Visitors guide to finding Noah’s Ark
Dr Irving Finkel the world famous philologist and Assyriologist of the British Museum, discussed in a recent video a Babylonian cuneiform tablet which he called “the oldest map in the world”.
What makes it so interesting is that it proports to show exactly where Noah’s ark can be found.
The translated text on the reverse of the tablet describes the steps in a traveler’s journey to discover the location of the Ark, describing “seven leagues,” which they must pass through to arrive at the remnants of the ‘parsiktu-vessel’. The map leads to ‘Urartu,’ which was named in an ancient Mesopotamian poem as the Ark’s landing place and is the Assyrian equivalent to “Ararat,”, the mountain location named in the Hebrew Old Testament as the resting place of Noah’s Ark. A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans. In Finkle’s explanation of the tablet, he explained how ancient travelers taking the path to Urartu may have seen the remains of the mammoth vessel on their journey.
In the Babylonian version of this tale, it is a man named Utnapishtim who undertakes this task. Finkel explained that this tablet demonstrated that “the story was the same … that from the Babylonian point of view, this was a matter of fact thing … that if you did go on this journey you would see the remnants of this historic boat”.
A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans and the biblical measurements given (“300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits,” which is equal to around 515 feet long by 86 feet wide and 52 feet high) match up with the measurements of the site in modern-day Turkey.
This is just one more interesting bit of ancient evidence Finkel has uncovered showing multiple matching cultural references to a great flood event.
If you’re curious to read more, he is the author of the 2013 book The Ark Before Noah, which goes over the ancient artifacts about a flood event believed to have occurred around 5,000 years ago.
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