Noah's Flood: A Case Study in History & Memory
|
Table of Contents
|
"...In the Zagros Mountains in Iran at the Behistun Rock, there is engraved a script describing a great flood. Indian Sanskrit, a dead language, tells of a people who called themselves Arians, and who experienced a legendary flood. A mother language had existed in the pre-historic past, spoken by unknown people in an unknown homeland, who at some unknown date dispersed into Europe, Asia, India. What could have caused this dispersal of so many people? Why would separate peoples, scattered across Eurasia, belong to the same language family, and take the same myths with them, of a great flood? ..."
Key Terms
- Origin Myths
- Epistemology
- Great Flood
- Bosporus
- Black Sea
- Noah (Biblical Story)
- Epic of Gilgamesh
Guided Viewing Questions
- What do stories of a Great Flood suggest to scholars about a shared Eurasian past?
- How do stories of a Great Flood create what this video calls "social memory?"