Part 01:

History :

Noah's Ark is the vessel which, according to the Book of Genesis, was built by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from a worldwide deluge. The Ark features in the traditions of a number of Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and others.

The Book of Genesis, chapters 6-9, tells how God sends a great flood to destroy the earth because of man's wickedness and because the earth is corrupt. God tells Noah, the righteous man in his generation, to build a large vessel to save his family and a representation of the world's animals. God gives detailed instructions for the Ark and, after its completion, sends the animals to Noah. God then sends the Flood, which rises until all the mountains are covered, and most living things died, except the fish. Then "God remembered Noah," the waters abate, and dry land reappears. Noah, his family, and the animals leave the Ark, and God vowed to never again send a flood to destroy the Earth.

The narrative has been subject to extensive elaborations in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ranging from hypothetical solutions to practical problems (e.g., waste disposal and the problem of lighting the interior), through to theological interpretations (e.g., the Ark as the precursor of the church in offering salvation to mankind). Although traditionally accepted as historical, by the 19th century the changing views of archaeologists and biblical scholars had led most people to abandon a literal interpretation of the Ark story. Nevertheless, biblical literalists continue to explore the region of the Ağrı Mountain (a.k.a mountain of Ararat), in eastern Turkey, where the Bible says the Ark came to rest.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say wooden remains they have discovered on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey are the remains of Noah's Ark.

The group claims that carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old, meaning they date to around the same time the ark was said to be afloat. Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team that made the discovery, said: "It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it."

There have been several reported discoveries of the remains of Noah's Ark over the years, most notably a find by archaeologist Ron Wyatt in 1987. At the time, the Turkish government officially declared a national park around his find, a boat-shaped object stretched across the mountains of Ararat.

Nevertheless, the evangelical ministry remains convinced that the current find is in fact more likely to be the actual artifact, calling upon Dutch Ark researcher Gerrit Aalten to verify its legitimacy.

“The significance of this find is that for the first time in history the discovery of Noah’s Ark is well documented and revealed to the worldwide community,” Aalten said at a press conference announcing the find. Citing the many details that match historical accounts of the Ark, he believes it to be a legitimate archaeological discovery.

“There’s a tremendous amount of solid evidence that the structure found on Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey is the legendary Ark of Noah,” said Aalten.

Representatives of Noah's Ark Ministries said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000 feet in the vicinity, Yeung said.

During the press conference, team member Panda Lee described visiting the site. “In October 2008, I climbed the mountain with the Turkish team. At an elevation of more than 4,000 meters, I saw a structure built with plank-like timber. Each plank was about 8 inches wide. I could see tenons, proof of ancient construction predating the use of metal nails."

We walked about 100 meters to another site. I could see broken wood fragments embedded in a glacier, and some 20 meters long. I surveyed the landscape and found that the wooden structure was permanently covered by ice and volcanic rocks."

Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted.

The biblical story says that God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it was. He then told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.

After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain. Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants ran aground.





Part 02:

Web sites are buzzing over claims that remains from Noah’s Ark may have been found on Turkey’s Mount Ararat. The finders, led by an evangelical group, say they are "99.9 percent" that a wooden structure found on the mountainside was part of a ship that housed the Biblical Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a giant flood 4,800 years ago.

But researchers who have spent decades studying the region – and fending off past claims of ark discoveries – caution that a boatload of skepticism is in order.

"You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to get something tolerable, and they're not even working much with the Bible," said Paul Zimansky, an archaeologist and historian at Stony Brook University who specializes in the Near East - and especially the region around Ararat, known as Urartu.

Cornell archaeologist Peter Ian Kuniholm, who has focused on Turkey for decades, was even more direct - saying that the reported find is a "crock."

The quest to find remnants of the Bible's most famous cargo ship goes back to, well, virtually biblical times (or at least back to the time of the ancient historian Josephus). In the Book of Genesis, God tells Noah to build a boat that would be longer than a modern-day football field and more than three stories high. Animals were sent to seek shelter in the ship and ride out a flood that wiped out the entire world.

Zimansky points out that Genesis identifies the mountains of Urartu (a.k.a. Ararat) as the landing zone for the ark, but not a specific peak. Over the centuries, 16,946-foot Mount Ararat and the nearby boat-shaped Durupinar rock formation have emerged as the favored locales for ark-hunters. (Others, meanwhile, have looked for evidence of an ancient flood in Turkey's Black Sea region or Iran.)

It seems as if evidence of the ark pops up at least every couple of years - and not always in the same place. The latest report appears to follow up on a 2007 expedition that came upon a wooden structure "in the interiors of an unusual cave" at the 14,700-foot level of Ararat's slopes.

That expedition was organized by Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark Ministries International, the group that is also behind the fresh reports appearing this week. Leaders of the Chinese-Turkish expedition said wooden specimens recovered from the structure on Ararat had been carbon-dated to yield an age of 4,800 years.

They said several compartments had been found, some with wooden beams, and suggested that the compartments were used to house animals. Because the evidence of habitation in that area is scant, Noah's Ark Ministries International said the best explanation for the artifacts' existence was ... you guessed it.

"It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it," Yueng Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker who was on the exploration team, said in a report from the AFP news service. Yeung said local Turkish officials were trying to win protected status for the site, so that a more extensive archaeological dig could be conducted.

Zimansky said he would welcome hearing more about the site. "It would be nice to know what they have found - if there's a scientific publication in the offing," he told me. "Press releases are not the way archaeology advances."

He was doubtful about the linkage to the Bible story, however. "It's not inconceivable to me that they've found pieces of wood at that level, but that doesn't mean they've found an ark," he said.

Even if you assume the explorers found what they say they found, linking the discovery to Noah's Ark requires lots of leaps of faith: Is the carbon dating accurate? Cornell's Kuniholm said he would like to know who did the dating, especially considering that previous tests reportedly came up with more recent dates. Is it more plausible that the structure is from a miraculous ark, or from an ancient shelter on the mountainside? Is there any evidence of a catastrophic flood that rose to near the top of Ararat 4,800 years ago?

"We know what's going on with Turkey archaeologically at that time, and there's no major interruption in the culture," Zimansky observed.

"There's not enough H2O in the world to get an ark that high up a mountain," Kuniholm said.

Kuniholm has had to deal with repeated claims from ark-hunters, including claims based on purported discoveries of ancient wood, and it sounds as if he's starting to get sick of it. He expects the latest report will end up in his thick file of ark discoveries that end up going nowhere.

"These guys have already gotten the answer worked out ahead of time," he said, "and then they go out to prove it."

During an earlier episode of Noah's Ark hype, we offered an unscientific opinion poll that seemed to suggest most people believe the ark really existed and may have been spotted. Is that how you feel this time around? Or will the Noah's Ark debate end up as muddled as the Shroud of Turin debate? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 7:45 p.m. ET: I've added a couple of additional pictures to the item. I actually had these ready to go shortly after the item was published, but I've been tied up reviewing comments (more than 1,500 and counting).

Many comments relate to carbon dating: In this case, Kuniholm is not questioning the validity of carbon-dating techniques, but just wondering whether the dating was done correctly. He said he was presented with earlier samples of wood from Ararat that he was told were dated to just 1,400 years ago.

Also, one of the factors behind the scientists' skepticism is that there has been no published research about these finds. If it could be verified that this wooden structure is indeed 4,800 years ago, that would be notable - whether or not it came from an ark. Now I'm back to moderating comments...

Update for 11 p.m. ET: I have to apologize to those whose comments have not yet been approved, just as I did when we had the Shroud of Turin item a couple of weeks ago. Some commenters have pointed to an intriguing video clip on The Sun's version of the "Noah's Ark" story that shows mountaineers checking out what appears to be the interior of a wooden compartment. I'm hoping to have more about all this as additional information becomes available.





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