Thanks to Noah and his obedience to God, the human race did not perish during the global flood, animals and birds were saved. A wooden ship 147 meters long and smeared with resin, at the behest of God, saved living creatures from the raging elements. The famous biblical legend haunts people to this day.
Sensational itch
This disease can affect anyone.
Even a doctor. After all, nothing foreshadowed trouble when, in the middle of the last century, the unremarkable and unknown American anesthesiologist Ron Wyatt suddenly became “infected” with it. It is he who owns the most popular hypothesis about the existence of Noah's Ark. She was born after Ron got his hands on an issue of Life magazine from 1957 with published photographs of the surroundings of the Tendyurek stratovolcano in the Ararat Mountains (remember, it was in the Ararat Mountains, according to the Bible, that Noah landed with his ark). It was in this area that Turkish army captain Ilham Durupinar took his famous photographs from an airplane, which depict strange formations resembling the remains of the ark. The muse of distant travels, as we know, attracts a person. She tore Father Fyodor out of his quiet provincial monastery, and forced anesthesiologist Ron Wyatt to look for the ark in the mountains of Ararat. And the tireless Ron found him. Or rather, only the place that the Turkish pilot photographed. Surrounding the boat-shaped trail were what appeared to be clay walls, which Wyatt declared to be the woody remains of the ark. After him, all the ark hunters repeated the same thing, immediately joining the ranks of the faithful “Wyattists.”
The photo that changed the fate of Dr. Wyatt / ©Flickr
However, geologists have their own opinion on this matter.
“For me, as a geologist, their belief that this is a tree is incomprehensible,” says geology professor Larry Collins. – The chaotic pattern of the presented samples of this “wood” has nothing to do with the structure of petrified wood. In addition, petrified wood is very hard because the wood cells are replaced over time by silicate molecules commonly known as quartz. Quartz, like diamond, is incredibly hard. The sample given to me does not possess this quality.
One of the creationists, underwater discovery expert David Fasseld, who, at Wyatt’s insistence, provided the sample to geologist Larry Collins, after the latter’s conclusion even stopped writing his book about the ark, admitting that Wyatt’s conclusions were wrong. The same cannot be said about Ron Wyatt himself, who was fanatically “confident” until the end of his days. Just like the rest of the miracle hunters.
“Looking at this photo, the first thing I thought was that it was a small protrusion in the rock, since there was another similar protrusion visible there,” admits geologist from Boston University Farouk El-Baz. “The stones slid down, forming a ditch, and this is clearly visible in the picture. I doubt this is the work of man.
Slope of Ararat: another ark? / ©Flickr
The length of the desired object in the area of the Tendyurek volcano is 157 meters. The length of Noah's Ark, according to the Bible, is 300 cubits (137 meters). A follower of Wyatt, one Jerry Bowen, finds an explanation for this difference. Moses, who wrote the Book of Genesis, studied in Egypt, and he apparently had in mind a measure of length called the royal Egyptian cubit. Thus, the difference in the end is not twenty meters, but only a few centimeters.
However, the size of the “elbows” varies greatly. And if you really want it, anything is possible. See a human face on Mars, declare the Nazca desert an airfield for flying saucers and see petroglyphs in the form of spacesuits in the walls of the Egyptian pyramids.
– Why are we surprised that our expectations of seeing a ship on Mount Ararat were crowned with success? – says Russian researcher Vadim Chernobrov. – Moreover, as many as three images of him were found in different places.
Despite everything, these too are just general phrases. Let's look into it in detail.
Ararat is the highest volcanic massif of the Armenian Highlands. It consists of two cones of extinct volcanoes merging at their bases: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. The height of the Bolshoi is 5165 m above sea level / ©Wikimedia Commons
About half a century ago, in one of the glacial crevices on Ararat, at an altitude of 4 km, French archaeologists found another wooden artifacts. They were later dated to 800 BC. - at times ancient, but much later than the supposed voyage of Noah. The tree may have been raised to a height for construction that was never completed.
The Search for Noah's Ark
They have always searched for the ship of righteous Noah. In ancient times and the Middle Ages, the safety of Noah's Ark was accepted without doubt. Back in 275 BC, the Babylonian chronicler Berossus mentioned a ship that sailed to Armenia and sank to the ground.
The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius wrote about this in the first century AD: “One part of the ship can still be found today in Armenia, people scrape the resin from it to make amulets.”
The fact that there is something similar to a ship on Ararat was told by merchants traveling with caravans to Persia. One of the most famous travelers of the past, Marco Polo, passed by Ararat on his way to China at the end of the 15th century, he wrote: “In the country of Armenia, on the top of a high mountain, rests Noah’s Ark, covered with eternal snow. No one can climb to the top, especially since the snow there never melts, and new snowfalls add to the thickness of the snow cover.”
At the beginning of the 16th century, the German traveler Adam Olearius visited Ararat, he wrote the following: “Armenians and Persians believe that on Mount Ararat there are still fragments of the ark, which over time have become hard and durable, like stone.”
“Behind any biblical stories, one way or another, some real historical events are discovered. The archeology of the Ancient East over the past century and a half has discovered real artifacts, masses of stories that were considered completely literary, so theoretically one can assume the existence of the remains of the ark on Mount Ararat or somewhere else,” Anatoly Lakirev, priest, cleric of the Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God.
Rare travelers dared to make the climb themselves to see the sacred ark, and not only because of the steepness of the rocks. In the 14th century, the Franciscan monk Oderic Mattiussi, in a report to the Pope, Fr.
Noah's destroyer
“And you shall make it this way: the length of the ark is three hundred cubits; its breadth is fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.”
Neither more nor less (an elbow is approximately 50 cm), these are the dimensions of a modern destroyer or megayacht of an Arab sheikh. At 140 meters long, it would have been the largest ship in the entire ancient world. Backbreaking work for one family.
“Even in the 19th century they would not have been able to build such a ship from wood alone,” says shipbuilding expert Tom Vosmer. – Metal parts would be needed. At sea, such a vessel's hull will crack and leak. It would sink as quickly as an ordinary stone.
Perhaps Noah built the ark, only its dimensions were much more modest.
Jan Brueghel the Younger, “The Driving of Animals into Noah’s Ark” (XVII century) / ©Gallerix
Sacred Relics
The Armenian monk Hakob, the future Bishop Jacob of Nisibian (Nisibian), who lived in the 4th century, really wanted to find the ark. He repeatedly began climbing Ararat, but on the way to the top the monk suddenly fell into an irresistible sleep, and upon waking up, each time he found himself again at the foot of the mountain. This continued until an angel appeared to him - he brought a piece of the ark to the monk and told him not to seek confirmation of what was written in the Bible anymore.
“It very subtly says that I am giving you a piece of wood from which Noah’s Ark was made. Do you understand? Not from... Well, he wakes up, indeed, this piece is next to him. He brings it down to Etchmiadzin. A piece of the ark with a cross laid out on it is kept in the residence of the Catholicos of All Armenians, in the city of Etchmiadzin,” - Vladimir Shataev, Honored Mountaineering Trainer of the USSR.
Since then, this fragment of casing from the legendary Ark has been one of the shrines of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In Etchmiadzin, a piece was broken off and sent to Empress Catherine II as a sign of respect for the Russian Orthodox Church.
Each creature has a pair
“Bring also into the ark two of every living creature and every flesh, so that they may remain alive with you; let them be male and female. Of birds according to their kinds, and of livestock according to their kinds, and of every thing that creeps on the earth according to their kind, two of every kind will come to you, so that you may live.”
It is believed that our planet is inhabited by 30 million species of animals. Perhaps, after these words, comments seem unnecessary. If Noah had a whole fleet of “destroyers,” cramming in something that couldn’t be shoved in—“a couple” of each type (total 60 million individuals)—would have been worse than Landau’s problems. The same applies to loading “creatures”. According to Scripture, Noah and his family were able to accomplish this in a week. According to experts, at real speed this would take at least thirty years.
Perhaps the Bible does not mean all animals, but only those that lived in the area where Noah lived? The Book of Genesis describes specific species: seven pairs of ten species of “pure” animals (those that could be sacrificed to God): sheep, antelope, cattle, goats, deer. “Unclean” animals are also described there: pigs, hares, lizards, snails, etc. There are 30 species in total. In total, there should have been 260 individuals on board the ark. This is very small compared to 30 million (think 60 million), but much more realistic.
Another sensation related to Noah’s Ark appeared already in 2000, when satellite photographs of the slopes of Ararat were studied. In the saddle between its two peaks, under the snow, someone again saw the outline of a ship. Alas, scientists again considered this to be just an ordinary fold of a sliding glacier. In the end, experts are absolutely sure: under no circumstances could the ark remain frozen in the ice for so long. After all, the glacier moves and carries away everything on its way to the foot of the mountains. According to scientists, if the fragments of the ark were locked in the glacier, they would have been found not at the top, but at the base of Ararat.
Sacred resin...
Even in pre-Christian times, in the foothills of Armenia they knew about a ship lying on the top of the mountain. Local residents scraped off the resin with which it was impregnated to make healing potions and talismans. But one day a group of resin collectors was struck by lightning and trips to the ship stopped.
People were sure that everyone who saw him would face illness, or even death. They did not know that this could be caused by rarefied air, low atmospheric pressure, or emissions of volcanic gases. Ararat is indeed known among climbers as a difficult mountain, both for the above reasons and because of the harsh weather conditions.
“I have climbed five times as part of international alpiniads, and today I have been to the top of Ararat for the tenth time, its height is 1137 meters. Out of ten times, only two times was the weather good, the rest of the time there was very strong wind or poor visibility,” Vladimir Shataev, Honored Mountaineering Coach of the USSR.
But modern seekers of the ark sometimes tend to relate these phenomena to the ancient legend. There is too much mysticism and mysteries associated with the sacred mountain.
No trace of the flood
“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened; and the rain poured on the earth for forty days and forty nights... And the water on the earth increased exceedingly, so that all the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered... And the water increased on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.”
The whole legend of Noah makes no sense without the fact of the flood. The flood described in the Bible would invariably leave a very clear geological mark, visible throughout the world. His search began a century and a half ago. Geologist Lan Plimer searched for it on all continents, but in vain. However, not entirely. He, like many others, managed, rather, to prove that nothing like this had ever happened.
But that's not all. The very idea of a flood negates everything that science knows about the history of the Earth. To flood the planet to the heights of the Himalayas, a volume of water is needed three times greater than that available in all the oceans. Where did it come from then? “... all the sources of the great deep burst open,” Scripture suggests.
“It cannot be that water in such a volume comes from geysers and underground springs,” says Lan Plimer. – If this happened, then it would no longer be water, but swamp slurry, in which it is impossible to swim. In addition, flooding the entire surface of the planet would lead to changes in the Earth's atmosphere. So much steam would enter the atmosphere that a person would choke while breathing, and the pressure would increase so much that it would burst the lungs. And the geyser emissions contain sulfur dioxide, so people would have suffocated even before the flood began.
In 1949, the CIA conducted aerial photography of Ararat. For many years, these photographs were classified, access to them was opened only in 1995. In the photographs you can see a certain dark mass, the length of which is 140 m, almost the exact size of the ark. However, geologists declared these photographs inconclusive, citing extremely low image quality. The “dark mass” in the photographs can be either melted snow or a simple play of light and shadow.
Other sources
The Flood and Noah's Ark are mentioned not only in the canonical books of the Bible, but also in the later apocrypha. For example, in the Book of Enoch. The main outline of the story remains, but the reasons that prompted God to cause the flood are described here in more detail. In particular, it talks about the mixing of angels with the daughters of people. This, according to the Book of Enoch, led to the emergence of giants, which caused inequality, wars, the spread of magic and witchcraft, and a decline in morals.
The story of the flood can be found in other books, in the Jewish Haggadah and in Midrash Tanchuma. The latter says that Noah taught people how to use tools and had the skills of a carpenter, which was useful to him during the construction of the Ark.
Noah, Gilgamesh and Atrahasis
At one time, philologists also became involved in the investigation of the ark. Having studied the language of the legend of Noah, they came to the conclusion that it was written in the 6th century BC. It was inserted into the Torah by Jewish priests who lived in Babylon (modern Iraq - author's note). There is a possibility that it was they who composed the beautiful parable. But scientists are well aware that any of such legends always contains a certain amount of truth. Perhaps the story of Noah's Ark is just an exaggerated retelling of real events.
One hundred and fifty years ago, the Englishman Henry Laird studied the ruins of the Babylonian library in Nineveh. Having discovered hundreds of cuneiform tablets, he sent them to the British Museum, where appropriate specialists could work with them. However, the museum workers did not attach importance to the next batch of clay books and sent them to the storerooms. They were kept there until 1872, when museum employee George Smith found them and deciphered them. His conclusion turned out to be truly sensational. He discovered similarities between the famous “Epic of Gilgamesh” and the biblical legend of our Noah.
"Noah's Ark". Illustration by Gustave Doré / ©Wikimedia
Then everything went like clockwork. A lot of archaeological and geological expeditions were organized into the territory of Iraq. They all confirmed that there really was a serious flood in this region. It happened at least five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. But it was there that the civilizations of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon arose. To them we owe the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as the predecessor of this legend - the epic of the Sumerian hero Atrahasis. All these people, like Noah, with enviable constancy heed the voice of the gods, build a raft and save themselves on it. In addition, both epics tell about a real flood in Mesopotamia, which, as we have already said, happened five thousand years ago.
Therefore, scientists suggest that the legend of Noah is only a Christian version of a pagan epic written shortly after the above-mentioned flood. The latter washed away many cities of Mesopotamia, but, of course, not the whole world. Meanwhile, scientist Alan Milord is confident that the Bible says nothing about the Flood:
– In Hebrew, the words “land” and “country” were written the same way. It can be assumed that it describes a local flood.
The puzzle is probably complete.
Biblical righteous man
The legend about the ship that the biblical righteous man built is full of secrets and mysteries, but attempts to find answers give rise to new questions.
“Using mountaineering equipment, we reached a height of 5,000 meters. We passed the entire western glacier, reached an altitude of 5000 m. From this side we began to look at Akhor, at the inner part of this glacier. The approach to it is very difficult, because you can get caught in an avalanche or ice discharge. Therefore, this is where our expedition ended,” Vladimir Shataev, Honored Mountaineering Trainer of the USSR.
After the earthquake of 1840, a deep, 280-meter crevice appeared at the lower end of the glacier, called the Akhor Chasm. At its bottom, a lake formed from melted glacial waters. In 1848, Turkish officials surveyed the destruction caused by the disaster and came across a huge structure.
The commission members determined by eye the size of the object: height 17 m, length about 140 m. The dimensions of the ark were almost the same. They managed to penetrate three large internal compartments, all other rooms were filled with ice. The sides of the ship were made of wood, which is mentioned in the scripture - this tree grows only in the valley of the Euphrates River. Further examination of the object had to be stopped, because the huge cornice of the glacier hanging above them could collapse at any moment.
The commission's report on the discovery was published in the British newspaper Prophetic Messenger in 1883. However, instead of prompting scientists and archaeologists to search for the ark, it went virtually unnoticed.
Was there a Noah?
Scientists answer: “It may very well be.” Only if we take into account the above logical chain, we will have to cross out the familiar image of the biblical Noah, who historically was probably a completely different person.
He was a Sumerian. This means he shaved his head, painted his eyebrows and wore a skirt. This was customary in the Sumerian culture. How did this man live? The Epic of Gilgamesh says that he had both gold and silver. It turns out that Noah was not a simple winemaker at all, he was a merchant. Instead of an ark, he most likely had a large barge, perfect for transporting livestock, grain, beer and other goods. Shopping centers in those parts lay along the banks, so transporting goods by water was easier and cheaper.
How big was Noah's barge? Scientists have not yet found accurate descriptions of Sumerian trading barges, so they are simply estimating the maximum possible size of such a vessel at that time.
“The Epic of Gilgamesh says that the boat was divided into sections,” comments Tom Vosmer, an expert on ancient ships. – Large ships could be built like pontoons. Several barges, for example, were tied together with ropes, and on top was the house of the ship's owner.
Perhaps Noah lived on this ship with his family and could have loaded animals onto it for sale. When this ship was “moored”, and Noah and his family were just on it (according to different versions, this was the moment of some kind of celebration), a hurricane wind broke the rope and carried the barge along the waters of the Euphrates River.
Satellite image of the area in one of the areas of the Ararat Mountains, where the remains of Noah’s Ark are believed to have been found / ©Wikimedia
Scientists know that melting snow in the mountains of Armenia in July increases the water level in the Euphrates. At this time, the channels become passable for ships. Noah waited for such a flood to set off along the river with his goods. If we assume that a strong storm occurred at this time, then the Euphrates could turn into a raging sea, causing floods. However, it rarely rains in these places in July, so such floods occur no more often than about once every thousand years (it is not surprising that such events were necessarily recorded in the chronicles). In those days, the climate in these regions was hotter and more humid, and therefore hurricanes and downpours were stronger than now. If such a storm coincided with the melting of snow in the mountains, it could flood the entire Mesopotamian plain. Which is probably what happened.
But the Bible writes about 40 days and nights when the rain poured and “the windows of heaven were opened.” The Babylonian epic is more modest: it tells only about seven days. But even this week would be enough to “exterminate people from the face of the earth.” Perhaps, Noah’s barge, torn from the shore by a hurricane, actually drifted for quite a long time, but not on the fresh waves of the Euphrates, but on the sea. After all, the Babylonian text states: the water overboard became salty. Scientists calculated the barge's course across the flooded plain and concluded that it had apparently been carried into the Persian Gulf. It is unknown how long Noah's family swam around the bay. If you believe the Bible - a year, if the Sumerian epic - seven days. The latter version, of course, is much more likely. Noah's barge most likely carried beer, which had been brewed here since time immemorial. Noah's relatives and himself drank it instead of water. But the Sumerian Noah hardly wanted to return after the flood back to his native Sumerian city of Shurupak. According to Sumerian law, anyone who owed money and could not repay the debt was invariably enslaved. Being a merchant, Noah probably owed money, and having “burnt” in the flood, he was unable to make a profit, and he had nothing with which to repay the debt. However, according to Babylonian sources, Noah was none other than the head of the city of Shurupak. But this didn’t change anything either. Sumerian laws were equal for everyone.
Noah's further life is shrouded in mystery. But one of the Babylonian tablets still says that Noah remained in the land of Dilmun (now the island of Bahrain - author's note), but Noah's barge could not have ended up in the mountains of Ararat after the flood. There are a lot of unexplored burial grounds on the island of Bahrain. Who knows, maybe one of them still holds the remains of the legendary Noah?
Search for the remains of the ark
The belief that God does not allow people to climb Ararat has hindered research for many centuries. The unspoken ban was violated in 1829 by the Frenchman Johann Parrott. The glacier on the northwestern slope of the mountain is named in his honor.
After this ascent, a literal competition began for the right to be the first to find the remains of Noah's ship. Organized searches for Noah's Ark began in the mid-19th century. The first scientific expedition to Ararat was a group of professor from the University of Dorpat, Herman Abikh.
It was she who discovered in 1845 traces of a ship that, as a result of an earthquake, slid down the slope and fell apart. For some unknown reason, these and many other important messages about the ark went virtually unnoticed by the scientific community.
The message of Archdeacon Nuri, published in the English “Mechanics” in 1892, also went unnoticed in the scientific world. He said that the giant ship he saw was located on the edge of a frozen mountain lake, which partially thaws only in very hot summers, while the main hull remains under the ice. Another interesting fact was cited in the late 60s of the last century by the American researcher Charles Berlitz. Armenian emigrant Georges Hakobyan told him how in 1905 his grandfather took him, ten years old, with him to Ararat: “My grandfather and I climbed up for a long time, suddenly something resembling a huge ship appeared on the left below, its hull was covered with snow, and on the roof a deep hole was visible.” “Don’t be afraid,” my grandfather told me. “This is a holy ship, and all the people and animals left it long ago.”
Scientists analyzed Hakobyan's story using a lie detector, the detector gave a clear answer - the narrator was telling the truth. An expedition with his participation was planned, but it did not take place due to lack of funds and the death of the main participant in the events, Akopyan.
The search for the ark is significantly complicated by the political situation in the region. From the beginning of the 20th century, when Ararat went to Turkey, and until recently, all research, filming and even just climbing were officially prohibited.
Modern researchers of Noah's Ark
People still search for the ark unofficially, bypassing government permission, using the services of local Kurdish guides living on the slopes and in the vicinity of Ararat, and find parts of the ship, as well as other traces of its stay on the sacred mountain.
The most famous images of Noah's Ark are photographs. In 1960, while viewing photographs taken from an airplane in the mountains at a distance of 30 km from Mount Ararat, a piece of land shaped like a ship and bordered by an embankment was discovered on a small plateau. Its dimensions are close to those indicated in the Bible.
In August 1977, American Ron Wyatt traveled to Turkey to investigate an ark-like object. Turkish authorities recognized the find and created a tourist center and museum at the site.
At the same time, huge anchor stones were discovered on the slope of Ararat. Unlike ordinary anchors, which prevent the ship from moving, anchor stones hung under the bottom of ancient ships, moving with them. They stabilized and kept the ship perpendicular to the oncoming waves.
Judging by the size of the stones found on Ararat, the ship to which they were attached was truly grandiose, but they are located quite far from the place where, according to the official version of the authorities, the ark lies.
Accidental discovery of Noah's Ark by an officer of the royal army
Summer of 1916, World War I, lieutenant of the tsarist army Vladimir Roskovitsky flew over Ararat on a reconnaissance plane. In one of the crevasses, the crew noticed a half-frozen glacial lake. In the place where a small river flowed out of it, Roskovitsky and his partner saw the skeleton of a huge ship tilted on one side.
“He flew to his squadron and reported to the commander. He says: “Do you know what it could be?” - "No". - “Noah’s Ark.” They flew again, they were flying, the commander saw, yes, indeed. After that, he writes a report to Nicholas II,” Vladimir Shataev, Honored Mountaineering Trainer of the USSR.
Based on the results of the report, Nicholas II gave the order to send an expedition. About 150 Russian soldiers went to this place, which the pilots discovered, and they reached this ark. The heat was unbearable, the ship appeared out of the ice so much that members of the expedition managed to visit inside the ark.
Subsequently, the pilot Vladimir Roskovitsky emigrated abroad. In 1938, the American magazine New Eden Magazine published an interview with him. In it, Roskovitsky claims that he clearly saw the skeleton of a ship the size of a city block frozen in the ice. According to him, inside the ship consisted of hundreds of compartments, some were simply huge, the thickness of the partitions reached 60 cm. Animals the size of an elephant could easily fit there.
Although the expedition members made careful measurements and photographs of the ark, and took samples of wood and resin, no material evidence was preserved.
“The officers were sent to St. Petersburg, the revolution began, and that the officers allegedly got to Trotsky, and Trotsky gave the order to shoot them. And all this data disappeared,” Vladimir Shataev, Honored Mountaineering Coach of the USSR.
Subsequently, the territory of Ararat was captured by Turkish troops, but among the local residents - the Kurds - there were witnesses to this event. Eyewitnesses interviewed in 1985 said that the Russian military discovered a collapsed wooden ship near the lake. They shouted cheers loudly and fired guns and revolvers.
The Ark, according to the Kurds, still lies in the same place. In addition to local residents, the descendants of its participants also know the details of the Russian expedition of 1916.
