Origin Of The Great Flood: The Lost Cities

While there are many tales of ancient cataclysm, Noah's flood is just one of them. But what if it could be linked to an actual event that occurred thousands of years ago in an unexpected place—Bulgaria and the Black Sea Coast— I'm tracing the history of the most famous flood tales on [Music] with the use of cutting edge technology. Earth I will never forget that sound as I travel across continents in pursuit of extinct ancient cities to learn what it takes to transform a calamity into a legend. With a surface area of more than 170,000 square miles, the Black Sea is larger than any other inland sea in the world and is a place of legend.

In this telling of the flood story, as in many other great reigns, an ark was built to save life on Earth; everything else drowned in the rising waters. For decades, archaeologists have scoured the Middle East for a catastrophe big enough to inspire the legend. However, in the 1990s, a group of scientists came up with a radical new theory that switched their search to here in Bulgaria look at the Black Sea sandwich. California is over a mile deep in some places. Some people believe this was the scene of the event that inspired the world's most iconic flood stories, including the story of Noah.

A freshwater lake once existed between what is now Russia, Turkey, and Eastern Europe over 7,000 years ago. However, with the end of the last ice age, sea levels rose over 300 feet, the Mediterranean overflowed an estimated 14,000 cubic miles of salt water five times Lake Superior, carving out the Bosphorus Straits and creating this massive Inland Sea. This is the subject of much debate and is known as the Black Sea Deluge theory. If the flood was that rapid, it would be one of the greatest natural disasters in recorded history, large enough to wipe out an entire [Music] civilization. However, if people lived here at the time, it is problematic because no one has ever since

discovered a trace of them; are these my WS? Can I locate proof of anyone who saw such a flood drowning beneath the cold, dark waters of the Black Sea? Under the expert supervision of local Dive Master Nick, we find what appears to be ancient artifacts on the ocean floor. The sand and all the shells wash up like little bits of tire, and the local explorer Constantine Stero has been diving these waters for over 30 years. His life's work is to find any evidence of the civilization that a deluge might have wiped out. Our first stop is the Gulf of Varna, a natural harbor huge jelly. This this

This is [Music]; it's a piece of pottery. Amazing, fantastic, unbelievable, what is this? I would guess it's Greek or Roman. Wow, I find these little pieces even more fascinating because we typically associate these dark, black ceramics with the Neolithic era. Neolithic times: impressively, that appears to be over 5,000 years old. However, even this Neolithic pottery is not nearly old enough; we're searching for artifacts that are thousands of years older. Nevertheless, Constantine has a surprise in store for me. One of his team members carefully unearthed an ancient object thirty years ago, 25 miles out to sea. This is one of the most enigmatic objects ever found in the world.

Ceramics This is good because it survived, but it's also bad because the lack of organic material makes it impossible to date precise date for