Noah's Ark Found in Iran?!

[lao tzu]

So let's examine what my 60/40 confidence is. It is that a large amount of wood has been found high on a mountain in the form of a structure. It's really dishonest to imply, even in the smallest way that I am sure it's the ark or even a boat.

Are you even reading your thread? No wood has been found. Your sources all trace back to the unsupported claims of the expeditioners. The one geologist in the bunch describes the find as "basalt" ... not petrified wood.

Had any meaningful results been found, the analyses would be public by now, as Glenn has explained. Your confidence is based on deliberate blindness. This is a hoax. The only reason it's being publicized now is to sell the book, "Ark Fever." Most of a year after the expedition they're claiming the finds are still being analyzed. Why aren't the bells going off in your head?

Consider for a moment. Beta Analytic makes its reports available in PDF format within 2-30 days. How difficult is it to host a PDF file of the results? They've had that report for over six months, assuming they ever sent any samples at all, and they have not released it. There can be only one reason to withhold the data. Because they do not support their claims.

As a long time "Ark Watcher" this interests me because it is the first organized presentation of supposedly discovered archeological evidence of something that COULD be the Ark of Noah at a place other than Mt Ararat. Therefore I am excited. That's all. If it turns out to be just wood, or an utter hoax, I got distracted for no good reason and we can probably cross that particular mountain off the list. We don't know the mountain on which the Ark came to rest, the Bible never says exactly which mountain or what Noah considered to be the "Mountains of Ararat". This attracted my interest because it's the first real claim at a location other than the "traditional" site.

Fiction can be exciting, but the real world always turns out to hold greater wonders. The archeological evidence points to a number of catastrophic, but local, floods in the Mesopotamian alluvial plain as the likely origin of the Ziusudra/Utnapishtim/Noah story.

It is not difficult to imagine later residents aware of flood-buried cities underneath them and underneath nearby settlements. Linking these separate events into one collossal deluge, they construct a tale to explain it, and link it with whatever historical information they had available. Over the course of time a local flood becomes a regional flood that later becomes a world-wide flood. There is a memetic survival of the fittest at work here. The greater the exaggeration, the more likely the tale is to be repeated.

Let me also be clear about something. I expect there is an Ark Site. The object was far too large and even taking it apart and moving it somewhere else would leave considerable evidence. I don't know if we will find it, that's up to God essentially. I also expect as I have said before that if it is found that no matter how solid the evidence turns out to be, those not inclined to believe in the Biblical story will still not believe. I expect as I have alluded to before that even if it's believed to be "an Ark" for "A Flood" that quickly people will move to prove it was some other mythical flood survivors boat. In other words I expect that the mindset of the non Christian is such that if it is proved to their satisfaction to be a boat for floating over a disasterous flood, that they would much rather suspect it is Gilgamesh's than Noah's.

There's no need to project your credulity on science. Given evidence, we'll examine it, and follow the results wherever they lead. But there is no evidence to support these claims. Because there is reason to expect evidence would by now be available, we can declare this a hoax.

A sense of proportion would be useful as well. While the ark of your sacred texts was large for its day, it was by no means comparable to modern day supertankers. A few hundred feet of wood exposed to air and weather would not survive even a hundred years. Small samples of wood can be preserved over thousands of years given the proper conditions, notably removal from weather by being buried in mire or glaciers. The human artifacts of that age and size that remain are built of stone. There's a reason for that.

Please cease to characterize me as believing this is Noah's ark. I have the same doubts you have. I know there was a Noah, I know he had a boat, I don't know if we will ever find it. I'd like to though.

I do not know there was a Noah, and I do not know he had a boat. Tracing the legend back as far as we're able leads to a man-god living in a semispiritual realm who held the secret of eternal life. Additions since that time are clearly ahistorical.

We do not have the same doubts about a flood for the simple reason that I've crunched the numbers to discover the amount of water needed to flood all mountains on earth. That's all that's necessary and it's a ridiculously simple exercise. Beyond that one can go into detail explaining other reasons why there was no global flood, but they are not needed.

The source of the waters described in your sacred text lists the waters above the firmament and the waters below. In the universe of Gilgamesh, with all of creation formed from a division of the heaven-earth from amidst the waters by a physical firmament, it makes sense. In this universe, insufficient waters exist either in the atmosphere or in subterranean reserves to account for such a flood.

As ever, Jesse

[lao tzu]

At this point I have a guarded hopeful optimism because it would be tons of fun for the Ark to be up there. As far as Neil's points about petrification etc etc etc, "Science" just might have to revise it's views if a big petrified boat is discovered at a high altitude. Of course "Science" hasn't had to change it's views at all recently. Scientists have discovered all the laws, all the principles and all the truth there is to discover and are presently writing the Definitive Work on all that is Scientific.

When your defense of a hoax requires rejection of well established facts, it is time to end this conversation. Preservation of such an object would require miraculous intervention. But miraculous preservation would then imply there was never a reason for the ark to be forgotten.

It doesn't add up.

[NeilUnreal]

It could have gotten buried over thousands of winters of snow and thaw and geological shift, petrified, and recently exposed to air again.

This is true, but things don't require mere burial for petrifaction. To become pertrified, the original material must be replaced with a mass of stone equal to the final weight of the material. And it must be replaced bit-by-bit, otherwise, the original form will be lost. There are few processes which can accomplish this, and almost all require burial in sediment containing mineral-laden water. (It could also be a cast of some kind, but the report clearly identifies petrified wood.)

Furthermore, since Noah didn't exit the Ark until the water receded, what geological processes could have buried the Ark? It could have been buried at a lower altitude, petrified, uplifted, and eroded, but that would almost certainly have destroyed the overall structured if those processes had been compressed into a few thousand years. And Genesis clearly states that the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat*, already at some elevation where reburial would be difficult, even if subsequently uplifted.

My point is not to argue whether Noah's Ark does or does not exist. My point is to show that with even a small amount of common sense and basic science, one can see that the structure in question cannot possibly be the boat described in Genesis, and it is improbable (nearly to the point of impossibility) that it is man-made.

One doesn't have to be a skeptic to come to these conclusions based on the evidence presented. The inferences are so obvious and basic that even the most ardent Ark supporter must conclude that -- wherever the Ark might be -- the structure described in the article is not it.

It's fun to think about weird and interesting things that might be out there; I hope we never lose the sense of wonder and magic, and I hope there are always new mysteries cropping up to solve. But it can also be fun to try to use basic common sense and a little science to try to turn the magic back into reality.

-Neil

*The team, after all, went looking in mountains.

[Sparko]

Are you even reading your thread? No wood has been found. Your sources all trace back to the unsupported claims of the expeditioners. The one geologist in the bunch describes the find as "basalt" ... not petrified wood.

Had any meaningful results been found, the analyses would be public by now, as Glenn has explained.

Jesse, what are you basing your dates on?

From the article on www.arkfever.com

dated June 16th, 2006

Led by explorer, adventurer, and featured Worldview Weekend speaker Dr. Bob Cornuke, a fourteen man crew returned this week from Iran bearing stunning evidence

So we are talking about them getting back less than a month ago and you expect them to have already unpacked all the samples and shipped off to labs and the results published already?

Am I missing something?

[Sparko]

This is true, but things don't require mere burial for petrifaction. To become pertrified, the original material must be replaced with a mass of stone equal to the final weight of the material. And it must be replaced bit-by-bit, otherwise, the original form will be lost. There are few processes which can accomplish this, and almost all require burial in soil containing mineral-laden water. (It could also be a cast of some kind, but the report clearly identifies petrified wood.)

You are forgetting thousands of years of water in the snow that could have dissolved nearby rock and petrified the wood, not to mention it could have been buried by geological shifts in the mountain over the millennia.

Furthermore, since Noah didn't exit the Ark until the water receded, what geological processes could have buried the Ark? It could have been buried at a lower altitude, petrified, uplifted, and eroded, but that would almost certainly have destroyed the overall structured if those processes had been compressed into a few thousand years. And Genesis clearly states that it came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, already at some elevation where reburial would be difficult, even if subsequently uplifted.

From the looks of the pictures the structure is pretty well destroyed. It looks like a pile of wood beams if anything at all.

Also the person claiming 'petrified wood' as far as I can tell is a reporter, and he could be just using the term to mean preserved wood in some manner.

I have no bias on the matter myself. It might or might not be the ark or even wood.

But I think that your claiming it absolutely CAN'T be wood or Noah's ark is just as fanatical as the people who claim it is. You are basing your opinions on some photographs, claims by a layman reporter, and your imagination. You just don't have enough information yet.

[NeilUnreal]

I have no bias on the matter myself. It might or might not be the ark or even wood.... But I think that your claiming it absolutely CAN'T be wood or Noah's ark is just as fanatical as the people who claim it is.

I'm not claiming it can't possibly be Noah's Ark, I'm just saying it's so vanishingly unlikely that one may as well claim that Noah's Ark is anywhere: the hill behind one's house, a shoal in a local river, or in a warehouse in Sandusky Ohio. And that this view is not based on bias; based on the evidence presented I can honestly say I would have arrived at the same conclusion had I been the greatest Ark supporter on the planet.

In other words, not one shred of evidence has been presented that indicates this is a more likely candidate for Noah's Ark than any of at least a million other places one could look, while -- on the other hand -- there is considerable evidence that it is not. (Including the opinion of a geologist on the team that if he weren't predisposed to believe it was Noah's Ark, he would believe it to be a rather unremarkable natural geological feature.)

I may as well claim that I have another Ark -- the Ark of the Convenant -- in a serial-numbered box my hall closet and that all who deny it are fanatics. It's possible, of course, that I do have the Ark of the Convenant in my hall closet. But how many people are willing to provisionally believe that I might, while keeping an open mind and a "wait-and-see" attitude?

-Neil

[lao tzu]

Jesse, what are you basing your dates on?

From the article on www.arkfever.com

dated June 16th, 2006

So we are talking about them getting back less than a month ago and you expect them to have already unpacked all the samples and shipped off to labs and the results published already?

Am I missing something?

Yes, as Glenn pointed out, the first coverage of Cornuke's "samples" was published January 16, 2006 by Spero News.

Noah's Ark rests in Iran?

He returned from Mt. Soleiman with numerous samples, photos, and video footage, and has chronicled the journey in a new book, Ark Fever (Tyndale House Publishers).

Testing of rock and shell samples were conducted by BETA Analytic Inc., the largest professional radiocarbon dating laboratory in the world, which routinely services world governments and major academic and historical institutions such as the Smithsonian Institute. Results of this carbon dating, which is still on-going, indicate the presence of abundant organic material consistent with coming from a quiescent deep-water environment – in layman’s terms, possibly from a world once immersed in water.

These samples are from last year. They were supposedly sent for examination last year. While the arkfever site dates its story June 16 of this year, the Spero News story of January 16 contains all of the claims currently being made for sample analysis back in January, and describes the samples as deriving from an expedition of "this past summer".

Now it's possible he's revisited the site with a number of Texas businessmen and ark enthusiasts chiseled out of funds for the trip, and gathered more samples. This does not explain the lack of results from last year's expedition, however, if it is indeed a prior expedition. This story is so fragmented it is not really possible to tell. Moreover, the samples sent for professional analysis are described separately from the petrified wood, or should I say, "evidence" of petrified wood.

Evidence of petrified wood was also brought back, and a world-wide team of experts is studying all materials.

No hint is given on who comprised this "world-wide team of experts."

Additionally, the story linked at ArkFever is so poorly formatted it casts doubt on the story itself. As the site is devoted to selling Cornuke's book about the expedition, it cannot be used as support for the facts uncovered in that expedition.

Sparko, old buddy old pal, I'm sorry, but this is a really blatant hoax.

As ever, Jesse

[WaterOfOblivion]

Are you even reading your thread?

My Thread? I'd check and see if I've ever started one.

No wood has been found.

Uh, that's a silly claim. Something has been found. It is claimed to be wood, it is claimed that some of it tests as petrified wood. Whatever has been found IS what it IS. We will eventually discover what it is. I have already posted a quote from one of the articles that makes the claim that the material is petrified wood and has been tested to be such. I wish you'd quit shadowboxing with my doppelganger. My claim is that this proves the "discoverers" are hoaxers or that they have found "something".

Your sources all trace back to the unsupported claims of the expeditioners. The one geologist in the bunch describes the find as 'basalt' ... not petrified wood.

Obviously someone is wrong.

Had any meaningful results been found, the analyses would be public by now, as Glenn has explained. Your confidence is based on deliberate blindness. This is a hoax.

Your confidence that this is a hoax is as misplaced as those who are convinced that it is the Ark.

Why aren't the bells going off in your head?

Already said they were.

There's no need to project your credulity on science. Given evidence, we'll examine it, and follow the results wherever they lead. But there is no evidence to support these claims. Because there is reason to expect evidence would by now be available, we can declare this a hoax.

I'm sure Vegas has odds, if you believe that, go put your money down. My statement continues to be that I am sure there was an Ark and that it theoreticly can be found. This "find" might be it. It might be a great stunt for money too.

While the ark of your sacred texts was large for its day, it was by no means comparable to modern day supertankers.

The 19th century Battleship Maine is said to have been built to the proportions of the Ark. It is over a football field in length.

A few hundred feet of wood exposed to air and weather would not survive even a hundred years.

How old is the Iceman? Who said the Ark, wherever it may be has been "exposed" all this time?

Small samples of wood can be preserved over thousands of years given the proper conditions, notably removal from weather by being buried in mire or glaciers. The human artifacts of that age and size that remain are built of stone. There's a reason for that.

The Ark story requires you to suspend your view for a moment to consider it. "If there was an Ark", you must say to yourself, "what would be my givens?"

One is that a gigantic wooden structure would probably have been deposited on a very high mountain peak. Another would be that the mountain peak may not have existed prior to the flood. When you then go looking for the Ark you're looking for a lot of wood at a high altitude, probably at altitudes that NEVER grow wood on them in between the time of the flood and the present day. Thus we have little to no data on wood preservation at high altitudes over the period of time in question. A bunch of denuded peaks that have no wood on them in between now and the time of the flood yield no data about how wood rots at those levels, particularly large quantities of wood. What you could do is show me that large amounts of wood have been found at those altitudes, and discuss the age of that wood with me. I suggest you go looking for tombs of the Incas.

I do not know there was a Noah, and I do not know he had a boat. Tracing the legend back as far as we're able leads to a man-god living in a semispiritual realm who held the secret of eternal life. Additions since that time are clearly ahistorical.

Oh, this makes you a dispassionate reasoned and impartial source.

[Cyrus Johnson]

Of course the fawning followers of this story can't do a lick of self generated research to find out that they are being taken. Makes the signature at the bottom of my note all the more correct. How adverse to fact checking must one be in order to be a YEC?

I know of one YEC who's checked on this. Tas Walker has taken a very cautionary and I think reasonable tone.

From my perusal of the photos, (and I can only go from the pictures, not having visited the site), the object does not look like Noah’s Ark to me. The black object looks like a rock outcrop, and the close-up shots of the ‘beams’ suggest that the whole area has been sheared by tectonic movement, causing folding and metamorphism.

Why go through the trouble of radiocarbon when a simple thin section viewed under a scope or mapping the "outcrops" would do as well? Maybe they should have taken a geologist along with them.

[Cyrus Johnson]

The 19th century Battleship Maine is said to have been built to the proportions of the Ark. It is over a football field in length.

The ark has proportions (L/W) of 300 to 50 (6:1 in cubits). The original U.S.S Maine was 324 feet long and 57 feet wide (5.68 to 1). Pretty close proportionwise, although cubits are about 18 inches, and the ark was made of wood, not steel.

[NeilUnreal]

Maybe they should have taken a geologist along with them.

Apparently they did. The expedition's own newsblurb says:

Reg Lyle, oil and gas geologist said “the object appears to be a basalt dike, however, it is absolutely uncanny that the object looks like hand hewn timbers, even the grain and color look just like petrified wood….I really need to keep an open mind about this.”

Loose interpretation: "If somebody (a non-scientist no less) hadn't told me it was supposed to be the Ark, I would have thought it was a common natural geological phenomenon like any of a thousand similar examples I've studied. It's amazing how easily we dumb scientists can be misled without the expert guidance of untrained laymen!"



-Neil

[WaterOfOblivion]

I am seriously considering quitting this thread. I am furiously maintaining a couple of positions that are then changed into straw men and beaten up.

There are two or three discussions going on here. One is that there is an Ark and we might find it. Those who don't think there is an Ark shouldn't really ridicule this since it's rather hard to disprove. Their belief is that there isn't an Ark and we won't find it, my belief is that there is an Ark and we might find it. If we never find it, neither position is disproved.

Another discussion is that the recent "find" in Iran IS the Ark. This seems to be mostly carried on by those who don't think it is the Ark as a way of making those who think it could be look rediculous.

Another would be the truth or falsehood of a worldwide flood theory. This again doesn't relate directly to the Iran Ark discussion. I suggest that if this object turns out to be a boat at high altitude about the right size and shape for Noah's Ark, those that think there was no worldwide flood might want to rethink their position. That would go for any discovery of any boat at high altitude anywhere in the world.

[Sparko]

Yes, as Glenn pointed out, the first coverage of Cornuke's "samples" was published January 16, 2006 by Spero News.

Noah's Ark rests in Iran?

He returned from Mt. Soleiman with numerous samples, photos, and video footage, and has chronicled the journey in a new book, Ark Fever (Tyndale House Publishers).

Testing of rock and shell samples were conducted by BETA Analytic Inc., the largest professional radiocarbon dating laboratory in the world, which routinely services world governments and major academic and historical institutions such as the Smithsonian Institute. Results of this carbon dating, which is still on-going, indicate the presence of abundant organic material consistent with coming from a quiescent deep-water environment – in layman’s terms, possibly from a world once immersed in water.

These samples are from last year. They were supposedly sent for examination last year. While the arkfever site dates its story June 16 of this year, the Spero News story of January 16 contains all of the claims currently being made for sample analysis back in January, and describes the samples as deriving from an expedition of "this past summer".

Now it's possible he's revisited the site with a number of Texas businessmen and ark enthusiasts chiseled out of funds for the trip, and gathered more samples. This does not explain the lack of results from last year's expedition, however, if it is indeed a prior expedition. This story is so fragmented it is not really possible to tell. Moreover, the samples sent for professional analysis are described separately from the petrified wood, or should I say, "evidence" of petrified wood.

Evidence of petrified wood was also brought back, and a world-wide team of experts is studying all materials.

No hint is given on who comprised this "world-wide team of experts."

Additionally, the story linked at ArkFever is so poorly formatted it casts doubt on the story itself. As the site is devoted to selling Cornuke's book about the expedition, it cannot be used as support for the facts uncovered in that expedition.

Sparko, old buddy old pal, I'm sorry, but this is a really blatant hoax.

As ever, Jesse

Uh the date on that blog, January 16, 2006 is the ONLY such date I could find anywhere that early. I am pretty sure it is a typo. January 16 / June 16.

If the actual date was June 16th, then the reference to "this past summer" would be THIS year and not 2005 and if they got the samples to the lab, the comment that the results are not back yet make more sense.


----
Edited to add: I am wrong on what I say above. I did find copies of the article from the spero site on other sites dated in January and March of this year. It does look like the BASE article was using the doctored date of June 16.

[NeilUnreal]

Another discussion is that the recent "find" in Iran IS the Ark. This seems to be mostly carried on by those who don't think it is the Ark as a way of making those who think it could be look rediculous.

In my case, at least, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not trying to ridicule anyone. On the contrary, I’m trying to show how it can actually be fun and exciting to apply a little common sense and basic science when confronted with claims like this. Perhaps not as much fun as finding the real Ark, but it will do if and until the real Ark is ever found (assuming it existed).

If nothing else, if one doesn't learn to look at things like this realistically, scientifically, and skeptically, how could one recognize the real Ark even if one did find it?

At the risk of sounding trite, I’m not laughing at you, I’m inviting you to laugh with me.

-Neil

[WaterOfOblivion]

At the risk of sounding trite, I’m not laughing at you, I’m inviting you to laugh with me.

I'm an extremely conservative person used to being laughed at by people who are liberal. These people usually say "Just Kidding" after a while, or in your case, "Let's laugh together!".