According to tradition, Noah’s Ark set sail, carrying his family and pairs of the world’s animals to save them from the great deluge.
Now, 4,800 years on, a group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers claim to have found the vessel’s remains – 4,000 metres up a mountain in Turkey.
The explorers said specimen samples taken from the structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey were proven to date from the time the boat was said to be afloat after undergoing carbon testing.
The team made the announcement of their find yesterday (April 26) – the same day the bible says the flood waters abated and the ark came to rest.
Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker 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 that this is it.’
He said the structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals.
The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3500m in the vicinity.
Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected and pave the way for a major archaeological dig.
The biblical story says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.
After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.
Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants came aground.
The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3500m in the vicinity.
Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected and pave the way for a major archaeological dig.
The biblical story says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.
After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.
Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants came aground.
This shows racks found on a wall inside a compartment of a structure found on Mount Ararat, where the Bible says the Ark came to rest
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269165/Noahs-Ark-discovered-4-800-years–4-000m-mountain-Turkey.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0mKPk6va9