About eighteen hundred years ago Lucian recorded a remarkable story which illustrates how strong the traditions of the Great Flood were in antiquity. The priests of Baalbek, now in the Lebanon, had the curious custom of pouring sea water from the Mediterranean into a cleft in the rock near the temple to perpetuate the memory of the waters of the Deluge pouring away into it, as also the rescue of Deucalion. To get this sea water, the priests had to travel to the seashore of the Mediterranean and then back to Baalbek, for as long as four days. It is worthy to remark that this cleft is the northern end of the Great Rift which extends as far south as the Zambezi River. This priest rite may be a folk memory of a great cataclysm.
Atlantis from legend to discovery
