A Tsunami was probably first described in the 5th century BC by Thucydides when he wrote "in my opinion, the cause of the phenomenon wa s this: where the earthquake was most violent, the sea receded and was then pushed back with even greater violence, thus bringing about a flood. Such a thing would not have happened without an earthquake" (Peloponnesian War, Book III.89)(b). However, there are also conditions that can produce tsunamis inland, such as occurred around 500 AD inundating Geneva in the Alps(k)(m).
The word 'tsunami' first appeared in an English language publication in the September 1896 edition of National Geographic Magazine in which the devastation caused by an earthquake wave in Japan was graphically described.
Recent studies(g) indicate that a similar tsunami saved the Greek town of Nea Poteidaia from a Persian attack in 479 BC. Herodotus in reporting the event attributed the Persian defeat to divine intervention by Poseidon, god of the sea.
A similar event on an even greater scale has been one of the suggestions as the possible cause of the flooding of Atlantis. A 2002 paper(a), by Louisiana State University geologist, Gary Byerly and his team, identified an ancient asteroid impact that generated a tsunami that "swept around the earth several times, inundating everything except the mountains". The study of ancient tsunamis is at a very early stage of development.
Ivan T. Sanderson in one of his books, Investigating the Unexplained[768] , recounts an 1863 report of a 200-foot high tsunami which sped up the Ganges and Houghli Rivers in India killing tens of thousands of people without 'snapping-off' trees. He contrasts this with the tree stumps covering acres around East Creek, New Jersey that have all been broken off at the same height and where he suggested that only a tsunami could have caused such widespread and uniform destruction. In view of the fact that some of these cedar trees had six foot diameter trunks he speculates on the possible size of a tsunami that could bring about such extreme damage.
Perhaps even more relevant to the study of Atlantis is the evidence gathered by Jürgen Spanuth in his chapter on the 'Natural Catastrophes of the 13th Century' including an interesting section on tsunamis[015.167].
Marc-André Gutscher of the University of Western Brittany in Plouzané, France, has discovered evidence of ancient tsunami on Spartel Island, an Atlantis candidate, in the Gulf of Cadiz. Georgeos Diaz-Montexano has pointed out that Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian, seems to describe the devastation caused by its assault on the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal at the time of the Lusitanians and Cantabrians in the 1st millennium BC.
In the late 1970's, Booth & Fitch suggested in Earthshock[1295] that tsunamis may have been responsible for the devastation of Atlantis, an idea that has gained in popularity.
Sergio Frau has postulated that the Atlantean civilisation on Sardinia was destroyed by a tsunami.
Professor Stefano Tinti of Bologna University visited Sardinia and explained(r) "that until the 1980s no one was aware that tidal waves had occurred in the Mediterranean. But since 2004 scientists have identified 350 events of this type over a 2,500-year period," and regarding the Sardinian tsunami "So what would have been required in our case?" he then asked. "We're talking about a huge volume of water, some 500 metres high [the elevation up to which the nuraghi were affected]. Only a comet could do that, if the impact occurred very close to the coast and in a very specific direction," he asserted. An event of this sort may have occurred near Cagliari, with the resulting wave devastating the plain of Campidano."
Tinti has also noted(w) that generally speaking, the majority of tsunamis are generated by seismic rather than volcanic activity. Globally, volcanic tsunamis account for only 2% of the total, however, the profusion of volcanoes in Southern Italy has considerably increased this percentage. Furthermore, according to a recent article on the BBC website "The scale of the tsunami hazard from volcanoes that collapse into the sea has been underestimated."(x)
More recently, Dhani Irwanto has written of the probable effect of tsunamis on his Indonesian Atlantis(y). Studies of the sedimentary record in a sea-cave in Sumatra have revealed the frequency and strength of tsunamis in the region over a five thousand year span from 5900 BC until 900 BC(u).
Tsunamis are also associated with destruction on Crete following the eruption of Thera in the 2ndmillennium BC. A TV documentary entitled Sinking Atlantis(i), provided graphic evidence of tsunami damage on Minoan Crete(h).
J.V.Luce cited[120.119] a number a local legends from around the Aegean that may have originated with the tsunami that followed the eruption on Thera.
However, the extent of this damage is strongly contested by W. Sheppard Baird(j) and he proposes instead that it was in fact more likely to have been a pyroclastic surge from the Theran eruption that caused most damage.
A recent report(d) concludes that a large tsunami generated by the volcanic activity of Mt. Etna around 6000 BC produced waves up to 43 feet high that struck the coasts of Greece and Libya. This event would have caused devastation on nearby Malta, where evidence of past tsunamis was published in the journal Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie. The research was carried out over three years by scientists from the University of Portsmouth, led by Dr Malcolm Bray with assistance from colleagues at the Department of Geography at the University of Malta(n). A 1693 earthquake generated the earliest recorded tsunami on Malta and as recent as 1908 Malta was hit by a tsunami that resulted from a catastrophic earthquake in the vicinity of the Strait of Messina(p).
On the Atlantic west coast of Ireland we have a 250 km2 locality, in County Clare, known as the Burren, which consists of limestone denuded of soil cover. Recently, strong evidence was discovered suggesting a 4000 BC tsunami in the region(o). For me the karst landscape of the Burren is reminiscent of areas of Malta.
Plato's description does not support the idea of a tsunami as the primary cause of Atlantis' inundation since tsunamis will eventually subside and return to the ocean, whereas Atlantis was still under water years after the event, causing a permanent navigation hazard. John Michael Greer makes a similar point [345.126] in relation to the megatsunami which struck Madagascar 2800 BC. Evidence of other ancient megatsunamis in Hawaii was presented to 2012 meeting of the American Geophysical Union(l). The power of megatsunamis is highlighted in an article the UK's MailOnline website(t).
Recent excavations at Olympia on the Peloponnese peninsula, the location of the original Olympic Games, have pointed to the site having been repeatedly hit by devastating tsunamis during the past 7,000 years(c).
The Bunurong tribe in Australia have a 'myth' which explains the creation of Melbourne's Port Philip Bay. A recent article(e) has linked this to a tsunami which resulted from the impact of Comet Manhuika south-west of New Zealand in the 15th century. A more cautious view of this event is expressed elsewhere(f).
The excellent livescience.com website has an interesting list of ten history-making tsunamis(q), while Wikipedia offers an extensive list of European tsunamis from prehistoric times until the present(s).
A 100-metre-high tsunami, caused by a landslide, one of the highest ever recorded was experienced in a remote area of Greenland in June 2017. Four lives were lost and eleven houses destroyed in the fishing village of Nuugaatsiaq, located on an island about 20 kilometres away(v).
(a) See: Archive 2931
(b) http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Peloponnesian_War/Book_3#Sixth_Year_of_the_War_-_Campaigns_of_Demosthenes_in_Western_Greece_-_Ruin_of_Ambracia
(c) http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/14389.php
(d) http://www.livescience.com/1170-towering-ancient-tsunami-devastated-mediterranean.html
(e) http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2012/02/10/mega-tsunamis-chinese-junks-and-port-phillip-bay/
(f) http://www.researchgate.net/publication/240420231_Analysis_of_the_Mahuika_comet_impact_tsunami_hypothesis
*(g) https://www.livescience.com/19809-ancient-wave-real-tsunami.html*
(h) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/?p=90
(i) http://video.pbs.org/video/1204753806/
(j) http://www.minoanatlantis.com/Sinking_Atlantis_Myth.php
(k) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121031-alps-tsunami-geneva-nature-geoscience-science/
(l) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161209170519/http://www.livescience.com/25293-hawaii-giant-tsunami-landslides.html
(m) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/science/earth/a-tsunami-in-switzerland-lake-evidence-says-yes.html?ref=science&_r=0
(n) https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140901/local/scientists-find-evidence-of-great-tsunami-in-malta.533987
(o) http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/6000-year-old-settlement-poses-tsunami-mystery-193230.html
(p) http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20050109/letters/tsunami-events-in-malta.102636
(q) http://www.livescience.com/28296-tsunamis-that-changed-history.html
(r) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/15/bronze-age-sardinia-archaeology-atlantis
(s) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis_in_Europe
(t) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4082550/The-terrifying-power-mega-tsunamis-Video-reveals-wave-wipe-ENTIRE-east-coast-s-unlikely-happen.html
(u) https://www.seeker.com/culture/archaeology/5000-year-long-record-of-tsunamis-found-in-sumatran-cave-encrusted-in-bat-guano
(v) http://www.nature.com/news/huge-landslide-triggered-rare-greenland-mega-tsunami-1.22374
(w) http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780792323167
(x) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49568107
(y) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2015/08/31/earthquakes-and-tsunamis/
Tagged Cagliari, Campidano, Crete, Dhani Irwanto, Gary Byerly, Geneva, Georgeos Diaz Montexano, Hawaii, Herodotus, Indonesia, Ivan T. Sanderson, J.V. Luce, John Michael Greer, Josephus, Jürgen Spanuth, Madagascar, Malcolm Bray, Malta, Marc-Andre Gutscher, Mt. Etna, New Zealand, nuraghi, Port Philip Bay, pyroclastic surge, Sardinia, Sergio Frau, Spartel Island, Stefano Tinti, Sumatra, The Burren, Thera, Thucydides, tsunamis, W. Sheppard Baird
Floods on a catastrophic scale have been recorded in the mythologies and histories of all ancient civilisations. There are various possible causes for such devastating floods. Undoubtedly, many of these legends originated with the raising of sea levels that followed the de-glaciation at the end of the last Ice Age.
Other floods may have been caused by tsunamis resulting from underwater earthquakes or storegga. Quite recently it was discovered(a) that around 6000 BC a calamitous tsunami was generated in the Mediterranean when Mt. Etna in Sicily sent approximately 6 cubic miles of rock and rubble crashing into the sea. One could be forgiven for speculating that this event may have triggered the flooding of the Black Sea, which is dated to this same period.
Since writing, as we know it, did not develop until long after de-glaciation, it is virtually impossible to precisely identify the date, location or extent of any of the early myths relating to these possible de-glaciation inundations.
Flood Myths are found throughout the world and for centuries were seen as confirmation of the reality and universality of the Biblical Flood of Noah. However, when it was discovered that the Earth had endured a series of Ice Ages and that following each of these, the melting ice caps led to worldwide inundations with a consequent immortalisation of these events through locally developed myths, it led to speculation that Noah's Flood may have been just a regional but nonetheless a catastrophic event. It is also probable that separate regional inundations would have occurred as deglaciation continued at the end of the last ice age, so when recounted through mythology many centuries later they may appear to refer to a single global event. It is also probable that separate regional inundations would have occurred as deglaciation continued at the end of the last ice age, so when recounted through mythology many centuries later they may appear to refer to a single global event.
Nevertheless, megafloods are not necessarily only caused by tsunamis and melting glaciers. "A 43-day storm that began in December 1861 put central and southern California underwater for up to six months" a catastrophic event that is now generally forgotten. An extensive 2013 article(f) in Scientific American has full details.
China has its own 'Great Flood' tradition, which in the August 2016 edition of Science journal had its reality given strong support in a paper(e) by a mainly Chinese team of researchers. They date the event to 1920 BC.
Recent years have seen the above-mentioned flooding of the Black Sea or even more controversially, the flooding of the Mediterranean basins, following the breaching of a suggested landbridge at Gibraltar, proposed as possible sources of the story of Noah in the Bible. These inundations are dated at around 5600 BC and their memory should have survived in the traditions and mythologies of the region. In addition to that, the Persian Gulf is also accepted by many to have been dry during the last Ice Age but also began to flood around 5000 BC. In Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea and the Celtic Shelf both suffered post-glacial inundations, while around the same time in the South China Sea the enormous Sunda Shelf suffered extensive flooding.
The flooding of the Celtic Shelf along with parts of southwest Britain and southeast Ireland is the subject of a 2016, thought provoking book[1166] by Philip Runggaldier.
Plato's Atlantis story contains a curious reference in Timaeus (23a-c) to a series of floods having apparently occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean. If based on historical fact, on its own, the Biblical Flood or the breach of a land bridge cannot explain this succession of inundations, but suggests that there could be a much more complex story, still to be revealed, that was spread over millennia.
Anastasios Stamou presented a paper[0750.183]to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in which he reviewed the evidence relating to three floods that befell ancient Greece and alluded to by Plato. Drawing on ancient Greek texts including the Parian Marble, he places these events in chronological order beginning with the flood of Ogyges, then Deucalion's and finally that of Dardanos.
Stamou accepts that convention wisdom has it that these flood events occurred in the 2nd millennium BC and based his paper on that assumption. However he expressed serious doubts about this dating suggesting a much earlier date for some inundations and promising a future paper dealing with this revision.
*In an August 2017 paper, on the Migration & Diffusion website(g), Stuart L. Harris has put forward his reasons for dating the Flood of Noah to 3161 BC and the Exodus Flood to 1445 BC.*
An extensive and more general collection of Flood myths can be found on the internet(b). A USGS list of the world's greatest floods, ancient and recent, is available as a pdf file(c). Similarly, a website by Mark Isaak offers an extensive overview of flood myths around the world, although the site does not appear to have been updated for some years(d).
(a) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083754.htm
(b) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(c) http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1254/pdf/circ1254.pdf
(d) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(e) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579
(f) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atmospheric-rivers-california-megaflood-lessons-from-forgotten-catastrophe/
*(g) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2017&id=540*
Tagged 2008 Atlantis Conference, Anastasios Stamou, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Celtic Shelf, China, Deucalion, floods, Gibraltar, Ice Ages, Mark Isaak, Migration and Diffusion, Mt. Etna, Noah, Ogyges, Parian Marble, Philip Runggaldier, storegga, Stuart L. Harris, tsunamis, USGS
Atlit-Yam
Atlit-Yam is the name of an underwater site, 10km south of Haifa in Israel, near the present small town of Atlit in about 10 meters of water 300 meters offshore. It consists of a complex of ancient buildings and graves, which were inundated around 6000 BC. A theory has now been developed that claims that a tsunami caused by a huge eruption of Mt. Etna in 6300 BC was responsible for the demise of Atlit(b), even though it was thousands of kilometres distant. An alternative theory is that the inundation of the site was the consequence of sea levels rising as the glaciers melted following the last Ice Age. Although no connection with Atlantis has been suggested, the latter theory gives food for thought regarding the possibility of similar Mediterranean sites.
*A more extensive account of the discoveries at Atlit-Yam can be read on the Q-mag website (c)*
Nevertheless, the popular press insist on referring to the site as Israel's 'Atlantis' and so a Canadian film crew visited the location to produce a documentary on the late Stone Age site to be premiered in June 2013(a).
(a) http://azrieli-institute.concordia.ca/news-and-events/news/documents/QuebecermakesfilmaboutIsrael_000.pdf
(b) http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/atlit-yam
*(C) http://www.q-mag.org/neolithic-avant-garde-village-in-israel-drowned-by-tsunami-from-mount-etna.html*
Tagged Atlit-Yam, Ice Age, Israel, Mt. Etna, tsunami