Has Noah's Ark Been Found ?

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

exactly, i wonder how many times somebody said they found Noah's Ark...

Exactly what?

I wonder how many times scientists claimed the Earth was flat?

Grow up!

[macrosslover]

exactly, i wonder how many times somebody said they found Noah's Ark...

funny story to that. I remember watching this unsolved mysteries episode as a young child, saying the Russian government had found Noah's Ark somewhere in Europe. They allegedly sent a full team to document it, catalog it, the works. The story goes they sent all their documents back to Russia 3 days before the Revolution and all the stuff was lost to history. I've always wondered about that lol, but yes this isn't the first group to say they've found Noah's Ark.

Personally I doubt it. My personal belief is you have as much chance of finding the Ark of the Covenant as you do Noah's Ark.

[jimbo12141]

So the evangelicals accept carbon dating as evidence now I see.

Good Point, as they clearly accept carbon dating - they are opening a massive can of worms on themselves :p I'm sure there were boats 4k years ago, doesn't mean its a boat from a (in my view) fictional book...

[TDT]

They did find it. Actually, it was Indiana Jones that did.

[Aergan]

So the evangelicals accept carbon dating as evidence now I see.

On that note of win, I will quote George Pig: Dino-saw, GRrrrrrr!

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

They did find it. Actually, it was Indiana Jones that did.

Different Ark... And moreover, the Nazi's found it, not Indy ;)

[Panacik]

Although this could be the ark... it still doesnt prove that any religion is true, real or proves the existance of any ultimate "god like" being. It simply solidifies the fact that a boat was built all those years ago...

Just thought i would throw that out there, before the religious nuts start preaching that all should turn to X religion, as this proves the existance of their god.

[hougtimo]

Although this could be the ark... it still doesnt prove that any religion is true, real or proves the existance of any ultimate "god like" being. It simply solidifies the fact that a boat was built all those years ago...

Just thought i would throw that out there, before the religious nuts start preaching that all should turn to X religion, as this proves the existance of their god.

See this is the problem. Religion is used as a pretext for manipulating people! That is wrong and I can understand 100% where you're coming from. You can't justify a faith on a supposed archaeological find. To be quite honest, in this day and age, it wouldn't be overly difficult for people to 'find' anything that proved anything they wanted!

I'll repeat again, people who use artefacts such as this to base their 'religion' on, obviously don't have anything better to 'prove' their faith.

[Alladaskill17]

Foolish religious people.

I'm not severely religious but I will defend the right to believe in it, thanks for trolling!?!?

[alfaaqua]

Can you prove their beliefs wrong?

Can you prove their beliefs right?

[TDT]

Different Ark... And moreover, the Nazi's found it, not Indy ;)

Oh my GOD! It was a JOKE, I know all about the Indy series, trust me.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Oh my GOD! It was a JOKE, I know all about the Indy series, trust me.

Reel it back in son, I was playing with you. As for trusting you... Why?

[tmaxxtigger]

So the evangelicals accept carbon dating as evidence now I see.

Actually carbon dating is accurate until the time of the flood. Before then the change in the atmosphere that is not taken into account with carbon dating is what throws it off.

[hdood]

No.

[Growled Member]

They'll never be able to prove that this is "Noah's Ark" regardless of what test they use unless Noah decided to crave his name into the wood somewhere or something. It's an interesting find however and makes me wonder what a ship is doing on the side of a mountain.

[Hum]

I've read previously that wood does not last thousands of years -- it gets replaced by minerals.

"Remember that this object, if it is the Ark, is extremely old. The wood has been petrified. Organic matter has been replaced by minerals from the earth. Only the shapes and traces of the original wood remain. Perhaps this is why the expedition in 1960 was disappointed. They anticipated finding and retrieving chucks of wood, long since eroded."

http://mondovista.com/noahx.html

I don't see religion necessarily playing into this discovery -- there could have simply been a boat built to survive a long trip, transporting animals, or in case of emergency.

[iamawesomewicked]

Web sites are buzzing over claims that remains from Noah?s Ark may have been found on Turkey?s Mount Ararat. The finders, led by an evangelical group, say they are "99.9 percent" that a wooden structure found on the mountainside was part of a ship that housed the Biblical Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a giant flood 4,800 years ago.

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.

"You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to get something tolerable, and they're not even working much with the Bible," said Paul Zimansky, an archaeologist and historian at Stony Brook University who specializes in the Near East - and especially the region around Ararat, known as Urartu.

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

The quest to find remnants of the Bible's most famous cargo ship goes back to, well, virtually biblical times (or at least back to the time of the ancient historian Josephus). In the Book of Genesis, God tells Noah to build a boat that would be longer than a modern-day football field and more than three stories high. Animals were sent to seek shelter in the ship and ride out a flood that wiped out the entire world.

Zimansky points out that Genesis identifies the mountains of Urartu (a.k.a. Ararat) as the landing zone for the ark, but not a specific peak. Over the centuries, 16,946-foot Mount Ararat and the nearby boat-shaped Durupinar rock formation have emerged as the favored locales for ark-hunters. (Others, meanwhile, have looked for evidence of an ancient flood in Turkey's Black Sea region or Iran.)

It seems as if evidence of the ark pops up at least every couple of years - and not always in the same place. The latest report appears to follow up on a 2007 expedition that came upon a wooden structure "in the interiors of an unusual cave" at the 14,700-foot level of Ararat's slopes.

NAMI / AFP - Getty Images

This photo from Noah's Ark Ministries International shows part of a structure that

evangelical explorers say might prove the existence of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat.

That expedition was organized by Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark Ministries International, the group that is also behind the fresh reports appearing this week. Leaders of the Chinese-Turkish expedition said wooden specimens recovered from the structure on Ararat had been carbon-dated to yield an age of 4,800 years.

They said several compartments had been found, some with wooden beams, and suggested that the compartments were used to house animals. Because the evidence of habitation in that area is scant, Noah's Ark Ministries International said the best explanation for the artifacts' existence was ... you guessed it.

"It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it," Yueng Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker who was on the exploration team, said in a report from the AFP news service. Yeung said local Turkish officials were trying to win protected status for the site, so that a more extensive archaeological dig could be conducted.

Zimansky said he would welcome hearing more about the site. "It would be nice to know what they have found - if there's a scientific publication in the offing," he told me. "Press releases are not the way archaeology advances."

He was doubtful about the linkage to the Bible story, however. "It's not inconceivable to me that they've found pieces of wood at that level, but that doesn't mean they've found an ark," he said.

NAMI / AFP - Getty Images

This picture provided by Noah's Ark Ministries International shows racks found on a

wall inside a compartment of a structure that has been linked to Noah's Ark.

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.

Kuniholm has had to deal with repeated claims from ark-hunters, including claims based on purported discoveries of ancient wood, and it sounds as if he's starting to get sick of it. He expects the latest report will end up in his thick file of ark discoveries that end up going nowhere.

"These guys have already gotten the answer worked out ahead of time," he said, "and then they go out to prove it."

During an earlier episode of Noah's Ark hype, we offered an unscientific opinion poll that seemed to suggest most people believe the ark really existed and may have been spotted. Is that how you feel this time around? Or will the Noah's Ark debate end up as muddled as the Shroud of Turin debate? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 7:45 p.m. ET: I've added a couple of additional pictures to the item. I actually had these ready to go shortly after the item was published, but I've been tied up reviewing comments (more than 1,500 and counting).

Many comments relate to carbon dating: In this case, Kuniholm is not questioning the validity of carbon-dating techniques, but just wondering whether the dating was done correctly. He said he was presented with earlier samples of wood from Ararat that he was told were dated to just 1,400 years ago.

Also, one of the factors behind the scientists' skepticism is that there has been no published research about these finds. If it could be verified that this wooden structure is indeed 4,800 years ago, that would be notable - whether or not it came from an ark. Now I'm back to moderating comments...

Update for 11 p.m. ET: I have to apologize to those whose comments have not yet been approved, just as I did when we had the Shroud of Turin item a couple of weeks ago. Some commenters have pointed to an intriguing video clip on The Sun's version of the "Noah's Ark" story that shows mountaineers checking out what appears to be the interior of a wooden compartment. I'm hoping to have more about all this as additional information becomes available.

Source

[brentaal]

What makes it Noah's ark? Is it just like those "Jesus" toasts?

[Xilo]

The concept of Noah's Ark is a crock anyways.

[Growled Member]

The concept of Noah's Ark is a crock anyways.

Not completely. Maybe the idea of it housing two of every animal and such is, but if a boat is found on a mountain it had to get there some way and the most probable way is that receding flood water placed it there.

[John S. Veteran]

Not completely. Maybe the idea of it housing two of every animal and such is, but if a boat is found on a mountain it had to get there some way and the most probable way is that receding flood water placed it there.

Indeed...4000m above sea level

[AJerman]

What makes them foolish? Can you prove their beliefs wrong?

See this is where those who believe in religion go wrong. They have come up with arguments over the years that can't be disproved. That's like saying I have an invisible person sitting next to me. Can you prove it wrong? No, because I made up a story that can never be proven right or wrong, just like religion. I believe that the theists out there are the ones that need to do proving. They are the ones saying something exists. Without any way to prove it (and not knowing something so saying God did it isn't proof), it's as good as non-existent. Those of us who don't believe aren't the ones that need to prove something. We live our life every day seeing absolutely no proof of God existing, we have nothing to prove.

It amazes me that religion, something that was largely used to control people with fear in ancient times, is still something that people cling on to to this day. Perhaps I've gotten more cynical as I've gotten older. I never believed in religion, even as a kid, but before I didn't care. People could think whatever they wanted and it made no difference to me, but as I get older, it amazes me more and more that people blindly follow something that they know they will NEVER see proof of. If I made up ANY other thing and told you it was real but you just had to believe me about it and that you should hang out with me at least once a week to worship what I made up, you would think I'm crazy, but somehow church and religion aren't?

[nub]

The answer is no

[Xilo]

See this is where those who believe in religion go wrong. They have come up with arguments over the years that can't be disproved. That's like saying I have an invisible person sitting next to me. Can you prove it wrong? No, because I made up a story that can never be proven right or wrong, just like religion. I believe that the theists out there are the ones that need to do proving. They are the ones saying something exists. Without any way to prove it (and not knowing something so saying God did it isn't proof), it's as good as non-existent. Those of us who don't believe aren't the ones that need to prove something. We live our life every day seeing absolutely no proof of God existing, we have nothing to prove.

Heh. Reminds me of this http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu/home.html which is exactly what you're saying.

[AJerman]

Heh. Reminds me of this http://www.invisible...m/ipu/home.html which is exactly what you're saying.

Hah, I hadn't seen that before. I'll have to use that from now on instead of an invisible person next to me.