The search for Noah’s Ark: a history

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical Christians claim to have
uncovered remnants of Noah’s Ark on its legendary mountain resting place in
Turkey.

By Ben Leach
Telegraph

28 Apr 2010

It has long been believed that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the
region, is where the Ark and it inhabitants came aground.

The Ark is described in the Book of Genesis as 300 cubits long, or
approximately 450 feet (137m).

According to Genesis 8:4, it came to rest "in the mountains of Ararat."
Experts have agreed that these mountains are to be located in present-day
Armenia and eastern Turkey.

Modern-day searches for the Ark have focused on two main candidates: the
so-called "Ararat anomaly" near the main summit of Ararat and a site at
Durupinar near Dogubayazit, on the Turkish-Iranian border.

In 2004, Daniel McGivern, Honolulu-based businessman, announced he would
finance a £600,000 expedition to the peak of Greater Ararat in July to
investigate the Ararat anomaly.

But he was refused permission by the Turkish authorities, as the summit is
inside a restricted military zone, after he paid for commercial satellite
images of the site.

The expedition was labelled as a stunt by National Geographic News, which
claimed that the expedition leader, a Turkish academic, had previously been
accused of faking photographs of the Ark.

In 2006, Bob Cornuke of the Bible Archeology Search and Exploration
Institute began an expedition to Iran to visit a site in the Alborz
Mountains, purported to be a possible resting place of the Ark.

His team claimed to have discovered an object 13,000 feet above sea level,
which looked to be made of blackened petrified wooden beams, and was "about
the size of a small aircraft carrier" (400 ft long (120m)).

The team also claimed to have found fossilised sea creatures inside the
object but no independent evidence has ever been put forward to validate
their claims.

There have also been a number of hoax claims about the discovery of the Ark.

In 1993, CBS aired a programme called "The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s
Ark".

In the programme George Jammal claimed to have "sacred wood from the ark",
gathered during an expedition which allegedly took the life of "his Polish
friend Vladimir".

Mr Jammal, who was really an actor, later revealed that his "sacred wood"
was wood taken from railroad tracks in Long Beach, California, and hardened
by cooking with various sauces in an oven.