THE Garden of Eden is a mythological place where Adam and Eve once roamed, before a run-in with a snake and an apple tree got them banished.
But some believe it was based on a real location – and there are a few contenders as to where that garden might have been.
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Iraq and Iran
The garden’s location is described in Genesis 2:10–14 as being at the end of four rivers that converge into one.
“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads,” the passage reads.
It continues: “The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
“And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush.
“And the name of the third river is Tigris; that is it which goeth toward the east of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
The location of two of these rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, is known today.
The pair start in Turkey before flowing through Syria and Iraq and emptying in the Persian Gulf.
Some people assume that the Garden of Eden was inspired by an area in Iraq and Iran where these two rivers meet.
However, it’s unclear what the names Pishon and Gihon are referring to.
Egypt
Theologians have speculated that Pishon and Gihon might refer to the Ganges in India and the Nile in Egypt.
Dr Konstantin Borisov, a computer engineer, believes he has found clues that suggest the Garden of Eden once flourished in Egypt.
After studying Medieval maps, Borisov published a paper in 2024 that argued these rivers correspond to the Nile (Gihon), Euphrates, Tigris, and Indus (Pishon).
He pointed to maps that show a circular world surrounded by a river labeled ‘Oceanus’ and at the very top of the map is ‘Paradise’.
“By examining a map from around 500 BC, it becomes apparent that the only four rivers emerging from the encircling Oceanus are the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates and Indus,” he wrote in Archaeological Discovery.
The researcher also claimed that the Great Pyramid of Giza sits where the Tree of Life once grew.
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South Africa
Some scientists believe the real Garden of Eden is where humans first originated.
The so-called Cradle of Humankind, found in South Africa, is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains in the world.
Here, researchers have unearthed remains of the Australopithecus, an early ape-like human species that is thought to have roamed the Earth between 3.4 to 3.7 million years ago.
Ethiopia
Similarly, Ethiopia is thought to be where human ancestry was born – with the earliest human fossils found in this area.
The Omo I remains were found in the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley.
So the scientific answer to the Garden of Eden may reside in Africa.
