Aracana: The Location of Eden

 

Emanuel Bowen: "A Map of the Terrestrial Paradise" (1780).

Here's a beautiful and fascinating 18th-century map proposing a location for Eden that has received renewed interest thanks to observations made in 1986 by the late Reginald Walker, an amateur historian, in the private newsletter of the Ancient and Medieval history Book Club.

Walker observed that the Araxes was known as the Gaihun (i.e. Gihon) in antiquity, as noted in Bowen's map from 1780, and that the river just to the south was known as the Uizon, which could become Pishon in Hebrew through linguistic transformations. Walker also noted that between these two rivers was a village known as Noqdi, possibly in reference to Nod.

David Rohl, the latest proponent of this location of Eden, has confirmed that the region between the Gaihun and the Uizon has traditionally been known as Noqd, and he states that in ancient times the region just to the west was known as the Aratta and the Edin, the northern boundary of which is the Kusheh Dagh (i.e. Mountain of Kush).

Rohl has also observed that the hills of the western boundary of Bowen's Eden are rich in ocre (i.e. red clay), which is suggestive of the word play between adom (i.e. red), adamah (i.e. earth), and adam (i.e. man).

May be a red herring, but it seems plausible.