasing the likelihood of the existence of Pontida, a land bridge between Crimea and Anatolia along the Andrusov Ramp, now buried.

Myths

In the ancient Greek myth of the Deucalion flood, it is said about a participant in those events, Dardan, who was saved from deadly waves in Asia Minor. His name again leads us to the Black Sea - from it the name of the Dardanelles Strait comes from.

In Babylonian legend, the hero landed on a mountain called Armenia.

Here, to Mount Ararat by the Black Sea, as we know, the Old Testament Noah moored on his ark.

Plato also tells about the flood, there is a mention of Herodotus, Diodorus of Siculus, Posidonius, Strabo, Proclus. During a strong earthquake accompanied by flooding, the island was swallowed up by the sea in one day, along with its Atlanteans. Plato indicates the time of the catastrophe around 9500 BC. er … The legend is told from the priests in Egypt.

Black Sea with paleorek channels.

Fauna and flora

Back in 1915, the scientist Mokrzhetsky wrote that some Crimean pines, oaks, junipers, as well as cicadas, lizards, praying mantises, scolopendra are relics of some extinct ancient land.

Later (in 1949) another researcher, I. Puzanov, also noted the similarity of the flora and fauna of the mountainous Crimea with the fauna and flora of the Balkans, Anatolia and Transcaucasia. He explained this by the existence in the past of the land southern bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with the mainland.

Another scientist, botanist N. Rubtsov, summing up the results of many years of research on cereals, legumes, crucifers and other plants of the South Coast Crimea, wrote: disunited by the sea."

Geology

The most ancient witnesses of the bygone times are the Crimean mountains themselves, their rocky outcrops, deep mountain gorges and high plateaus.

Standing under the kilometer-long cliff of the southern coast of Yaila or the giant sheer edge of the Karadag on the eastern coast of Crimea, one involuntarily ponders: is it not a remnant of a mountain range that once split in half and plunged into the sea? G. Shulman conveyed this feeling well in his book "Travel to the Blue Country": "The difference between Karadag and the overwhelming majority of other living and dead volcanoes on the planet is that it is a cross-sectional volcano; half of it remained standing on land, and half disappeared under the water. Karadag is a huge anatomical theater of nature, and there is probably no such thing anywhere else”.

Ancient cities of Crimea.

Paleontological research

In 1998, the American marine geologists W. Ryan and W. Pitman published the results of their underwater paleontological research in their book "The Flood". They were carried out jointly with Russian scientists in the shelf zone of the northern coast of the Black Sea and were the forerunners of other, even more voluminous studies by the also American paleontologist B. Bollard. In the summer of 1999, on a special submarine equipped with an ultrasonic locator, he discovered layers of marsh sediments lying under marine sedimentary rocks. They went to a depth of up to 500 m from the sea surface and contained the remains of sapropel bogs with traces of ancient vegetation and marsh snail shells.

In the hands of scientists, convincing evidence has appeared that here, in the northern part of the present Black Sea, once there was no sea at all. Instead, there were swampy shores of a shallow freshwater lake. With the help of radiocarbon studies of the remains of freshwater and marine mollusks, it was possible to accurately establish the time when a natural disaster occurred here, as a result of which the lake disappeared.

Sea level has risen sharply since the last glacial maximum. Scientific evidence.

This happened 7, 5-9 thousand years ago. The global warming that continued in the post-glacial period led to an intense melting of the planet's glaciers. The level of the oceans rose continuously, gradually flooding many coastal areas and turning estuaries into bays and lakes into seas.

The level of the Aegean Sea here rose so high that the water broke through the Isthmus of Dardanelles and formed the Sea of Marmara. Then, rushing at a speed of 80 km per hour and crushing everything in its path, the sea stream reached the Bosphorus earthen rampart, demolished it and rushed down. The gigantic waterfall formed here threw down as much water every day as 300 Niagara. The crash of falling water was heard at a distance of up to 200 km around.

Very soon the freshwater lake that filled the Black Sea depression turned into a large sea, and the vast northeastern territories were under water. This is how the country of Pontida sank.

According to the Turkish oceanologist Seda Okay, the Black Sea was formed as a result of the Great Flood described in the Bible. It is believed that the Black Sea was a lake and connected with the world's oceans about 6-8 thousand years ago, when the melting glaciers of the world's oceans raised the level of the Mediterranean Sea and allowed it to break through a natural dam on the site of the current Bosphorus. The waters poured into the Black Sea with a force equal to the power of two hundred Niagara Falls.

Archeology

It is natural to assume that the depths of the Black Sea also hide traces of people and possibly a city staying on Pontida.

In 2013, a team of Crimean diving operators managed to find fragments of a cave city at the bottom of the Black Sea in the Tarkhankut region. In particular, objects similar to man-made columns and stone wells were found. According to divers, they are practically the same as the man-made caves of the city in the Bakhchisarai region. In addition, metal objects were found.

Geologists and historians found it difficult to evaluate the finds: firstly, no documents about the disappeared Crimean civilization have survived, and secondly, there is no evidence that the divers' find was not the work of nature.

However, there are other opinions. For example, American geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman believe that about 7 thousand years ago there was a sharp rise in the water level in the Crimea region due to the breakthrough of the Bosphorus Strait. And on the site of the Black Sea there was a fresh lake and a populated plain. According to this theory, it was to this civilization that the Tarkhankut cave complex could belong.

The Crimean Center for Black Sea Studies does not deny the theory of the Black Sea Flood.

“There are very unusual man-made caves there, and it can be assumed that these places were inhabited by people,” said the head of the center Sergei Voronov. According to him, for the final conclusions it is necessary to organize a full-fledged scientific work.