Twenty years ago, geologists were able to reveal a sensational discovery. For a very long time, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake on whose shores early civilisations had emerged. But around 6800 B.C., the Mediterranean Sea broke through what is now the Bosphorus. For years, a thundering waterfall poured into the Black Sea and flooded larges areas. Based on the latest research, Harald Haarmann outlines the causes and course of the Flood. He then explores the consequences of the Flood for cultural development in the Black Sea region. In the process, he finds traces of one of the oldest advanced civilisations in the world and, based on archaeological discoveries but also on linguistic and written history, he shows how its reach extended as far as Mesopotamia.

• ‘The natural disaster of the Black Sea flood was like a Big Bang in terms of its impact on cultural history.’ - Harald Haarmann

• A fully revised and updated new edition

• The breakthrough of the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea and what it meant for the early civilisations in Europe and Asia

• How global warming set the early civilisations in motion

• The cult of the Great Goddess and how it spread from the Black Sea