The myths that hint at past disasters
Unravel the tapestry of ancient myths, where each thread hints at past calamities. These tales, often dismissed as mere folklore, may hold the key to understanding catastrophic events of yore. Let's delve into the intriguing intersection of mythology and disaster studies.
Myths and fables passed down over thousands of years may contain evidence of environmental disasters of the past
With the possibility of a catastrophic global sea level rise of 3ft (1m) by 2050 which could force millions of people to leave their homes, researchers have started to look at ancient stories about land lost to the sea and downed cities in a new way
- These researchers are geomythologists
- Their job is to study ancient stories once regarded as myths or legends, but which are now seen as possible observations of natural phenomena by pre-literate peoples
- They give us insight into how our ancestors felt about the rising sea levels and what they did about it, and they provide evidence that their response was remarkably similar to ours
Other Issues
Literate people are also inherently sceptical about the power of oral traditions to pass things down across the generations
Geomythology has faced a long journey to even become considered by the scientific establishment, and the journey is far from over.
Dorothy Vitaliano first used the term in a 1970s article
- It took three decades of rising interest in the field before the 32nd International Geological Congress held its first ever session
- The book she delivered created the new concept of “fossil myths”
- She also made the connection between Greek and Roman descriptions of the mythical griffin, which she thought sounded like eyewitness accounts, and dinosaur fossils that can be found on the surface of the Gobi desert near the Silk Road
If glaciers melt and cause disruption and migration over the coming decades, how will their effect be felt in centuries to come?
Along the Australian coast, the sea level stopped rising about 6,000 years ago, whereas it has continued in northwest Europe until the present day.
- In nearly all of the 23 groups of Aboriginal Australian stories Nunn studied, the memory of the changes in landscape and way of life caused by post-glacial sea level rise seems to have been preserved from 7 millennia ago. In northwest Europe, the stories that Nunn and his collaborators studied are quite different.
Despite the growth of geomythology, it is still seen as “flaky” by some academics
An element of stodginess still figures!
- Geomythological stories are expressed in poetic metaphors and mythic or supernatural imagery, and descriptions of catastrophic events and natural phenomena can be garbled over millennia, and because of this scientists and historians tend to miss the kernels of truth and rational concepts embedded in their narratives
- Nunn puts this argument more strongly.
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