There is hardly a person who does not know what happened to Adam and Eve after they bit off the ill-fated apple. Everyone remembers the snake tempter, the guardian of the tree of paradise, who for some reason needed to get rid of two unfortunate lovers. They forever left that fabulous place called Eden.
Sooner or later, everyone wondered: was there a garden of Eden, and if so, where? Visiting the beautiful corners of the planet, we often compare them with Paradise, without thinking about whether we are far from the truth. Paleoarchaeologists and paleogeologists think seriously about this problem. Space technology has also expanded the understanding of mankind about the world and allowed to advance in the study of the distant past. The question is where the Garden of Eden, the theologians and historians, Judaists and Christians of the whole world were located.
Until the end of the 19th century, the biblical garden could be safely considered an invention. However, after excavations in Mesopotamia (excavations of the city of Ur by the English archaeologist Leonardo Woolley) and Babylon, it became clear that the biblical legends had a real historical basis.
Description of Eden
The Bible is far from the first source describing the garden. Eden, paradise - it has many names from different peoples. When excavating the Ashurbanipal library, English archaeologists discovered ancient Sumerian texts. They had legends about the creation of the world, as the Sumerians and Assyrians knew them. The text of Enuma Elish tells of a wonderful garden full of outlandish fruit trees and delightful herbs. Animals and people live in it in peace and harmony.
A large river flowed through the garden, which gave moisture to plants and animals. Emerging from the garden, it was divided into four main rivers of the world.
The apples
In the center of the garden was that same tree of good and evil, or the "tree of knowledge" on which apples grew. Almost all the mythologies of the world contain references to them. They are the fruits of sin, rejuvenating apples, or the fruits of immortality. However, nowhere and no one wrote that the tree was an apple, and paradise apples do not need to be associated with modern fruit. The Greeks believed that it was a pomegranate tree, a Viking replaced a peach apple.
Rivers of Eden
Humanity has received confirmation of the reality of the global flood, but did not stop there. The Bible says that the Eden Garden was washed by four rivers. Two of them are clearly correlated with the Euphrates and the Tigris. But the other two - Gihon and Hitdekl - are not on the map, no matter how you look. Scientists of the 20th century were able to compare Hitdekl with a river that flows east of Assyria. She was repeatedly mentioned in clay tablets. And Gihon was found only half a century ago. People were able to determine the approximate location of such a place as the Garden of Eden. The photo was taken thanks to aerial photography: today Gihon is a dried-up river, the mouth of which, lost in the sand, can only be seen from space. However, the location of Eden can be further specified.
Population of Eden
The catastrophe that caused people to leave Eden is not the result of disobedience, but is described as a natural cataclysm. They left this place as a result of a natural disaster and were forced to start all over again.
What kind of people inhabited the garden of Eden? Today is difficult to answer. Their remains are found on the shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in our time, but scientists find it difficult to answer this question.
The growth of such people reached 3 meters. Burial sites often appear after annual floods, when the water leaves, eroding clay soil.
Such finds are often made by nomads or peasants from neighboring villages.
Today there are about 200 images of such burials with the general name "antediluvian people", or "nephilim". Sumerian, Assyrian, and later Greek legends tell about them, half-humans, demigods. In the biblical version, we know them as fallen angels, the very ones that sinned in the eyes of the Lord, having loved earthly women. In any of these legends, these are the first people on earth. Their century was several times longer than ours, their growth and physical strength far exceeded the data of modern man. We do not know if they excelled us in terms of mental abilities. But for some reason God forbade to eat the fruits from the tree of knowledge ... According to the Bible, Eve, who bit off half an apple, lived for more than 900 years. And Adam, who only took a bite, is about 100 years less.
However, these are not the inhabitants of Paradise, but the first generation of the descendants of those who left him. Modern scholars believe that the Garden of Eden should be sought in the Persian Gulf, on a small island, which in the days of the Sumerians was called Delmun. Sumerian tablets describe the magical nature of the island, caves with inexhaustible sources of crystal clear water, outlandish fruit trees, bright colors of tropical vegetation. Today it is a small Arab state of Bahrain. Nature and human hands made it so beautiful that, having been there, you will surely say: "Garden of Eden!"