A Map to the Ark
A 3,000-year-old maphas finally told scientists where to locate Noah’s Ark.
After years of study,the world’s oldest map has been deciphered, and scientists believe it revealsthe final resting place of Noah’s Ark.
The Imago Mundi is aBabylonian clay tablet featuring a writing system using wedge-shaped symbols(cuneiform) to describe how the world was created, according to the Christians.Researchers have done a deeper analysis to decipher the map and discover biblicalreferences.
The back of the tabletdescribes what a traveler will see on the journey to a ‘parsiktu vessel’.‘Parsiktu’ is a word that explains the size of a boat that would be needed tosurvive the Great Flood. Following the instructions, researchers found a path to‘Urartu’ where an ancient Mesopotamian poem says a man and his family landed anark. ‘Urartu’ is the Assyrian equivalent of ‘Ararat’, which is the Hebrew wordfor the mountain where Noah’s ark crashed.
It seems that from theBabylonian point of view, the story of the ark was a matter-of-fact thing, andif you went on this journey, you would find the remnants of this historic boat.
The Imago Mundi wasfound in what is now Iraq in 1882. Its cuneiform text was only used by theBabylonians. They also etched a map of what seems to show the entire knownworld at the time the tablet was made. On the map, Mesopotamia sits at thebottom center, enclosed by a circle that represents a ‘bitter river’ that wasbelieved to surround the entire world.
The tablet has beendamaged, but at one time, it featured 8 triangles that signified mountainsdescribed on the back.
The ‘parsiktu’measurement is only known from one other cuneiform tablet. It basicallydescribes the Ark that was built, theoretically, by the Babylonian version ofNoah. While the Imago Mundi is dated to 3,000-years-ago, the biblical greatflood supposedly happened about 5,000-years-ago.
In the Bible, the arksettled on the ‘mountains of Ararat’ in Turkey following a 150-day flood. Theark measured ‘300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits’, which translates to 515feet long, 86 feet wide, and 52 feet high.
A team has beenexcavating the mountain in question for years. In 2023, they found clay, marinematerials, and seafood, which placed humans at the scene between 3,000 and5,000 years ago.
