The Antediluvian World

I >> Ignatius Donnelly >> The Antediluvian World

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"And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and
whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of
the ark.

"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast,
and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And
the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will
not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any
more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night shall not cease."

Let us briefly consider this record.

It shows, taken in connection with the opening chapters of Genesis:

1. That the land destroyed by water was the country in which the
civilization of the human race originated. Adam was at first naked
(Gen., chap. iii., 7); then he clothed himself in leaves; then in the
skins of animals (chap. iii., 21): he was the first that tilled the
earth, having emerged from a more primitive condition in which he lived
upon the fruits of the forest (chap. ii., 16); his son Abel was the
first of those that kept flocks of sheep (chap. iv., 2); his son Cain
was the builder of the first city (chap. iv., 17); his descendant,
Tubal-cain, was the first metallurgist (chap. iv., 22); Jabal was the
first that erected tents and kept cattle (chap. iv., 20); Jubal was the
first that made musical instruments. We have here the successive steps
by which a savage race advances to civilization. We will see hereafter
that the Atlanteans passed through precisely similar stages of
development.

2. The Bible agrees with Plato in the statement that these Antediluvians
had reached great populousness and wickedness, and that it was on
account of their wickedness God resolved to destroy them.

3. In both cases the inhabitants of the doomed land were destroyed in a
great catastrophe by the agency of water; they were drowned.

4. The Bible tells us that in an earlier age, before their destruction,
mankind had dwelt in a happy, peaceful, sinless condition in a Garden of
Eden. Plato tells us the same thing of the earlier ages of the
Atlanteans.

6. In both the Bible history and Plato's story the destruction of the
people was largely caused by the intermarriage of the superior or divine
race, "the sons of God," with an inferior stock, "the children of men,"
whereby they were degraded and rendered wicked.

We will see hereafter that the Hebrews and their Flood legend are
closely connected with the Phoenicians, whose connection with Atlantis
is established in many ways.

It is now conceded by scholars that the genealogical table given in the
Bible (Gen., chap. x.) is not intended to include the true negro races,
or the Chinese, the Japanese, the Finns or Lapps, the Australians, or
the American red men. It refers altogether to the Mediterranean races,
the Aryans, the Cushites, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, and the
Egyptians. "The sons of Ham" were not true negroes, but the dark-brown
races. (See Winchell's "Preadamites," chap. vii.)

If these races (the Chinese, Australians, Americans, etc.) are not
descended from Noah they could not have been included in the Deluge. If
neither China, Japan, America, Northern Europe, nor Australia were
depopulated by the Deluge, the Deluge could not have been universal. But
as it is alleged that it did destroy a country, and drowned all the
people thereof except Noah and his family, the country so destroyed
could not have been Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or Australia, for
there has been no universal destruction of the people of those regions;
or, if there had been, how can we account for the existence to-day of
people on all of those continents whose descent Genesis does not trace
back to Noah, and, in fact, about whom the writer of Genesis seems to
have known nothing?

We are thus driven to one of two alternative conclusions: either the
Deluge record of the Bible is altogether fabulous, or it relates to some
land other than Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, some land that was
destroyed by water. It is not fabulous; and the land it refers to is not
Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia--but Atlantis. No other land is known
to history or tradition that was overthrown in a great catastrophe by
the agency of water; that was civilized, populous, powerful, and given
over to wickedness.

That high and orthodox authority, Francois Lenormant, says ("Ancient
Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 64), "The descendants of Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, so admirably catalogued by Moses, include one only of the races
of humanity, the white race, whose three chief divisions he gives us as
now recognized by anthropologists. The other three races--yellow, black,
and red--have no place in the Bible list of nations sprung from Noah."
As, therefore, the Deluge of the Bible destroyed only the land and
people of Noah, it could not have been universal. The religious world
does not pretend to fix the location of the Garden of Eden. The Rev.
George Leo Haydock says, "The precise situation cannot be ascertained;
bow great might be its extent we do not know;" and we will see hereafter
that the unwritten traditions of the Church pointed to a region in the
west, beyond the ocean which bounds Europe in that direction, as the
locality in which "mankind dwelt before the Deluge."

It will be more and more evident, as we proceed in the consideration of
the Flood legends of other nations, that the Antediluvian World was none
other than Atlantis.

CHAPTER III.

THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS.

We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed, indeed,
but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and
also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of
Babylon, and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of
the Greeks. After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the
Chaldean priest continues thus.

"Obartes Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra) reigned
eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the Great Deluge
took place, the history of which is told in the sacred documents as
follows: Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and announced that on
the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the Assyrian month Sivan--a
little before the summer solstice) all men should perish by a flood. He
therefore commanded him to take the beginning, the middle, and the end
of whatever was consigned to writing, and to bury it in the City of the
Sun, at Sippara; then to build a vessel, and to enter it with his family
and dearest friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and
drink, and to cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly,
to prepare everything, for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in
what direction he should steer his bark, he was answered, 'toward the
gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men.

"Xisuthros obeyed, and constructed a vessel five stadia long and five
broad; he collected all that had been prescribed to him, and embarked
his wife, his children, and his intimate friends.

"The Deluge having come, and soon going down, Xisuthros loosed some of
the birds. These, finding no food nor place to alight on, returned to
the ship. A few days later Xisuthros again let them free, but they
returned again to the vessel, their feet fall of mud. Finally, loosed
the third time, the birds came no more back. Then Xisuthros understood
that the earth was bare. He made an opening in the roof of the ship, and
saw that it had grounded on the top of a mountain. He then descended
with his wife, his daughter, and his pilot, who worshipped the earth,
raised an altar, and there sacrificed to the gods; at the same moment he
vanished with those who accompanied him.

"Meanwhile those who had remained in the vessel, not seeing Xisutbros
return, descended too, and began to seek him, calling him by his name.
They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was heard commanding
them piety toward the gods; that he, indeed, was receiving the reward of
his piety in being carried away to dwell thenceforth in the midst of the
gods, and that his wife, his daughter, and the pilot of the ship shared
the same honor. The voice further said that they were to return to
Babylon, and, conformably to the decrees of fate, disinter the writings
buried at Sippara in order to transmit them to men. It added that the
country in which they found themselves was Armenia. These, then, having
heard the voice, sacrificed to the gods and returned on foot to Babylon.
Of the vessel of Xisuthros, which had finally landed in Armenia, a
portion is still to be found in the Gordyan Mountains in Armenia, and
pilgrims bring thence asphalte that they have scraped from its
fragments. It is used to keep off the influence of witchcraft. As to the
companions of Xisuthros, they came to Babylon, disinterred the writings
left at Sippara, founded numerous cities, built temples, and restored
Babylon."

"By the side of this version," says Lenormant, "which, interesting
though it be, is, after all, second-hand, we are now able to place an
original Chaldeo-Babylonian edition, which the lamented George Smith was
the first to decipher on the cuneiform tablets exhumed at Nineveh, and
now in the British Museum. Here the narrative of the Deluge appears as
an episode in the eleventh tablet, or eleventh chant of the great epic
of the town of Uruk. The hero of this poem, a kind of Hercules, whose
name has not as yet been made out with certainty, being attacked by
disease (a kind of leprosy), goes, with a view to its cure, to consult
the patriarch saved from the Deluge, Khasisatra, in the distant land to
which the gods have transported him, there to enjoy eternal felicity. He
asks Khasisatra to reveal the secret of the events which led to his
obtaining the privilege of immortality, and thus the patriarch is
induced to relate the cataclysm.

"By a comparison of the three copies of the poem that the library of the
palace of Nineveh contained, it has been possible to restore the
narrative with hardly any breaks. These three copies were, by order of
the King of Assyria, Asshurbanabal, made in the eighth century B.C.,
from a very ancient specimen in the sacerdotal library of the town of
Uruk, founded by the monarchs of the first Chaldean empire. It is
difficult precisely to fix the date of the original, copied by Assyrian
scribes, but it certainly goes back to the ancient empire, seventeen
centuries at least before our era, and even probably beyond; it was
therefore much anterior to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with
Abraham. The variations presented by the three existing copies prove
that the original was in the primitive mode of writing called the
hieratic, a character which must have already become difficult to
decipher in the eighth century B.C., as the copyists have differed as to
the interpretation to be given to certain signs, and in other cases have
simply reproduced exactly the forms of such as they did not understand.
Finally, it results from a comparison of these variations, that the
original, transcribed by order of Asshurbanabal, must itself have been a
copy of some still more ancient manuscript, it, which the original text
had already received interlinear comments. Some of the copyists have
introduced these into their text, others have omitted them. With these
preliminary observations, I proceed to give integrally the narrative
ascribed ill the poem to Khasisatra:

"'I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation-and
tell to thee the decision of the gods.

"'The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the
Euphrates--it was ancient, and in it [men did not honor] the gods. [I
alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods took counsel
on the appeal of] Ann--[a deluge was proposed by] Bel--[and approved by
Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.

"'And the god [Ea], the immutable lord, repeated this command in a
dream.--I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he said
to me:--" Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu--thou, build a vessel and
finish it [quickly].--[By a deluge] I will destroy substance and
life.--Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that has
life.--The vessel thou shall build-600 cubits shall be the measure of
its length--and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of its height.
[Launch it] thus on the ocean, and cover it with a roof."--I understood,
and I said to Ea, my lord:--"[The vessel] that thou commandest me to
build thus--[when] I shall do it,--young and old [shall laugh at
me.]"--[Ea opened his mouth and] spoke.--He said to me, his
servant:--"[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them:--[shall be
punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is
over me.-- . . . like to caverns . . . -- . . . I will exercise my
judgment on that which is on high and that which is below . . . .--. . .
Close the vessel . . . -- . . . At a given moment that I shall cause
thee to know,--enter into it, and draw the door of the ship toward
thee.--Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy provisions, thy riches,
thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people--the
cattle of the field, and the wild beasts of the plain that I will
assemble-and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy
door."--Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;--he said to Ea, his
lord:--"No one has made [such a] ship.--On the prow I will fix . . . --I
shall see . . . and the vessel . . . --the vessel thou commandest me to
build [thus] which in . . ."

"'On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.--In its
covering fourteen in all were its rafters--fourteen in all did it count
above.--I placed its roof, and I covered it.--I embarked in it on the
sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;--I divided the interior
compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through which the
water entered in;--I visited the chinks, and added what was wanting.--I
poured on the exterior three times 3600 measures of asphalte,--and three
times 3600 measures of asphalte within.--Three times 3600 men, porters,
brought on their beads the chests of provisions.--I kept 3600 chests for
the nourishment of my family,--and the mariners divided among themselves
twice 3600 chests.--For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;--I instituted
[rations] for each day.--In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of
barrels, and of wine--[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a
river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth.-[To
arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.--. . . of the sun . . .
the vessel was completed.-- . . . strong and--I had carried above and
below the furniture of the ship.--[This lading filled the two-thirds.]

"'All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I
gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered--all that I
possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered together.--I
made all ascend into the vessel; my servants, male and female,--the
cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the sons of the
people, I made them all ascend.

"'Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and he announced it in
these terms:--"In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from
heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door."--The fixed Moment had
arrived, which he announced in these terms:--"In the evening I will
cause it to rain abundantly from heaven."--When the evening of that day
arrived, I was afraid,--I entered into the vessel and shut my door.--In
shutting the vessel, to Buzur-shadi-rabi, the pilot,--I confided this
dwelling, with all that it contained.

"'Mu-sheri-ina-namari--rose from the foundations of heaven in a black
cloud;--Ramman thundered in the midst of the cloud,--and Nabon and
Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the mountain and the
plain;--Nergal the powerful dragged chastisements after him;--Adar
advanced, overthrowing;--before him;--the archangels of the abyss
brought destruction,--in their terrors they agitated the earth.--The
inundation of Ramman swelled up to the sky,--and [the earth] became
without lustre, was changed into a desert.

"'They broke . . . of the surface of the earth like . . . ;--[they
destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.--The terrible
[Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].The brother no longer saw his
brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven--the gods became
afraid of the water-spout, and--sought a refuge; they mounted up to the
heaven of Anu.--The gods were stretched out motionless, pressing one
against another like dogs.--Ishtar wailed like a child, the great
goddess pronounced her discourse:--"Here is humanity returned into mud,
and--this is the misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the
gods.--So I announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods,--for
the evil I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.--I
am the mother who gave birth to men, and--like to the race of fishes,
there they are filling the sea;--and the gods, by reason of that--which
the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me."--The gods on their
seats were seated in tears,--and they held their lips closed,
[revolving] future things.

"'Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the water-spout, and the
diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the seventh
day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible water-spout-which had
assailed after the fashion of an earthquake--grew calm, the sea inclined
to dry up, and the wind and the water-spout came to an end. I looked at
the sea, attentively observing--and the whole of humanity had returned
to mud; like unto sea-weeds the corpses floated. I opened the window,
and the light smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down
and I wept;-and my tears came over my face.

"'I looked at the regions bounding the sea: toward the twelve points of
the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne above the land of
Nizir,--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it
to pass over.--A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir arrested the
vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the third and fourth day
the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass
over;--the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the
vessel, and did not permit it to pass over. At the approach of the
seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned,
and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed
a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and--found no place to light on,
and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw
the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.

"'I then sent out (what was in the vessel) toward the four winds, and I
offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the peak
of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured vases,--and
beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper-wood. The gods were seized
with the desire of it--the gods were seized with a benevolent desire of
it;--and the gods assembled like flies above the master of the
sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great goddess raised the great
zones that Anu has made for their glory (the gods). These gods, luminous
crystal before me, I will never leave them; in that day I prayed that I
might never leave them. "Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!--but
never may Bel come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master
himself, and he has made the water-spout for the Deluge, and he has
numbered my men for the pit."

"'From far, in drawing near, Bel--saw the vessel, and Bel stopped;--he
was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial archangels:--

"'"No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the
abyss!"--Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior
Bel:--"What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?--for Ea
possesses knowledge, and [he foresees] all."--Ea opened his mouth and
spake; he said to the warrior Bel:--"O thou, herald of the gods,
warrior,--as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the
water-spout of the Deluge.--Let the sinner carry the weight of his sins,
the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.--Please thyself with this
good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed; faith in it never [shall
be violated].--Instead of thy making a new deluge, let lions appear and
reduce the number of men;--instead of thy making a new deluge, let
hyenas appear and reduce the number of men;--instead of thy making a new
deluge, let there be famine, and let the earth be [devastated];--instead
of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara appear, and let men be [mown
down]. I have not revealed the decision of the great gods;--it is
Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and comprehended what the gods had
decided."

"'Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel.--He
took my hand and made me rise.--He made my wife rise, and made her place
herself at my side-.-He turned around us and stopped short; he
approached our group.--"Until now Khasisatra has made part of perishable
humanity;--but lo, now Khasisatra and his wife are going to be carried
away to live like the gods,--and Khasisatra will reside afar at the
mouth of the rivers."--They carried me away, and established me in a
remote place at the mouth of the streams.'"

"This narrative," says Lenormant, "follows with great exactness the same
course as that, or, rather, as those of Genesis; and the analogies are,
on both sides, striking."

When we consider these two forms of the same legend, we see many points
wherein the story points directly to Atlantis.

1. In the first place, Berosus tells us that the god who gave warning of
the coming of the Deluge was Chronos. Chronos, it is well known, was the
same as Saturn. Saturn was an ancient king of Italy, who, far anterior
to the founding of Rome, introduced civilization from some other country
to the Italians. He established industry and social order, filled the
land with plenty, and created the golden age of Italy. He was suddenly
removed to the abodes of the gods. His name is connected, in the
mythological legends, with "a great Saturnian continent" in the Atlantic
Ocean, and a great kingdom which, in the remote ages, embraced Northern
Africa and the European coast of the Mediterranean as far as the
peninsula of Italy, and "certain islands in the sea;" agreeing, in this
respect, with the story of Plato as to the dominions of Atlantis. The
Romans called the Atlantic Ocean "Chronium Mare," the Sea of Chronos,
thus identifying Chronos with that ocean. The pillars of Hercules were
also called by the ancients "the pillars of Chronos."

Here, then, we have convincing testimony that the country referred to in
the Chaldean legends was the land of Chronos, or Saturn--the ocean
world, the dominion of Atlantis.

2. Hea or Ea, the god of the Nineveh tablets, was a fish-god: he was
represented in the Chaldean monuments as half man and half fish; he was
described as the god, not of the rivers and seas, but of "the abyss"--to
wit, the ocean. He it was who was said to have brought civilization and
letters to the ancestors of the Assyrians. He clearly represented an
ancient, maritime, civilized nation; he came from the ocean, and was
associated with some land and people that had been destroyed by rain and
inundations. The fact that the scene of the Deluge is located on the
Euphrates proves nothing, for we will see hereafter that almost every
nation had its especial mountain on which, according to its traditions,
the ark rested; just as every Greek tribe had its own particular
mountain of Olympos. The god Bel of the legend was the Baal of the
Phoenicians, who, as we shall show, were of Atlantean origin. Bel, or
Baal, was worshipped on the western and northern coasts of Europe, and
gave his name to the Baltic, the Great and Little Belt, Balesbaugen,
Balestranden, etc.; and to many localities, in the British Islands, as,
for instance, Belan and the Baal hills in Yorkshire.

3. In those respects wherein the Chaldean legend, evidently the older
form of the tradition, differs from the Biblical record, we see that in
each instance we approach nearer to Atlantis. The account given in
Genesis is the form of the tradition that would be natural to an inland
people. Although there is an allusion to "the breaking up of the
fountains of the great deep" (about which I shall speak more fully
hereafter), the principal destruction seems to have been accomplished by
rain; hence the greater period allowed for the Deluge, to give time
enough for the rain to fall, and subsequently drain off from the land. A
people dwelling in the midst of a continent could not conceive the
possibility of a whole world sinking beneath the sea; they therefore
supposed the destruction to have been, caused by a continuous down-pour
of rain for forty days and forty nights.

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