According to the Bible, Noah’s ship is a ship that was built by the Old Testament patriarch at the behest of God. He did this to save the family and all the animals of the world from the impending Flood. It is believed that in this way managed to save life on Earth. In this article we will talk about the construction of the ark and its search, which has been going on for many centuries.
Bible sources
In the Bible, Noah’s ship is described in the Old Testament. It is claimed that the Flood was preceded by a widespread decline in morality. God, seeing how corrupted a man was, even repented of the fact that he had once created it.
However, he discovered the immaculate righteous who served him. It was Noah. God appeared to him, saying that he would destroy humanity, and he was commanded to build an ark. After the completion of the work, Noah's sons and wives entered the ship Noah, as well as a couple of all the animals, in order to save them too.
A week after that, it started to rain, which destroyed the rest of humanity.
Construction time
The Bible states that Noah was 500 years old when he began to build the ark. At that time, the patriarch had three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. By the time the work was completed, he was already 600 years old.
The age of Noah, like other antediluvian patriarchs, is estimated in hundreds. It is believed that he lived for 950 years.
According to Jewish tradition, the dates indicated in the Bible correspond to the lunar months of the Jewish calendar. From this we can conclude that the flood continued throughout the modern calendar year.
The ship of Noah is mentioned in many medieval sources. In particular, in the works of Marco Polo, Joseph Flavius, as well as in the Russian "Tales of Bygone Years."
The search for the ark
In Armenian history, there are references to the fact that Hakob Mtsbnetsi, the holy Armenian Apostolic Church, who lived in the 3rd-4th centuries, went in search of the ship, Noah's Ark. He repeatedly climbed Mount Ararat, since it was at its peak, according to legend, that there was a ship.
According to legend, every time he fell asleep in the middle of the way. And when he woke up, he again found himself at the foot of the mountain. During another attempt, an angel appeared to him, who asked to stop searching for the ark, promising in return to give him a piece of the wooden lining of the vessel. Waking up, St. Hakob allegedly found this fragment nearby, took it to the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, which is located on the territory of the modern Armenian city of Vagharshapat. There this artifact remains today.
At the place where, according to legend, Mtsbnetsi found a fragment of the ark, a monastery was erected. The Achora Gorge, where all this happened, began to be called the gorge of St. Hakob.
It is believed that this belief was an adaptation of an earlier legend, which also claimed to be inaccessible tops. Attempts to find Noah’s ship on Mount Ararat began regularly on the 4th century AD.
19th Century Researchers
Since the 19th century, expeditions began to take place in places where, according to legend, the ark clung to the ground. However, not one of them was successful. However, many researchers claimed that they saw something that they identified as the remains of this ship.
In 1887, the discovery of the ark was announced by a certain John Joseph, who called himself the Archbishop of Babylon. Six years later, he even made an attempt to organize an expedition to disassemble the ship and deliver it to the world exhibition in Chicago. Joseph managed to get the necessary funding, but Turkish authorities banned the transportation of the ark if it was discovered.
Historians consider all the allegations of John extremely dubious because of his personality, since he constantly used unconfirmed titles, and some time spent in a madhouse in California.
Messages of pilots
At the beginning of the 20th century, messages began to arrive from pilots who claimed to have seen the ark. One of the first was the Russian lieutenant Vladimir Roscovitsky, who emigrated to America during the First World War.
He claimed that, flying over Mount Ararat, he saw a large vessel and suggested that it was Noah's ark. The pilot made a drawing of what he saw, filed a corresponding report. A year later, the authorities allegedly sent an expedition led by Roskovitsky, who found the ark and took many photos of Noah’s ship.
However, during the revolution, the report disappeared. In addition, Turkey at that time participated in active hostilities against Armenia and Russia, and Mount Ararat itself was occupied.
No documentary evidence of this find has been preserved. Not even the existence of a pilot with such a surname has been confirmed. The main source of this whole story was an article by a certain man who called himself the son of Roskovitsky, which was published in the journal "Technique - Youth".
French expedition
In 1955, the expedition to Ararat was organized by the French explorer and industrialist Fernand Navarra. He brought the remains of a plank, which, he himself claimed, had been broken off from the wooden skeleton of the ark.
Some scientists have confirmed that the age of the tree presented to him is about five thousand years. But all studies were variable and subjective. For example, experts could not even agree on what kind of oak it was.
As a result, radiocarbon analysis data obtained from five laboratories established that the tree appeared in the second half of the first millennium AD.
Ararat anomaly
One of the main places where the search for the ark is still ongoing is the Ararat anomaly. This is an object whose nature is still unknown. It is located at an altitude of about 2200 meters above sea level, protrudes from the snow on the northwestern slope of Mount Ararat.
Some scientists explain its appearance by natural causes, focusing on the alleged photos of Noah's ark. The ship, in their opinion, it is not. Moreover, access to this area is difficult. Largely due to the fact that it is located on the Armenian-Turkish border. This is a closed military zone.
In 2007, a joint Turkish-Hong Kong expedition was organized. Three years later, its participants made an official statement that Noah’s ark was found at an altitude of 4000 meters, where he was frozen into a glacier. Researchers even managed to get into some rooms, make video and photos of Noah’s ship on Mount Ararat. The age of the found remains is estimated at 4800 years.
Another place where the ark can be located is the Tendryuk area, located 30 kilometers south of Ararat. In 1957, the American Life magazine published photographs of a Turkish pilot, Ilham Durupinar, who, looking through aerial photographs, found a strange object resembling a ship in outline.
The study of this phenomenon was taken by the American doctor Ron Wyatt. After several expeditions, he came to the conclusion that this is Noah's ark. In 1987, a tourist center was built in this place.
Criticism
At the same time, professional archaeologists are skeptical of both versions. In particular, researchers believe that the Bible is not about Mount Ararat, but about the area in the north of Assyria, known at that time as Urartu.
In the Middle Ages, there was an opinion that it was impossible to search for the ark. It was believed that on the day when they discover it, the end of the world will come. Many supporters of this theory today. The search for Noah's ark in medieval Armenia was also condemned. Mount Ararat was considered a saint, so looking for a ship on it was blasphemous.