The Genesis narrative, considered against local geography, history, and the archeological record, suggests that Enoch’s descendant, Noah, would have settled along the Pishon in nearby Susa (circa 10,000 BCE), which later became the capital of Elam. We know this because Susan and Elam were the eldest children of Shem and the grandchildren of Noah. The Aryan settlement of Susa (or Susiana) became a Neolithic farming settlement, high enough in the Zagros Mountains to escape the melting glaciers flooding the river valley. But, imagine the end of the Ice Age melting the last Zagros glaciers, and a great flood sweeping Noah’s Ark from his Susa home in Elam. The Ark would have descended along the Pishon River until it reached the intersection of the four rivers, somewhere near Basrah. We know this to be the shortest path from Susa to the Tigris because “Alexander the Great was said to follow this path and reach the Tigris in four days.”70 The Ark would have followed the same path as the great migration of Aryans who descended from Susa during the early Ubaid period (circa 5400 BCE) to start the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu. To corroborate this, remarkable conehead figurines were discovered at both Susa and Eridu, dating back to the Ubaid period (Figures 1a). Once the Ark descended the Pishon and changed direction with the currents, it headed up the Tigris toward Mount Ararat in the Caucasus of Eastern Turkey.
Thus, the story of Noah’s Ark provides Biblical readers with two well known “lands of the Aryans”: the Zagros and Caucasus Mountains. The implications suggest that the Aryan tribes came out of Africa with Adam, settled in the Zagros with Enoch, and migrated to the Caucasus with Noah. Then, as part of the great Diaspora to repopulate the Earth, the descendants of Noah’s triplet sons began at Mount Ararat and traveled down the Tigris River toward Akkad and Babylon. The descendants of Ham continued along the Gihon to Ethiopia, while Japheth’s descendants traveled up the Euphrates and continued on toward Turkey, Greece and Europe. At 75 years of age, Abraham traveled to Haran, which sat on a bank of the Euphrates. His subsequent journey from Haran to Canaan breaks with these great river migrations and might be considered metaphor for the Hebrew invasion of Canaan. With Kramer’s Iranian-Semitic cross fertilization firmly established in Sumer, some Aryan tribes may have refused to accept the decline of their civilization, and hopped into Gihon River boats that would cross Saudi Arabia, and bring the Aryan fathers to Egypt (ca. 4000 BCE). Hans Winkler’s theory of “Eastern Invaders” would still be viable if the Aryans were able to sail their river boats inland, along the Gihon River, as long as they could reach Egypt’s Eastern wadis.
In the passage below, geologist Carol Hill presents some relevant facts for consideration, however, my own findings suggest she has reversed the locations of the Pishon and Gihon (see Figure 38); and, has named the Karun rather than the Karkheh, which is said to have flowed into the Karun during Biblical times.
The now-dry Wadi al Batin was probably the Pishon River, the Gihon was probably the Karun River, and the Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates Rivers flowed in approximately the same courses as they occupy today. The confluence of these four rivers was located at the head of the Persian Gulf, but a Gulf that may have been inland from where it is today... There is evidence that such a river did flow there sometime in the past. Only four inches of rain a year now fall in Saudi Arabia, but during the periods from about 30,000 to 20,000 years B.P. (before present) and from about 10,000 to 6000 years B.P., the climate was much wetter than it is today. Even as late as 3500 B.C. (before Christ), ancient lakes are known to have existed in the “Empty Quarter” of Saudi Arabia, which is today the largest sand desert in the world. A somewhat drier but still moist phase existed from about 4000 to 2350 B.C., followed by a more arid phase from about 2350 to 2000 B.C. It was then, at about 2000 B.C., that the climate turned hyper-arid and the rivers of Arabia dried up.71
Ms. Hill also cites an article by James Sauer called “The River Runs Dry,” which describes how satellite images have detected an underground riverbed along the Wadi al Batin (Figure 6). On its eastern end, the Wadi al Batin confluences with the Tigris and Euphrates. Recent satellite photos show “that the Wadi al Batin continues to the southwest, beneath the sand, and emerges as the Wadi Rimah (both wadis may have been part of the same river system in the past, before being covered by sand dunes). About eighty miles further in the upstream direction, the Wadi Rimah bifurcates into the Wadi Qahd on the northwest, and the Wadi al Jarir on the southwest.” This geological evidence suggests the possibility that in the centuries before the rain belt moved south, there may have been a navigable river to the Red Sea.
Figure 6 - The “Upper” Gihon across the Saudi Desert
Figure 7 - The “Lower” Gihon across Egypt’s Eastern Desert
In order to be properly identified as the Gihon River, Genesis tells us it would have to “wind through the whole land of Cush” (Ethiopia: see Figure 38). Cush was the son of Ham, the grandson of Noah, and the father of Nimrod. It is believed that Ham’s descendants settled in Africa, and soon afterwards, spread north, east, and west. Josephus states: “For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites.”72 Adam’s route “out of Africa,” along the Bible’s Gihon River, helps to guide our analysis of the EMH path into the Middle East. Invading Aryan river boats that made their way across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea appear to have retraced mankind’s path back to Egypt. The Aryans would have headed North after reaching the Red Sea near Mecca, and then headed West along the Wadis Barramiya and Hammamat until they reached the Nile (Figure 7). Drawings on the cliffs of these wadis document the event. Locating the Gihon River in this manner provides a plausible route for Hans Winkler’s late 5th millennium Aryan invaders, perhaps making his theory viable once more. Winkler’s erroneously dated swastikas would have been carved into the Egyptian wadi cliffs during a 2nd millennium Aryan migration, called the Hyksos migration.
Establishing the location of the Bible’s Gihon River (Figure 38) is further supported by the Nile’s southern path through Khartoum, in the Sudan, where a tributary called the Blue Nile proceeds to “wind through the whole land of Kush.” The prophet Isaiah spoke of a land beyond the rivers of Nubia (Isaiah 18:1), while the prophet Zephaniah speaks about invoking the LORD by name from “beyond the rivers of Kush” (Zeph. 3:10). Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush. In ancient Egyptian inscriptions Ethiopia is called Kesh. The Greek speaking Jews who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the Septuagint, consistently translated the word Cush as “Ethiopia.”
During the Hyksos migration, Hebrew, Canaanite, and Aryan tribes were part of the same migration into the Levant out of the southern Caucasus Mountains (circa 2000-1700 BCE). This powerful wave had a great impact on Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Canaan, and Egypt. The Hebrews invaded Canaan (at 75 years of age, Abraham left Haran for Canaan), then Canaan invaded and came to power in Egypt (Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph became magistrate over Egypt). Also, as part of the Hyksos migrations, the Aryans invaded the Hurrians with their powerful war chariots (Figure 8) to create the Mitanni Kingdom (circa 1800-1350 BCE), which included southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northern Iraq.