Was the Garden of Eden located in Eastern Turkey in the Early Bronze Age?

The former Soviet Union block countries spent more on archaeological research in the twentieth century than any other nation.  Much of their work was considered suspect in the west, however, because of the Marxist-Leninist philosophical bias.  In recent years some of the most important research has been examined collaboratively by western researchers to yield exciting and important new insights.  Karen Rubinson and Adam Smith state in their introductory chapter of Archaeology in the Borderlands (p. 2) "For example, during the fourth and third millennia BC, the Kura-Araxes (or Early Transcaucasian) ceramic horizon, which centered in the "borderlands," extended southwest as far as the Euphrates headwaters (and arguably into the northern Levant where it manifested in the Khirbet-Kerak tradition), southeast to the central Zagros (Godin Tepe), and north to the intersection of the Caucus and Eurasian steppe.  The Kura-Araxes was by far the most geographically dispersed horizon style in Pre-Achaemenid southwest Asia.  Yet the region's perceived peripheral status to Mesopotamia continues to condition the production of general historical theory in the region"...  Could the true location of the biblical Garden of Eden be one of the benefits?  

Mitchell S. Rothman's chapter 4 article, "Ripples in the Stream: Transcaucasia-Anatolian Interaction in the Murat-Euphrates Basin at the beginning of the Third Millennium BC" (IN Archaeology in the Borderlands - Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond, Adam T. Smith and Karen S. Rubinson eds 2003) discusses different aspects of the Kura-Araks Horizon which shared the area with at least two other pottery types. 

Rothman has developed a map showing Early Bronze Age pottery without Dimple or Groove and Early Transcaucasia with Groove, Dimple or groove. Ruben S. Badalyan, Adam T. Smith and Pavel S. Avetisyan's Chapter 7 article of Archaeology in the Borderlands, "The Emergence of Sociopolitical Complexity in Southern Caucasia: An Interim Report on the Research of project ArAGATS" where they speak (pp. 150ff) of the Kura-Araxes collapse in the advent of the Middle Bronze age - when all settlement seems to have disappeared from the area.  Could this equate with the Biblical expulsion from the Garden of Eden?  They document (pp. 151f.) different explanations which have been advanced for the collapse including Kushnareva's (1997:207-208) synthesis where a transition to pastoralism-centred in mountain zones rather than on the highland margins exploited in the Early Bronze Age, perhaps driven by a newly arid climate, was exacerbated by new waves of migration."  Badalyan et al take exception to the "relatively poorly assayed climatic change" but I wondered about the possibility of major volcanic activity.  According to the Smithsonian Institute "Volcanoes of the World website for Mount Ararat: (http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0103-04-) "pyroclastic-flow deposits overlie Early Bronze Age artifacts and human remains"  This pyroclastic-flow from the 5165 metre high strato volcano known as Mount Ararat (which rises a magnificent 4165 metres above the surrounding plain) might explain the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning of Genesis 3:24 "He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life." Other volcanic activities to the east and west may also have contributed to this description.

I have thus been reading Archaeology in the Borderlands and have been finding it very informative. Karen Rubinson recommended to me that I consult A View from the Highlands: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Charles Burney, edited by Antonio Sagona, supplement 12 in the series Ancient Near Eastern Studies Peeters Press, 2004, 758 pp.  As David Brown say in their promotional bump: Interest in the mountainous regions of the Syro-Mesopotamian plain came relatively late in the development of Near Eastern archaeology. In the psyche of scholars, who were attracted initially to the civilizations of the lowlands, the edge of the rugged highland terrain formed a disciplinary boundary as much as a geographical one. While an initial spurt of interest in the ancient 'mountain cultures' of Anatolia was expressed in the early 1900s, it was short-lived. Subsequently, archaeological explorations in the highest altitudes in Anatolia languished until the 1950s and the arrival of Charles Burney, who through a series of pioneering projects rediscovered the Kingdom of Urartu and prepared solid foundations for the future study of earlier periods. Always probing and speculative, Charles Burney has been a source of inspiration for archaeologists working in the highlands of east Anatolia, Trans-Caucasus and north-west Iran. Despite the difficulties that modern political boundaries presented in this geographically broken terrain, he has managed to offer engaging accounts of its pre-classical past without ever loosing sight of its human element. The essays gathered in this volume are a reflection of an archaeological community that wishes to pay tribute to a scholar whose panoramic vision of antiquity is rivaled only by the wide extent of his generosity, expressed in so many ways, to fellow workers in the field. Although this is a substantial volume of essays, written by pupils, friends and colleagues, the contributors are merely representatives of a much larger number who join them in honoring him."  G.L. Kavtardze's "The Chronology of the Caucasus during the Early Metal Age" (pp. 539-556) provides much helpful background as do many of the other articles.  

Although referring specifically to the site of Godin in the Zagros mountains southest of modern Turkey in Iran, Mitchell Rothman makes an interesting statement that also applies to eastern Anatolia and the Garden of Eden ("Issues of the Uruk and Transcaucasian Cultures at Godin" IN T. Cuyler Young, Jr. Festschrift 2005 The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies, Bulletin 40, September 2005, pp. 9-10):

"The roughly one and a half millenia from the fourth to the mid-third millenium B.C., ... certainly witnessed the greatest changes in social, economic, political and ideological structures since Neolithic times.  The fourth millenium was when true cities, states, writing, the idea of kingship, the ascension of chief gods, not to mention political subjugation, taxes, forced labour, slavery, and large-scale, technically intensive warfare evolved.  The third millenium saw the development of of the first territorial states and empires, new metal production technologies, and giant steps away from the social arrangements of the Chalcolithic world.  As part of these third millenium changes, Godin was incorporated into a new kind of expansion, one from the north, the Early Transcaucasian Culture"...

Rothman speaks of new theories which have been developed, encompassing both a large geography and an analytical frame to account for the new evidence of widespread systematic economic, political and social contacts.  He says further (p. 10): 

"What the last two decades of scholarship have also taught us is that these were periods when change had to be understood in a regional frame.  Certainly from the Upper Palaeolithic onward contact and movement of goods was common.  For example, Red Sea dentalium shells are found throughout Mesopotamia at that early date (Henry 1989:130).  During this early period, much of this movement of goods probably consisted of down-the-line exchange (Renfrew et al 1969).  In this type of exchange those closest to the source have the greatest amount of raw material, some of which they keep and the rest they exchange to nearby settlements - and so it goes down the line with each stage along the way having a smaller starting quantity.  By the fourth and third millenia B.C., however, formal long distance trading systems developed and large-scale population movements over a wide area began."

Trade goods and pottery types are typical of this new regional cultural, economic and political development:  Southern Mesopotamian Uruk culture appears in the north while Early Transcaucasian Culture (ETC) appears in eastern Anatolia and western Iran.  The Early Transcaucasians of the Kura Araxes basins are seen to have been seeking access to pasture and farm land, although contact may have started through trading in metals.  For southern Mesopotamia, the impetus was access to raw materials from metal ores to semi-precious stones.  Initially a 'world system' of an economically and politically dominant, resource-rich core verse a politically weak but resource-rich periphery was proposed by Algaze (1993) to explain the Uruk expansion.  During roughly the same time period, largely handmade, burnished red-black ETC wares appear across what Kelly Buccellati terms the Outer Fertile Crescent of the Zagros, Taurus and Transcaucasia.  This latter phenomenon was usually seen as a migration rather than economic or cultural domination (Sagona 1984, Rothman 2003, Batiuk 2005).  It should be noted, however, that Stephen Batiuk's 2005 University of Toronto doctoral thesis (Migration Theory and the Distribution of the Early Transcaucasian Culture) is being presented as related to the origins of viticulture and wine production (see for example his 2006 presentation at the British Museum Transanatolia Conference,  “Early Bronze Age in the Amuq: Inter-regional relationships of the Red Black Burnished Ware Culture”).  

Rothman argues that the initial 'world system' analysis for Uruk and ETC is faulty.  He uses excavation data from Godin and elsewhere to argue for the complexity of intercultural relations.  Rothman argues that the Uruk 'phenomenon' began in Late Chacholithic 3 and that this period was closest to Algaze's model.  Rothman states further (p.13-14):

"The ETC migration presents a different picture in some ways from the Uruk expansion, but the two phenomenon also share some similar elements (figure 2b).  Studies from other areas make a case for waves of migrants from the core of ETC culture (Rothman 2003b, Batiuk 2005).  The migration appears to have been led by pastoral nomads, who in part traded with centres like Arslantepe in the Kura Araks I period of the mid-late fourth millenium (Palumbi 2003).  Throughout the Kura Araks II (Early Bronze I-IIa) people were "pulled" to the west, but also began to fill in the areas where pastoralism, small farmers, and transhumant lifestyles fit the environment best.  In Kura-Araks III, the generations that had emigrated earlier moved into more optimal environments and assimilated to some extent into existing populations.  At this point trade brought ETC pottery styles into steppe area sites on the Euphrates and Tigris."...  

Batiuk argues that this very possibly fits the introduction of vitaculture and winemaking.  Perhaps this relates to the statement in Genesis 2:9ff. about not eating fruit from the tree of Life (hayim in Hebrew) which is close to the sound of the Hebrew word for wine with the article (hayin).

Rothman cites Henry Wright's (2001) statement about the Uruk period that a time span equivalent of the period from the Crusades to the First World War is indicated, and adds (p. 10, citing Sagona 2000, Kiguradze and Sagona 2003):

"New evidence from Pulur and Sos Höyük in Ezurum, in eastern Turkey indicates that what we are subsuming under the rubric of Early Transcaucasian Culture lasted even longer, certainly from 3500 B.C. to 1600 B.C."...

Thus perhaps, the biblical traditions of Genesis date from this later period when the ETC culture met with the culture of northern Mesopotamia.

The possibility of an eruption of Mount Arrarat precipitating this was stimulated by reading A. Karakhanian, R. Djrbashian, V. Trifonov, H. Philip, S. Arakelian, A. Avagian, "Holocene-historical volcanism and active faults as natural risk factors for Armenia and adjacent countries" (IN Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 113 (2002) p. 317-44) which speaks of a Koura Arax site buried by pyroclastic tuff deposits north of Mount Ararat.  In their article, they state that it was a Russian mining engineer, P.F. Petrov who in 1914 excavated a ridge formed by the pyroclastic tuff deposits of Ararat.   

According to their recent article, in the northern part of his two excavations, called "clayey town", under a thick stratum of organic cinder and ashes, underneath the pyroclastic rock layer, Petrov discovered a stratum containing the remains of dwellings, broken bricks, carbonized timber, human and animal bones, and numerous household articles - ceramics, obsidian tools, grain grinders, mortars, etc.  Petrov said the cinder stratum was so thick the local population was using it to fertilize fields and was actually destroying it quite rapidly.  These ceramics and other articles have been dated "with confidence" to the Early Bronze Age Koura-Arax settlement horizon.  At his second southern site, "Tomb mount", Petrov found numerous graves in the pyroclastic tuff deposits dating to the Urartian period.  However, the large number of household utensils, carbonized timber remains, human and animal bones in the northern excavated site are said to attest that the volcanic eruption occurred within the populated period of Koura-Arax  According to A. Karakhanian, et al (p. 337), "Thus, the volcanic catastrophe may date back to 2500-2400 B.C. settlement and ended with a catastrophe for the latter." 

There is apparently more in a Bulletin of the Georgian Academy of Sciences 1944 article by B.A. Kouftin to whom the above refer as the source of their information on Petrov and of whom they state (p. 334), "In the work of Kouftin (1944), we found the most accurate and best supported information related to the historical volcanism on Ararat.  That was the first publication describing archaeological artifacts belonging to the Koura-Arax culture of the early Bronze Age.  Later, numerous archaeological data proved that the culture spread across the entire Caucasus , Eastern Anatolia and northern Iran .  Recognized as a fundamental classic for the Koura-Arax culture archaeology, Kouftin's work (1944) is extremely important to support the fact of a historical eruption from the Ararat volcano."  I have not been able to find this work available here in English.  The CISTI reference here seems to indicate there may be an English version...  Ludmila Gverdtsiteli of the Georgian publishers has referred me to two Georgian scientists, George Fayvush and Kamilla Tamanyan.  Karakhanian et al include drawings from the original excavation (?) plus a SPOT satellite image which they claim shows the excavation sites of Petrov (Fig. 14 above).  

I was originally hoping to line this up with the palynological samples cores from the bottom of nearby Lake Van taken in the 1970s but according to the published data from van Zeist and Woldring the only really prominent event was c. 3600 BP measured by the varve counts.  This is dated as 1662 BCE in more extensive core sample results for Lake Van, published by  E.T. Degens, H.K. Wong and S. Kempe, Hamburg, F. Kurtman, Konya, in their "A Geological Study of Lake Van, Eastern Turkey". (Geologische Rundschau, 1984 73: 701-734) : Figure 8 .  Modern C14 calibration, however, has led to a much earlier projection of this date, based also on the assumption that earthquakes have jumbled and blurred the boundaries between layers.  Also, although Lake Van is a little more than 100 km west of Mount Ararat, another strato volcano located less than 10 kilometres to the north west of Lake Van, Nemrut Dagi, is a much more likely candidate for the volcanic ash layers in Lake Van.  Nemrut Dagi is

believed to have erupted 16 times between 8104 BCE and 1692 CE.  

A North American parallel to the Nemrut Dagi eruption is the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state.  During the 9 hours of vigorous eruptive activity, about 540 million tons of ash fell over an area of more than 22,000 square miles. The total volume of the ash before its compaction by rainfall was about 0.3 cubic mile, equivalent to an area the size of a football field piled about 150 miles high with fluffy ash. 

Prevailing winds perhaps make it unlikely that the ancient pyroclastic flow down Mount Ararat would have left a significant impact on Lake Van sediment layers, however, (cf. http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Maps/may18_ashmap.html).  Prospects for Lake Sevan are perhaps no more promising.  Ian Wilkinson of the British Geological Survey and S.Z. Gulakyan of the Seismogeochemical and Analytical Center of National Survey for Seismic Protection, Republic of Armenia note the magnitude of seismic disruptions in their 2002 paper, "Environmental instability and the Holocene ecosystem of Lake Sevan, Armenia" In: Leroy, S. & Stewart, I.S. (Eds) Environmental Catastrophes and Recovery in the Holocene. Abstracts Volume. Brunel University, west London (UK), 27 August – 2 Septermber 2002.

Nemrut Dagi is the westernmost of a group of volcanoes located near Lake Van in eastern Anatolia and the only one that is said to have erupted in historical time. Nemrut Dagi contains a 9 x 5 km caldera partially filled on its western side by a caldera lake. Post-caldera volcanism, of basaltic to rhyolitic composition, initially occurred along the caldera rim and floor. Pyroclastic flows and the emission of glassy obsidian lava flows accompanied construction of lava domes within the caldera; later activity formed a series of cinder cones and lava domes erupted along N-S-trending fissures on the northern flank. The most recent activity has been concentrated along a NNW-tending fissure cutting the eastern caldera floor and extending beyond the north caldera rim; nearly two dozen cinder cones and lava domes were constructed on the caldera floor. Ash layers in Lake Van document numerous Holocene eruptions, and an historical eruption in 1441 AD from a north-flank fissure involved compositionally bimodal lava flows.  According to the Smithsonian Institute Volcanoes of the World website (http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0103-02=&VErupt=Y&VSources=Y&VRep=N&VWeekly=N&volpage=erupt) these eruptions of Nemrut Dagi have been as follows (again based on the now disputed 1970's varve counting):

 E.T. Degens, et al. 1984 describe what they term as the "Nemrut Incident" (p. 718):

"The origin of Lake Van has been speculated upon.  It is generally believed that during the constructional phase of the Nemrut Volcano, the extrusion of lava dammed the ancient Murat Valley to the west, where the present Zilan and Bendimahi Rivers at one time flowed from lake Van to join the Murat, a tributary of the Euphrates.  This event cut off the outflow and marked the beginning of modern Lake Van."  Exactly when this occurred is a subject for speculation but there is no question that there was a major pollen shift but this has now been dated more recently by Landmann et al. to c. 7000 BCE.  Whatever the actual date, the event is not paralleled elsewhere in the last 10,000 years of data from Lake Van.  See further their published extensive core sample results for Lake Van: Figure 8 A more recent paper by Sytze Bottema compares this data from Lake Van with surrounding Pollen evidence from other lakes ("Third Millennium Climate in the near East Based upon Pollen Evidence", IN NATO ASI Series, vol. I 49 Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1997) pp. 489-515).  Bottema cites a radiocarbon dating of peat bog samples from the southwest slope of Nemrut Dag Sogutlu location (see Figure 4) which she says shows "that about 1100-1750 years must be missing". Bottema's 1991 work (Wilhem Van Zeist and Bottema,  Vorderer Orient, vegetation im spät-Pleistozän und Holozän, beispiele Middle East, vegetation in the late Pleistocene and Holocene, examples (Wiesbaden : Ludwig Reichert, 1989-91) apparently adopts current C14 calibration to explain this but I have not been able to see this work yet.

The third international expedition to Lake Van in the summer of 1990 retrieved 10 sediment cores from depths of up to 446 meters giving what is described as "the only detailed varve chronology known from the semi-arid Mediterranean region." according to Landmann, Gunter, Andreas Reimer, Gerry Lemke, Stephan Kempe, “Dating Late Glacial abrupt climate changes in the 14, 570 yr long continuous varve record of Lake Van, Turkey" IN Palaeo, 122 (1996) p 107-118.  The sediment sequences correlated well with regards to ash layers and prominent colour changes but also "lamina for lamina" they say.  Using evidence from their analysis for the termination of the Younger Dras dated to 10,920 +132 yrs B.P., they state that while this is younger than recently published Greenland ice core dates, it correlates well with European dendrochronology.  Landmann et al discuss the 1974 first sediment cores recovered from Lake Van and published by Kempe and Degens in 1978 (see Figure 8) and state (p. 108): "They revealed that the sediments were laminated throughout.  The subsequent varve count yielded more than 10.000 light and dark couplets, interpreted to represent annual sedimentation events."  After citing their own analysis of their new data, Landemann et al. illustrate how their own results compare favourably with the earlier work (see Fig. 2) and also with Irka Hajdas-Skowronek's 1993 thesis on the extension of the radiocarbon calibration curve by AMS dating of laminated sediments of Lake Soopensee and Lake Holzmaar (ETH, Zurich Nr. 10157, 147 pp. (http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/research/experiments/tandem/radiocarbon/HajdasPhDthesis1993.pdf)  - see also Hajdas, I., Ivy, S.D., Beer, J., Bonani, G., Imboden, D., Lotter, A.F., Sturm, M. and Suter, M., 1993, "AMS radiocarbon dating and varve chronology of Lake Soppensee: 6000 to 12000 14C years BP,"). IN Climate Dyn., 9: 107-116.).  However Landmann et al establish new dates for the Lake Van sediment which they use to re-interpret the pollen profile as shown (see Fig. 2).  They say these new dates now compare well with Lake Zeribar, 450 km to the southeast of lake Van (Van Zeist and Woldring, 1978b).  They state (p 114f.): "This information, together with geochemical analyses (distribution of CaCO3, organic carbon, opal, and major elements as determined by XRF) of the Lake Van sediments ... allows to discuss the sequence of events determining the regional history of the Anatolian Highland during the Late Pleistocene."  Thus, the major pollen shift in van Zeist and Woldring's 1978 analysis which was thought to have occurred at a bit before 3600 BP shows c. 7000 BP according to G. Landmann et al.'s new work: almost doubling how far back in time the event is thought to have occurred.   The earlier work was apparently based on no C14 dating.  According to Stephen Kempe and Egon T. Degens 1978 "Lake Van Varve Record: The Past 10,420 Years" (IN E.T. Degens and F. Kurtman eds. The Geology of Lake Van (Ankara:Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitusu Yayinlarindan - The Mineral Research and Exploration Institute of Turkey No. 169, 1978) (pp.56--63), their June 1974 retrieval of nine sediment cores yielded one core of almost 10 metres, covering the entire Holocene, just reaching the Younger Dryas.  Another paper in that report, "Hydrography of Lake Van and its Drainage Area" by Stephan Kempe, Francis Khoo and Yuksel Gurleyik states (p. 42), "Large scale postvolcanic CO2 activity has determined the lake to develop into a soda lake."  One wonders however what effect this "postvolcanic CO2 activity" might have on the ages of C14 measurements from the varve sediment cores.  Yet another paper by Martin Schoell, "Oxygen Isotope Analyses of Authigenic Carbonates from lake Van Sediments and Their Possible Bearing on the Climate of the Past 10.000 Years" citing help from Dr. H. Wehner on the C-org determinations, states (p. 96):

"The content of organic carbon decreases systematically from near present day values, around 2-4%, to less than 1% at 8000 y B.P.  This trend could reflect the continuous increase of lake level from 8000 y B.P. since with increasing water volume the gross productivity of organic carbon should also increase.  Diagenetic alteration of the sediment could not have caused the observed change, since the C-org values increase again around 9000 years B.P.

"In Contrast to the 18O curve the C-org curve indicates a continuous rise in the lake level with minor fluctuations.  The range of the carbon isotopic composition of the carbonates is consistent with the assumption that the carbon is derived from air-CO2.  The low temperature fractionations between gaseous CO2 and carbonate are around 10-11 %0 (Emrich et al. 1970) so that equilibrium d13C values should be around +3 to + 4 %0.  However the oscillations of the d13C values could not have been caused by fluctuations of the air CO2.  More likely carbon from a different source is added to the inflowing waters, i.e. CO2 which is produced by biological activity. Such CO2 is isotopically depleted in 13C and the oscillations would then reflect variation of the plant cover in the recharge area.  This is supported by the positive correlation of the d18O and d13C values.  During dry climates (positive 18O) biologically produced CO2 decreases and more positive d13C values result."

An earlier analysis by M.M. Blumenthal and G. vad der Kaaden (1964), from Catalogue of the Active Volcanoes of the World, part XVII (p. 8) "One of the last events of the period of construction was a great explosive eruption during which the tuffs accumulated on the slopes of the volcano, in some places to a depth of 15 m."  According to Maxon (1936) the caldera of Nemrut Dagi were postulated to have originated by stoping and collapse of the peak and to have been enlarged by sidewall caving, the solid material being digested in the molten lava of the volcanic throat and being carried away as the result of recession into the subterranean magmatic chamber.  Oswald (1912) thought that the crater originated by a gigantic explosion, followed by the expulsion of huge quantities of highly mobile basalts.  These basalts, he thought, filled up the valley system below.  A second explosion, followed by sidewall caving, was responsible for the creation of the caldera.  According to Maxon, the swallowing of the peak by the volcanic throat itself did not conclude the volcanic activity of Nemrut Dagi.  On the floor of the great semi-circular depression flows of viscous and pumice were erupted.  The centers for these eruptions were in the eastern half of the caldera.  Several low cinder cones, were formed.  The final episode of the renewed activity was the emission of a flow which covered a great part of the southeastern quadrant, while the cinder cones themselves were filled to the brims with obsidian.  According to Blumenthal et al. this volcano is still considered extremely dangerous. There can be no doubt that early eruptions of the volcanoes in this area had a profound impact on cultures then existing in the area.

Karakhanian et al also mention (pp327-8) a famous Khorkhor cuneiform inscription dated to the time of the Urartian king Argishti I that was found in the Lake Van region.  It recounts the victorious eighth century BCE military campaign to the north in what is now present day Armenia, and possibly gives evidence of how kings of that time were seen as incarnations of the storm god who was responsible for volcanic eruptions as well as thunder and lightening: .."when I again (for the second time) laid the siege of the town of Behoura, Mount Bamni in the area of Behoura Town was destroyed ...; smoke and soot now rise from it to the sun.  when Mount Bamni was destroyed, I took the town of Behoura."  (cited in A. Karakhian et al., p. 327f.).  Although the destruction itself may be argued to have caused the soot and smoke, Sardour II, son of Arghishti I, left another cuneiform inscription which is even more explicit in terms of possible volcanic activity: ..."The people who ran away frightened of the arms and climbed Mount Ushkiani and Bamni; I encircled them and killed, others who escaped were burned by Teishebah the [storm] god."  According to Paul Zimansky of Boston University ("Writing, Writers, and Reading in the Kingdom of Van" IN Seth L. Sanders, ed. Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Seminars, No. 2, 2006), pp. 257 ff.), "The earliest inscriptions in this kingdom appeared around 830 B.C."...  Argisti I and Sarduri II left the only annals that have been discovered.  Sites excavated so far have been predominately from the reign of Rusa II and the major changes which occured in the second quarter of the seventh century BCE. (p. 265, see also Zimansky, "An Urartian Ozymandias." Biblical Archaeologist 58:94-100 1995).  "This king was the founder of the five largest and richest sites yet discovered in Urartu: Toprakkale, Karmir Blur, Kef Kalesi (Adilcevaz), Bastam, and Ayanis.  Each of these sites required hundreds of man-years of labor to construct and all were violently destroyed.  Ayanis, Karmir Blur, and Toprakale were full of small finds, particularly bronzes, whereas Kef Kalesi and Bastam appear to have been pretty well cleaned out before they were put to the torch."  Despite Sargon II of Assyria's claim of devastating Urartu on his eighth campaign, so far not a single site he claimed to destroy has been discovered.    

The accepted half-life of 14C (Libby half-life) for calculating a conventional radiocarbon age is 5568 years (since Stuiver and Polach, 1977). If the sample's age was calculated using the half-life of 5730 years, commonly used before that time it must be corrected by dividing the 5730 half-life radiocarbon age by 5730/5568 or 1.029. The user must make this correction to the age, if necessary, before using CALIB, OxCal or other calibration software.  I am not sure with some of the data exactly what needs to be done (or not!).  Calibration calculations have also changed and different labs employ different  methodologies. According to fairly nearby sites published in  Archaeology in the Borderlands - Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond (from Chapter 7 by Ruben S. Badalyan, Adam Smith and Pavel S. Avestisyan p. 153) calibrated at Moscow State University to 3630 +/- 100 BP yields a date of 2300-1650 BCE with 2 Sigma calibration (1 Sigma is 2140-1820).  Some sites have been calibrated at U Arizona including one at 3145 BP but they give it a 1 Sigma calibrated range of 1450-1310 BCE.  Similarly a Leningrad Institute of Archaeology analysis of 3480 BP is calibrated to 1 Sigma 1890-1690 BCE.  These C14 dates have apparently all been calibrated using atmospheric data from Stuiver et al (1998) with OxCal v. 3.5 (Ramsey  2000).  The results of van Zeist and Woldring in their "Vegetational History of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East during the Last 20,000 years IN Palaeoclimates, Palaeoenvironments and Human Communities in the Eastern Mediterranean Region in Later Prehistory 1982 John L. Bintliff and Willem Van Zeist eds. vol 2 pp. 277-321 as noted above showed a major shift in pollen levels peaking they thought c. 3600 BP.  While it was interesting to compare this with dates ascribed to Thera of fully carbonized seeds (Pulses) from the Volcanic Destruction Layer at Akrotiri (considered to be Middle Bronze Age) dated by the Copenhagen Laboratory yielded Radiocarbon Ages BP of 3310+65, 3430+90, 3340+55 (Friedrich et al. 1990:194 Table 3 cited by Sturt Mannning, A Test of Time - The Volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean in the mid second millennium BC (Oxford:Oxbow Books, 1999).  This is interesting to compare also with Degens et al 1974 extensive core sample results for Lake Van: Figure 8 cited above.  However this has no correlation according to Landmann et al.'s new dating of c. 7000 BP  (The results from the nearby Sogutlu peat bog (see Figure 4) apparently yield C14 results which also conflict markedly with the earlier pollen-based dating as noted above.)  Thus their noted distinct volcanic events1396 BCE and 1662 BCE (and citing Jung et al., 1978) to claim (p. 724) that as a result of a study of the geochemistry of the various volcanoes around the Nemrut volcano that "the ash layers in the lake [Van] sediments are exclusively derived from the Nemrut Volcano.") are also apparently way too early based on this earlier pollen analysis.  Although Friederich has recently proposed a date of 1613 BCE for Thera (http://eja.e-a-a.org/2006/05/01/olive-branch-gives-new-date-for-thera-eruption/) the most recent geophysical scholarship puts a question mark on whether or not the ice peak being measured is Thera (eja.e-a-a.org/2006/05/01/olive-branch-gives-new-date-for-thera-eruption). 

Sytze Bottema observes that it is difficult to make absolute dating conclusions based on proxy data (1997 p.505).  In the same work, Harvey Weiss, "Late Third Millennium Abrupt Climate Change and Social Collapse in West Asia and Egypt" argues that there was a 2200 BCE "aridization event" which can be observed in lake level records from west Africa to west Tibet (he cites the 1994 paper of F. Gasse and E. van Campo, "Abrupt post glacial climate events in West Asia and North Africa monsoon domains" IN Earth Planetary Science Letters 126: 435-456.) Weiss appears also to use some of the earlier conclusions about the Lake Van pollen dating to substantiate his claim however.

The wider question of how this analysis of the Garden of Eden might fit into other schemes of dating is much also difficult to answer.  I have been influenced in this view of the Garden of Eden and Genesis by Edward Lipinski's " Diyarbakir - An Aramaean Capital of the 9th Century B.C. and Its Territory" IN Silva Anatolica - Anatolian Studies Presented to Maciej Popko on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday Piotr Taracha ed. 2002 as well as by a close translation of the biblical Hebrew.  I was also influenced by the Carchemish 9th century BC orthostats in the Anatolian Museum in Ankara that are said to depict scenes from the creation and flood stories of Gilgamesh which led me to the idea that the biblical account might originally have been a response to this ninth century articulation of the Gilgamesh traditions  I am doing more research on these orthostats to try to determine why the Anatolian museum identifies them as depicting the Gilgamesh myth.  I have also been doing research on the traditional view of biblical dating for the Garden of Eden. 

Some of my research on ancient dating can can be found by clicking on my link to:

  Ancient Chronology.

A note of thanks:

I am particularly grateful for the help and encouragement I have received from Dr. Minna Lonnqvist and her husband Dr. Kenneth Lonnqvist in Finland.  Minna gave a paper on the Amorites in Berlin at the 4ICAANE 2004 from her University of Helsinki doctoral thesis, Between Nomadism and Sedentism - Amorites from the Perspective of Contextual Archaeology, (Juutiprint, Helsinki, 2000).  While I have been interested and encouraged by her work and personal support, she is in no way responsible for any errors or omissions that I have made here and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.  Without their help I am not sure I would have come up with this theory however.  http://www.helsinki.fi/lehdet/uh/101h.htm  

Dr. Wendy Matthews from the Environmental Archaeology Department at Reading University in the UK also gave me encouragement at 4ICAANE in Berlin last year.  She steered me in directions of opportunity for the environmental themes at that important international congress.  It meant a great deal that they and many other acknowledged experts were willing to speak with me and share ideas even though it has been twenty years since I worked in science as a consultant for the National Research Council of Canada compiling Peat Research directories. A whole new world of important archaeological work opened its doors to me.  I was also moved by the generous spirit of Dr. Maryanne Newton from the Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology at Cornell University who very graciously made time in her busy schedule at Boston to meet with me even though my ideas I am sure seemed quite outlandish to her at the time.  Her careful and sincere explanations have helped me greatly in my efforts to sharpen my research and identify the paths of errors and misunderstanding in my search to know more of the truth about ancient history.   A further thank you is also due to Professor Elizabeth Simpson at the Bard Graduate Center in New York, who while an expert on the furniture from ancient Gordion, still has found the time to give me helpful hints in my research and encouragement on worthwhile people to contact.  The local Archaeology Institute of America society and its lectures have also been a terrific source of help and inspiration.  My colleagues on the board, Polish archaeologist Dr. Slawomir Kowalski, Heather Loube our president, Glenna Roberts and everyone else have made such a difference in my life and given the support that has kept me going.  Doctoral student Joan Bunbury in the Ottawa University Geography Department has also given much helpful advice.  Of course, in no way are any of these fine and very helpful people responsible for any errors or omissions that I have made here and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own. 

I am also very grateful to the libraries and their staff that I have relied upon extensively including the Canada Geological Survey, University of Ottawa, Carleton University, St. Paul's University, Robarts University of Toronto library, Canadian Institute of Mesopotamian Studies library, as well as AMICUS, CISTI and the interlibrary loan system, also Ian Stevens and the kind staff of the David Brown Book Company, Dove Books and Dan McCormick and the staff of Canterbury House - without their help much of this would not have been possible.

- Rev. Jim Collins         updated February 10, 2007