Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens
The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man

In the past two centuries, we discovered the earliest known civilization in Mesopotamia and throughout that region found literally tons of Cuneiform inscriptions on tablets, stelas, monumental walls, seals, even on sides of cliffs in Iran. It turned out that the cuneiform script represented consonants without vowels (technically a Defective Script) used originally to write the Sumerian language, but later virtually all Mesopotamian languages because Cuneiform is not limited merely a Sumerian script but a consonantal script i.e. a predecessor to an Alphabetical Script. Thus, we found many other regional languages were recorded in cuneiform script, and this led to deciphering many of them e.g. the Hittite and Akkadian languages.

I introduce Cuneiform because translations of that script are crucial to the subjects presented in today’s three videos.

First, the Sumerian script would likely not be understandable today if it had not had its own version of a Rosetta Stone comparing the same message side-by-side with one or more known languages. The Rosetta Stone equivalent for Cuneiform was the Behistun inscription.

Second, the Cuneiform script was used to record the Gilgamesh epic which contains a Sumerian version of the Great Flood story, which is also recorded in another version in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, not only in Hebrew but translations into virtually every language in the modern world. Great Flood stories are found throughout the earth, which isn’t surprising since ten million cubic miles of water were released when the LGM melted within the last 20,000 years, and sea levels rose 120 meters (about 400 feet) as described in Post 2 and Post 25 EndNote. The rising sea level displaced every tribe whose city, village, camp was located in places now below sea level down to 120 meters, and washed away plenty of dwellings along the paths of the runoff of the meltwater as described in various Posts but most recently just two weeks ago in Post 194.

Third, archaeologists occasionally try to locate Eden whose location is described in the Bible, just like others try to locate Sodom (see last week’s post). Here are two examples of archaeologists trying to find Eden in two radically different ways: In Search of Eden and The Hunt for the Garden of Eden. The first guy doesn’t consider climate change. The second guy gets close, especially when he considers climate change, using data I have used in Post 71 and Post 82 and in many other posts where I suggest the historical Dilmun started on the bottom of the Persian Gulf before the meltdown.

I  returned to the very best video I’ve seen on the Hittites, which I used in this blog early last year. It is in HD, narrated by Jeremy Irons, and tells a beautifully narrated story, with well dramatized recreations of key historic scenes and personal interactions, as well as the role cuneiform played in deciphering this earliest documented version of the Indo-European language. Its sole flaw is the poor coordination of the music level with the narration and dramatizations. I loved all two hours of it for the second time. It is the gold standard on the Hittites.

Thanks for visiting,

R. E. J. Burke