Has Noah's Ark been found?
RELIGIOUS explorers claim to have discovered the remains of Noah’s Ark – at the top of a snow-peaked Turkish mountain.
The potentially astounding find comes 4,800 years after the wooden ark was said to have saved a pair of every species of animal from torrential flood waters.
A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers from Noah’s Ark Ministries International believe a relic uncovered 12,000ft up Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey is the biblical vessel.
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A British expert has rubbished the claims but the group said carbon testing had linked samples from the structure to the time of the biblical story.
The story of Noah’s ark is told in three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam and has featured in Hollywood films.
According to the book of Genesis, God flooded the world as punishment for its corruption and told Noah to build an ark and fill it with a male and female of every breed of animal.
Once the flood receded, the ark came to rest on a mountain. Many people believe it was Mount Ararat, the region’s highest point.
Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary maker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International, said: “It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent.”
He said the structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, believed to have housed animals.
Apart from wooden specimens, the team also brought back samples including white seedling-like particles and remains of rope, which they believe were used for keeping animals. The filmmaker said initial findings suggested the wood was a kind of cypress, but the Bible stated that the Ark was built of Gopher wood. Meanwhile, laboratory tests are being carried out on other specimens.
The team is a joint effort between Hong Kong-based Media Evangelism, Noah’s Ark Ministry International and Turkey’s government.
Video footage shows the group exploring a wooden structure embedded in ice and volcanic debris. The team has not issued photographs of the exterior of the structure and will not give a precise location. A British archaeologist yesterday said the findings were “rubbish”.
Professor Martin Biddle, emeritus professor of Medieval Archaeology at Oxford University, told the Daily Express: “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the story is more than a myth and certainly there’s no evidence that anything of that kind exists in Turkey.”
