Remember that with Noah there were his three sons and their wives; Japeth, Ham (who had married a daughter of Cain), and Shem. Because Japheth lost his inheritance and Ham could not pass on the Priesthood to his children the inheritance of religious leadership passed instead to Shem. They descended the mountain that the ark landed on and settled first in what is likely Media (northwestern Iran) and from there into the world. Ham and Egyptus's decedents settled Shinar (southern Mesopotamia and down eventually to the Nile) including Canaan (Palestine) named after one of his sons, yes, Canaan. Shem and his children stayed "closer" to home in Persia. Japheth and his children divided the "isles of the gentiles". If you follow the breakdown of three physical genotypes of humans; African, European, and Asiatic then the African descended from Ham, the European from Shem, and the Asiatic from Japheth. The interesting part of this is that at this time Asia was a land of rivers, lakes, and seas (the word translated as "gentile" originally just meant "nation").
Noah brought with him the same pastoral society that I mentioned before. This culture grew eventually into what we remember as the Mongols during the height of their Empire under Chinggis Khan. The common culture was that of what is considered the Asiatic Steppes culture. Your family was your clan and all those that supported a leader was their "people". Not only were they nomadic but they developed wagons and used them to take anything and everything with them. There are recordings of wagons that had axles of 50 feet. Imagine something of that size. Houses could and would be built upon them to simply take them with them where ever they went. Water tight barrels could and did carry anything up to and including live fish. They also hunted as they went. Now hunting was not like what we think of as hunting where a few men go out into the wilds and shoot or stab whatever they can, true hunting back then was an activity that involved up to 1000 men. Rather then looking for game a shell shaped pen would be built and then the men would create a circle about it for miles in all directions and "beat" the game into the center. As the game entered the pens and were forced to the center the hunters could then pick and choose which they wished to harvest and which to let go. In this way enough meat could be harvested for a number of months for all involved in only one hunt. Specific areas of wilderness was set apart for just this practice just as there were places set aside to grow crops as they traveled about as necessary with the seasons.
The first to change this and bring cities back inspired by stories of the great cities that existed before the flood was Nimrod, Ham's grandson. He built Babel, was credited with the origination of the first nation in Mesopotamia, instituted taxes, and created slavery (or reinvented if you like). There are many theories as to why but all the ancient histories agree that he made himself great, placed a great burden on the people under him, enriched himself, and rebelled against the teachings of God. In Greece he was credited with founding Zoroastrianism, his own version of his grandfathers religion. It was he then that also started the building of Ziggurats, massive precursors to the Pyramids of Egypt that were so large they were compared to the mountains themselves. These mounts held religious centers at their peak and were centers of worship during Babylonian and Sumerian times. Some think that the Ziggurat of Etmenhanki was itself originally the tower of Babel (the original builders of Etmenhanki never completed it but rather it was found abandoned). Whatever the truth is people of all descents flocked to the work and riches of this the first "civilization".
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I hadn't realized how long it had been since I posted this. In my reading I have gotten to the time of Moses and it's a lot more complicated since the world population had grown so much. The more I read the less I believe in the population growth chart as it's applied to this time.
MIGRATION & RELIGION
The older records give the numbers of populations etc and it is not a slow growth that explodes exponentially in the last few centuries but rather a number of massive explosions in the population that is then culled by huge massive warfare that nearly wipes everyone out, then it starts over. The percentage dying in the wars in Asia alone is mind boggling. When someone in Asia went to war they would go out into the "wilderness" (area's unsettled so they could be used for hunting) and gather supporters to them until they had enough to make the core of an army and then they would go out and "sweep all before them" gathering up men, women, and children into their army killing those that didn't join. The opposing army would do the same thing and as a result at the end of their wars it was not uncommon to have killed 70% (or more) of the total population and that is not just the men that is EVERYONE.
Then there are the natural disasters of the times and their effect on migration. After the flood the world was still out of balance and it was a time of regular earthquakes accompanied by flows of magma, shifting river beds, dry or wet spells both of which would cause famines, and the reoccurring "great winds". These winds were (and at times still are, see 'shamal winds') so common in Asia Minor that they have found pre-AD evidence of wind machines in Persia used for grinding grains etc. When they are persistent and strong however they have been known to decimate entire area's as they effect everything including the sources of water, even the water table itself. Entire villages can be found to this day that were simply abandoned because it was impossible to grow crops and feed themselves or their herds (or breath unhindered), so they simply left. These winds have been credited with causing many of the constant migrations that are so common in early history.
It was such a wind that supposedly destroyed Babel. According to the early records "a great wind came up" and continued to blow so strongly that it literally drove the population out. If the location really was at Etmenhanki it would certainly explain why it wasn't finished until the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (c 634 – 562 BC) King of the new Babylonian Empire.
- "A former king built the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth, but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time earthquakes and lightning had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Marduk, the great lord, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site, nor did I take away the foundation stone as it had been in former times. So I founded it, I made it; as it had been in ancient days, I so exalted the summit." - Nebuchadnezzar II
With this scattering there was also a change in the world religion. Babylon had claimed to be the head of the true religion and source of Priesthood power, to have possession of the "Book of Life" that conferred authority by God on the one he had chosen to have it, and Nimrod claimed to be a priest-king in the manner of Enoch. With the destruction of Babylon this claim changed from Nimrod to the ruler of Egypt, a descendant of Ham (through one of his daughters) that claimed authority through his mothers. The Pharaoh at that time became the "head" of religion and would regularly travel around the world throughout Persia and the Mediterranean to be recognized as such. This gives credence to the Historians who theorize that the many "religions" at that time were actually just variations of one religion and the differences in the names of their gods merely the difference of their different languages or a reflection of different "facets" of their god.
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More on migration and the nations of the earth
"They descended the mountain that the ark landed on and settled first in what is likely Media (northwestern Iran) and from there into the world. Ham and Egyptus's decedents settled Shinar (southern Mesopotamia and down eventually to the Nile) including Canaan (Palestine) named after one of his sons, yes, Canaan. Shem and his children stayed "closer" to home in Persia. Japheth and his children divided the "isles of the gentiles". If you follow the breakdown of three physical genotypes of humans; African, European, and Asiatic then the African descended from Ham, the European from Shem, and the Asiatic from Japheth. The interesting part of this is that at this time Asia was a land of rivers, lakes, and seas (the word translated as "gentile" originally just meant "nation"). "
Since I have had some skepticism about the underlined above I have been doing a great deal of study on migration and have made some interesting discoveries. Yes, throw out the whole "African, European, and Asiatic" concept, it has no real bearing. Now for the facts as given in the old records. The middle kingdom was given to Shem. In other words the lands from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean all the way to India. Ham was given the lower kingdom, ie. everything south of the Arabian peninsula. Now what was confusing me was Japheth. Not only did Japheth and his children leave the priesthood governance of his father Noah they stayed nomadic in the beginning traveling among the "isles of the gentiles". Now I had learned already about their spread through the Asiatic steppes but it was impossible to believe that was the only place they spread to. Turns out that southern Europe was just as much a land of "rivers, lakes, and seas" as the steppes. So essentially they migrated where ever the water took them both east and west in the "north" which was quite literally the "isles of the gentiles".
So we have an announced inheritance of literally the North, middle, and South split among the three sons and their children but that isn't quite how it worked out. There are two things that foreshadow what was to happen; the first was the attempted theft by Ham of his father Noah's priesthood garb* and the second was the cursing of Canaan for the theft of land that had been given to Shem, the land of Canaan or "Palestine".
- *(Gensis 9:20-23 according to Rabbis translating in it's original writing the word translated as "nakedness" is actually "skin" and was the word used for the robe worn by early high priests. Hence Ham attempted to steal it and Shem and Japheth returned it.)
Eventually the decedents of Shem did own the land of Canaan and even spread both east and west throughout both sides of the Mediterranean and into what is now Southern China but not before the descendants of Ham attempted to become the head of both the religious and secular kingdoms of the world first through Nimrod (Babel) and then the Pharaohs of Egypt. In fact during the "world wide" rule of Egypt there was extensive exploration and trade through the building of ships and traversing of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean as well as the better known Mediterranean and eventually all the way up to Ireland. The religion begun by Nimrod was thus not only spread by the mass exodus from Babel but continued to be spread throughout all lands wherever Egypt had contact whether Egypt personally controlled them or not. The ancient world was no where as small as we tend to think it was.
** Concerning Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism; It appears that Zoroaster was a title rather then a personal name. Hence there are 3 known Zoroasters within written history. The religion of Zoroastrianism that we have now comes from the last known Zoroaster and is not the same person as Zoroaster/Nimrod.
