Where Is The Garden Of Eden In Africa

Copied from the Book; "Reality as Myth" by Onyeji Nnaji

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The major problem towards deciphering the original place of Eden is that the research has been guided with interest. Everybody wants his homeland to be reckoned as the birth place of mankind any possible proof of the location having ancient standing notwithstanding. that was the circumstance that hid the origin of Egypt from researchers for so long. In the paper, "The Peopling of Ancient Egypt", published in General History of Africa Studies and Documents 1 , Jean Vercoutter identified this problem as follow:

The problem of the population of ancient Egypt is one of the most complex problems of all. It has been, and is still, clouded and obscured by 'sentimental ',or at least irrational attitudes . To solve it, we must go back to the original sources, which have been subjected to so much 'interpretation', not to say distortion (usually unconscious), that they now need to be brought together and studied afresh (P. 15).

The position of Euphrates, for example, is still shaky for two reasons. One, the Bible did not state its position like the previous rivers mentioned. Secondly, all the rivers lost their ancient names to the flood of old, but Euphrates did not. This made it skeptical in a way. It makes one to think that the name may have been suggested by the ancient Sumerian society who may have had the knowledge of one of the rivers bearing the name, Euphrates. Of course, as we have noted below, Euphrates was not the original name. The indigenous members of the Euphrates called the river a different name, while in the entire history of the Israelite the river was called Euphrates. The original name of the Euphrates is Firat . We need comments on your observations; probably disputing the authenticity of this research work with provable reasons.

Highlights:
* Overall conception of Eden.
* Where is Pishion? Where is Gihon?
* Where is Eden?
* Pishion, Gihon and Hiddekel found.

Now, before embarking on this herculean task, I would like you to hold to the following facts:

(i)The great river of Eden flowed out of Eden; it may not have originated from the garden.

(ii)Eden was not actually in the east; it was in the eastward.

(iii)The river of Eden did not spring from a lake; it flowed from a spring.

(iv)The river did not split in Eden; it split on its way out of Eden.

The greatest mystery that had overtaken the human race over the deciphering of the original version of their history had been necessitated by the writing of Moses about the rivers that flowed from Eden. The Eden itself had forever remained a mirage to the sight of man. Expectation of the entire world is that the Garden of Eden is located somewhere in Mesopotamia, in the Middle East. The reason was simply because of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers found in the area. But this idea is contrary to the explanation of the positions of the rivers in the Bible. We shall get the truth about ll thee in progress.The concerned land is now the eastern part of Iraq which borders with Iran. It was the land of ancient Babylon back in the Bible days. Could the Garden of Eden have been located in the land of Babylon? Of course not. The Bible says that it was located eastward in the land of Eden.

There has never been one bit of data, or one shred of evidence, that the Garden of Eden was in Mesopotamia. It is obvious that this idea has merely been assumed because the river Euphrates is given in Genesis 2:14. But that river could have been named after the original Euphrates River. Has anyone thought of that? Do we still remember that the Biblical Euphrates was not associated with the Arabian peninsula? It is written in history that the civilization of the West began in Mesopotamia in what is now known as the Fertile Crescent. And since the Euphrates River is there, then all have assumed that the Garden of Eden was also located there. But this was only an assumption. Therefore, in this attempt to find the location of the ancient site of the Garden of Eden, one is asked to lay aside any preconceived assumptions.

It would be a worthwhile study for us to realize the origin of our thoughts and memories from childhood. Originally, our mental pictures of the Garden of Eden give us the view of a little flower garden with a little brook rambling through it. This is the first thing they taught us in the first grade of school and from Sunday schools of our churches. But it is not what the Bible says. The Genesis account reveals that it was a groove of trees beyond the confluence of four great rivers. This is where the problem that affects our understanding of the history story began. We and our teachers the same are lost to the ignorance of the real understanding of the clear picture painted by Moses about the beginning of man. We were taught that the confluence of the rivers emanated from the garden instead of the other way round. We must try to realize that much of our understanding of Biblical subjects has come from pictures of artists and not from the actual reality. To understand those pictures we had wallowed far long with, there is need to revisit the same book of Genesis.

There is a staring situation in South Africa which appears to prove that the Eden rivers have been found in southern Africa. A river flows from the Indian Ocean and suddenly tore its waters into Four different rivers.

Mzimvubu River or Umzimvubu River is one of the most important rivers in SouthAfrica .It is located in the Eastern Cape Province . The Mzimvubu River divides Pondoland into an Eastern and Western Pondoland.Formerly the river mouth was used as a harbor following the arrival of Portuguese ship 'Nossa Senhora de Belem' at the mouth of the river in 1635. This activity was abandoned in the 1940s when the estuary became too shallow for large vessels owing to siltation and the fact that the entrance is sometimes obstructed by sand. Presently the estuary of the river is navigable only for small craft for about 10 km upriver.

The main tributaries of the Mzimvubu River is the major concern for every possible cartographical rating. Mzimvubu River has four distinct rivers flowing from it; and but for topographical reasons, these tributaries gave Mzimvubu River the fitness for the lost river of Eden. The tributaries of Mzimvubu River are the Tsitsa River, the Thina River (Tina), the Kinira River and the Mzintlava River.

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The course of Mzimvubu river is one major factor that disqualifies it of this ancient reckoning. The river has its source in the northern region of the Eastern Cape, in the area of Matatiele and Mount Fletcher near the Lesotho border. The Mzimvubu flows with twists and turns generally in a southeastern direction and flows into the Indian Ocean through an impressive gorge known as the "Gates of St John" into an estuary located at Port St. Johns. It is approximately 400 km long with a catchment area of 19,853 km². Although it is one of South Africa's major rivers, the Mzimvubu and its basin are largely undeveloped. Presently this river is part of the Mzimvubu to Keiskamma Water Management Area.

Now, return to the Bible record as Moses put it; the Mzimvubu River was not and still is not a spring. Mzimvubu River sources its waters from oceanic water. The river capable of holding/sustaining the history of Eden must have its source from a spring; not an ocean or a lake.

The quest for the possible position of the Eden of old had led to the attempts to identify the waters which Moses noted were flowing from it. The need for this discovering was that it might open the door towards particularizing the place of the old Eden.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden ; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel : that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates (Gen 2:10-14).

We can identify four rivers as Moses noted above: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. What we did not know from the explanation above is the name of the original river from where the great water flowed. The first river was Pison which flows through the land of Havilah. We were told that the third river is Hiddekel, and the fourth river is Euphrate. All these rivers are found, according to assumptions; not according to Moses , around the region of Assyria. Moses remarked that only one of the rivers, particularly Hiddekel, went toward Assyria. If Hiddekel is what researchers call Euphrates today, then the message is mistaken since the inhabitants of area has another name for the same river.

Sites observations of the places of these rivers created a little demographic problem. From Lake Kgwait (in the Persian Gulf), by the side of Elam, in the southern part of Mesopotamia (the ancient Sumer), the river later named Euphrates moved alongside Tigris. They passed through Akkad to dominate the land of the Assyria. Euphrates went the far North, to Taurus and splits at Urartu. This throws a big surprise on the condition of the rivers which contradicts the description of Eden waters and their splitting. Looking at the pictures shown under page, the river claimed to be Pishon stood completely out of sight from the other two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris. On the contrary, instead of Pishon emanating from the same source with Euphrates as the Bible explained, we find another river with the name, Tigris. Some historians had suggested that Pishon sourced its water from the Caspian Sea. People belonging to this school of thought created a map to defend their points.

The map shows how Pishon watered the whole land of the Havilah, still within the same setting even when the claimed land does nothave the resources that Havilah was marked for in the Bible. This condition also added to the ordeal in deciphering the real point of Eden. This jaundice nature of the rivers and the later development which under-paged discussions uncover makes it probable, if not completely true, that Eden was never in any other part of the world but in the east; the plane inhabited by Africa presently.

(i) Where is Pishon? Where is Gihon?

The complication experienced in trying to define the positions of Pishon and Gihon gave rise to different suggestions by researchers. Relatively, we may say that Euphrates had been found, following the directions which the Bible recorded for it. It was difficult to say much about Gihon because there is no present route that suggests any possible trace to the part of the African nation pointed out by the Bible; Ethiopia. Dr. Spenser, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania made the following assertion, "There is no basis for the detouring of the Gihon to Ethiopia, not to mention the Pishon in various remote regions of the world."

Spenser sees Africa with the same European eyes as a place where nothing good should be reckoned with. To conclude that creation as natural as a river recording African presence should be a taboo is too ambiguous and inhuman. If a river should not flow through Africa because such a river has historical relevance to the human existence, what will be the position of Europe if the table should revolve once again to reveal that Europe, as large as it is a continent, originated from such a remote region like Africa (as Dr. Spenser called her)? Perhaps, Europe will sink inside the ocean, for as Dr. Spenser had painted Africa, nothing good should be associated with her. Assertions like that of Spenser should serve as a pointer to researchers that Ethiopia being reckoned with in the creation account is not completely welcomed, perhaps by western historian. If this suggestion is refuted or confuted by anyone, then such a person will have to consider the suggestions of Rudolph R. Windsor in his best seller book about the place of Pishon and Gihon as discussed below.

In line with the conclusion of Dr. Spenser above, Rudolph R. Windsor¹ made the following assertion:

I agree with Dr. Spenser that we should not search for the Gihon in Africa, nor the Pishon in the remote area of the earth; but that we should search for the Pishon and Gihon in the Tigris-Euphrates valley.

To conclude on the complete subtraction of the African continent from the issues connected with the historical Gihon, Rudolph remarks thus:

There were two Ethiopian nations in the ancient times (eastern Ethiopia and western Ethiopia). There was an Ethiopian civilization in southern Mesopotamia (Babylon), but the people in that area did not use their tribal name, Ethiopia, to designate their nationality. They called themselves by the name of the city they have constructed and inhabited, or they called themselves by the event that happened there,... this is why the Ethiopian tribes called themselves Babylonians, referring to the name to the name of the city they constructed

History has never recorded anywhere that there were two Ethiopian nations in the time of old. We have sought to get information of this sort in the oral tradition of the Ethiopians and found none. What was found was a rather patchy explanation by Professor Dorsey, recounting the historical observation of Herodotus. But there is no clear indication that the Negroes mentioned by Dorsey refer to Ethiopia in particular. Dorsey noted thus:

Wherever the Indian Ocean touches land it finds dark-skinned people with strong developed jaws, relatively long arms, and kinky or frizzly hair. Call that the Indian Ocean, or Negroid division of the human race. ²

What the excerpt above reveals instead is the obvious fact about the earliest presence of Black in America. It has nothing to show that those Africans were Ethiopians as J.A. Rogers appears to claim in his work The Real Fact about Ethiopia. Of course, if the history of the Arinya (the African population who entered Amerca before the ancient Dravidians, India) is considered, the credit of founding the early India communities would rather go to the African population in the west other than Ethiopia in the north. The recent study carried out by Nnaji on the similarity of the language of the ancient Dravidian, India and that of the language spoken in West Africa, published in the Nnamdi Azukiwe University Linguistic Journals in 2016, proved to us that it was possible that the earliest population of the present day India had come from west Africa.

No aspect of the Ethiopian oral tradition mentioned that there were two types of Ethiopian nations. We have, of course, instances of migrations across the continental boarders which were necessitated by trades and the needs to civilize other nations. The aspect which Ethiopia had held tenaciously to is the fact that certain population probably had migrated from the ancient Sumer civilization. This gave them the name Cush. On the contrary, this population concerned was not the first to settle in the land. The history of Ethiopia discussed in the later chapters makes this aspect of her history clearer when it pointed out that the oldest settlers in Ethiopia are the people who live in the Afar region. The tribe is called Kambaata. The migration of the Cushites cannot be concluded as another form of Ethiopian nation for the Cushites were never in the region of African continent in the first millennium from creation. And according to J.A. Rogers, the Cushites migration took effect around 6280 BC , several centuries after the Afar region settlers had actually settled.

It is clear here that there is just one place known by the name Ethiopia, according to the Greek historians. Ethiopia was referred to mainly because it was the part of Africa that first encountered western relationship, probably via trade. Egypt came in contact with this foreign relationship through the same means; trade. The region was termed Africa by early western historians. The same notion guided the analysts of the believed rivers of Eden. Therefore, because Ethiopia is located in Africa and there is no other substitute for the name, the best way western hegemonic historians could tell their story was either by removing Ethiopia in the involvement of the river of creation or to suggest the possibility of another Ethiopia elsewhere among whom the matters of the missing river could be associated with. It may please you to read the account of the four rivers of Eden in the work of Michell Ehamilton as quoted below.

The lost PISHON River may have flowed down what today is the gulf of Aden south of present day Yemen (Southern tip of Arabia). Yemen has both gold and Onyx and the eastern trending fault branch from the Afar triangle would have been a natural riverbed in the days prior to Noah's flood (when sea levels were lower that today). All four of these rivers have one thing in common: All are connected to the great rift system. And that is the key to the mystery. Two rivers presently originate out of Turkey to the north and two other fossil rivers flowed south of Israel.

The geographical "centre" of these four points of flow is neither Turkey nor Kuwait; the centre is somewhere near present day Israel and Jordan.

To authenticate his claim, he maintained that Gihon had emanated from these rivers. He then sampled a map that showed the claimed Gihon flowing through the Red Sea and cut into the African continent to locate the Afar region. But he was still found in a very big confused state of mind since the set off point of the rivers remains the Arabian Peninsula. The map is shown below.

Could this be a caricature explanation of the scriptural rivers or mere suggestions of the picture in his mind? How could this claim defend the fact that Eden was not a lake and that the great water was a spring coming out of the endued vegetative Eden? In the later part of Michell Ehamilton's work, he appears to toe the same line of discrepancy with Richard Dawkins who explained the Eden rivers as digital ideas that bother on live and procreation. The fertility of the Garden was likened to the fertility of women through which a river of life flows in the manner of a child. How truth as this may be, it still has some air of skepticism in it since it was clear that the Bible mentioned river as the source of water supply other than as a spring of life.

In the eleventh century before our time, Rashi, one of the eleventh century commentators of the Bible, said that Gihon is the Nile River that bows through eastern Africa. There is however certain element of truth in this, except that the Nile has a different source for its water. The Nile River runs through Ethiopia and submits its strength to the Mediterranean see. We can see the map below.

From this map it is very clear that there is no direct relationship between the Nile and the rivers in the other continent, west of Egyptian land. Can this solve the problem of the western claims of Ethiopia originating from the Arab world and through which defence it may be argued that Africa originated from Cush? The discussions under-page will disclose issues concerning this to us as we proceed. Diop Anta made the following expressions to show his position to this view.

The arguments advanced to defend the theory that Black Africa was settled from Oceania by way of the Indian Ocean are without foundation. No fact, archaeological or otherwise, authorizes us at present to seek the Negro's original habitat outside of Africa. West African legends report that Blacks migrated from the east, from the region of the Great Water (Civilization 179).

This assertion directly opposes the suggestion of William Chappell who claimed that he had found the Garden of Eden in India. If the assertion of Diop Anta above is taken, then we nullify all the suggestions of western historians shown above and many others which we insist not to cite here because of their irrelevance to the true story of the subject matter. We of course have not concluded right here that the Nile River is Gihon or Pishon until we have concluded our samplings about River analysis. Before we draw conclusion on the position Nile and other rivers, we have to put certain information to test. Our test of the rivers shall include their positions and the paths they trace, their original names, their sources and how long they may have lasted. Also to be considered is the position of the Garden, Eden, and the time when Moses had written the Genesis. All these shall be discussed in the caption below.

(ii) Where Is Eden

If one visits www.express.co.uk on this same topic, he will get the worst idea about the place and existence of Eden. The Archaeologist, Jodi Magness, revealed during Morgan Freeman's documentary that, "The Story of God", how a discovery in a church in Jerusalem led her to believe she has the answer to the location of garden of Eden. According to her, " The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is located in the Old City and is believed to be the site where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and later resurrected – in a place known as "Calvary", or "Golgotha". Dr Magness associated this to the apparent burial place for Adam. Image of the temple grave is shown below.

Crack in the wall

You will discover Dr. Magness' confusion when Morgan asked her what her feelings about the biblical Garden of Eden is like. She answered that she believes the biblical Eden was "a metaphor".

The name Eden had never appeared in the lexicon of any nation in the world, neither have the mineral condition found in the various areas of land where the four rivers passed through been found concentrated within any particular nation. On the most contrary, Moses pointed out two nations in particular: Ethiopia first, then Assyria. Gihon was identified with Ethiopia, while Hiddekel was identified with Assyria. These are the problems. Had Moses been undiscriminating enough, he would have given account of the position of the one common source of all the rivers other than the never-found Eden. All we found in the passage is the position the rivers traced, not the name of the land where they took off. Of course, we cannot conclude that the rivers flowed from the Arabian Peninsula nor Ethiopian nation simply because the rivers rather founded them. The rivers located these areas, it does not mean that the rivers sprung from the areas.

In our search, we could only identify two places with the name "Ediene" and "Aden" in Nigeria and Yemen respectively. The trouble with assigning ancient meaning to these areas is very difficult because the location proved unhistorical for the legendary location which the biblical Eden suggests. The former is located at the coastal corners the Atlantic, while the latter is at the position of the horn of Africa; by Ethiopia plane. We should understand this fact; Eden is by the biblical description a city that embodies the garden which is "of Eden". We know for sure that if Eden was in any of the lands of the Chaldean, Moses would have mentioned the name of the place. But the rivers had come from a distant land known to early cartographers as the east. Moses did not know the place, for he only had read that the world of the human population began in the east.

What is very important now is to know the east. According to Moses, he said that the lord God planted a garden in the east. We know that the region of the Euphrates is in the Middle East. From the maps above, Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia all lie on the eastern part of the Assyrian land. In other words, Africa may be termed east to the Arabian Peninsula. Where then is the east? Nnaji made the following remark.

From every country that sees the sun daily, the direction of that country from where the presence of the sun is identified is usually termed the east. In this manner, the east is peculiar with countries. The position of east to one country may differ from another country due to their different positions. But, above all, there must be a country that is more eastern than others. The people occupying that very point, east, are believed to be occupying the eastern part of heaven from where the sun rises (Reminiscence, 121).

Yes, "there must be a country that is more eastern than others". Nnaji's view was true; we found this evidence proven by Mungo Park in his journey on the coast of the Niger River. When he found the great Niger River, he said,

The circumstance of the Niger's flowing towards the east did not excite my surprise, for although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, I had received from the negroes clear assurances that its general course was towards the rising sun (Travels, 162).

Through Park's statement, Nnaji intoned thus:

Following this, we may conclude that the east is the Igbo land in Nigeria, not in Egypt or any of the countries within Egyptian boundaries. This was the reason the whole country of the Assyrians including Iraq and her neighbour; all the inhabitants of the alluvia soil of the Euphrate and Nile Valley are collectively referred to as Middle East. It may be restated as Near East. They cannot be called the East because the sun rises beyond their region (Reminiscence, 124).

To still ascertain the position of what Nnaji called the proper east, the book employed the DStv UK pan to find the location of sunrise. You cantake this practical in your own part of the world to find your eastern region. At any point one wants to install a DStv, the pan faces the east. Profetionals had revealed that except it is made to face the east, it will not give signals. In West Africa, Igbo land is located in Nigeria, where it is located at the centre of the Niger River, North central and the entire south-south. From any of these points, the antenna faces the inner Igbo land. Within the Igbo communities, all the antennas in Imo State, Abia State, Anambra State down to Enugu and the entire Nsukka area focus towards Abakaliki.

Quite enigmatic, apart from all the states mentioned, looking at the Nigeria map shown above, it is apparent that Benue and Cross-River are bounded behind Abakaliki; thereby pinning it to the centre, yet the antennas of these areas face Abakaliki. By this observation, it is apparent that the eastern part of the east is Abakaliki area, according to Nnaji's observations.

From the explanations above, it is clear that the eastern horizon, in Africa (the point from where the sun rises) is in the western part of Africa; not in the north. Therefore, Garden of Eden must have been in West Africa; possibly in Nigeria. Several evidences support this idea:

(ii) Moses said that when Cain left the presence of God, he traveled to the land of Nod, "East of Eden"(Gen 4:16-17). Here in the Igbo land,Nigeria remains an ancient city known by the name, Nodo (in Abakaliki).

(iii) Apart from the Jews, only the Igbo have in their oral tradition and myth of creation the recognition of the created man with the name Adama (See Reminiscence Chapter two). Igbo myth also reveals issues connected to the fall of Adama which changed his name to Adam, meaning "I have fallen" in the Igbo language (see also Jewish Cabbala, P. 121).

(iv) Moses reveals a group of people called "The sons of God" in Genesis chapter six, a people he explained succinctly as existing prior or at least at the time of Adam; a people that descended from the sky. The Igbo and the Yoruba oral tradition in Nigeria said the same thing. And in being of ancient, the Yoruba have it that the Igbo father was their elder Brother. They all inhabited the east before the way of the gods which separated the Yoruba fathers (see Reminiscence chapter three and Euba, 1990).

(v) The position of sunrise is neither in Abydos, Israel nor Assyria. It is in West Africa, Nigeria.

There are several other evidences as revealed in the book, Reminiscence which meet the features of the earliest days of man before the deluge. It was the deluge that contorted every possible knowledge of Eden since there is no particular water that can give the world a clear picture of the great water as the Bible has eluded. If Nile is the Gihon which flowed through Ethiopia, where have the river sourced its water? Or did Nile have another name different from what it is called today? No information has been found anywhere to prove this. For at the time when Moses wrote, Nile was already in existence. He ought to have mentioned that the river that flowed through Ethiopia was the Nile. Another important thing researchers of these rivers should know is that Moses did not say that the river, Gihon passed through Egypt and Nubia before locating Ethiopia where it encompassed the whole land.

The river concerned, Gihon, must have taken a different direction from the northern part of Africa. Again, from the account of the peopling of the inhabitants of the Nile; ranging from Ethiopia to Egypt as are discussed in the later chapters, it is made clear that Ethiopia, Nubia, and then Egypt was founded respectively in different time. And since the founders were in search of water, it was possible that they may have followed an old channel of a river now in oblivion. The direction of this river channel, now in oblivion, is traced to West Africa. Should it be Niger? We are yet to know.

What we have tried to ascertain is the name of the Niger in the ancient time. This would provide us with the pointer to pinpoint the very great water of old. The Igbo, for instance, call the Niger Oshimiri or Orimiri. This means great water that has the capacity to swallow other waters and give existence to none existing channels. These dual references to Oshimiri reveals its role as Great Water which serves as a source to other waters and a collection site for subsidiary waters whether in the forms of tributary or in confluence. According to the Igbo, Oshimiri does not have an end. It continues endlessly in the common role of supplying water everywhere it found land. Coming from the name in connection to its roles, Oshimiri is a word of two syllables Oshi/Ori and Miri. The first set of syllables is the border of the function of the Niger. It means stealing, at one side and provider on the other side. The first is concerned with its tributaries and confluence, while the second sees the river as she who leaks its content to others. By this view about the Niger, we can see it as Great Water through which other rivers had sourced their waters. The Igbo are not alone in this view. The research work carried out on rivers published in the Academic for Future Science proves the Igbo correct about the Niger.

In 1986, James J. Hurtak, Ph.D. presented a paper bothering on river situations and their ancient conditions. The paper says that,

The present Nile system runs along Egyptwith its tributaries of the blue Nile and the white Nile , then over the crystalline rocks of the Red Sea Hills, the upper Arabian shield which is a zone of sea-floor spreading. This spreading began in the late Neocene -- about 40 million years ago. In terms of the overall geomorphological picture this is a very important element, since it would indicate that this is a relatively active area. In addition near the border of the present Nile system there are various volcanic centers such as the Amhara Triangle in Ethiopia and the Tibesti Mountains in Chad. These are late Tertiary volcanic constructs which began with doming, followed by volcanism, sedimentation and the like.

Dr.Hurtak demonstrated the position of the present Nile and its route. He refers to it as thepresentNile because our knowledge of the river is dependent on the present state of it. We have not taken any consideration to what could be the state of the same river in the former time. The position of the former Nile, its source as well as the source of the other rivers of old is suggested to have been the"Radar River"; a river lost to the sand of time.

One of the purposes for this characteristic research was to demonstrate why the basin and valleys showed on radar such a great contrast from the surrounding terrain. The research revealed great alluvial valleys that at one time carried large amounts of water, braided stream complexes and carved bedrock control channels. What Ron Blom and colleagues encountered in the cause of their research was discovered to be "radar river" systems. And on the south shore of one of the valleys out of this fluvial environment came a collection of early stone‑age artifacts, suggesting that Homo Erectus (early man) produced hand-axes about 250,000 years ago.

Direct on-site investigations further demonstrated the reality of these fluvial sediments, showing that they are not simply an anomaly of the radar imaging system. A large series of trenches, 2 to 3 meters deep and 10 meters wide were constructed. In the walls of these trenches, sand sheet was found on top with other loose material -- and beneath petrogenesized older sand sheet (brick-like in character), was an aeolian nonconformity covering an alluvial sequence. There was found all the earmarks of deposition in a fluvial environment. For instance, in the deposits were gathered examples of fresh‑watered mollusks, one of which is a "biofulariaflyferide" which is a species that can live only in stony fresh-water environments, along the banks of fresh‑water streams supporting vegetation.

Researchers at the site have brought up to the surface several hundred meters of geological strata from below. They also incorporated in their findings the seismic work done by German engineers that showed a large difference in velocities (between 350 to 800 feet per second in the upper unconsolidated and 1100 to 1500 feet in the consolidated below). The bedrock stretches from 4500 to 5600 seismic velocities -- thereby showing density effects velocity providing the bedrock is of different density.

The geological samples gave remarkable cross-sectional evidence of a fill area changing somewhere between the Tertiary and Pleistocene epoch when aridity began to set into the Sahara about 2 million years ago. The streams changed from earlier cycles of humid environmental characteristics, from tropical conditions in the Neocene and the Oligocene to the later Miocene and eventually to the semi-arid conditions beginning probably in the Pliocene end of the Tertiary period. Fluvial activity may have continued into the Quaternary period which is known to have a number of fluvial periods, theorized by some to have taken place: 8,000, 50,000, and a major fluvial period 300,000 years ago. Each fluvial activity appears to correspond to a major period of human occupation in the area.Dr.Hurtak related that,

Evidences gathered from regional considerations, from a series of excavations in the Wadis that were explored and some of the larger alluvial valleys were sufficient to create a model of what one of these "Radar Rivers" looked like. The major sources used to create the model were from the geophysical information pertaining to the depth of the various strata, the alluvial sequences and information from the velocities of the various strata supplied by the General Petroleum Company (of Egypt) seismic team. Researchers, Ron Blom and colleagues, have deduced that at some early Tertiary period of earth's history the environment in this region was humid, with massive streams flowing throughout southern Egypt at a period even before the course of the Nile River as we know it today.

From the discussion above, it is clear that the former course of the Nile traced its route from a different position than the present Lake Victoria. At that time, the great water was the chief source of water, supplying water to the rivers mentioned in the Genesis. The direction of the radar water was traced to West Africa, beyond the Chard Basin. These channels were disrupted and contorted by the heavy downpour of the Noah flood. And due to the extent the flood lasted (over a year), the bank of the Great Water was intentionally covered with sand according the desire of God who would want it to be concealed. What we rather have at the end of the flood were large oceanic waters as seas and eruptions in different parts of the world which are today called Lakes. Lakes became the sources of water flowing outward added to Oceans which also remain as collection points for the waters of different rivers. There are still springs in many parts of the world, greater of which are mysterious at their point of beginning. Lake cannot be the source of the Great Water identified here as the Radar Water; the ancient water flowed from a spring inside the vegetative Eden, even before the creation of Adam. The humid nature of the radar areas revealed the suspected channel of the Radar Water. In the suggestion of Dr. Hurtak, by the end of the Noah flood, the normal channel of the water was beheaded by the Nile. And from findings, it was apparent that an aspect of the radar water went southward of the continent Africa.

A view of Northern Africa in mid-Tertiary times -- some 25-30 million years ago - according to this research would show a much greater trans-African drainage system. This drainage system could easily account for the vastness of the delta system – a river system – which spanned from east Africa to Nigeria , later beheaded by the Nile growing southward .

What Dr. Hurtak was looking at is the Niger. The Niger had remained as the confused river for the Radar River, maybe because it was found with the largest delta among the rivers on earth. This idea explains the earlier assertion better, that the Igbo make reference to the Niger as a Great water, mimicking the original state of the ancient water that was lost to the sand of history. The Great Water wasOshimiri(the Cook of waters, the Spiller of waters); the Niger was found in this light by the Igbo who used it in reference to the Radar Water. With this discovering we can determine the position of the four rivers connected to the Great Water of Eden.

About the position or location of the community/city that housed the Garden, the finding of Dr. Hurtak will be very helpful. I am aware that Hurtak never held from Africa, nor was he from west Africa to have stated the truism in his findings to favour that part of the planet. Plato had said things similar to the conclusion of Dr. Hurtak here. Plato spoke of a civilization lost to the sand of time. This he called Island of Atlantis. Though treated like a fable and riddled with such fancies that appear to favour Western setting, it was clear from The Complete Works of Plato , compiled by Dr Mohamed Elwany, " The whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic " (P. 2823). Considering the vast size of the delta of the Niger River, as remarked by Dr. Hurtak, the Atlantic Ocean has to account for the position of the city, Eden and her attached garden. From our conclusion here, since all the four rivers traced by Hurtak in their drainage states were discovered to have been beheaded by the Atlantic ocean towards the direction of the Niger delta, it is apparent that Garden of Eden was sunk into the Atlantic ocean.

(iii)Pishon, Gihon and Hiddekel Found!

We have noted above that the back of the days of historical time had been riddled by nomenclature, especially when the rivers of the Great Water are called to minds. This could be defended logically. The Assyrian Euphrates , for instance, was calledFirat by the inhabitant of the area it exists. It was possible that Niger and Nile may have had other names before their current states. From the Radar rating, the source of Nile was Burundi but presently the source is Lake Victoria . On the other hand, should Niger be named thus because it flowed through Niger instead of its sourced spring in Guinea? Prim minds could ask such a question. Should the name of the Nile be found in its original state, it would be Gihon since the research targeted at locating the direction of the Radar River could identify a different drainage apart from that of the Nile-Victorian plane. For Burundi to be the source of the old Nile, it is apparent that Burundi was rather a route of the suspected Gihon from the heart of Africa. All this reveals an upside-down turn of the channel ladder which favours the intention to elude the place of the destroyed Eden to mankind.

The large amount of the Niger Delta above every other river on earth could be taken as the interrupting point of the Great Water from the eastern horizon by the Atlantic Ocean. The oceanic Delta could have been a borderline of confluence from where the rivers had taken their different positions and followed the channels they found to the various points mentioned by Moses. The extent of the Niger Delta is estimated in the table below alongside other large rivers.

TABLE 1: Comparison of World's Largest River Systems with the Trans-Africa (Trans-A) Radar River

NAME	LENGTH (Miles)	SIZE OF DRAINAGE	AVERAGE FLOW (Cubic Feet)	SOURCE
TRANS-A	3,000	3,255,000	750,000,000	E. Africa
NILE	4,160	1,10,0000	100,000	Burundi
AMAZON	3,920	2,270,000	6,100,000	Andes
YANGTZE	3,900	698,500	1,000,000	Tangulla
MISSISSIPPI	3,870	1,247,000	640,000	Minn. USA
NIGER	2,600	850,000	215,000	Guinea

Dr. Hurtak made the remark below.

In fact, Africa and South America separated in the late Tertiary Period when the South Atlantic opened. If one entertains the size of the Niger Delta, the largest delta in the world, the Benue system, the Mandara system, and interfaces these with its counterpart where the vast complex of Amazonian waterways connect with the Atlantic estuary, an enormous parallel of a drainage complex emerges.

This answers the question of the position of Eden. Atlantic is in the eastward, within that same axis also should Eden be found. But as legends had written, God sank the legendary city – even the Garden, Eden – into the Atlantic. Now, let us return to the Genesis to re-examine Moses' words. And the LORD God planted a garden EASTWARD in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

And A RIVER went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates (Gen 2:8-14).

The garden in Eden was planted eastward. Eastward simply means the eastern side, it could also be referred to as the east, but not in the core east. From the Great River; the first river splits and it was called Pision. Pision cannot be traced today as a river; it fell in the group eluded by the sand of the ancient flood. The land of Havilah has been given several faulty interpretations. Some maps suggest that Havilah is found closer to Caspian Sea, west of the land around Zagros Mountains. The error in this claim is that this part of the land does not have gold and Onyx stones together. Another map suggests the valley that contains Lybia, Moroco and the border of southern Egypt. These are not the land of the Havilah. A recent documentary made by Gaines R. Johnson claimed that, There is a recently discovered "Fossil River" that runs from the western mountains of Saudi Arabia towards Kuwait. This old river course is now nothing more than a dry riverbed. It's old path was detected by satellite imaging. Many have speculated that this may be the ancient Pison, as it has been dry since about 3,500 to 2,000 BC. Although Saudi Arabia could marginally qualify for the land of Havilah, the fossil riverbed that flows across it had its origins in the mountains bordering the eastern side of the present day Red Sea, south of Israel ( www.kjvbible.org). Also, a recent comment on this post referred the present Philippine to the land of Havilah.

From the position of the Rader Rivers, there was an indication of a lost river that traced the part to the southern part of Africa. This part of the continent was recorded with the presence of humans in the early time.

What Ron Blom and colleagues encountered, came to be called " radar river " systems. And on the south shore of one of the valleys out of this fluvial environment came a collection of early stone‑age artifacts, suggesting that Homo Erectus (early man) produced hand-axes about 250,000 years ago.

Diop Anta, a renowned historian from Egypt, made a remark on"the archaeology of South Africa," showing "where humanity seems to have been born". It is in the south that one of the best quality gold is found. Not only that; South Africa has Onyx factory because of the concentration of gold and other numerous precious stone which may include onyx and bdellium etc. in the country. Havilah referring to a place of such quality; it is in the Southern part of Africa. Thence was the river Pison which today is lost to the sand of time.

Thinking of the second river, the mentioning of Ethiopia settles the matter. Gihon, which today is considered as the Nile, was one of the longest rivers in its distance. The reason for this long distance was due to its diagonal movement. It sets off from the Great Water and moved first toward the eastern part of Africa; it watered the land up till Burundi from where it sets out for the north. Gihon encompassed the Ethiopian land and moved toward the southern Egypt. After the flood, the original channel of the river closed up, giving ways for the upside-down turn of the flow. This time, Nile flows through the Mediterranean Sea from Lake Victoria.

Now, it is possible that Tigris and Euphrates could be the third and fourth rivers owing to their locations. Nevertheless, one may argue that Euphrates was not mentioned alongside the part of land it existed. This observation is true. But we need also to understand that Moses did not say that the confluence of the rivers markedfourat the very spot. In that case, it is possible that Euphrates splits from Hiddekel. Since all the rivers did not separate at the same point, the tendency is there that some of the rivers may have given birth to another in the cause of their journey. That is the condition we believe that Euphrates may have sprung.

The beauty of the discovering of the Radar Rivers and their channels is that it disproves the western hegemonic claim of the Euphrates valley being the position of the birth of the great river, all the points that opposed their claims notwithstanding. Even God himself was very perfect in His creation by placing them in their positions, hierarchically, according to their birth. The first river that flowed located the Havilah land where there are good quality gold, bdellium and fine onyx stones. Pison was the oldest of the rivers and it flowed through the land of the southern Africa. The second river flowed northward to Ethiopia. It was when Africa had been overtaken by virtue of her proximity to the Great Water that other parts of the world began to encounter the remaining river; remarkable with Hiddekel. The position of Euphrates is still shaky for two reasons. One, the Bible did not state its position like the previous rivers mentioned. Secondly, all the rivers lost their ancient names to the flood of old, but Euphrates did not. This made it skeptical in a way. It makes one to think that the name may have been suggested by the ancient Sumerian society who may have had the knowledge of one of the rivers bearing the name, Euphrates. Of course, as we have noted earlier, Euphrates was not the original name. The indigenous members of the Euphrates called the river a different name, while in the entire history of the Israelite the river was called Euphrates. The original name of the Euphrates is Firat .

Our conclusion here is that, if the position of the Radar Water and the discovered channels suspected as the route to of the various rivers is the original position, then the Great Water must have sprung from Africa, and it is the present Niger River. Every research about the human evolution had pointed towards West Africa as the original home of man in the time of the beginning. Succeeding chapters will disclose all these to us.