Читать книгу Science confirms – 4. Collection of scientific articles - Андрей Тихомиров - Страница 4

https://ridero.ru/books/mestopolozhenie_edema_raya_naideno/

«During excavations in Yemen, Oman and the UAE, stone tools were discovered. This suggests that people settled in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula about 125—100 thousand years ago. Luminescent chronology data indicate that 130 thousand years ago, the Arabian Peninsula was relatively hotter, the amount of rainfall was higher, due to which it was covered with vegetation and habitable land. At that time, the level of the Red Sea fell, and the width of its southern part was only 4 km. This briefly created the opportunity for people to cross the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, through which they reached Arabia and founded a number of the first Paleolithic sites in the Middle East – such as Jebel Fayya in the modern United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Aybut Al Fuwal in the Dofar governorate in the south of modern Oman (106 thousand years ago). Early migrants, fleeing from climate change in Africa, crossed the Red Sea to the territory of modern Yemen and Oman and further across the Arabian Peninsula in search of more favorable climatic conditions. There is a distance of 2000 km between the Red Sea and Jebel Fayya (UAE), where the uninhabitable desert is now located, but about 130 thousand years ago, at the end of the ice Age, the Red Sea was shallow enough to cross it by wading or on a small raft, and the Arabian Peninsula was not a desert, and the area covered with greenery.»

«Researchers of the Old Testament are gradually coming to understand that the biblical paradise really existed, but it was not in heaven, but on earth. The American scientist J. Zarins did a lot of scientific work at the end of the last century. Using photographs obtained with the help of space satellites and the works of ancient scientists in geology, hydrology, linguistics, Zarins established in which specific place of the Earth the biblical paradise could be located… Like many researchers, Zarins began by studying the Bible, which, according to him, he read «inside and out.» To this was added archaeological excavations in Saudi Arabia, which he conducted for 10 years. Then he turned to the works of brilliant specialists of the XX century in geology, hydrology and linguistics. And finally, to the photos taken from satellites.

In his opinion, Eden appeared around the VI – V millennia BC. By this time, rains began to fall in the area of the current Persian Gulf after a period of prolonged drought. Then the areas located in the east and north-east of Saudi Arabia and in the south-west of Iran turned green again and regained their former fertility. In search of food, man again rushed to where the now full-flowing four rivers flowed, washing the fat fields. Thousands of tools found here suggest the presence of once numerous human settlements in the vicinity of now dried lakes and rivers. Such tools have been found even in the Rub al-Khali desert in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, around the VI – V millennia BC, this area became an earthly paradise created by generous nature.

However, now different times have come: agriculture has already been developed. But it didn’t happen overnight. It originated on the Mediterranean coast and on the territory of modern Iran and Iraq, when groups of former hunters and gatherers gradually turned into farmers. Since writing has not yet been created, it is difficult to judge what changes in life such an evolution entailed. Zarins argues that the conflict was much more dramatic than during the Industrial Revolution.

He is convinced that the main arena of the clash turned out to be the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, as well as the northern part of Arabia, where hunters and gatherers who came here from less hospitable areas met with people who were at a higher stage of development, who raised cattle, engaged in pottery and, apparently, showed a tendency to unite in sedentary groups. Who were these people? Zarins believes that they lived in Southern Mesopotamia and were representatives of the oldest civilization, which is now called the Ubeid. They founded in the V millennium BC the oldest of the cities of Southern Mesopotamia – Eridu.»

«It was in Saudi Arabia that Zarins unexpectedly came across traces of the Ubaid culture, and it was there that he began to develop his hypothesis about the true meaning of the biblical Eden. One clue lay in linguistics: the word «Eden», or «Edim», primarily refers to Sumer, the region of Mesopotamia, where the world’s first written language was created. This happened in the III millennium BC, that is, more than 3 thousand years after the Ubeid culture arose. Among the Sumerians, the word «Eden» simply meant «fertile plain». The word «Adam» was also found in Cuneiform, meaning something like «settlements on the plain». Although both of these words were first discovered among the Sumerians along with names such as Ur and Uruk, they are not Sumerian in origin. The brilliant assyriologist B. Landsberger put forward in 1943 the theory that these names are all that remains of the language of the people that existed before the Sumerians. Landsberger called this pre-Sumerian language «proto-Euphratic». Other scholars have suggested that the people who spoke that language belonged to the Ubaid civilization. Already existing words merged into the language of the Sumerians and found their reflection in writing. And thanks to writing, the word «Eden» has penetrated into mythology as a symbol of a fertile and fertile place.