Noah's Ark Found in Turkey

While searching for the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey, a Chinese-Turkish exploration team successfully excavated and ventured inside a large wooden structure at an elevation of more than 4,000m above sea level. Wood specimens were dated as 4,800 years old. Officials of Turkish government and Cultural Ministries highly regarded the finds and jointly announced the discovery with the exploration team in Hong Kong. They planned to submit an application for the wooden structure to be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. A mutual agreement for further co-operation was signed and the Hong Kong team members were recognized as Honorable Citizens of Agri Province, Turkey. In the press conference on April 25, Consul General of Turkey, Mr. Mehmet Raif Karaca, was invited to come and support the great achievements of the exploration team in the aspect of the search for Noah’s Ark.

(source:http://www.noahsarksearch.net/eng/)

Noah's Ark in the Bible

According to the Judaeo-Christian Bible, Noah was a ‘righteous man, blameless in his generation’ (Genesis 6:9) at a time when ‘the Earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the Earth . . . was filled with violence’ (Gen 6:11). God therefore decided to destroy the whole world, yet preserved the life of Noah and his family because of Noah's righteousness.

God instructed Noah to build an Ark of gopher wood 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high, for God was to destroy the world with a Great Flood. God also told Noah to take with him two of every sort of animal on to the Ark (Gen 6:19-20).

Having spent one whole year on the Ark, the floodwaters receded, and the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Gen 8:2-4). God told Noah and his family and all the animals to leave the Ark and to fill the world once again.

God then made a covenant with Noah that "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the Flood, and never again shall there be a Flood to destroy the Earth", and the covenant was marked by the sign of a rainbow. (Gen 9:13)

The Qur'an also recorded this story, mainly in Sura 11:25-48

Historical Accounts of Noah’s Ark

* Berossus, a native historian of Babylonia in 275 B.C.
“...grounded in Armenia some part still remains in the mountains of the Gordyaeans in Armenia, and some get pitch from the ship by scraping it off, and use it for amulets.”…Babyloniaca

* Nicolas of Damascus, a Greek historian and philosopher in 30 B.C.
“Above the country of the Minus in Armenia a great mountain called Baris, where, as the story goes, many refugees found safety at the time of the Flood, and one man transported upon the ark grounded upon the summit: and relics of the timber were for long preserved…”

* Flavius Josephus, the official historian of the Jews for the Roman Empire in the 1st Century
“The Armenians call that spot the Landing-Place for it was there that the Ark came safely to land, and they show the relics of it to this day. This Flood and the Ark are mentioned by all who have written histories of the barbarians.”… Antiquities of the Jews

* Eutychius, an Egyptian Arab, Patriarch of Alexandria, a famous historian and physician in the 9th Century A.D.
“The Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat; that is, Jabal Judi near Mosul.”… Nazm al-Gawahir

Remark: Although the names of the mountain where the Ark landed vary in different historical records, they actually refer to the same mountain – Mount Ararat.