According to the bible, Noah’s ark ‘came to rest on the mountains of Ararat’. And isn’t that nice: Mount Ararat exists, on the Turkish-Armenian border.

But you won’t find too many arks there. It was only named ‘Ararat’ much, much later: in the early Middle Ages.

Actually, the bible literally says that Noah landed his ark on Mount ‘rrt’. Most modern scholars believe this is a referral to Urartu, an ancient kingdom in what’s now Turkey.

Although Mount Ararat is also in this region, the bible could refer to any mountain in the area. And there are quite a number of them!

But the ark could also have landed in Iran, on Mount Nimush, or in Greece, on Mount Parnassos. Noah’s flood story is an almost exact copy of at least two other, older flood myths (see elsewhere on this site). And according to those stories, the ark landed on the Iranian and the Greek mountain respectively.

(Oh, you might want to know that there were different Noah’s aboard: the Iranian ‘Noah’ is called Utnapishtim, the Greek guy’s name is Deucalion.)

In modern times, many researchers have claimed to have found the ark. But until now, no serious bible archaeologist takes these claims seriously.

The ‘researchers’ in question are always non-professional laymen, instead of trained archaeologists working at a universiy. And the ‘evidence’ they come up with always consists of vague structures in the rock or curious decolorations on the mountain walls. Geologists easily explain them away.

Besides, even if there was an ark – which is not very likely, given the fact that you need 1,4 billion cubic kilometers of water to flood all mountains – it would have rotted away.

The bible clearly states that the ark was made of wood, and that it was exposed to the open air when Noah (or Deucalion, or Utnapishtim) left it. There is no way the boat could have survived for thousands of years. It couldn’t have fossilized or have been mummified – you need very different circumstances for that.

No-ark: A brief history of failed ark recovery missions

7th Century	The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal claims to have spotted the ark on Mount Nimush. But there isn’t any evidence that the rumour is true. Whatever it was Ashurbanipal saw – it has never been seen again.
1916	A Russian lieutenant named Roskovitski claims to have found the ark. But his supposed ‘evidence’ (photo footage and old wood) mysteriously vanishes
1960	Life Magazine publishes Turkish military air photo’s showing odd features on Mount Ararat. The magazine claims that the ark has been found. But when researchers of the Archaeological Research Foundation visit the place, they find that the ‘ark’ really is just a layer of clay deposits in a field of lava. The ark? No: clay deposits.
1970s	Ron Wyatt, nurse by profession and self-appointed 'arkaeologist', re-examines the ‘ark site’. He finds pieces of wood, traces of iron and ‘altar stones’. But upon serious examination, the findings evaporate. The wood isn’t old but was left there recently; the ‘iron’ is just natural ore; and the ‘altar stones’ are simple boulders left there by nature.
1994	CBS airs a documentary about the ‘incredible discovery of Noah’s ark’. In it, among other things pieces of wood are shown. But the ‘documentary’ is a hoax: producer George Jammal later admits that he made up the documentary and produced the ‘holy ark wood’ himself in an oven. Jammal even admits that he never visited Turkey.
2006	Once more, the ‘ark site’ attracts attention when Digital Globe produces crystal clear images of an odd-looking structure on Mount Ararat. But geologists point out it isn’t an ark, but a natural mountain ridge. The ark? No: a basalt ridge.