Noah's Ark found?

[annis]

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers ( ¿Qué - WTF is an evangelical explorer?) claim to have found the remains of the Ark in Turkey.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/evangelists-claim-to-have-found-noahs-ark--4000m-up-mountain-20100427-tnlg.html

[SonjaMarie]

Probably people who try to find actual proof of the stories in the bible.

SM

[parthianbow]

Clearly these chappies don't know that (a) the Bible does not mention a mountain named Ararat (it does mention a country), and (b) Ararat received its name from western travelers, who used an incorrect translation that rendered "mountains of Ararat" as "the mountain Ararat". The real ones are far to the south, where Noah's tomb is still revered by Christian and Muslim alike. Kind of puts a kybosh on their thory. Shame, as a find like that would be amazing.
(With thanks to Jona Lendering for the information and the link)
http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/common-errors-2-ararat/

[Madeleine]

this theory seems to surface every few years, it's not the first time it's been claimed to be on Mount Ararat, and a while ago someone claimed to have detected the remains of a large ship on top of the mountain, with its ribs and spars still intact.

[Nefret]

this theory seems to surface every few years, it's not the first time it's been claimed to be on Mount Ararat, and a while ago someone claimed to have detected the remains of a large ship on top of the mountain, with its ribs and spars still intact.

Oh, I think I remember hearing about that.

[SarahWoodbury]

I read some of the comments and one person noted that if the entire planet had been underwater and the only 'dry' wood was the boat, wouldn't Noah have taken it apart to build his house?

Given that the boat is at 14,000 feet, my issue is this--if the entire planet was covered with water up to 14,000 feet to leave the boat there, what happened to the water? It 'drained away'? Where? Is there a bathtub plug for the planet somewhere archaeologists haven't found yet?

[parthianbow]

it seems that the whole thing may be a fraud...
http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2010/04/noahs-ark-paleobabble-update/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=noahs-ark-paleobabble-update

[Madeleine]

I think it can be filed next to "Loch Ness Monster", although if people want to believe it that's up to them.

[SonjaMarie]

Tsk, tsk, what a shame!

SM

[LoveHistory]

I read some of the comments and one person noted that if the entire planet had been underwater and the only 'dry' wood was the boat, wouldn't Noah have taken it apart to build his house?

Given that the boat is at 14,000 feet, my issue is this--if the entire planet was covered with water up to 14,000 feet to leave the boat there, what happened to the water? It 'drained away'? Where? Is there a bathtub plug for the planet somewhere archaeologists haven't found yet?

Sarah, it didn't have to be the whole world. Just the known world of the time. And like Ben said, the actual resting place is most likely not Mt. Ararat. Therefore the water didn't have to get that high.

By the time Noah and his family actually left the ark to live on the land, there was wood available. There was vegetation again. Remember the dove that came back with the olive branch? It was still quite a while after that before they disembarked.

The story of a great flood covering the surface of the land is present in many cultures, it is not unique to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. Based on that, one might surmise that there was at least one great flood in history.

[Margaret]

There were actually some quite impressive floods at the end of the Ice Age. One of them, the Bretz Flood, created the Columbia River Gorge along the boundary between Washington and Oregon. (See Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretz_Flood).) Wasn't another of these responsible for the English Channel?

[SarahWoodbury]

I absolutely believe there were great floods. My comment was directed at this particular boat at 14,000 feet.

Out here in the west, the Missoula Floods must have been awesome to behold (there remains some question if any people were here to behold them but . . .)

From the CVO web site: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_lake_missoula.html

"During the last Ice Age, a finger of the Cordilleran ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho Panhandle, blocking the Clark Fork River and creating Glacial Lake Missoula. As the waters rose behind this 2,000-foot ice dam, they flooded the valleys of western Montana. At its greatest extent, Glacial Lake Missoula stretched eastward a distance of some 200 miles, essentially creating an inland sea.

Periodically, the ice dam would fail. These failures were often catastrophic, resulting in a large flood of ice- and dirt-filled water that would rush down the Columbia River drainage, across northern Idaho and eastern and central Washington, through the Columbia River Gorge, back up into Oregon's Willamette Valley, and finally pour into the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River.

The glacial lake, at its maximum height and extent, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water. When Glacial Lake Missoula burst through the ice dam and exploded downstream, it did so at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. This towering mass of water and ice literally shook the ground as it thundered towards the Pacific Ocean, stripping away thick soils and cutting deep canyons in the underlying bedrock. With flood waters roaring across the landscape at speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours. "

[Margaret]

My comment was directed at this particular boat at 14,000 feet.

I do share your skepticism, Sarah, about this particular find. These "researchers" were out looking for something very specific, and - guess what! - they found it.

[annis]

I have to admit to a profound scepticism about the claims of anyone calling him/herself an "evangelical explorer" :)

[LoveHistory]

Out here in the west, the Missoula Floods must have been awesome to behold (there remains some question if any people were here to behold them but . . .)

From the CVO web site: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_lake_missoula.html

"During the last Ice Age, a finger of the Cordilleran ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho Panhandle, blocking the Clark Fork River and creating Glacial Lake Missoula. As the waters rose behind this 2,000-foot ice dam, they flooded the valleys of western Montana. At its greatest extent, Glacial Lake Missoula stretched eastward a distance of some 200 miles, essentially creating an inland sea.

Periodically, the ice dam would fail. These failures were often catastrophic, resulting in a large flood of ice- and dirt-filled water that would rush down the Columbia River drainage, across northern Idaho and eastern and central Washington, through the Columbia River Gorge, back up into Oregon's Willamette Valley, and finally pour into the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River.

The glacial lake, at its maximum height and extent, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water. When Glacial Lake Missoula burst through the ice dam and exploded downstream, it did so at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. This towering mass of water and ice literally shook the ground as it thundered towards the Pacific Ocean, stripping away thick soils and cutting deep canyons in the underlying bedrock. With flood waters roaring across the landscape at speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours. "

Now THAT would make a great HF novel.