Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 17/07/2006 16:02, Rochelle Altman wrote:
> Peter,
>
> This is getting way off topic. So, to close this thread on an informational 
> note:
>
> 1) No, Britain was NOT still connected to the continent at that period. The 
> English Channel opened  ca. 10,000 BCE. No land bridge. Further,
> the channel was an impassable, turbulent barrier for thousands of years. 
> The only way to reach the British Isles was by sea -- and on the Atlantic 
> coast.
>   

10,000 BCE was the date you mentioned. I don't appreciate the tone of an 
"informational note" which sounds like an attempt to put me in my place 
by correcting non-existent errors in what I wrote before.

> 2) The mtDNA connection is Atlantic coasts, not by land, but  by sea.
>   

People walked about, as well as sailing. They could well have been 
displaced to the separate Atlantic coastal areas by later immigrants, 
cf. the Welsh and Cornish to whom the same happened.

> 3) Yes, I know that the Rhodes deep is 4,000 plus meters. It's the only 
> place in the Med deep enough for giant squid to live.
>   

Yes, but earlier you wrote "(4,000 plus feet)".

> 4) Giant squid live in the depths.
> 5) The extremely rare wash-ups are mangled squid that appear to have lost a 
> battle with a whale. As far as I know, there are no whales today in the 
> Med. -- not usually, that is. Individual whales do get "lost."
>   

Yes, wash-ups are rare, but it doesn't take many to create a legend.

> 6) I already stated the area between Rhodes and the current Syrian coast is 
> squid heaven.
> 7) Their normal habitat is not near land.
>   

How far is "not near"? What is "normal"? Would you claim that they never 
come within sight of land? If so, you would have to deny that they ever 
lived in the Rhodes deep.

> 8) I do not know if a few giant squid are still in the Med basin; they 
> would have been when the ice ages began. (The levels predicted by "global 
> warming" were the height of sea level prior to the ice ages.) Possible, but 
> who knows? Certainly none have been sighted from submersibles or undersea 
> trawls... for what that is worth. (The seas are the great unknown today; 
> new species turn up daily.)
>   

Fair enough, I should have said that they are not known to live in the Med.

> 9) Giant squid do not surface except in chase of prey. Considering that 
> their normal prey is a whale, perhaps the stories maintaining that the 
> creature sank ships is due to a squid assuming a ship is a basking whale. 
> (Row, row your boat -- carefully).
> 10) The fact that the islands have been shown to have been populated by sea 
> indicates early maritime voyaging -- even if only in skin boats.
> 11) The fact that the Rhodes Deep is within sight of land and coastal 
> navigation is a fluke; near land is not their normal habitat. However, the 
> fluke supports the concept of myriad tales across a diverse area of the 
> Eastern Med..
> 12) Yes, you do have to be in blue water to sight giant squid today. The 
> rare wash-ups are on the oceans, not in the Med.
>
>   
So we can agree that there is a real chance that at one time giant squid 
lived in the Rhodes Deep and occasionally surfaced there, within sight 
of land, perhaps thinking a ship was prey. We agree, so why try to 
correct me?

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/