Surely you have heard that one of the most widespread myths in the cultures of antiquity is that of the Universal Flood. Most of us know him by the Bible and we know that his protagonist was called Noah and who built an Ark by divine mandate. The flood is also present not only in the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, but in the Qur'an and all these religious traditions seem to have picked it up from the Sumerian myth of Ziusudra and a Babylonian epic poem known as the Epic of Gilgamesh . The Hebrew culture was in contact with the Mesopotamian culture and from there it reached the other religions. What has surprised us and we wanted to share with you is that Greek mythology also speaks of that colossal flood. Join us to meet Deucalión and Pirra, the Deluge in Greek mythology, very similar to the story of Noah.
Before starting with the Greek myth of Deucalión and Pirra , let us remember briefly what happened to Noah and it will be easier for us to see the parallels. Noah was a righteous man in the eyes of God who lived surrounded by sin. God selected him to save him along with his family. I had to build an ark where he was to house a couple of all the animals on Earth. When the flood began, the ark was full. After 40 days and 40 nights of rain, it stopped raining and some time later the ark was stranded on Mount Ararat. When Yahve told them they could get out of the ark, Noah and his family descended on the dry land and offered sacrifices by thanking God.
Deucalión and Pirra, the Deluge in Greek mythology
Deucalión was son of Prometheus and an oceanic called Pronea and was married to his cousin sister Pirra who was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora . They lived in the region of Thessaly where Deucalion ruled as a just king. At that time, the events that we told you in the post about King Lycaon and lycanthropy . Zeus decided to send a deluge to end the human race and wash the face of the Earth after that king offered him at a banquet the flesh of one of his own children.
Prometheus, father of Deucalion, warned him of the intentions of Zeus and told him that he should build an ark. Unlike Noah, he did not have her introduce any type of animal, but only climbed on it Deucalión and Pirra . It started to rain and it did it for 9 days and 9 nights. The rivers overflowed and the sea penetrated the earth, completely flooding the region so that only the tops of some mountains remained on the water. After this time, the ark settled on a hill and Deucalión and Pirra they descended.
They were the only pair of humans who had survived the flood, although some versions of the myth speak of some people who had been saved on top of some mountains. Upon leaving the ark, they gave thanks to Zeus and consulted the oracle of Themis to tell them how to repopulate the land. He told them to "cover their heads and throw their mother's bones over her shoulder." Deucalión and Pirra They understood that it was not their human mother, but Gea, Mother Earth, and they took stones from the ground and threw them over their shoulders. Those that Deucalión threw turned into men and those of Pirra into women, and thus they repopulated the Earth. Further, Deucalión and Pirra They had several children who also helped to increase the population.
The similarities between both myths are evident. The construction of the ark, the flood, the salvation of a few, the gratitude to God or Zeus and the new beginning for the human race.
Could there really be a Flood that describes the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha and Noah?
Current geologists have a theory that is known as the "Noah's hypothetical flood". They think that it is possible that there was a melting of the polar ice caps and that the resulting water reached the Mediterranean Sea crossing the Bosphorus Strait and reaching the Black Sea with a devastating force causing almost 100,000 square kilometers of land to flooded. This fact would have produced that approximately 10,000 years ago the sea level rose an average of 1'4 meters causing the population to move to escape the floods leaving some areas deserted.
Other scientists have pointed the possibility of a meteorite , less than 10,000 years ago, exploded very close to the northern ice sheet of present-day Canada. This meteorite would have released such an amount of energy that it would have melted the ice and created gigantic tsunamis that in hours they would have reached the coasts of the seas of the world. The sea level would have risen and many of the human settlements that at that time, frequently, were close to the sea, would have disappeared.
What do you think of the myth of Deucalión and Pirra ? Did you know him? Despite the differences with Noah, there are many similarities that seem to indicate that they drank from the same sources as the Abrahamic religions or that an event similar to a flood occurred, from which very few people were saved and which is in the germ of all these myths. What do you think? If you know other similar myths, share them with us! We will love knowing them. If you want to know a curious legend about Noah's Ark, we invite you to read: The legend of the origin of cats and Noah's Ark .