Has Noah’s Ark really been found in Turkey?

Last Updated on March 23, 2024 4:42 am

The story of Noah’s Ark is considered one of the most studied religious stories. It is said that there are very few people in the world who have not heard this story.

According to Semitic (Jewish, Christian and Islamic) religions, Noah or Noah was a prophet. Who was sent by Allah as a guide to mankind.

Followers of these religions believe that Noah, on the instructions of Almighty God, built such an ark during the great flood, in which humans and animals of the world saved their existence by taking shelter. But what exactly happened to the gigantic boat after the Great Flood? Does it still exist? If it survives, then where exactly is the boat? – such questions have occupied the human mind for hundreds of years.

No less research was done to find answers to these questions. The most explored of these is Mount Ararat in Turkey, which is more than 5,000 meters high. Because Noah’s ark anchored on this mountain after the Great Flood is mentioned in the Christian scriptures, the Bible.

Many have also claimed to find Noah’s ark there at various times. However, none of them could provide sufficient evidence to support their claims. But recently a group of researchers claimed that they found the ‘wrecks’ of a huge boat in Turkey, dating back at least 5,000 years. They believe that it is the wreckage of Noah’s ark.

The Great Flood and Noah’s Ark

The Christian scriptures, the Bible, and the Qur’an, the Muslim scriptures, contain two almost identical accounts of the flood and the context of Noah’s ark building. According to Christian scholars, Noah was the tenth descendant of Adam.

Highlighting the context of the great flood, it is said in the first book of the Bible, ‘The Book of Genesis’, that many years after the death of Adam, the people of the world forgot the Creator and indulged in violence and other evil deeds. God sent Noah to guide them. But most of the people of that time did not walk in the way shown by Noah. In such a situation, the Creator decided to destroy the ‘strays’ by creating a great flood.

Noah was then told to build a large boat. According to the biblical description, the length of the boat was about five hundred feet. The boat, made of the wood of the gopher or cypress tree, had three separate floors and a door. After construction, the boat is pitched inside and outside so that the wood does not rot in the water. Then seven pairs of each male and female from among the animals and birds are taken into the boat. Besides, dirty animals like pigs, rats, bats are picked one by one.

Unclean animals refer to animals whose domestication and meat consumption are forbidden in the original text of the Bible. After taking the animals and birds in pairs, Noah got into the boat with his family members. Then the creator closed the door of the boat.

According to the description of the Book of Genesis, the three-storied boat housed animals on the bottom, humans on the second and birds on the upper. Then the Great Flood began. It rains in torrents for about 40 days and 40 nights. Then the water started to rise until the top of the highest mountain in the world was submerged, according to the Bible description. This great flood lasted for 150 days. As a result, the Bible says that no life existed anywhere else on earth outside of Noah’s ark. After five months the water started to recede. After that, Noah’s ark rested on Mount Ararat. Noah sent first a raven and then a dove to see if any land had risen after the waters receded. But finding no dry land anywhere, they returned to the boat.

Seven days later a pigeon was released again, which later returned with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Seeing this, Noah realizes that the land has started to wake up. At the command of the Creator, Noah came out of the boat with his family. In addition, the Bible says that animals and birds are also released. The Holy Quran also describes the incident in almost the same way.

However, while the Bible describes seven pairs of each animal being brought into the boat, the Qur’an says one pair each. Besides, it is mentioned in the narration of the Qur’an that Noah’s boat anchored in a mountain named Judi after floating for 150 days. Many Islamic scholars believe that Mount Judi is a part of Mount Ararat in Turkey.

Although the accounts of the global flood described in religious texts, scientists have yet to find any evidence of such an event. Still, many people continue to search for Noah’s Ark for religious reasons or to satisfy the curiosity of an inquisitive mind by verifying the authenticity of the event.

The Talmud, one of the most important Jewish religious texts, mentions that the Assyrian king Sennacherib climbed Mount Judi in the seventh century BC in search of Noah’s ark. The treatise also says that he found a ship’s keel there.

The man who was searching for Noah’s ark even in the third century AD is known from the book of the historian Eusebius. Then in the fifth century AD, the historian Faustus of the Byzantine Empire in his book ‘History of the Armenians’ mentions a folk tale based around a Christian priest named Saint Jacob. The legend says that Saint Jacob climbed Mount Ararat in search of Noah’s Ark. When he had almost reached the top, a heavenly angel appeared in his dream and forbade him to climb to the top of the mountain.

As consolation, the angel brought Saint Jacob a piece of wood from Noah’s ark. Jacob returned to the city with the wood, which many Christians believe is still preserved in an ancient church in Armenia. However, the first documented person to climb Mount Ararat is the Baltic-German naturalist and mountaineer Friedrich Parrott. In 1829, a team led by him first climbed to the top of this mountain.

In his book “Journey to Ararat” published in 1859, Parrott wrote, “The people of Armenia strongly believe that Noah’s ark is still at the top of Mount Ararat.” They also believe that no human will be allowed near the boat in the interest of conservation. Then in 1876 British researcher and politician James Bryce climbed Mount Ararat.

He claimed to have found a piece of wood four feet long and five inches thick in the mountain, which had been cut with some tool.

In 1940, an article entitled ‘Noah’s Ark Found’ was printed in a booklet called New Eden published from Los Angeles, USA. It is said that during World War I, a Russian aviator named Vladimir Roskovetsky saw a lake while flying over Mount Ararat. The article also claims that he saw a huge shipwreck on the shores of that lake.

In 1959, Captain Ilhan Durupiner carried out a geological survey of the Ararat mountain region with a plane of the Turkish Armed Forces. He then claimed to have seen the ruins of a structure that looked like ‘Noah’s Ark’ in the Dobayejit area of Ari Province. After this incident, local and foreign tourists started flocking to the area to see the alleged remains of Noah’s boat. The place came to be known as ‘Durupina’s Site’. Researchers have also conducted search operations there at various times.

Some even went missing while doing so. One such person is Donald Mackenzie. Mackenzie, a native of Scotland, disappeared in 2010 while searching for Noah’s Ark.

Demand to get ‘destroyed remains’

A team of archaeologists recently claimed to have found the ‘wrecks’ of a gigantic boat that is at least 5,000 years old while excavating at the site of Durupina on Mount Ararat. They believe that it is the wreckage of Noah’s ark. The research team named ‘Mount Ararat and Noah’s Ark Research Team’ started working in 2021.

The team was jointly formed by researchers from Andrews University in the US, Istanbul Technical University and Ari Ibrahim Chechen University.

At least thirty rock and soil samples were collected in 2022 from where the boat’s ‘wreck’ is thought to lie. After that, experiments were conducted on them for a year. Preliminary results of the tests revealed the presence of several thousands of years old clay materials, marine materials and seafood in the samples, the researchers said.

“It is clear from this that people lived in the area between 5500 and 3000 BC,” said Professor Faruk Kaya, a member of the research team, in a recent interview with Turkish media Hurriyet. At first it appeared to be the wreckage of Noah’s Ark, he said.

However, researchers think that research should be continued for a long time to be sure whether it is really Noah’s boat or not.

Professor Kaya said, based on the preliminary results, it cannot be asserted that the boat is still here. We need to continue working for many more days to be sure.

True or false?

The accounts of the Great Flood in the Bible and the Qur’an have parallels to the legends of several civilizations. Several texts from the ancient Mesopotamian civilization describe the destruction of the civilization by a flood ordered by a supernatural deity.

From the Epic of Gilgamesh, written about 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, to the Babylonian cuneiform tablets of 1750 BC, boat-building events during the Flood are described. In fact the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was occasionally flooded. Egypt’s Nile River region was also flooded almost every summer, damaging Egyptians’ farmland and crops. In addition, it is known that there were occasional floods in the coastal areas of China and the Black Sea in ancient times. A review of the ancient stories of floods in these areas reveals almost similar causes.

There it appears that the Creator or some god with supernatural powers sent a flood either as ‘punishment’ or to destroy everything and ‘start anew’. Could this myth of the Great Flood be based on real events?

Eric Klein, an archaeologist at George Washington University in the United States, said in an interview with National Geographic that there is some geological evidence that there was a great flood in the Black Sea region about seven and a half thousand years ago.

However, scientists do not agree on this. Moreover, there is a debate as to whether the historians of that era wrote about the Deluge inspired by real life experiences or not.

Many researchers believe that the flood events took place in different places at different times. They also believe that over time those events have entered the oral and written history of different countries of the world. However, many who have climbed Mount Ararat at various times claim to have found the remains of Noah’s Ark there. But archaeologists believe that these claims are not credible due to the lack of scientific evidence.

No recognized archaeologist has claimed to have found the wreck, University of North Carolina archaeologist Jody Magness said in an interview with National Geographic.

He also said that archeology is not a matter of finding treasure. It is not even a matter of finding a specific object. Rather, archeology is a science in which we come up with some research questions and hope that they will be answered through excavation.

Despite what archaeologists say, many Semitic people still believe that the Flood really happened during Noah’s time and that the ark was built.

In this case, they present the account of the Great Flood mentioned in the Bible and the Qur’an as evidence. And to those who do not believe this, the story of Noah’s ark and the great flood is nothing more than a myth. Because no scientific explanation or proof of the phenomenon has been found yet.