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The Great Dinosaur Mistake

A Mountain in Turkey

Mount Ararat figures importantly in the Biblical flood narrative, so we might expect this ancient mountain to bear witness to the truth of the Scriptures. Many people who have climbed Ararat claim to have seen something very much like a ship buried in the ice.

The first reported sighting took place about 720 B.C. when a group of Armenians climbed the mountain of Ararat in search of the ark. It is said they took amulets or pieces of pitch from the ark and wore them around their necks to protect their crops from flood damage. Berosus the historian tells us of this and Josephus also tells us about the ark resting on Mount Ararat. Marco Polo mentions it in the story of his travels. In recent times the ark has been seen by over 186 different people, on 17 different expeditions since 1856.

Wood has been found on Mount Ararat on several occasions. One might ask what is so important about finding wood on top of a mountain? If there were trees on the mountain it would be normal to find wood there, but Mount Ararat has no trees. The wood found there is hand-hewn timber, impregnated with a black substance, and was part of some structure. It is found buried in an ice cap on top of a lava flow, on a mountain where there are no trees native to that mountain for 200 miles. That makes it somewhat of an oddity. Unless the wood were carried up there and a building constructed on top of the ice, there is really no explanation for its being there. On the other hand, it is quite reasonable to believe that it could be a part of the ark of Noah. Especially is this so in view of the fact that members of several expeditions have claimed to see the entire ship resting near the top of the mountain. Some reports even included measurements which agreed with those reported in the Genesis account.

In 1883 a group of Turkish commissioners claimed that they entered the ark. They reported finding on the side wall of the third compartment a ship's log, apparently a record of the voyage. They said there were cages inside large enough to contain animals. Several organizations are making attempts to relocate the ark. Satellite photographs taken from Skylab reveal an object foreign to the mountain, buried in the ice cap. Quite possibly in the next few years the ark of Noah will be rediscovered. Reportedly it has been seen by almost 200 people since 1856. This again, added to the other evidence, lends strong support to the concept that there was a worldwide flood in the time of Noah.

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