Where did Card get his sources for the information about Bab al Mandab? They're not listed in the back of the book. Or were Kemal's Atlantis theory and Noah theory completely made up? I just started reading this book, and those theories interested me:P
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
You might want to read this. And welcome to Hatrack.
--Pop
Posted by SardeMoonflair (Member # 8622) on :
Thank you, but I suppose I should've been more specific. Is there any geological data that the Red Sea was connected to the Indian Ocean, or that there was a possibility for civilization there, or a historical basis for Noah?
[ November 06, 2005, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: SardeMoonflair ]
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
We'll probably have to wait for Pastwatch: The Flood to find out. *smile* OSC reads a disgustingly huge amount of material, so it's not unreasonable that he might have come across such data, but I couldn't tell you with any certainty one way or the other. There weren't any references in the book that has the short story.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Thank you both! *smiles*
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
Papa Moose, are you alluding to a sequel or did i miss something big again? sorry if i did, and i knew that if i didn't.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
You missed something big a few years ago when OSC announced he'd be writing a sequel. The short story Atlantis on this site is going to be expanded and made the next Pastwatch book.
It's due out sometime in the next ten years.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Um ... the Red Sea is connected to the Indian Ocean NOW. I consider that evidence.
But I think you meant that they were once separated. That is, once again, a matter that is obvious once you know how far the sea level had fallen during the ice age. You take the depth of the Bab al Mandib and subtract it from the hundreds of feet that sea level had fallen and ... the math leaves you with substantial dry land. No less miraculous than the Bering land bridge or the connection between Gibraltar and Morocco or Calais and Dover.
The remarkable thing about the Red Sea is simply that unlike the black Sea or Mediterranean, it would NOT have filled up anywhere near as fast as the surrounding ocean. there was no glacier melt to refill it. And being a rift valley, the Red Sea has few tributaries that flow into it. So it doesn't take a "source" - just knowledge of the obvious ...
My source, in fact, was Mike Lewis, a professor of physical geography who is also a good friend. I asked him whether the Black Sea or Aegean or the whole Mediterranean might have been the site of a flood after the ice age. He nixed them all, and then HE suggested the Red Sea as the only place on earth where it not only could have happened, it most certainly did.