Another antediluvian
civilisation?:
Before the
Flood, is essentially a work of merit. The central hypothesis of the
book is that, there was a
great antediluvian civilisation in
ancient Anatolia (modern day Turkey, in close proximity to the Black Sea). This hypothesis is intriquing for three reasons: Firstly, conventional academia and archaeology doesn't recognise that there was such an advanced civilisation before the Sumerian civilisation (which was only a couple of thousand years B.C); secondly, it flies in the face of the beliefs of the Egyptologists - that Pharaonic Egypt was the first great civilisation; thirdly, it runs contrary to the claims of an alternative ancient
history - that a great civilisation called Atlantis once existed.
Using Plato's famous account of the fall and submerging of a great continent called Atlantis (circa 9,000 B.C.), and ancient chronicles of a great flood as his base, Wilson then branches out to examine the evidence for such occurences. He outlines the continual discoveries being carried out by the diver, Robert Ballard, around the area of the Black Sea, determining and concluding that there was an advanced civilisation in Anatolia in the distant past. Much of the archaeological artefacts that have been discovered around the Black Sea do seem to back up this belief, though his contention that the Flood was a local event is not as solid. In addition, he traces the commonality of female deities around the eastern Mediterreanean and Black Sea, connecting them to a root in Anatolia, from which they all sprouted.
Where the book is slightly monotonous, is that it tends to recant a lot of the discoveries and underwater explorations of Ryan and Pitman and recently Robert Ballard. These have been well documented in the media - National Geographic even covering it as his 'Search for Noah's Ark' - Wilson tends to repeat a lot of this. Accepted is the fact that this ground-breaking work had to be covered but perhaps it is covered at too great a length?
Also, his premise that the Black Sea is the only part of the world that has suffered extensively from sea erosion and was massively inundated, is being demonstrated to be wrong, as more and more places are being found that bear the halmarks of this occurence.
Notwithstanding the aforesaid, the main impression is that Wilson has demonstrated originality of thinking and fresh ideas in much of this book; as the opening paragraph infers, this theory or angle of ancient history has never been touched on before. For this alone, Wilson deserves much credit. 'Before the Flood' is, a new theory in the whirlpool of ancient history.
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