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"And the sons of Noah that came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japhet . . . these were the three sons of Noah of whom all the Earth was overspread." Thus is the biblical tale of the Deluge followed by the recital of the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), a unique document, at first doubted by scholars because it listed then unknown nation-states, then taken apart critically, and finally—after a century and a half of archaeological discoveries—amazing in its accuracy. It is a docu- ment that holds a wealth of reliable historical, geographical, and political information concerning the rise of mankind's remnants from the mud and desolation following the Deluge, to the heights of civilizations and empires. Leaving the all-important line of Shem to the last, the Table of Nations begins with the descendants of Japhet ("The Fair One"): "And the sons of Japhet: Gomer and Magog and Madai, Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphat and Togarmah; and the sons of Javan: Elishah and Tar- shish, the Kittim and the Dodanim. From them branched out the is- land nations." While the later generations had thus spread to coastal areas and islands, the unnoticed fact was that all the first seven nation/sons corresponded to the highlands of Asia Minor, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea areas—highlands that were hab- itable soon after the Deluge, unlike the lower lying coastal areas and islands that could become habitable only much later. The descendants of Ham ("He Who is Hot" and also "The Dark-Hued One"), first "Cush and Mizra'iim and Put and Ca- naan" and thereafter a host of other nation-states, correspond to the African nation-lands of Nubia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Libya as the core nations of African resettlement, again beginning with the topographically higher areas, then spreading to the lowlands. "And Shem, the father of all who descended of Eber, also had offspring; he was the elder brother of Japhet." The first nation-sons of Shem were "Elam and Ashur, Arpakhshad and Lud and Aram," nation-states that encompassed the highlands arching from the Persian 129 WHEN EARTH WAS DIVIDED