Antediluvian
![The Creation, beginning of the Antediluvian (i.e., Pre-Flood) world. (Artist's rendition by James Tissot)](/Images/godic/202412/21/Tissot_The_Creation2727.jpg")
![Noah prepares to leave the Antediluvian world, Jacopo Bassano and assistants, 1579](/Images/godic/202412/21/Jacopo_Bassano_workshop_-_Animals_boarding_the_Noah's_Ark_-_Louvre2727.jpg")
![Strata of](/Images/godic/202412/21/Blue_lias_cliffs_at_Lyme_Regis2728.jpg")
![The Deluge subsides, thought in early geology to be responsible for the formation of sediments, with only traces of the Antediluvian world. Thomas Cole, 1829](/Images/godic/202412/21/Cole_Thomas_The_Subsiding_of_the_Waters_of_the_Deluge_18292728.jpg")
The Antediluvian (alternatively Pre-Diluvian or Pre-Flood or even Tertiary) period—meaning "before the deluge"—is the time period referred to in the Bible between the Fall of man and the Noachian Deluge (the Genesis Flood) in the biblical cosmology. The narrative takes up chapters 1-6 (excluding the flood narrative) of the Book of Genesis. The term found its way into early geology and lingered in science until the late Victorian era. Colloquially, the term is used to refer to any ancient and murky period.