The Great Wave [continued]
The implication is that, an unknown maritime people by at least 6,000 years ago, already possessed the seafaring and mathematical ability to survey worldwide coastlines and calculate global projections. The Europeans were unable to accomplish this in 1513! Evidence is beginning to surface of advanced seafaring populations having colonised both sides of the North Atlantic by at least 7,000 years ago, but their identity remains a mystery as does their role in the eventual creation of the ‘Piri Re-is’ map, which is in fact incomplete, for there is a missing section which had to have shown the Australasian region.
There are theories that a civilisation once arose in Antarctica when it was largely ice free, and which now lies buried. Only the global warming theorised by scientists may one day melt enough ice to reveal the remains of this culture.
Scientists have shown there is ample evidence of at least three massive ice-melts accounting for the massive 120-130 metre rise in world sea-levels after the last great Ice Age, and prior to these events, which saw the submergence of the land shelves and their great Uruan culture-centres, there would have been plenty of time for Uru to have extended its civilisation to Antarctica.
When sea levels rose world wide towards the close of the last Ice-Age the catastrophic flooding of the land-shelves witnessed by early man gave rise to the “Great Flood” race-memories that survived into later [recorded] historical times.
Both Sumer and Egypt have left us traditions which point to an eastern origin for their cultural beginnings. This eastern input has been dated to pre-3000BC in Egypt [pre-dynastic period] and much earlier for Mesopotamia.
The region from where their ancestors were said to have originated lay far across the Indian Ocean in Australasian lands, known to Sumerians as Uru, as already pointed out earlier in this book.
It is a point of interest that the oldest surviving “Great Flood” traditions are to be found among the myths and legends of our Australian Aboriginal people, stories, handed down to them from the misty past of the Dreamtime and which originated with the Uru.
Yet the fabled “Great Flood” is not the only great aquatic tragedy preserved in Aboriginal lore, and in the surviving tribal traditions of eastern Australia are to be found accounts of a gigantic ‘super wave’, which at a very remote time in the past washed away all human and animal life over a vast expanse of the coastal and inland districts, but for those fortunate enough to have been living on higher mountainous ground.
This can be seen in the remains of one massive Uruan city complex that formerly covered a vast area of the northern beaches district of Sydney. Here massive pyramid hills [now covered by modern housing], modified by the Uru into stepped structures, capped by either open-air astronomical observatories or megalithic temples, still show the signs of having been struck by a massive torrent of water which swept away stoneworks and decimated surrounding settlements, as well as nearby harbour structures and shipping.
Rock inscriptions found in this district speak of later Uru return migrations having re-settled these areas and re-building the decimated cities. When exactly this catastrophic event took place is still debated, but could have occurred anywhere between 10,000 and 6,000 years BP.
The cause of this mighty super-wave was probably a gigantic undersea volcanic eruption which took place somewhere in the depths of the Fijian Basin or in New Zealand waters. The eruption was gigantic enough to create a massive tidal wave of at least 400ft height [120m] which, sweeping westwards dashed away all before it.
Its epicentre struck the
Australian east coast between
Batemans Bay in the south and the
Newcastle region in the north,
although the mighty super wave
certainly overwhelmed the coastlines
further south and north with violence,
as related by Aboriginal traditions over
a wide area of the east coast and inland
mountain ranges, handed down to the
modern Aboriginal people from longvanished ancestors who were witnesses
to this mighty upheaval of nature.
What follows is a theoretical
reconstruction on the destructive
course of the great super wave, as it
struck the east coast and continued
inland.
The northern flank of the
super wave struck the southern
Queensland coast, diminishing in force
as it swept over the northern coastal
district up to Cooktown.
This almost unknown
catastrophe drowned not only
Aboriginal tribes in the coastal
lowlands but also swept away
unknown numbers of Uruan cities and
settlements, wiping away all trace of
these culture centres or else burying
them under great deposits of silt.
Today those coastal structures
remaining from the time before the“Great Wave” were pyramidal
formations now reduced to hills,
showing little if any traces of having
been astronomical observatories or
pyramid temples. Those erected high
up in the mountains fared better.
The great super wave changed
the coastline, submerging many more
culture centres of the Uru, so that
today stone roads that have somehow
survived the deluge, extend from the
present shoreline out for some
kilometres into the ocean depths, to
megalithic cities that were once
thriving Stone Age metropolises
before the advent of the Great Wave.
Although the Northern NSW
riverlands would have been submerged
by the great watery wall, the New
England Ranges would have been
spared this inundation due to their
height, while further south the mighty
torrent swept deep inland wherever it
found openings in the hills and
mountains.
Sweeping all before it, the
Great Wave, travelling at a speed of at
least 1100 kilometres an hour, struck
the Newcastle/Hunter Valley/Sydney Basin.
In its destructive course it
covered the Hunter River flatlands in a
mighty sheet of water that penetrated
on its northern flank into Scone,
dashing itself upon the high slopes of
Murrurundi which today marks the
southern boundary of the New
England plateau. On its southern flank
the wave swept over the gullies of
what is now the Putty district, to join
its waters inundating the Sydney Basin.
Sweeping ever westwards over flats
that gave it full reign, into the
Goulburn River and the Central West
beyond, flooding the countryside over
a vast area, entering the Mudgee
district to the south, its relentless
course only being finally diminished
and stopped by the mountain ranges it
encountered.
The Colo River, being an
offshoot of the coast-fed Hawkesbury
River, would have offered the waters
of the great super wave another
opening to the Central West, for it
emerges into the Glen Davis/Capertee
districts which would have seen both
these valleys flooded, as well as the
whole countryside around nearby
Portland and the Lithgow area further
south on the western side of the Blue
Mountains. Some of this water could
also have found its way further west
into the Bathurst district.
Much of the
Wollemi/Wollangambie Wilderness
south of the Hunter region would have“gone under” as the great wave
crashed its way inland.
Birds could fly from the
disaster [Emus of course would have
had no chance], but all other animal
and human life would have been
doomed. The devastation wrought by
the “Great Wave” would have been
beyond comprehension to the
surviving humans observing the
catastrophe from the safety of the Blue
Mountains.
Aborigines say a monstrous
windstorm accompanied the Great
Wave, so strong that it blew over hugetrees and swept tribespeople off their
feet into the air!
The picture painted is one of a
truly monstrous natural event in which
huge boulders were swept by the
destructive waters to be left in piles, or
else were blown from their resting
places for considerable distances.
There remains some 60ft
[18.28m] of sediment deposited today
wherever the Great Wave struck.
Much of the wave water to penetrate
the Central Queensland flatlands
entered the Darling River, which in
turn flowed southward into the Murray
River, creating more destruction in far
western NSW on its course to the
South Australian coast near Adelaide
where it entered the Indian Ocean.
At its epicentre, the Great
Wave would have been at its full
height and at its most destructive
force. The Central Coast/Hawkesbury
River district, with the Sydney Basin
beyond would have been but for a few
high points in the Hawkesbury area
[excluding the Blue Mountains to the
west] drowned beneath the sweeping
torrent as it dashed westward.
With unbelievable force the
torrent would have smashed against
the eastern escarpment of the Blue
Mountains, swiftly penetrating the
Grose Valley where the high cliffs
bordering its western end would have
barred its way beyond. The Lapstone
Gorge would have permitted the
torrent’s penetration deep into the
labyrinthine gullies which are a feature
of the southern fringe of the
escarpment along which today’s lower
Blue Mountains towns stand,
eventually petering out somewhere
behind Lawson.
Smashing its way southward
along the eastern escarpment over the
Nepean Gorge, the waters of the
mighty super wave would have filled
the gorge where now the Warragamba
Dam floods much of the Burragorang
Valley to its west.