Table of Contents
Paul Wallis and Matthew LaCroix speak after filming around Van in Turkey. LaCroix asks what became of the earliest kings. Mesopotamian lists give them immense reigns that end at a flood, after which the reigns are short. A flood survivor is said to have reached the Ararat mountains, where divine figures meet to save human seed. Large fitted blocks look too skilled to appear from nothing, and unlike later mud-brick towns. A military reading, he thinks, turned the sites to Urartian forts and their marks into weapons. Later kings may have reused older sanctuaries. Repeated symbols, including one on Tiwanaku’s Sun Gate, suggest sailors carrying ideas toward the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Andes. From his own book, Wallis puts Abraham’s start in ancient Armenia, not southern Mesopotamia. They describe an alabaster inner room, water beneath a platform, and doorways read as portals or steps of ascent. Elsewhere, heavy basalt courses are gone. LaCroix rejects theft of multi-ton blocks. A wave of mud and stone, he says, threw them down the hill.
Key points
- LaCroix starts from king lists whose huge reigns end at a flood.
- Polygonal walls around Van are, for him, older and finer than a purely Urartian fortress story.
- Shared signs, including a form at Tiwanaku, suggest seafaring spread of the same ideas.
- Wallis places the start of Abraham’s story in ancient Armenia.
- Door carvings are read as portals or steps of ascent, not simple gates.
- LaCroix explains displaced multi-ton blocks by a debris wave rather than by later theft.
Short quotes
what happened to these lineage of kings that had long Reigns that just mysteriously disappeared with a flood
Matthew LaCroix, Van sites and a flood culture
This question, drawn from the old king lists, is the problem his fieldwork is trying to answer. Watch at 6:57
I argue Abraham's Story begins in ancient Armenia
Paul Wallis, Van sites and a flood culture
Wallis’s own book places Abraham’s origins in Armenia rather than in southern Mesopotamia. Watch at 10:51
they eventually became Maritime and traveled around the world
Matthew LaCroix, Van sites and a flood culture
He reads trade routes and repeated symbols as evidence that the culture took to the sea. Watch at 46:59
what I think was a colossal tsunami full of mud and stone
Matthew LaCroix, Van sites and a flood culture
Standing with Wallis below a hill sanctuary, he explains a far-flung block as wreckage from a debris wave. Watch at 1:20:06
Video by The 5th Kind. Watch on YouTube.