Re: The IE Flood and Meghe-Teibhages,The God of Large Teabags

Glen wrote

> Rex:
> >I have a file, John..of little snippets of local flood myths and
>folklore.
>
> Cool stuff, Rex. I can't help but notice from observation that many

of these

> versions have the numerals "six" and "seven" repeated ad nauseum.

Hmm. Now

> this "flood" thing doesn't sound so weird. Oh, oh.
>
> I could accept the following scenario and stop me if I've gone off

the

> conjectural deep end since I don't know much unfortunately about IE
> mythos...
>
> It's not too inconceivable that when a group of Semitic speaking

people

> based in the Balkans around the time of that teensy Black Sea flood

were in

> contact with the Early IEs trading goats, copper and wine, the story

of a

> catastrophic and a somewhat real disaster amongst the Semitoids could

be

> easily transmitted via story telling.

Semites in the Balkans? By 5650BCE? Glen hardly please? It just does
not hold water either linguistically nor archaelogically.

> Hence, words like *swekse and *septem (and their possible

numerological

> symbolism) could be transmitted to Early IE via tales like these.

Then,

> after the IEs added twists to this Semitic legend, they spread it out

into

> some of the northern world. It would also spread southwards to the

Sumerians

> and westwards perhaps... even to the Basque?

Glen, is it possible that IE and Semites got the *swekse and *septem
from a third (and intermediary) linguistic source - eg. Kartvellian or
Khattic-Hurrian perhaps. Even from Paleo-Etruscan? This makes more
sense linguistically and archaeologically than trying to get Semites in
the Balkans in the early European neolithic!

> This brings me to a question: Does anyone know any good Basque flood

tales?

>
> Of course, all this flood stuff is hardly the "GREAT" flood tale

since there

> would have certainly always have been such kinds of tales for aeons.

Even

> the Maya and Aztec have one. But perhaps this Black Sea thing along

with an

> ancient Semitic flood tale could have lent support to a particular

version

> of it, I will admit.

The "Great Flood" (as destinct from the Black Sea Flood - or perhaps
even the Black Sea flood) were all post Ice Age. One of the "greatest
areas flooded" were the Sunda and Sahul shelves between Australia and
South East Asia, and flood myths on both sides abound.

> Does Pitmann and his buddy actually go into real detail in re of
> mythological comparison or is this just archaeology with a little

linguistic

> fluff mixed in like I'm always afraid of?

Glen, you'd love it even more.... Its good geology with a dash of
popular mixed up potboiling archaeology and a soupcon of linguistics
thrown in for good luck....

Warm regards

John