Top 10 Reasons Why the Quest for Noah's Ark is the Ultimate Archaeological Thriller

Submitted by Boyd Morrison on Tue, 08/17/2010 - 08:49

Morrison Boyd, author of 'The Quest for Noah's Ark' It’s not exactly a spoiler to reveal that the ancient artifact everyone is searching for in my debut thriller, The Noah's Ark Quest (called The Ark in the US) is actually Noah’s Ark. In the novel, former US army combat engineer Tyler Locke and archaeologist Dilara Kenner must find the Ark in seven days to stop the end of the world. Suffice to say, the book has lots more explosions, fistfights, and gun battles than your average Jane Austen novel.

I’m a big fan of archaeological thrillers: the mystery, the treasure, the bullwhips. But when I was casting about for the subject of my book, all the good discoveries seemed to have been taken. The Holy Grail was thoroughly drained in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The DaVinci Code, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Raiders swiped the Ark of the Covenant. So many novels have theorized the existence of Atlantis, I would have had to put it on the Moon to come up with a new twist.

It’s called “faith” for a reason, but some proof wouldn’t hurt.

But one night I was watching a documentary about the search for Noah’s Ark. Because of my engineering background, I tend to be a skeptic, so I scoffed at the idea that a wooden vessel resting on a mountain for thousands of years could still exist intact. Exposed to the elements for that long, it would be high-grade mulch by now. But then I thought maybe nobody has found it because it was deliberately concealed to hide a secret so terrible that it could destroy the Earth all over again.

Bingo! The subject was perfect for a thriller because finding Noah’s Ark would be the greatest archaeological discovery in history. Here’s my reasoning:

1. Everyone knows about Noah’s Ark.

I don’t think I need to explain the Noah story. The Flood myth is a staple of many cultures. In fact, I bet you could walk up to virtually anyone in the world and say the words, “Noah’s Ark,” and while they might think you were a raving loon, they would also instantly know what you’re talking about.

In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the names are changed (Ea instead of Noah), but the story remains the same: one (or more) supreme being is displeased with how much we’ve messed up the Earth, so He decides to wash everything away with a cleansing flood. But before He does, He tells one lucky man to build a vessel to save the remnants of humanity, along with all the animals on the planet (what happens to the plants is another question; I can understand Noah bringing some apple seeds along, but did we really need to save poison ivy?).

It’s arguable which story came first, but the oldest tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh on them are far more ancient than the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest pages of the Bible. Not only that, but the Sumerian Flood story may predate both Gilgamesh and the Bible (For more on the origins of the western version of Noah’s story, read Noah’s Flood by Norman Cohn).

My favorite Flood story is one attributed to the Menominee Indian tribe. According to The Flood Myth by Alan Dundes, humanity is saved from the floodwaters by the bravest animal, which is, of course, the mighty muskrat.

2. So everyone has a theory about Noah’s Ark.

Some people vehemently believe that the story of Noah and the Flood happened exactly the way it’s described in the Bible. Others are equally passionate that geological, scientific, and engineering principles show that it couldn’t possibly have happened that way. One of those positions is completely wrong, which always makes for compelling conflict in a story.

No matter your position, there is a lot of scholarly debate about the Flood story’s origins. Because the Epic of Gilgamesh is Babylonian, it’s possible that the Noah story came from a great flood that filled the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates, washing away the only civilization they had ever known.

Evidence for a different theory was produced by William Ryan and Walter Pitman, who wrote Noah’s Flood (no relation to the book by Norman Cohn). They’re convinced that the Black Sea was a freshwater lake 7,600 years ago. According to them, the Flood occurred when the Mediterranean Sea broke through the Bosporus Strait and raised the level of the Black Sea by hundreds of feet in a matter of weeks. Anyone living on the shore at that time would think the Earth was being consumed by water.

Neither of those theories really talks about the Ark itself, but rather the Deluge. Only the biblical version goes into any detail about the Ark. So to prove the literal biblical version, all we need to do is find Noah’s Ark. Easy.

3. Noah’s Ark has already been found! Again!

According to Ian Wilson, author of Before the Flood, the first popularization of the notion that the Ark may still exist on the slopes of Mount Ararat came from a French adventurer named Fernand Navarra. In Navarra’s 1955 book J’ai Trouvé l’Arche de Noé (literally “I Found Noah’s Ark” - the guy knew how to get to the point), he claimed to have found a spar from the Ark that was 5,600 years old. One small glitch in Navarra’s story was that radio-carbon dating put the age of the piece of wood at no more than 1,400 years old. Later, it was claimed that someone had carried the piece of wood up to Ararat for Navarra to find, like a complicated Easter egg hunt.

The Ararat Anomaly is another famous “sighting” of the Ark. Since 1949, various spy planes and satellites have taken shots of a dark spot near the peak of Mount Ararat that looks remarkably like a boat. Or a rock. Nobody has proven it one way or the other because apparently no one has climbed up to it and dug a pick axe into it.

Just this year, Hong Kong Ministries International held a press conference to trumpet their discovery of the Ark, with pieces of wood and rope and a few photos to make their case. While that may constitute strong evidence for some, archaeologists are dubious for many reasons.

Those are just a few of the many “discoveries.” I think Noah’s Ark will continue to be discovered for decades to come.

4. The Flood: Disasters don’t get bigger, although the dinosaurs might argue.

The God of the Old Testament was into smiting. If you got on His bad side, you were in for a smiting. And He was never angrier than when He sent the Flood to “destroy all flesh” (Genesis 6:17). If you weren’t on the Ark, you were fish food (fish got off lucky in the Flood story). This disaster tale has everything: wickedness, judgment, faith, calamity, family, redemption. Doesn’t get more dramatic than that.

5. Noah’s Ark is really, really old.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is approximately 4,500 years old. Many biblical scholars estimate that the Flood would have happened 1,500 years before the pyramid was built. If the Ark is found, it would be one of the oldest man-made structures ever discovered. Imagine finding a 450-foot-long vessel built 1,000 years before Stonehenge was more than a circle in the ground.

6. Noah’s Ark is really, really big.

At 450 feet long (the common conversion of the Bible’s 300 cubits), the Ark would be more than half the length of Titanic. It would be - by far, not even close - the largest wooden ship ever made.

The two wooden ships nearest in size are the USS Dunderberg (which sounds much cooler in Swedish because it means “thundering mountain”) and the schooner Wyoming. The Dunderberg was a Union ironclad built during the US Civil War and was 377 feet long. The length of the Wyoming’s hull was 330 feet, but the booms at either end of the ship lengthened it to 450 feet, sort of the way an antenna tacked on to the top of a building lets the architects claim a taller building.

The reason larger wooden vessels have never been built is because of the engineering limitations of wood. Wood flexes far more than steel, so when a ship increases in size, the flexing will become so great that gaps will let water flow into the hull. That’s exactly what caused the Wyoming to go under during a storm off Massachusetts. Getting a gander at Noah’s handiwork would let us see how he kept the Ark from sinking like a brick.

7. It’s called “faith” for a reason, but some proof wouldn’t hurt.

Certainly, finding a huge wooden boat on top of a mountain would mean scientists have a whole lot of explaining to do. It would also definitively show that a story from Genesis happened as written. The chronology of civilization would get a new timeline. Lots of people would say, “I told you so.”

8. The discovery would answer “How did Noah keep the cats from eating the hamsters?” and other nagging questions.

Here are more questions I have:

Just two adult elephants eat 300 pounds of food a day, which inevitably comes out the other end. With thousands of other animals producing waste on a constant basis, how did Noah clean up all that poop?
What kind of wood was he using that could last 6,000 years without rotting away? I mean, I have to replace my roof every ten years.
If the lions and tigers and bears needed fresh meat, did Noah bring on extra cows?

9. From Gustave Doré’s Bible drawing The Deluge to The Arky Arky Song, Noah’s Ark has inspired artists for millennia.

For example, there's Noah’s Ark by Edward Hicks, The Deluge by Gustave Doré, The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge by Cole Thomas, The Deluge by John Martin and The Arky Arky Song (Warning! Do not click this link unless you want to be humming this song for the next 14 hours).

Buy Related Books

The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes

The Noah's Ark Quest by Boyd Morrison

Stones and Stories: An Introduction to Archaeology and the Bible by Don C. Benjamin

10. End-of-the-world stories are awesome!

Here’s just a short list of stories about apocalyptic events, some even featuring their very own arks.

The War of the Worlds
2012
When Worlds Collide
Deep Impact
Armageddon
Knowing
Evan Almighty

Why do these kinds of stories resonate? First, because things tend to blow up in entertaining ways. Second, many of us think humanity is worth saving. Third, we like to know that the human race will go on, even if we, personally, are not doing the repopulating.

Originally self-published in the USA as an E-Book entitled 'The Ark' Boyd Morrison’s explosive conspiracy thriller debut reached the number one thriller slot on Kindle. It was then published as 'The Noah's Ark Quest' by Sphere, and hits the shelves August 19th.

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About The Author

Boyd Morrison (follow me:

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After university, Boyd Morrison - author of 'The Noah's Ark Quest' - worked on a project for NASA and did a PhD in industrial engineering. When he moved to Seattle with his wife, he landed the dream job of working on Xbox games for Microsoft before becoming a full-time writer. - www.boydmorrison.com