04x13 - The Search for Noah's Ark

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, one of the Bible's

best known stories.

A catastrophic flood wipes out

nearly every living thing

on Earth,

except those saved

by Noah and his fabled ark.

Humankind

become evil and sinful,

and God decides to sort of

hit the reset button.

Could this tale

be more than mere legend?

And if the answer is yes,

what evidence supports it?

Research has found

that a piece of the ark

may actually have survived.

Now, we explore the theories

behind this biblical mystery.

Sir Walter Raleigh suggested

that we should be looking

for Noah's Ark

in a massive mountain range

in India.

It could be that

the story of Noah's Ark

is actually based

in ancient Greece.

What in the world

is a boat doing

13,000 feet up

on a mountain in Turkey?

Was there really a great flood,

and if so,

what became of the ark?

Uzengili, Turkey, 1959.

Army Captain Ilhan Durupinar

flies an aerial

reconnaissance mission for NATO.

Captain Durupinar's there

to take photographs

from his plane

in order to map a remote area

in the Turkish Highlands.

A few years prior,

there had been

three large earthquakes

that altered the terrain,

so the government

wants updated images.

The flight is routine

until he spots

something strange.

He's flying over basically

the middle of nowhere,

when he sees a startling

and unusual formation

amongst the rocks below,

which of course, he photographs.

When the film is developed,

the captain is surprised to see

what appears to be the remains

of a large ship far inland

and 6,500 feet above sea level.

What in the world would a boat

be doing way up there?

He doesn't know it yet,

but he may just have stumbled

onto the answer

some people think

of a great biblical mystery

that has been out there

for thousands of years.

The mystery of Noah's Ark.

The story of Noah's Ark

is told in the biblical

Book of Genesis.

After God creates the universe

and mankind begins

with Adam and Eve,

they go on

to populate the Earth.

Ten generations later,

Noah's born.

According to Genesis,

during Noah's time,

God loses faith in humanity.

Humankind become evil

and sinful,

and God sees all this and is

very, very displeased by it.

And he essentially decides

to sort of hit the reset button.

He's going to wipe out

all living things

that he has created

and start afresh.

God spares Noah

and his family on one condition.

He must build an ark

and stock it

with pairs

of every animal on Earth.

So, the ark is a giant ship.

It's designed to survive

this cataclysmic flood

that's about to cover the Earth.

God gives Noah

extremely detailed instructions

on how to build this ark

how many floors it should have,

to how many rooms,

what type of wood to use,

and even its exact dimensions,

515 feet long, 86 feet wide,

and 51 feet tall.

According to

the Book of Genesis,

the flood lasted

for 40 days and 40 nights.

Eventually, as the waters

receded back into the Earth,

the ark came to rest

on the mountains of Ararat.

And actually,

there is a mountain today

called Mount Ararat,

it's a huge peak in Turkey.

And Durupinar's aerial photo

is taken just a few miles

south of there.

For centuries,

religious scholars

and historians view the story

of the Great Flood

as a metaphor,

a warning that God punishes sin.

But curiously, the flood

is also mentioned

in both the Torah and the Quran.

Could these photos be proof that

Noah's tale is, in fact, true?

Durupinar's photos create

a real kind of firestorm

of controversy and excitement,

especially when

they're featured in a story

that Life Magazine

puts out in 1960.

People are super excited,

because if these photos

actually show Noah's Ark,

then they can prove

that everything

that's written in the Bible

about this whole event

is actually true, right?

This is a historical event

that actually happened.

Inspired by the article,

a team of Americans

led by Ron Wyatt

begins researching the site

in the 1970s.

One of the first things

the team learns

when they arrive is that

the locals call the mountain

where the Durupinar site

is located Mount Cudi.

Why is this important?

Well, the Quran also tells

the story of Noah's Ark,

and in the Quran's version,

the ark comes to rest

on a mountain called al-Gudi.

So, they think Cudi

is actually al-Gudi.

So, the team now believes that

they're able to connect the site

back to the Quran and the Bible.

Everything seems

to be adding up.

And so, they embark

on this arduous hike

all the way up the mountain

convinced that they're on

the right track.

Near the Durupinar site,

they actually discover

several very large boulders

with holes bored through them.

And the marine archaeologists

who are part of the team

are very excited about this,

because they look at them

and they recognize them,

and they say,

"You know what these are?

These are something called

drogue stones."

Drogue stones

are ancient anchors.

Archaeologists

have found evidence

of drogue stones used as anchors

in some of the oldest shipwrecks

in Egypt and the Mediterranean.

So, could these stones

be the anchors

used on Noah's Ark?

Next, the team examines

the strange

boat-shaped formation

with ground-penetrating radar.

While they're performing

the scan,

the team is excited

to note the measurements

of this formation.

In the Bible, the ark

is 300 cubits,

or about 515 feet long.

This structure on the mountain

is 538 feet long.

It's almost an exact match,

and they can't believe

this coincidence.

The scan also reveals

what appears to be

a manmade internal structure.

The team believes this could be

fossilized remains of chambers

inside the ark.

If this is an ancient ark,

it's unlikely that any wood

could survive

all these thousands of years.

So, this might be

an incredible stroke of luck

if some of the remains have been

petrified or fossilized.

The team drills down,

they take some samples.

When the samples are analyzed,

they're found to be nothing

other than soil

and regular sedimental rock.

In other words, it seems

to be just a natural formation.

But that doesn't end the hunt

for the ark in this area.

See, there are two things

researchers can look for.

Now, the boat itself

is one of them.

But another avenue to explore

is looking for evidence

of a giant flood.

Large-scale natural disasters

leave traces behind

that can last

thousands of years.

And interestingly enough,

research has found

that a massive flood

may indeed have taken place,

and it happened right near where

Durupinar's photograph

was taken in Turkey.

In 1997, a team of geologists,

geophysicists,

and oceanographers

led by a couple of Americans,

William Ryan and Walter Pitman,

analyze the area

around the Black Sea.

And they find evidence

for what they call

the Black Sea Deluge.

At the bottom

of the saltwater Black Sea,

they find remains

of freshwater animals

dating back to around

5,000 or 6,000 B.C.

And soil samples

and bedrock tests

also prove that this once

was a freshwater lake,

and then it changed

very quickly.

So, the theory runs

that about 8,000 years ago,

there was a huge glacier,

and suddenly,

that glacier collapses.

It causes this massive upsurge

of the Mediterranean Sea

that floods

all the surrounding areas,

including what's now

the Black Sea.

Every day, the equivalent

of 200 Niagara Falls' worth

of water floods in,

and this goes on for

300 days straight madness.

The existing freshwater lake

that will become the Black Sea,

it gets bigger and deeper

at the rate

of one mile a day.

If you lived in this region,

in just a matter of hours,

your home could be

at the bottom of the sea.

In 2000, marine archaeologists

led by former Navy Officer

Robert Ballard

find evidence of a flooded

ancient human settlement

over 300 feet down

on the bottom of the Black Sea.

The flood was actually the size

of Colorado before receding.

It could have affected thousands

upon thousands of people.

According

to the study's authors,

any survivors could possibly

have passed the flood story

down through the generations.

Now, we may have evidence

of a great flood right here,

and this reignites interest

in the Durupinar site.

The Turkish government sanctions

further ground-penetrating

radar studies in 2014,

in 2019, and again in 2021.

So, as the technology advances,

the scans get better,

and we're finding evidence

for straight lines.

Now, any time you have

a straight line like that,

it could be the result

of human occupation.

Although Turkish authorities

currently restrict access

to the site,

some remain hopeful

that evidence of the ark

may eventually be found.

So, there's pretty good evidence

for a large ancient flood

here in Turkey.

And if it turns out

that this is a boat

that dates to the same time

as the flood,

then pretty good chance

that we found the inspiration

for Noah's Ark.

But this is not

the only candidate

not by a long sh*t.

When evidence

of a massive ancient flood

is discovered near the Black Sea

in 1997,

many believe it may be proof

the story of Noah's Ark is real.

This story is famous in three

of the world's major

Western religions.

It's in the Jewish

and Christian scriptures,

and it's also in the Quran.

But each of these books

only give archaic

or vague locations

for precisely where

this might have taken place

names of mountains and regions

that have been lost to time.

But one additional

ancient text may hold clues.

There's an early

Roman historian named Josephus

who was writing around

the same time

that some of the Bible

was written

in the first century A.D.

Flavius Josephus

is the most important

source of information about

Judaism outside of the Bible

that we have.

Josephus is actually Jewish,

but he's raised

and educated in Rome.

And one of the things

he seeks to do in his writings

is to kind of explain

the Jewish people

for a Roman audience.

The particular book that

Josephus writes still exists.

It's known as

"The Antiquities of the Jews."

In researching it, he talks

to other Jewish historians

and combs through

all these ancient documents,

as many as he can find.

Based on his research,

Josephus believes

he's found a new location

for the story of Noah,

the ark, and the Great Flood.

He believes it all took place

in the Kingdom of Armenia.

While researching his book,

Josephus comes across

the writings of

a Babylonian historian

whose name is Berossus.

Now, Berossus is writing

between 300 and 200 B.C.

According to Berossus,

the remains of Noah's Ark

are still around in 200 B.C.

Berossus writes, quote,

"The ark, grounded in Armenia,

some part still remains

in the mountains of Armenia."

Armenia is very mountainous,

and where would you start

to look?

As amazing as this little

kind of piece

of historical lore goes,

it's still really very vague

and unspecified.

Instead, Josephus

tries to track the ark's pieces.

Josephus cites Berossus

as saying people

are going up into these

mountains in Armenia

to grab chunks of the ship,

taking them as keepsakes

and amulets.

Eventually,

according to Josephus,

most of the ark

ends up in a city

in the Kingdom of Armenia

called Carrhae.

During Josephus' time,

he says they're still showing

pieces of the ark to visitors,

and if true,

this could be a tremendous lead.

Who knows, maybe today

some traces of the ark

could still be found there.

But there's one problem.

In 1260, the Mongols inv*de

and burn down Carrhae.

Luckily, the trail

doesn't end there.

According to the Armenian

Apostolic Church,

a piece of the ark

may actually have survived.

The Armenian Apostolics believe

that in the fourth century A.D.

a holy man by the name

of Jacob of Nisibis

climbed a sacred holy mountain

in Armenia,

and there,

he found a piece of Noah's Ark.

Now, once again, we don't know

precisely where

this mountain is.

But we do know what happens

to the piece.

Jacob brings it to

the Cathedral of Etchmiadzin

in the Armenian Mountains.

The Cathedral of Etchmiadzin

still exists today in Armenia.

It dates back

to the year 301 A.D.,

and it is believed by many

to be the oldest Christian

cathedral in the world.

And the cathedral

claims to still possess

Jacob's piece of Noah's Ark.

There was an ornate reliquary

built in the Cathedral

of Etchmiadzin in 1698

that supposedly housed

this piece of wood.

No one's ever tested it

and we don't know how old it is.

We're not even sure what kind

of tree it comes from.

It is unlikely

that it will ever be allowed

to leave the cathedral,

since it is a precious

religious relic.

But maybe someday,

science can definitively link it

to the Great Flood.

Even if you accurately

date this piece of wood,

that doesn't necessarily mean

it's part of the story

from the Bible.

But there's possible evidence

that Noah's Ark

is based on a real story,

and it's not because

of an object.

It's because

of the story itself.

Sure enough, there is

another ancient flood story.

This one is older

than Christianity,

it's older than Islam,

and it comes

out of ancient Greece.

The ancient Greek flood story

is surprisingly similar

to the biblical account.

So, once again,

in this you have a man,

a flood, and a boat.

The protagonist

of this peculiar story

is called Deucalion,

and Deucalion lives in a very

mountainous region of Greece

called the Peloponnese.

Zeus, god of lightning,

the leader of the Greek gods,

becomes enraged because mankind

is corrupt and evil.

And according to the story,

Zeus unleashes a massive deluge,

with the rivers and the sea

flooding everywhere.

Deucalion builds

what is described

in the flood story

as a giant chest,

and he and his wife

climb into this chest,

and they float around

through this deluge

for nine days and nights.

Finally, it touches down

on solid land

on a mountainside,

and just like Noah,

Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha

are the only human survivors

of this great flood.

Deucalion's flood

is one of the key stories

in Greek mythology,

and it's pretty interesting

that this same tale pops up

in more than one place.

But again, makes you wanna ask,

is this just a myth?

Then, in the early 1600s,

a key new piece

of evidence emerges.

There's a man

called Thomas Howard.

He's a British nobleman,

and he is like many

of the elite men of his day,

very interested in going on what

was called "the grand tour."

That is, he would travel

to all the archaic regions

Italy, Greece,

what's now Turkey,

and he would, on this tour,

bring back as many antiquities

as he could possibly

carry back with him.

In 1627, he buys

two small pieces of marble

with ancient Greek writing

on them.

They've given

to a respected English scholar

named John Selden,

who begins working

on a translation of the writing.

As Selden starts this process

of translating these texts,

he realizes

that he has in his hands

something really interesting

and really important.

What he's got is a listing

of historical events

since ancient antiquity.

Since these marble pieces

originated

on the island of Paros,

he calls this

the Parian Chronicle.

And right there

on the Parian Chronicle

amongst all the other

historical events

is an entry

for Deucalion's flood.

There it is, just carved

in stone with a date

that may just prove this version

of Noah's Ark is actually real.

When the Parian Chronicle

is discovered in ancient Greece

in the early 17th century,

some scholars believe

it could hold the answer

to the mystery of Noah's Ark.

The biblical story could in fact

be inspired by the story

of Deucalion, or it's possible

that they both related

to the same historical event.

Either way, according to

the Parian Chronicle,

Deucalion's flood

was an actual historical event,

and it took place

in 1581 B.C.

When historians

get a look at that date,

they get pretty excited,

because there's a real-life

event

that fits that timeline,

which could well have inspired

this widespread flood myth.

There's a huge natural disaster

that is so catastrophic,

observers as far away as Egypt,

and even China

record its impact.

It's called the Minoan eruption,

on the Greek island of Thera.

Thera is an active

volcanic island

in the Aegean Sea.

And right there, at some point

in the late 1500 B.C.,

this volcano suddenly erupts.

What's even deadlier

than this eruption

is actually the tsunami

that it creates.

It has an estimated

wave height of 400 feet

radiating out

from the eruption site.

This floods and destroys

everything

for hundreds of miles

in every direction,

and many believe the destruction

of the island of Thera

inspired Deucalion's flood.

If this is Deucalion's flood,

what became of his version

of the ark?

Depending on which

ancient author you believe,

there are four possible

locations for the mountainside

where this chest of Deucalion

comes to rest.

Of the four, there's only one

that shows evidence

that dates back to around

the second millennium B.C.,

Mount Parnassus.

Mount Parnassus

features an ancient settlement

called Delphi, most known today

for its famed oracle.

If there were

any survivors of the flood,

this is one of the best

candidates

for where they might

have set up a new town.

But so far, no ark, no boat,

no giant chest

has been found in Delphi.

But could there be

an entirely different location

where Noah's Ark came to rest?

According to famed

17th century explorer,

Sir Walter Raleigh,

the answer is in the Bible.

Late in life,

Raleigh sets on writing

a very ambitious project

called "The History

of the World, in Five Books."

Sir Walter Raleigh

is a Christian,

and he really kind of goes back

to what he sees

as the most important

historical text,

and that's the Old Testament,

starting with

the Book of Genesis.

And he takes a close look

at the story of Noah's Ark.

During

Sir Walter Raleigh's time,

people believed that the ark

landed in the mountains

of Ararat in Turkey.

But Sir Walter Raleigh came up

with a shocking proposal.

According to his research,

the story of Noah

and the Great Flood occurred

some 2,000 miles away

from Turkey in India.

Raleigh finds several key clues

that suggest India.

The Bible talks about

the descendants of the Flood

traveling to a place

called Shinar

it's a name for Mesopotamia

from the East Mekedem.

Now, Walter Raleigh

asked the question,

why would the descendants

of the Flood

be traveling to Shinar

from the east if Mount Ararat

is to the northwest?

So, he suggested that we should

be looking for Noah's Ark

in a massive mountain range

to the east of Mesopotamia.

And that would be

the Himalayas in India.

The other thing

he's looking for is vineyards,

because in the Bible, it says

that one of the first things

Noah does when he lands

is plant a vineyard of grapes.

Raleigh points

to another written account

to support his claim.

Raleigh reads a history

of Alexander the Great's

conquests in India.

Now, it says that after

a successful campaign in India,

quote, "did Alexander

feast himself and his army

ten days together finding

therein the most delicate wine."

This pretty much seals the deal

for Raleigh.

Of course, today we'd say

his argument is a little thin.

But there may be

more substantial evidence

to prove his theory.

Raleigh doesn't seem

to be aware of this,

but there's a well-known story

of a massive flood

in Indian folklore.

The Indian flood legend

appears in a sacred text

known as the Matsya Purana.

In this story, Vaivasvata Manu

is warned by Vishnu,

one of the chief Indian deities,

of a great flood.

Manu survives the flood

by crafting a giant boat,

and saves humanity.

Yet again,

the similarities to Noah

are uncanny, and so

we find ourselves wondering,

was Raleigh actually right?

Did the Great Flood

take place in India?

In 2017,

Indian archaeologist B.B. Lal

believes he's uncovered

the answer.

B.B. Lal is the former

director general

of the archaeological survey

for the state of India,

and he was doing research

in the Indus Valley

looking at the civilizations

from 4000 to 1000 B.C.E.

Now, he's actually trying

to solve a different mystery.

This ancient culture

describes a great holy river

in northwestern India

called the Saraswati,

but it's not there anymore.

It's said to have just

disappeared.

Now, he discovers that there

was a massive tectonic shift

around 2000 B.C.

that suddenly obstructed

the Saraswati River's path

into a nearby valley,

flooding it in a massive deluge.

Lal believe that this explains

both the fate

of the Saraswati River

and Manu's flood.

He believes he's proven

that Manu's flood is real.

If correct,

could this be the origin story

of Noah's infamous flood?

B.B. Lal passes away,

unfortunately,

in September of 2022,

before he's able

to further develop

his Indian flood theory.

But it is kind of interesting

to see

how this well-known

English researcher

and this great

Indian archaeologist

both point to the same

conclusion 400 years apart

using very different methods.

The Indus Valley

remains a hotbed

of archaeological exploration.

So, who knows what

they might turn up?

Maybe one day we'll find out

that both Raleigh

and Lal were right,

and this is the location

of the Great Flood.

In 1985, the long hunt

for Noah's Ark

takes a sudden turn when

a 4,000-year-old clay tablet

is discovered in the attic

of a British Air Force veteran.

It takes many years

to translate,

but some believe it could

finally solve the mystery

of where the Bible's

Great Flood took place

and where the ark itself landed.

In the 1980s in England,

a man by the name

of Leonard Simmons passes away.

Simmons had led a really

interesting life.

So, he had been

a Royal Air Force officer,

and as such, he traveled a lot

around the world,

around the Mediterranean Basin,

and he had collected

on his travels

a lot of different artifacts

which he brought back

to England with him.

Simmons' son

Douglas would like to know

what some of these things are,

so every so often,

he'll take one and bring it

to the British Museum.

One day in 1985, he arrives

with a tiny clay tablet,

maybe four inches high,

not very big.

It's covered front and back

in cuneiform script,

the writing

of ancient Mesopotamia.

Simmons meets

with Dr. Irving Finkel,

who is chief curator

for Near Eastern artifacts

at the British Museum.

And when Finkel starts working

with this text,

he is apparently really amazed.

Finkel knows

that every single scratch

on this tablet is gold.

His eyes scan the first line,

and he's almost drowning

in excitement at this point,

because here in this tiny tablet

is an account

of a devastating flood.

Finkel asks Simmons

if he can keep the tablet

to fully translate it,

but Simmons declines.

Finkel really wants

a cr*ck at this tablet,

because he's devoted his life

to the study of these

cuneiform writings,

and he knows that

this is something special.

Finkel's department

at the British Museum

includes over 130,000

of these clay cuneiform tablets,

most of which were unearthed

in 1852 in Iraq.

Ancient Mesopotamians

used cuneiform

essentially to kind of

keep track of things

like provisioning

how many ducks

were needed for a feast,

things like that.

But they also

wrote down at least one

exciting historical tale

one of my favorites,

the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The poem recounts

the exploits of King Gilgamesh,

who ruled in ancient

Mesopotamia,

an area near modern-day Iraq.

The story begins

with a great flood

that is sent by the gods that

basically wipes out everything.

Most scholars believe

that the Epic of Gilgamesh

was written between

3,000 and 4,000 years ago,

and it plays out

almost identically

to the story of Noah's Ark.

But it's important to remember

that this story

was written 1,000,

if not more, years before

the story of Noah's Ark.

So, the big question

that we have is,

was there one original event,

or were there lots

of different floods

or different flood stories?

In the Epic of Gilgamesh,

an immortal man by the name

of Utnapishtim

rounds up various animals

and brings them with him

into an ark.

Together, they survive

this catastrophic flood.

Utnapishtim's boat comes to rest

on a mountain called

Mount Nimush.

And this story is so similar

to the story of Noah's Ark,

that many scholars believe

that the story of Noah's Ark

is a direct descendant

of the story of Utnapishtim

and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

That means Noah's Great Flood

actually takes place

in Mesopotamia

in modern-day Iraq.

When Dr. Finkel

first examines

Douglas Simmons' clay tablet,

he hopes it holds answers

that Gilgamesh doesn't.

The tablet at the British Museum

that Gilgamesh is written on

is missing some

pretty critical lines.

It says "The ark that

you are to build,"

blank, "be equal," blank.

It's like going through a tunnel

with your cell phone,

you miss certain parts.

The tablet is broken,

the story is incomplete.

Finkel is hoping that this

new find from Simmons' attic

can fill in the blanks.

Finkel finally convinces

Douglas Simmons

to let him translate

the tablet in 2009.

And as expected,

it's a retelling

of the Mesopotamian flood story.

Dr. Finkel

spends the next four years

decoding the writing.

The tablet is so old

that he's having

a hard time reading it.

So, he has to have it 3D-scanned

in order to complete

the translation.

In 2013, he's finally ready

to publish his findings.

Finkel believes

that this was worth

the nearly 30-year wait,

because what he's got in there

is explicit instructions

for how to build the ark.

I mean, this is incredible!

A British tourist

buys a souvenir in 1948,

puts it in his attic,

where it sits for decades

until his death,

and the whole time,

he had the ark's

instruction manual.

The tablet describes

in great detail

the measurements, materials,

and construction process.

It reads more clearly

than most build-it-yourself

furniture instructions

these days.

It describes how to make

the ropes to bind it together,

how to space out and connect

30 ribs and 3,600 stanchions,

and how to waterproof it

with bitumen.

The boat built

as described is enormous.

It's 4,300 square yards,

about the size

of a modern football field,

and its walls are about

20 feet tall.

The length of rope

that's needed on this boat

would stretch from New York

all the way to Pittsburgh.

And the weird thing

about this boat

is that it's not rectangular,

it's actually circular.

This is much different

from the vague metaphor

of the biblical story of Noah.

It also rings much truer.

It's more convincing.

The level of detail

of these instructions,

it seems like they're meant

to be followed.

It seems like

this is a literal boat

that is supposed

to be actually built.

So, the natural next step

if you've got these instructions

is to build it.

In 2014, a 4,000-year-old tablet

translated by Dr. Irving Finkel

reveals instructions

to build a massive boat.

Many people believe

that this tablet is proof

that Noah's Ark was real,

and that it was used

to survive the Great Flood

that was in Mesopotamia,

which is now modern-day Iraq.

To test that theory,

a team of Indian archaeologists

attempts to build a version

of the ark.

They don't have the money

or the time to build

the full-size version.

So, they decide they're going

to make the replica

at one-fifth the size

of the original version.

Even scaled down,

the finished product

weighs 35 tons

and is made of wood,

rope, and bitumen,

which is a form of natural tar

that will waterproof the boat.

So, this team sets up shop.

They gather all the necessary

tools that they would need,

and they're really kind of

keeping it to the sorts of tools

and materials that would have

been available

in ancient Mesopotamia.

No metal, no adhesive,

no power tools.

The wood acts as like

a sort of skeleton

that they wrap

over a mile of rope around,

kind of like a giant basket.

It's like

they're weaving it, almost.

Then, they add the bitumen last,

which waterproofs the hull.

Finally,

after four months of building,

they construct a platform

with rollers

to launch their creation

into the Indian Ocean.

It's the moment of truth.

Dr. Finkel himself

comes to India to observe.

The team is holding

their breath.

Will this bizarre-looking ship

actually float?

They manage to get it

into the water, and

the ark floats!

I mean,

this is pretty incredible.

We're talking about

a set of instructions

that are thousands of years old,

and they work.

Dr. Finkel is ecstatic.

In press interviews,

he says a boat like this

could potentially have floated

all the way to New York.

So now,

there's even more evidence

to tie the story of Noah's Ark

to Mesopotamia.

We have a legendary great flood

and instructions

for a seaworthy ark.

But where could

that ark have ended up?

One man thinks he knows

the answer.

Bob Cornuke

is an amateur archaeologist

who specializes

in biblical geography.

He spends over a decade

searching for Noah's Ark.

Cornuke is a biblical apologist.

He wants to prove the Bible

to be true, so he starts out

looking for Noah's Ark

on Mount Ararat,

and of course,

he's unsuccessful.

Then he meets a man

named Ed Davis.

In 1943, Ed Davis was working

for the Army Corps of Engineers

in the Hamadan province in Iran.

According to Davis,

the locals take him

up to the top of a mountain

13,000 feet up,

and they show him

what they believe

to be the remains of Noah's Ark.

This sounds like a tall tale,

but Davis takes

a lie detector test

and passes it.

And the more research

Cornuke does,

the more convinced he becomes.

To try and locate

the mountain for himself,

Cornuke examines

a 1,000-year-old map.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi

is a massive medieval map

of the ancient world.

I mean, it's huge, it's like

four feet by five feet.

And right there in the middle

of this medieval map,

in the center of it

is Noah's Ark in Hamadan,

which is right next to where

Ed Davis is stationed.

Cornuke is able to locate

a holy mountain in this area

known as Mount Suleiman,

which is also known

as the Throne of Solomon.

Cornuke flies to Iran in 2005

intent on climbing

Mount Suleiman.

He climbs the mountain,

and at 13,000 feet up,

at the same elevation where

Ed Davis described the ark,

Cornuke finds several rocks

that are, quote,

"uncannily beam-like

in appearance," end quote.

He believes these

are petrified wood.

He also finds a worship shrine

littered with wood fragments.

So, Cornuke takes these rocks

to be analyzed,

and sure enough,

it's petrified wood.

He also claims to find

fossilized clams,

and to Cornuke, this is evidence

of a great flood from

a couple thousand years ago.

But not all

of Cornuke's evidence

can be proven.

Cornuke has

the wood fragments dated,

and they turn out to be

only 500 years old,

so they can't possibly be

from Noah's Ark.

Cornuke argues

that these wood fragments

most likely were just part

of a shrine that was built

and rebuilt basically

commemorating this area

of where the ark rested.

He believes that people

have been worshipping here

ever since the Mesopotamian ark

came here to rest

after the great flood.

Further research

is still ongoing at this site,

and Cornuke hopes to one day

be able to go back to Iran

and pursue more evidence

on his theory of Noah's Ark.

The search

for evidence of Noah's Ark

has crossed many countries

in Europe, Asia,

and the Middle East.

But according to some theorists,

that search may be fruitless.

There are some compelling

arguments

for giant floods

in several different regions,

and in several different

mythologies.

But there are some academics

who are not swayed

by this evidence,

because according

to their own findings,

the story of Noah

and the Great Flood

never happened.

When William Ryan

and Walter Pitman

publish the Black Sea

deluge theory back in 1997,

which suggests Noah's Ark

is based on a real-life flood

in ancient Turkey and Armenia,

critics come forward

to suggest that maybe that flood

isn't all

it was cracked up to be.

Most people would agree

that something did happen.

You can see geological evidence

for it.

But probably it wasn't

cataclysmic.

It could very well have been

a change that took place

over a much longer

period of time.

And if it really happened

in around 8000 B.C.

in the close of the ice age,

it was really before

any significant

human activity in the area.

Regardless of when it occurred,

some experts believe

it was more of an inconvenience

than a disaster.

People could have just packed up

and moved up the hill

a little bit,

and they'd have been fine.

Some feel the same way

about the ancient Greek flood.

The volcanic eruption on Thera

most definitely

destroyed that island

and took a lot of people

with it.

But the after effects

have been hotly debated.

There may be evidence

of a destructive tsunami

hitting nearby Crete,

but others believe

that destruction was due

to an earthquake, not a flood.

As for Mesopotamia, there was

flooding there all the time.

Flooding was a very

necessary part

of Mesopotamian cultures.

The word Mesopotamia means

"between the two rivers."

It's actually this area

that lies

between the Tigris

and the Euphrates Rivers.

And the point of being

on that floodplain

is that twice a year,

these two rivers

would overflow their banks.

It was a necessary thing,

because it would make

the soil really fertile.

So, flooding in

a controlled manner

was a regular part

of the agricultural cycle.

But when the floods

get out of control,

when the levee breaks

and destroys a city,

to the people who are devastated

by these floods,

they see these as apocalyptic

world-ending events.

That can be true

without the story

of Noah's Ark being true.

Other parts of the story

have been questioned as well.

So then, there's the thing

about the animals,

you know, two by two.

This doesn't show up in every

single flood myth, by the way,

but as we know in the Bible,

Noah saves two of every animal.

And of course,

this didn't happen.

We have traced

the genetic origins

of, I don't know,

thousands of species,

and they simply didn't just all

come from one place.

If you put every species

of animal on the ark,

the ark as described

in the Bible

is nowhere large enough

to hold all of these animals.

And forget about

the animals' excrement

and the food for the animals.

You need a lot of food

every day.

And so, this becomes the problem

of a literal reading

of the story of Noah's Ark.

It just doesn't make any sense.

But there is at least

one part of Noah's story

that rings true to most.

Ultimately, we have to think,

what is the point of this story?

Why do so many

different cultures

tell different variants

of this kind of flood story?

Because it makes the same point,

all of them.

It tells us that,

again, as a species,

what we do best is survive.

I'm pretty sure

that at many points in history,

a group of human beings

put their heads together

and figured out a way to endure

a massive flood.

It happened in 2004

in Indonesia.

It happened in 2005 after

Hurricane Katrina

in New Orleans,

and it certainly happened

5,000 years ago,

inspiring a story

that we still tell to this day.

One thing is for certain.

The hunt for Noah's Ark

continues.

Perhaps Turkish authorities

will find evidence

on Mount Ararat.

Perhaps Bob Cornuke will be able

to make a return visit to Iran.

And perhaps one day,

science will find

definitive proof

of the Bible's Great Flood

and of the ark itself.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."