Kashmiri Pandit
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No matter where you’re from, you probably have your fair share of wild myths. From stuff like the legend of King Arthur and his magic BFF to the mischievous gods of Ancient Greece to the insane epics of Hindu mythology, just about every culture comes with a set of stories that most other cultures call foreign or strange.
But then there are the universal myths—myths that crop up repeatedly in cultures separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of years. These myths are so near-universal that their prevalence is downright spooky.
10 The Great Flood
The idea of a flood that drowns the entire world pops up in almost every single culture. Jews and Christians know it as the story of Noah, but other versions almost certainly predate the Genesis account. The Ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh includes the tale of Utnapishtim, who builds a boat, fills it with animals to escape a deluge, and eventually comes to rest on a mountaintop. The Greeks had Deucalion, who survived a flood sent by Zeus. Other versions appear in Hindu, Mayan, and Native American legends.
These tales may or may not be inspired by reality. In 2009, National Geographic reported on the utter lack of evidence for a globe-destroying super-flood. Yet theories still persist of an ancient comet strike near Madagascar sending tsunamis across the globe or a sudden flood caused bymelting glaciers drowning the entire Black Sea area. Could this universal myth simply be the faded memory of a real event that occurred around 5,000 BC? We may never know.
9 Paradise Lost
As anyone who’s heard to their grandpa wax lyrical about the 1950s knows, people see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But this yearning for nostalgia isn’t just restricted to old folk rattling on about how kids showed more respect in their day. Very often, it fills entire cultures.
Take the Garden of Eden. The story of a harmonious land uncorrupted by pain or lust is the biggest slice of “good old days” nostalgia you’ll ever encounter. The Ancient Greeks, meanwhile, fondly recalled their Golden and Heroic Ages—a time when the world was happier, men were men, and things basically didn’t suck so bad. Similar ideas appear in Hindu, Norse, and Persian belief, always featuring a lost utopia to which modern culture can never return.
Interestingly, there may be a scientific reason behind all this. Recentresearch into nostalgia has shown that idealized memories of the past may make us happier in the present.
8 Epic Cosmic Battles
The idea of an unimaginable war that threatens to tear apart the cosmos connects with us so deeply that it still powers our epic stories. The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Doctor Who, and countless others all feature this age-old trope. It can be found in the legends of almost every ancient culture. Christianity has the battle between God and the rebel angels led by Satan. Ancient Greece had the story of the Titans taking on the gods of Mount Olympus. The Hindu tradition involves a dizzying series of battles so epic they’d give Peter Jackson daymares.
There are couple of ways of looking at this. One is to go down the Scientology route of claiming these legends are genetic memories of some apocalyptic battle that tore the galaxy apart billions of years ago. The other is to remember that most cultures throughout history have consistently been on the brink of war or prone to invasion, so an apocalyptic slaughter was probably never far from everyone’s minds. Either way, it suggests the human drive to war is just about universal.
7 Vampires
Photo credit: Bin im Garten
If you hated the last couple of years of hormone-driven angst-inspired vampire media, try living in Medieval Europe. Back then, belief in vampires was so prevalent that barely a single country didn’t consider them a terrifying fact of life. When crops failed or there was drought or a baby was born with a slight deformity, you’d better believe vampires got the blame—a tradition that stretches back thousands of years.
Undead bloodsuckers aren’t a modern invention. They weren’t even dreamt up this side of the Common Era. Cultures as mind-bendingly old as theAncient Egyptians believed wholeheartedly in their existence, while versions of them turn up everywhere from China to Tibet to India. Even the Persians of Mesopotamia had a selection of ferocious blood-drinking demons to terrorize children, although they bore differences from our modern Anne Rice-inspired variety.
Looked at rationally, it’s easy to see how the vampire legend arose: our fear of death crossed with a huge degree of medical ignorance. Looking at it again after dark when a scary wind howls outside . . . well, let’s just say we won’t be hawking off our garlic stocks anytime soon.
6 The Atlantis Myth
Photo credit: 9591353082/Wikimedia
We all know the myth of Atlantis: a utopian city wiped out in a single night thanks to an unearthly cataclysm. But Atlantis is only the most famous of mythical lost cities. Near-identical stories crop up with such regularity that it’s tempting to think they must be somehow related.
Take Iram (also known as Ubar). A fabled city in the deserts of modern Saudi Arabia, Iram is said to have been wiped out in a single night when Allah buried it under a flood of sand. In other words, it’s the Atlantis myth translated to a world without water. Then you have Ys off the coast of France, which was supposedly flooded around the 5th century by a mythical warrior king. And that’s before we get onto the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Hindu myth of Tripura, which both involve gods wiping out immoral cities in a rain of fire.
In short, the idea of a city obliterated overnight is so powerful it seems to show up everywhere. Are these half-remembered tragedies with some basis in fact (like Pompeii) or just stories that play to the apocalyptic fantasist in all of us? We’ll leave it to you to decide.
But then there are the universal myths—myths that crop up repeatedly in cultures separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of years. These myths are so near-universal that their prevalence is downright spooky.
10 The Great Flood
The idea of a flood that drowns the entire world pops up in almost every single culture. Jews and Christians know it as the story of Noah, but other versions almost certainly predate the Genesis account. The Ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh includes the tale of Utnapishtim, who builds a boat, fills it with animals to escape a deluge, and eventually comes to rest on a mountaintop. The Greeks had Deucalion, who survived a flood sent by Zeus. Other versions appear in Hindu, Mayan, and Native American legends.
These tales may or may not be inspired by reality. In 2009, National Geographic reported on the utter lack of evidence for a globe-destroying super-flood. Yet theories still persist of an ancient comet strike near Madagascar sending tsunamis across the globe or a sudden flood caused bymelting glaciers drowning the entire Black Sea area. Could this universal myth simply be the faded memory of a real event that occurred around 5,000 BC? We may never know.
9 Paradise Lost
As anyone who’s heard to their grandpa wax lyrical about the 1950s knows, people see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But this yearning for nostalgia isn’t just restricted to old folk rattling on about how kids showed more respect in their day. Very often, it fills entire cultures.
Take the Garden of Eden. The story of a harmonious land uncorrupted by pain or lust is the biggest slice of “good old days” nostalgia you’ll ever encounter. The Ancient Greeks, meanwhile, fondly recalled their Golden and Heroic Ages—a time when the world was happier, men were men, and things basically didn’t suck so bad. Similar ideas appear in Hindu, Norse, and Persian belief, always featuring a lost utopia to which modern culture can never return.
Interestingly, there may be a scientific reason behind all this. Recentresearch into nostalgia has shown that idealized memories of the past may make us happier in the present.
8 Epic Cosmic Battles
The idea of an unimaginable war that threatens to tear apart the cosmos connects with us so deeply that it still powers our epic stories. The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Doctor Who, and countless others all feature this age-old trope. It can be found in the legends of almost every ancient culture. Christianity has the battle between God and the rebel angels led by Satan. Ancient Greece had the story of the Titans taking on the gods of Mount Olympus. The Hindu tradition involves a dizzying series of battles so epic they’d give Peter Jackson daymares.
There are couple of ways of looking at this. One is to go down the Scientology route of claiming these legends are genetic memories of some apocalyptic battle that tore the galaxy apart billions of years ago. The other is to remember that most cultures throughout history have consistently been on the brink of war or prone to invasion, so an apocalyptic slaughter was probably never far from everyone’s minds. Either way, it suggests the human drive to war is just about universal.
7 Vampires
Photo credit: Bin im Garten
If you hated the last couple of years of hormone-driven angst-inspired vampire media, try living in Medieval Europe. Back then, belief in vampires was so prevalent that barely a single country didn’t consider them a terrifying fact of life. When crops failed or there was drought or a baby was born with a slight deformity, you’d better believe vampires got the blame—a tradition that stretches back thousands of years.
Undead bloodsuckers aren’t a modern invention. They weren’t even dreamt up this side of the Common Era. Cultures as mind-bendingly old as theAncient Egyptians believed wholeheartedly in their existence, while versions of them turn up everywhere from China to Tibet to India. Even the Persians of Mesopotamia had a selection of ferocious blood-drinking demons to terrorize children, although they bore differences from our modern Anne Rice-inspired variety.
Looked at rationally, it’s easy to see how the vampire legend arose: our fear of death crossed with a huge degree of medical ignorance. Looking at it again after dark when a scary wind howls outside . . . well, let’s just say we won’t be hawking off our garlic stocks anytime soon.
6 The Atlantis Myth
Photo credit: 9591353082/Wikimedia
We all know the myth of Atlantis: a utopian city wiped out in a single night thanks to an unearthly cataclysm. But Atlantis is only the most famous of mythical lost cities. Near-identical stories crop up with such regularity that it’s tempting to think they must be somehow related.
Take Iram (also known as Ubar). A fabled city in the deserts of modern Saudi Arabia, Iram is said to have been wiped out in a single night when Allah buried it under a flood of sand. In other words, it’s the Atlantis myth translated to a world without water. Then you have Ys off the coast of France, which was supposedly flooded around the 5th century by a mythical warrior king. And that’s before we get onto the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Hindu myth of Tripura, which both involve gods wiping out immoral cities in a rain of fire.
In short, the idea of a city obliterated overnight is so powerful it seems to show up everywhere. Are these half-remembered tragedies with some basis in fact (like Pompeii) or just stories that play to the apocalyptic fantasist in all of us? We’ll leave it to you to decide.
Last Ice age was around 12,000 to 10,000 BCE . But when did the flood occur , No Clue . It can be around the same period or may be around the time when Dwaraka was submerged .
