pictures would help (links to pics)
links to sources also would make it a more credible report.
No problem.
Please find the key images below along with an extensive list of sources.
Overhanging bridge over cave / sinkhole area, alligned to Mount Hermon, the suggested origin of the "World Mountain" myth. -
Panorama of Eden / Kharsag -
Panorama of Eden / Kharsag flooded in 2006 -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/kharsagflood.jpg
Sinkhole section of Great Watercourse showing similar 9m x 3m dimensions and Natufian style as Jericho / Tell Es-Sultan -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/sinkholechannel.jpg
Exposed sides of the Great Watercourse showing thousands of years of water flow erosion -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/watercoursewall.jpg
Same exposed sections and remains of Great Watercourse leading back to the village of Kfar Qooq, approximately 9 metres wide -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/watercourse.jpg
One of various oval structures with limestone plaster floor to the North of the Watercourse. Suggested as houses by O'Brien
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/houselimestonefloor.jpg
Below pictures of the suggested site of The (Enlil's) Great House of Kharsag / Eden - of prime archaeological importance that is in danger from the bulldozers and construction in the basin. I recovered limestone plaster from this area, and it seems to have a level, limestone plaster floor and is in imminent danger of being built on -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/greathouse.jpg
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/greathousepaygan.jpg
Map of the suggested route of the underground channel we found linking Kharsag / Eden to the Hasbani River
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/channel2hasbani.jpg
On our last day there we discovered the reservoir area East of Kfar Qooq - this view looks down through the reservoir O'Brien claimed would have held 600 million gallons at capacity - into the Rashaya Basin -
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/reservoir.jpg
http://www.paygan.com/eden/images/500/kharsagsurvey.jpg
All comments most welcome, especially from trained eyes!
Sources:
Primary Source -
O'Brien, C.A.E. & O'Brien B.J., 1985, The Genius of The Few, Wellingborough. ISBN 0-9466-0417-7 (Revised edition by Dianthus Publishing 1999)
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/genius.php
Ancient Text Sources -
Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions by George A. Barton, 1918, Yale University Press -
http://www.archive.org/stream/miscellaneousbab00bartuoft/miscellaneousbab00bartuoft_djvu.txt
Kharsag Epic No 1: The Arrival of the Anannage – Tablet No. 14005 - A - Christian O'Brien Translation -
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/593.php
W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. ( Oxford, 1969) -
http://www.livius.org/as-at/atrahasis/atrahasis.html#Insurrection_of_the_Lower_Gods (the link is an adaptation of the B.R. Foster translation as I couldn't find Millard's text online)
Charles, R.H, The Book of Enoch 2 / The Book of the Secrets of Enoch Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 2006 -
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/fbe/index.htm#section_002
Burkitt, F.C., Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (London, 1914)
Ball, C.J., The Book of Genesis: Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text (Leibzig, 1896)
Holladay, William L., Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden, 1971)
Liddell and Scott, Greek - English Lexicon (Oxford, 1980)
Rabin, Chaim, Studies in the Bible (Jerusalem, 1961)
Rowley, H.H. (ed.) The Old Testament and Modern Study (Oxford, 1951)
The Torah: the Five Books of Moses (Philadelphia, 1962)
Larousse, World Mythology (France, 1963)
Grey, Dr. Louis Herbert (ed.) The Mythology of All Races (Thirteen Volumes) (Marshall Jones Company, Boston, 1920-1934)
Kramer S.N. 1963. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. University of Chicago, USA.
Kramer S.N. 1981. History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine "Firsts" in Recorded History: University of Philadelphia Press, USA.
Kramer S.N.1963. Sumerian Mythology: Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C: University of Pennsylvania Press, USA.
Barton, George A., The Origin and Development of Babylonian Writing, (Leibzig, 1896)
Cheira, E., Sumerian Religious Texts (Chicago, 1929)
Fossey, Charles, Dictionnaire Sumerien (Paris, 1907)
Gadd, S.J., Sumerian Reader (Oxford, 1924)
Langdon, S.H., Sumerian Grammar (Paris, 1912)
Marcus, David., A Manual of Akkadian (New York, 1978)
Nies, James B., Dynasty Tablets (Leibzig, 1920)
Prince, J. Dyneley, Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon (Leibzig, 1905)
Origin of Agriculture Sources
Tracing the Origin and Spread of Agriculture in Europe 2005: Ron Pinhasi, Joaquim Fort, Albert J. Ammerman PLoS biology 2005;3(12):e410
Kislev, Mordechai E.; Hartmann, Anat & Bar-Yosef, Ofer (2006a): Early Domesticated Fig in the Jordan Valley. Science 312(5778): 1372. doi:10.1126/science.1125910 (HTML abstract)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2006/06/01/312.5778.1372.DC1.full
Lev-Yadun, Simcha; Ne'eman, Gidi; Abbo, Shahal & Flaishman, Moshe A. (2006): Comment on "Early Domesticated Fig in the Jordan Valley". Science 314(5806): 1683a. doi:10.1126/science.1132636 PDF fulltext
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/314/5806/1683.1.full.pdf
Peake, H. 1928 The Origins of Agriculture, UK.
Perry, W.J. 1926 Growth of Civilisation, UK.
Harris D. (ed.), 1999 The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. UCL Press, UK.
Zohary, D. and M. Hopf. 1994 The origin and spread of cultivated plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile valley. Domestication of plants in the Old World, 2nd ed. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Hillman, G 1996 Late Pleistone changes in wild plant-foods available to hunter gatherers of the Northern Fertile Crescent: possible preludes to cereal cultivation in D. Harris (ed.), The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C.
Zohary, D. 1999 Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, 46: 133-142. Monophyletic vs. polyphyletic origin of the crops on which agriculture was founded in the Near East.
Gagne, S. E. 2006. (rev.), The Energetics of Food, Inner Traditions International, Rochester
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/965.php
Postgate, J.N. 1994. Early Mesopotamia: Society & Economy at the Dawn of History, UK Routledge.
Maisels, C.K. 1993. The Emergence of Civilisation: UK Routledge.
Fagan, Brian.M. 1990. The Journey From Eden, UK: Thames & Hudson. See Ch16, pp216-225
Wenke, Robert.J. 1990. Patterns in Prehistory, UK
xford University Press
Clutton-Brock, J. 1989. The Walking Larder, UK:Unwin Hyman. Ch.14, pp127-155.
Nissen, Hans.J. 1988. The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C. USA: Chicago University Press
Clark, Graham. 1977. World Prehistory in New Perspective, UK: Cambridge University Press. See Ch2, pp39-94, Ch5, pp227-242
Mortensen, P., "On the Chronology of Early Farming Communities in Northern Iraq", Sumer, 18 (1962)
Nearby Archaeological Sources
Kenyon, K.M., Excavations at Jericho (London, 1960)
Kenyon, K.M., Archaeology in the Holy Land (France, 1970)
Stordeur, Daneille - Recherches sur le Levant central/sud : Premiers résultat -
http://www.archeorient.mom.fr/FICHES/fiches_actuelles/STORDEUR.html
de Contenson, H., 1967. Troisiéme campagne á Tell ramad 1966: rapport préliminaire. Annales Archéologiques de Syria XVII (1–2), 17–24.
I am currently working on these, but I mention the 2 above, whcih have resulted in the Tell Aswad and Tell Ramad Wikipedia entries following previous discussion on this forum.