Could These Be the Remains of Noah's Ark?

The biblical story of the great flood and Noah’s Ark is probably one of the best-known narratives in the world. With religious significance for Christians, Muslims, Jews and members of the Bahai faith, Noah’s story had managed to persevere for thousands of years; a fact which leads many to believe that a global flood is possibly more than just a myth.

But if this is true, it begs the question: where is the archeological proof? Could an ancient Ark be somewhere out there in the world, just waiting to be found?

Image by Cimerondagert / Wikipedia

This is the question one expedition set out to answer – and what they discovered may change the way you think about the world, forever.

Up until the 18th century, it was commonly accepted that the biblical story of the flood was an accurate report of historical events. Over the years, however, as scientific knowledge has expanded, most people have come to see the biblical flood narrative as symbolic, rather than factual.

Images via Wikipedia; Jeff Jacobs / Pixabay

But although science tells us the creation story described in the bible doesn’t fully match up with what we know of the world, even the most ardent sceptics have to deal with a fact that makes some people believe that Noah’s Ark is still out there to be found.

In the biblical flood narrative, after the rains have ended and the waters began to subside, Noah landed his Ark on the “mountains of Ararat,” where, after releasing both a raven and a dove, he finally opened the giant vessel’s hatches and released the rest of the animals he had stowed there. From the mountain’s slopes, the animals then spread out throughout the empty earth and, along with Noah and his offspring, repopulated it.

But while the question of whether Noah’s Ark truly landed on Ararat remains open, one thing is fact: Mount Ararat is real, and the people who live near it have claimed it is the final resting place of the ark, for centuries. It is there that, in 2009, an expedition was headed with the hopes of discovering archeological traces of the biblical story.

Image via Wikipedia

But they were not the first.

Mount Ararat can be found in the extreme east of Turkey, close to the country’s Iranian and Armenian borders. The highest peak in Turkey, it is the principal national symbol of Armenia, and is considered to be sacred by the Armenians, who view it is a holy mountain.

Standing at a towering 5,137 meters (16,854 ft), Ararat is one of the 50 most prominent peaks in the world, and boasts perpetual snow, year-round – a fact which has meant that, despite legends of the Ark landing somewhere on its slopes, it has remained largely unexplored over the years. The first recorded ascent to its summit only took place in 1829, even though people have been trying to reach its peak since at least the middle ages.

Image via Wikipedia

Due to its legendary status, many have attempted to scale it and find the Ark – but until recently, no one had found much of value.

Perhaps the most famous person to have explored Ararat in antiquity was Marco Polo, who describes the mountain in his famous book, The Travels of Marco Polo.

But while claims that the Ark was on Mount Ararat “for all to see” have been made for nearly two millennia, exploration of the mountain began in earnest only in the 19th century.

In 1829, Dr. Friedrich Parrot, who had climbed the mountain, wrote that "all the Armenians are firmly persuaded that Noah's Ark remains to this very day on the top of Ararat, and that, in order to preserve it, no human being is allowed to approach it."

Illustration. Image by Ben Stranieri from Pixabay

Nearly fifty years later, another explorer by the name of James Bryce would make a discovery that would echo throughout the world.

In 1876, James Bryce, a Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, who also worked as a historian, statesman, diplomat and explorer, began to scale Mount Ararat on a fact-finding mission.

Screen Shot from "L'ascension du mont Ararat"

While he didn’t manage to reach the top, he did manage to climb up past the tree line, and it was there, on the cold, desolate slope, that he found something that would shake the research community to its very core.

As Bryce climbed up Mount Ararat, he looked to his sides and saw nothing but rocks and boulders around him. But as he continued to ascend, suddenly, something caught his attention. A shape he had hoped to see, but didn’t dare believe he would find.

Screen Shot from "L'ascension du mont Ararat"

There, among there rocks, where it was too cold and hard for anything to grow, he found an ancient wooden beam. It was too big and heavy to have just been carried there, and no one had ascended the mountain in years. Bryce concluded that it could be nothing else but a part of the Ark, and upon his return to England, his finding would herald in a new age of expeditions to the mountain. But it was only in 2009 that anything of interest would truly be found.