Persia. There is good indication that the Biblical paradise, which is described as a garden planted eastward in Eden, from whose waters flow the four world rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, may have been originally identical with Dilmun, the Sumerian Paradise-land.67
The story of “Enki and Ninhursag” is just one example of a Bible story that closely resembles its Sumerian or Babylonian predecessor, as deciphered from cuneiform tablets. It begins in the paradise of Dilmun, where there was no sickness or death.68 The two-faced Isimud plucked precious plants in the divine garden and gave them to Enki to eat. As a result, Enki’s health quickly began to fail, until Ninhursag (Mother Earth) brings him back to life. This resembles the duplicity of the serpent offering Eve the “forbidden fruit” that resulted in Adam and Eve’s “sickness” of exile on Earth, and implies that Eve acquired a temptress persona from the serpent. In another story, Noah’s Sumerian counterpart, king Ziusudra, was sole survivor of the great flood and preserver of the seed of mankind. He was given “life like a god” and “breath eternal.” Similarly, Noah “walked with God.”
Scientific evidence suggests that the man who would be Adam, migrated out of Ethiopia in several waves, along different possible routes. The first wave is believed to have crossed into Yemen at the Horn of Africa, and continued on to India and Australia. The second wave of migration is believed to have entered the Middle East, and with this second wave, the Bible begins its narrative. Our gnostic hypothesis provides insight into the Biblical narrative that guides our speculation about prehistoric migrations. Adam’s “Out of Africa” journey, or his tribes journey, would have begun at the Eden-like headwaters of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. We can trace their route along the Gihon River (Figure 38) as the Blue Nile merges with the White Nile at Khartoum. The Gihon proceeds north along the Nile to the wadis in the Eastern Egyptian desert, and then follows the Wadi Hammamat to the Red Sea.
There is some geological evidence to suggest that the Gihon entered Saudi Arabia around Mecca. Following Biblical and geological clues, we can speculate that Adam’s descendants traveled the length of the Gihon in Saudi Arabia to the spot where it “cross-cuts” the Pishon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. This would corroborate the legend of the Kabah in Mecca as Adam and Eve’s first home after they were exiled from Eden. The next 6 generations after Adam would have settled nearby, along the Gihon, leading up to what would be Basrah today. At some point, during glacial periods, and certainly during the Last Glacial Maximum (circa 28,000 BCE), the descendants of Adam would have had to escape to Zagros Mountain caves in order to survive. This area is referred to by Samuel Kramer as southwest Persia, “the land of the Aryans.”
Today, the Zagros Mountains in Iran are known for its mining of natural resources, including: bauxite, coal, iron ore, lead, zinc, chromite, manganese, silver, tin, and tungsten, and various gems, such as: amber, agate, lapis lazuli, and turquoise. In the Sumerian story “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta” an emissary had been dispatched to this region to obtain gold and lapis lazuli to decorate a temple. A three month trek was made through the “seven passes” to procure the precious stones. Gold and lapis lazuli were mentioned in both the Sumerian cuneiform account of Dilmun and in the Biblical description of Eden. If we refer to the preceding quote from Genesis 2:10-14, the gold and lapis lazuli helps us to locate the Pishon River as one of the two major rivers that run through southwest Iran. They are the Karkheh and the Karun. “These two rivers provided a route of communication between the heart of Susa (or Susiana) and southernmost Mesopotamia. In the third millennium BCE, caravan routes along both rivers went through Susiana to Sumer and Akkad.”69 The ancient settlement of Susa was built on the east bank of the Karkheh River as it flowed down from the Zagros foothills, for about 150 miles, to join the other Biblical rivers in the delta. If we were to retrofit the Bible stories to the known facts, we might speculate that the first holy man, Enoch, the 7th generation after Adam, would have traveled toward the divine “Source” of Eden’s four rivers, along the Pishon River, ascending the first holy mountain within the Zagros.
The Genesis narrative, considered against local geography, history, and the archeological record, suggests that Enoch’s descendant, Noah, would have settled along the Pishon in nearby Susa (circa 10,000 BCE), which later became the capital of Elam. We know this because Susan and Elam were the eldest children of Shem and the grandchildren of Noah. The Aryan settlement of Susa (or Susiana) became a Neolithic farming settlement, high enough in the Zagros Mountains to escape the melting glaciers flooding the river valley. But, imagine the end of the Ice Age melting the last Zagros glaciers, and a great flood sweeping Noah’s Ark from his Susa home in Elam. The Ark would have descended along the Pishon River until it reached the intersection of the four rivers, somewhere near Basrah. We know this to be the shortest path from Susa to the Tigris because “Alexander the Great was said to follow this path and reach the Tigris in four days.”70 The Ark would have followed the same path as the great migration of Aryans who descended from Susa during the early Ubaid period (circa 5400 BCE) to start the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu. To corroborate this, remarkable conehead figurines were discovered at both Susa and Eridu, dating back to the Ubaid period (Figures 1a). Once the Ark descended the Pishon and changed direction with the currents, it headed up the Tigris toward Mount Ararat in the Caucasus of Eastern Turkey.
Thus, the story of Noah’s Ark provides Biblical readers with two well known “lands of the Aryans”: the Zagros and Caucasus Mountains. The implications suggest that the Aryan tribes came out of Africa with Adam, settled in the Zagros with Enoch, and migrated to the Caucasus with Noah. Then, as part of the great Diaspora to repopulate the Earth, the descendants of Noah’s triplet sons began at Mount Ararat and traveled down the Tigris River toward Akkad and Babylon. The descendants of Ham continued along the Gihon to Ethiopia, while Japheth’s descendants traveled up the Euphrates and continued on toward Turkey, Greece and Europe. At 75 years of age, Abraham traveled to Haran, which sat on a bank of the Euphrates. His subsequent journey from Haran to Canaan breaks with these great river migrations and might be considered metaphor for the Hebrew invasion of Canaan. With Kramer’s Iranian-Semitic cross fertilization firmly established in Sumer, some Aryan tribes may have refused to accept the decline of their civilization, and hopped into Gihon River boats that would cross Saudi Arabia, and bring the Aryan fathers to Egypt (ca. 4000 BCE). Hans Winkler’s theory of “Eastern Invaders” would still be viable if the Aryans were able to sail their river boats inland, along the Gihon River, as long as they could reach Egypt’s Eastern wadis.
In the passage below, geologist Carol Hill presents some relevant facts for consideration, however, my own findings suggest she has reversed the locations of the Pishon and Gihon (see Figure 38); and, has named the Karun rather than the Karkheh, which is said to have flowed into the Karun during Biblical times.
The now-dry Wadi al Batin was probably the Pishon River, the Gihon was probably the Karun River, and the Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates Rivers flowed in approximately the same courses as they occupy today. The confluence of these four rivers was located at the head of the Persian Gulf, but a Gulf that may have been inland from where it is today... There is evidence that such a river did flow there sometime in the past. Only four inches of rain a year now fall in Saudi Arabia, but during the periods from about 30,000 to 20,000 years B.P. (before present) and from about 10,000 to 6000 years B.P., the climate was much wetter than it is today. Even as late as 3500 B.C. (before Christ), ancient lakes are known to have existed in the “Empty Quarter” of Saudi Arabia, which is today the largest sand desert in the world. A somewhat drier but still moist phase existed from about 4000 to 2350 B.C., followed by a more arid phase from about 2350 to 2000 B.C. It was then, at about 2000 B.C., that the climate turned hyper-arid and the rivers of Arabia dried up.71
Ms. Hill also cites an article by James Sauer called “The River Runs Dry,” which describes how satellite images have detected an underground riverbed along the Wadi al Batin (Figure 6). On its eastern end, the Wadi al Batin confluences with the Tigris and Euphrates. Recent satellite photos show “that the Wadi al Batin continues to the southwest, beneath the sand, and emerges as the Wadi Rimah (both wadis may have been part of the same river system in the past, before being covered by sand dunes).
