The Czech Jan Evangelista Purkinje, noticed, while studying sweat glands, that the pattern of grooves and ridges are not the same in any two individuals. These sweat glands open out into the depressions of the grooves. This was so convincingly proved, that fingerprints were used in science, too. Dactyloscopy or taking of fingerprints in ink, was first used by a police officer in Argentina. Slowly dactylscopy came to be used widely, especially in judicial identification departments, throughout the world. The different fingerprints may be of three basic patterns the loop, the whorl and the arc. The frequency of these patterns vary according to origin. About 10-16 percent of the population of Pygmies and Brushmen of Africa, have arcs; whorls were present in 43 percent of Orientals and 16 percent of Occidentals. Around 52-76 percent of the populations in Europe and Africa and the Ainus of Japan have loops. The divisions of the population according to there frequencies somewhat correspond to the divisions made according to blood groups.

Babylon first grew powerful under the rule of King Hammurabi (1792 – 1750bc). Before this, Babylon had been one of several small kingdoms in Mesopotamia. Hammurabi conquered the other kingdoms and extended Babylon’s frontiers to include Sumer and Akkad. The city of Babylon, with its magnificent temples and palaces, became the capital of the new empire. Hammurabi was a just and diplomatic ruler. He is famous for his code of law, the oldest surviving in the world. The laws were recorded on clay tablets and stone pillars for all to see. After his death, Babylon declined in power and was invaded by the Hittites, Kassites, Chaldeans and Assyrians. The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, destroyed the city in 689bc. In the 6th century bc, however, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon regained its former glory. The king conquered a huge empire and rebuilt the city on a very grand scale, surpassing any other city in the ancient world. Babylon was finally captured by the Persians in 539bc and became part of the mighty Persian Empire. The awe-inspiring city of Babylon stood on the banks of the river Eurphrates. The capital of the Babylonian empire, it was also a major trading centre and a flourishing religious complex, especially for the worship of the God Marduk, the patron of the city. The name Babylon means ‘Gate of the God’. King Nebuchadnezzer II rebuilt the city in magnificent style, with enormous city walls, some 26m thick, and eight massive bronze gates. The grandest gate, the Ishtar Gate, opened on to the Processional Way, which linked the great temple of Marduk inside the walls to an important religious site outside of the city. At the New Year’s festival, statues of the Gods were paraded along this route and through the gate, while stories were told of Marduk’s famous triumph over chaos. Nebuchadnezzar also built a breathtaking palace between the Ishtar Gate and the river Euphrates. Built around five spacious courtyards, it was known as ‘The Marvel of Mankind’.

The Babylonian via Wikipedia

The Babylonians introduced wool fabrics , colorful ogee and spiral motifs, and the use of fringe. Robes of state were elaborately embroidered with rosettes, circles, and human-animal figures.

The Greek Island of Cretan via Wikipedia

The Cretans were more advanced in their use of cloth than their neighbors. The men in Crete wore little than a loincloth or waist-cloth with loose ends hanging down in front. This cloth was triangular. The shoes had pointed, turned-up toes and bands above the ankles.

The Cretan woman had high bust, large hips and a tiny waist, giving her a remarkable beautiful. A short.-sleeved,  laced bodice was cut to expose the breasts, this garment was worn with a long, bell-shaped skirt and a tight girdle around the waist.

The bulls horns symbolized strenght. Other motifs included the S curve adopted in many designs, plant forms; marine forms, the dolphin and octopus; and animals as cats, lions, and the bull. Many figurines remain from Crete, known for brilliance in the arts for over 2,000 years.

It comes in many different flavors and dazzling colors, something for everyone. There is white, golden, wheat, stout or strong, porter or double bock or even this fabulous green shade reserved for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Alex flickr.com

It is thought that beer was probably brewed even before civilization learned how to bake bread, with Noah probably having his own stash upon the ark according to Professor Linda Raley of Texas Tech University.

In this picture taken from the World Encyclopedia of Beer by Brian Glover the King of Ur and his nobles raise their glasses at a banquet during 2,500 B.C. in toast with what was believed to be beer.

• Babylonian clay tablets dating back to 4300 BC detailed recipes for beer. There were around 20 varieties produced at that time.
• It has been a vital part of ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese and Inca cultures also
• Records indicate that beer was sometimes used to pay workers for part of their wages
• In earlier cultures sometimes straws were fashioned for drinking to avoid the grain hulls left in the beverage
• Beer was brewed commercially by Egyptians and served in gold goblets to royalty, used for medicinal purposes and buried with the dead for their journey in afterlife

Different cultures favor different grains:

• Africa – millet, maize and cassava
• United States – persimmon
• Mexico – agave
• South America – corn
• Brazil – sweet potatoes
• Japan – rice (sake)
• China – wheat (samshu)
• Other Asian cultures – sorghum
• Russia – rye to make quass or kvass
• Egypt – barley
• Egyptian texts were found dating back to 1600 BC with 100 medical prescriptions requiring beer according to Professor Linda Raley, or over 600 prescriptions and remedies according to Brian Glover’s research. Either way there were a lot of prescriptions including beer.
• At one time in Egypt if a gentleman offered a lady a sip of his beer it was considered a marriage proposal
• Much earlier flavors consisted of balsam, hay, dandelion, mint, wormwood seeds, horehound juice, crab claws and oyster shells
• Romans gave beer the name “Cerevisia” which translates to Ceres the goddess of agriculture and “vis” meaning strength in Latin
• Brewers who produced unfit beer in ancient Babylonia were sentenced to be drowned in their own beer
• In the 1st century A.D. the Roman historian stated that beer was the “usual drink of the Germans and Gauls”.
• Ale was regarded so highly that according to Norse mythology Vikings would spend their days happily drinking beer in the warriors resting place, Valhalla, after being slain in battle
• In their travels Columbus and his crew found Indians making beer from corn and black birch sap

For even more information regarding the history of beer visit: BeerHistory.com

George Washington’s personal recipe

Our first president, George Washington penned the following recipe in 1757, which I found here.

“To Make Small Beer

Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. — Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler put in 3 Gall[ons] Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yea[s]t if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank [et] & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask — leave the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working — Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.”

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both known to own their own breweries

The basics of brewing have not changed much over the centuries as shown pictured below. This woman brews beer for her family in Zambia.

The huge copper kettles pictured in Saku Brewery in Estonia accomplish the same goal, accept in greater quantities.

This article is not meant to extol the virtues of beer, while beer does contain properties which both lower cholesterol and provide us with antioxidants, it has been often time misused and consumed to the detriment of mankind. I would hope that anyone who enjoys an occasional drink both drinks in moderation and does not drive while drinking.

There seems to be a contradiction concerning the animals that Noah took aboard the Ark.

“And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.”

- Genesis 6:19-20

“Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”

- Genesis 7:2-3

So, is it two of every animal and bird? Or is seven of every clean beast and two of every unclean beast?

The reason behind this discrepancy is ultimately a simple thing. For generations, the story was passed down verbally before being written. Biblical archaeology has proven that there were different versions of Genesis, and other books, in circulation a thousand years earlier than we’d previously thought. Two separate details of two versions became juxtaposed into the final version; this happens often in such cases.

As I went on to study other aspects of ancient history – Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, Native America, and much more – the Noah story kept coming back to me, until I decided that I had to look into it.

In a nutshell, here’s what I’ve found:

The Black Sea once was a fresh-water lake. It was two-thirds its current size. And some believe that there were Neolithic people living along its shores, which evidence does suggest.

There was only a tiny valley separating the lake from the Mediterranean Sea. Toward the end of the last Ice Age, about twelve thousand years ago, much of the fresh water evaporated; thus, the lake began to shrink.

But the Mediterranean was swollen with glacial melt-water. It flooded, submerging the little valley and pouring into the lake. Fresh water conquered by salt water, in essence. This transformed the small lake into what we know today as the Black Sea.

As far as we can tell, the earliest flood myth comes from the Sumerians, ancestors to the Babylonians and present-day Iraqis. It is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah are almost uncanny. Both tell of a patriarch who received divine warning of a coming flood. The patriarch was ordered to build a vessel, which would carry him, his family, and animals. Both stories even include the release of a dove, and the rainbow in the sky when the flood abates.

It could be that the Sumerians knew about the flood and developed the story of Gilgamesh. We can postulate that the story got passed around, until different nations and cultures in the region had a version, each reflecting certain nationalities and religions.

It could also be that the Hebrew, descendants of the Sumerians (and once victims of Babylonian conquest), took the story and added a Jewish spin to it.

That, however, is up for debate.

Yet, we should remember that the flood myths that inspire Jews, Christians and Muslims come from the Mid-East, the very region where these three faiths began.

(On a side note, other cultures, including the Maya (of Central America) had similar Flood legends. There are flood myths from China, India . . . all over the world. Each reflects a man and his family building some sort of vessel that will save them from the deluge, though each reflects particular nationalities, customs and religions.)

What does the geology do for the story of Noah? Not much, really.

The geology proves that a great flood from the pregnant Mediterranean created the Black Sea. We know that this is the home region of Noah and the Hebrew people; also, the various cultures that interacted with them. But the geology cannot prove anything of Noah or, for that matter, Gilgamesh.

But would Neolithic people have known about the flood that happened after the last Ice Age? No one can say for sure, but I would think that an advanced culture such as the Sumerians would have known something of it. They had knowledge of the stars that mirrors our own; their stone tablets show that they knew about Pluto six thousand years ago.

How they would know is another story altogether. Yet there must have been survivors – perhaps a man and his family – that passed down the story of the Flood.

Some believers take the story of Noah literally. Others take it symbolically, as a beacon of hope in dire times. But for believers and non-believers alike, it’s a matter of interpretation.

It’s not my job to prove or disprove any myth or legend. Whether any ancient story is true or not is a matter of belief. As a researcher, I see my job as trying to find how these stories develop and, possibly, why.

In either case, we know that a flood happened. It’s only natural, after all, for glaciers to melt and to raise the sea level at the end of an ice age. And we know that it was catastrophic; seventy percent of all life perished. It’s my feeling that the flood that created the Black Sea was one of many across the globe. To various cultures, it would appear that the entire world was flooding, for most of them did not know of distant lands.

Even though we’ll probably never know the full truth of the matter, the story of Noah leaves me pondering:

In the wake of our leaving nature behind, if we faced another Ice Age, and then another Flood, would we survive? Our ancestors did; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. But we have yet to be tested on such a scale.

Babylonian scientists made important discoveries in astronomy and mathematics.

Babylonian writers composed epics and poetry. Sculptors created statues and scenes in stone and clay showing Babylonian life.

Babylon became an important trading center. They traded grain and woven cloth for wood to build furniture and ships. Their traders also brought back gold, silver, precious gems, and livestock.

Hammurabi died in 1708 B.C. and the empire began to crumble. His son tried to hold the empire together but many revolts broke out. Hammurabi’s descendants ruled Babylonia for another 100 years. This was the end of the Old Babylonian empire.

In 1595 B.C. the Hittite King Mursilis I attacked and destroyed Babylon. The Kassites ruled Babylon for 400 years from 1595 B.C. to 1157 B.C.

Nebuchadnezzar II was an outstanding military leader who ruled from 605 B.C to 562 B.C. He defeated the Egyptians and controlled all of Syria and Palestine.

Nebuchadnezzar II turned Babylon into a cultural center. He restored Babylon’s temples and rebuilt the seven story high ziggurat that people think is the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible. He also built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The New Babylonian empire lasted only about 75 years. The rulers who followed Nebuchadnezzar II did not have his military and political strength. The Babylonian empire ended when Cyrus, King of Persia conquered it in 539 B.C.