'Noah's Ark' remains discovered?

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By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 6:27 PM on 27th April 2010

The remains of Noah's Ark have been found 12,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it was claimed today.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say carbon testing on remains found on Mount Ararat show they are 4,800 years old, around the time when the ark was said to be afloat.

But the group left themselves open to a critical backlash after they failed to reveal the location of their find or produce photographs of the exterior of the site.

The search for the physical remains of Noah's Ark has held a fascination for Christians, Jews and Muslims for hundreds of years. But despite various claims no scientific evidence has ever been found.

This picture released by the evangelical group claims to show one of the explorers examining part of a structure which they claim might prove the existence of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. There are no external images of the site and the Hong Kong-based group refuse to say precisely where they made their discovery until the Turkish government designate it an archaeological site

The snow-capped peak of Mt. Ararat. The discovery is said to have been made 12,000ft up the mountain which lies in eastern Turkey

In the Bible, the story of Noah's Ark appears in chapters six to nine of the Book of Genesis.

It tells how God, spurred by the wickedness and corruption of man, vows to send a great cleansing flood. Deeming Noah to be the only righteous man worth saving, God commands him to build a vast ship, the ark - capable of saving himself, his family and a representation of the world's animals.

When Noah has completed his task, and God has sent 'two of every sort' of animal to the Ark, the flood waters rise until all mountains are covered and life (except fish) is destroyed. When the flood subsides, the animals leave the Ark and God vows to never again send a flood to destroy man. The story can also be found in the texts of Judaism and Islam. Although considered a historical event, most scholars and archaeologists do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Ark story. The vessel was said to measure '300 cubits, by 50 cubits, by 30 cubits', which translates to up to 515ft long, 86ft wide and 52ft high.

The team of 15 made the announcement of their find yesterday. They brought back from the site wooden remains and strands of rope which they believe was used for keeping animals.

Yeung Wing-cheung, a documentary filmmaker and member of the team from Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark Ministries International, said: 'It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.'

He said the structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals. However early indications are it was a kind of cypress wood whereas the Bible says it was made of gopher wood.

Members of the Chinese team appeared with Turkish officials at a joint press conference on the evangelicals website where the potential importance of the discovery was hailed.

However Nicholas Purcell, a lecturer in Ancient History at Oxford University, was dismissive of the claims adding that 'these kinds of stories come along pretty regularly'.

'The usual nonsense,' he told MailOnline.

'If floodwaters covered Eurasia 12,000ft deep in 2,800 BC, how did the complex societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia, already many centuries old, keep right on regardless? And dating Noah's Flood to 2,800 BC is arbitrary anyway...'

Over the years there have been numerous hoaxes over the search for the ark. In 1993, George Jammal claimed in a programme shown by CBS that he had 'sacred wood' from the ark.

It was later revealed that he was an actor and that the wood was in fact taken from Californian railroad tracks which had been baked in an oven with various sauces.

The group has refused to say exactly where the discovery was made as they are waiting for the Turkish government to designate the area an archaeological site.

The team, the first of its kind endorsed by the Turkish government, is a joint effort between Hong Kong-based Media Evangelism, Noah's Ark Ministry International and the Turkish government, says the South China Morning Post.

Dr Ahmet Ozbek, geologist at Kahramanmaras Sutcu Iman University in Turkey, told the paper the low temperature and environmental condition of glacier deposits and volcanic material helped preservation at the site.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3,500m in the vicinity.

But four years ago and following a decade of research, U.S. national security analyst Porcher Taylor claimed a satellite image revealed a baffling 'anomaly' on the mountain's north-west corner that he believed to be the remains of the Ark.

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

The Noah's Ark Ministries International was formed in 2003 in Hong Kong by a group of evangelical Christians. In that year they made their first expedition to the Mount Ararat to find the ark. Subsequent visits to the area have been carried out in 2004 and 2007.

The biblical story says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become.

After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.

Many believe that Mount Ararat is where the ark and her inhabitants came aground.

This photo, also put out by the evangelical group, is said to show part of a wall inside the structure found by the explorers. One of the team said: 'It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it'

In 2006, U.S. national security analyst Porcher Taylor claimed this satellite image revealed a baffling 'anomaly' on the mountain's north-west corner that he believed to be the remains of the Ark.

Wooden beams which the explorers said they found at the site. The search for the physical remains of Noah's Ark has held a fascination for Christians, Jews and Muslims for hundreds of years. But despite various claims no scientific evidence has ever been found

Photos and story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew...z0mKJBKWws

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The Great Noah's Ark Hoax

April 28, 3:25 PM Freethought ExaminerD.M. Murdock

Good news for bibliolaters!  At last, there is evidence that the Bible is true - well, actually, it's pretty much the same "evidence," over and over again.

News agencies have been reporting that a Chinese and Turkish team of "evangelical explorers" have discovered the "real" Noah's Ark, the wooden ship recorded in the Bible to have contained two (Gen 6:19) - or is it seven (Gen 7:2)? - of every animal on the entire planet, including whales and kangaroos! (Okay, so the Bible doesn't say exactly that, but the story implies that the world's subsequent many thousand species were reseeded after the flood by the happy animals of the ark.) Along with the announcement came pictures of a "boat" supposedly found at 13,000 feet on Mt. Ararat in Turkey that has allegedly been carbon-dated to around 4,800 years ago.

The reasons for doubting this alleged discovery are many, including the plethora of previous purported "arks" dating back centuries, a fact that immediately causes one to turn a jaundiced eye toward this one as well. There are also various scientific arguments against a global or even local flood and the subsequent dispersion of all human and animal life from Mt. Ararat. Moreover, the Bible itself doesn't really state that the ark landed upon Mt. Ararat per se but only that it rested in the "mountains of Ararat." (Gen 8:4) Nor does it indicate where "Ararat" was at the time, so it may not have been in Turkey. Also, the current structure in question has been pointed out to look quite modern in its appearance, so freshly preserved that it could have been created in the past couple of centuries.

In reality, there are many other possible uses for this structure, if it is even on Mt. Ararat in the first place. Some have suggested an old shepherd's hut, but most people are probably unaware that there are "many monasteries" on Mt. Ararat, of which this "find" could be a part, especially if it turns out not to be at 13,000 feet.

In addition, in other parts of the world we find stone arks or ships on high places, apparently as burial sites in emulation of the practice of sending off deceased royalty on burning boats, or for other reasons.

Furthermore, Noah's Ark is quite evidently based on previous myths from ancient Sumeria, Egypt, Babylon and elsewhere. Indeed, such flood-and-ark myths are found in many parts of the world, as I explain in my article "The Myth of Noah's Ark."

Where's the beef?

The Christian "evangelical explorers" who were looking for the ark obviously assumed a priori that the biblical tale was true, calling themselves "Noah's Ark Ministries International." Hence, they are blatantly biased when they make statements like the following, according to FOXNews, which was quick to promulgate this tale:

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...

The discoverers of The Other Noah's Ark(s)â„¢ also believed the same thing; indeed, some also went to elaborate measures to "prove" their "finds" as well. The current would-be discoverers made other such "scientific" declarations as:

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

We are also told that "several compartments, some with wooden beams, are said to be inside and could have been used to house animals..." And we are shown a photograph of what is supposed to be one of the "compartments" in which animals were allegedly held, complete with apparently 4,800-year-old straw strewn about!

While the focus right now is on this wooden structure's supposed age, size and features, we will be quite interested if its discoverers find any kind of evidence that there were two/seven of every animal inside this building and that it actually was a boat that could float at any point.

'A boatload of skepticism is in order'

Various scholars and professors are being promoted in the press as fairly gushing over the purported find, while others are, of course, skeptical. The fact any professors and archaeologists are giddy over such a "discovery" is a reflection that academia has completely dropped the ball when it comes to mythology - not realizing that this biblical story is clearly an ancient myth and that any attempts at finding such a structure therefore will undoubtedly prove to be a waste of time and money.

Fortunately, not all scholars and experts are so quick to board the ship, as MSNBC relates:

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.

In this regard, one professional scholar did not mince words, as also reported by MSNBC:

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

Noted skeptical biologist Dr. P.Z. Myers was equally pointed in his dismissal of the "discovery":

Ho hum. I'm getting lots of mail about this ridiculous story on WND [World Net Daily] and Fox claiming that Noah's Ark has been discovered atop Mt Ararat. No, it hasn't. This is yet another mob of incompetent evangelicals hiking all over a big hill in Turkey and credulously interpreting every rock formation and every chunk of wood as proof that they've found a big boat.

The "science" is further called into question, as, naturally, there is no geological evidence at all that Mt. Ararat was underwater at the time. As MSNBC likewise discussed:

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.

Concerning this structure, ABC News relates that George Washington University professor Eric Cline "suggested it could even be a very old shepherd's hut." Cline also pointed out that the "wood should just have disintegrated" long ago. He further evinced that "it's reasonable that [Noah] would have dismantled his ship to use the wood for shelter" and that "nstead of Noah's Ark, I would be looking for Noah's first house or something like that."

Indeed, how many "large structures" made of wood have survived largely intact for almost 5,000 years? It would seem that this one - if indeed that old - must be Noah's Ark, because it surely has been supernaturally preserved!

Meanwhile, the edge of the wood in some of the images released by NAMI looks as if it had just been hewn not long ago. In this regard, a carpenter on Myers's blog comments:

The wood shown appears to be relatively recently milled and joined. The planks and beams do not exhibit the type of drying and shrinkage that occurs to wood over time, regardless of being in a deep freeze.

The surface of the wood doesn't show the different shrinkage rates of hard and soft grain. Most noticeably the joint lines cannot be millennia old and still be as close as the photos show.

It is further claimed that this structure must be very old because it uses wooden pegs rather than nails in its construction. However, it is possible that its builders didn't have metal nails, and this sort of construction still occurs in many parts of the world. Moreover, the fact that the carbon dating was allegedly done in Iran also does not inspire confidence. China, Turkey and Iran make an interesting combo in any event...

Even enthusiastic bibliolater scholars are unconvinced, such as Liberty University archaeologist Dr. Randall Price, a veteran ark hunter, who was involved at one point in this particular "discovery" but who denies it has anything to do with The Real Noah's Arkâ„¢. Said Price:

I was the archaeologist with the Chinese expedition in the summer of 2008 and was given photos of what they now are reporting to be the inside of the Ark. I and my partners invested $100,000 in this expedition (described below) which they have retained, despite their promise and our requests to return it, since it was not used for the expedition. The information given below is my opinion based on what I have seen and heard (from others who claim to have been eyewitnesses or know the exact details).

To make a long story short: this is all reported to be a fake. The photos were reputed to have been taken off site near the Black Sea, but the film footage the Chinese now have was shot on location on Mt. Ararat. In the late summer of 2008 ten Kurdish workers hired by Parasut, the guide used by the Chinese, are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area (where the photos were originally taken) at the Mt. Ararat site. In the winter of 2008 a Chinese climber taken by Parasut's men to the site saw the wood, but couldn't get inside because of the severe weather conditions. During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film. As I said, I have the photos of the inside of the so-called Ark (that show cobwebs in the corners of rafters - something just not possible in these conditions) and our Kurdish partner in Dogubabyazit [stet] (the village at the foot of Mt. Ararat) has all of the facts about the location, the men who planted the wood, and even the truck that transported it.

So, there we have it. As to the motive of this evident fake clearly eludicated in Price's remarks, Myers concludes:

You can hardly blame the Turks around Ararat. There's a lot of money being poured into the local economy from these numerous creationist expeditions. It only makes sense to salt a few sites with chunks of wood.

It would otherwise be curious why the Chinese would be so interested in proving Middle Eastern myths - the only other way such a thing could occur is because of religious conditioning, plain and simple. Large swatches of people in practically every nation have now been indoctrinated to believe that the megalomaniacal writings of one particular "chosen people" represent "God's Word."  To a person educated about the world's various cultures dating back thousands of years, such a view is not only unscientific but also a result of cultural bias.

Meanwhile, this latest ark find is clearly a hoax - as they will all turn out to be, because the story of Noah's Ark is a myth based upon other myths that constitute nature worship and astrotheological knowledge dating back thousands of years.

D.M. Murdock is the author of controversial books and articles on comparative religion and mythology that can be found at Stellar House Publishing and Freethought Nation.  For more articles from the Freethought Examiner, be sure to subscribe!

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17009-Freethought-Examiner~y2010m4d28-The-Great-Noahs-Ark-Hoax