IT SURPRISES MANY PEOPLE, but the Bible doesn’t say that Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.
“The boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4).
Like the Rockies, Ararat is a mountain range. It runs along the border of Turkey, Iran, and Armenia—just south of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
In a conservative estimate, the Ararat mountains cover territory about the size of Kansas. But not everyone agrees on where one range ends and another begins, so some estimates more than double that territory.
There is, however, one standout mountain with twin peaks. For at least the last thousand years, this extinct volcano in eastern Turkey has been known as Mount Ararat (Agri Dag by Turks). Its tallest peak, Great Ararat, towers nearly 17,000 feet (5,180 m) and is always covered in snow. The second peak, Little Ararat, rises almost 13,000 feet (3,960 m).
A harsh mountain known for its earthquakes, avalanches, and shifting glaciers, Ararat has earned a nickname by locals: Painful Mountain. These grueling conditions, however, haven’t stopped explorers from trying to find Noah’s ark somewhere on the slopes.
In the third century BC, a Babylonian priest named Berossos reported that mountain people of the region said they knew where to find the ship described in the Babylonian flood story. He said they even wore charms made from the ship’s waterproofing material, bitumen, which is naturally occurring tar or asphalt.
In the last 200 years, many explorers have chased clues like these up one side of the mountain and down the other. Some have claimed astonishing discoveries, such as pieces of wood from Noah’s ark or photographs of the hull. But so far, no discovery has produced convincing evidence that Noah’s ark ever came anywhere near this mountain. Still, people continue their search—nowadays using high-tech methods such as ice-penetrating radar and satellites that map suspicious bulges beneath the snow.
This is an excerpt from Who’s Who & Where’s Where in the Bible 2.0, which bookstores begin selling this week.
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