Location of ‘Noah’s Ark’ revealed as scientists decipher world’s oldest map on 3,000-year-old Babylonian tablet

SScientists have deciphered the world’s oldest map etched into a clay tablet some 3,000 years ago and discovered that among the drawings was the location of ‘Noah’s Ark’.

The Babylonian artifact known as the Imago Mundi shows a circular diagram with a writing system that used wedge-shaped symbols to describe the early creation of the world.

Researchers at the British Museum, where the tablet is housed, revealed what they had deciphered last month, but a deeper analysis of their work revealed the Biblical reference in the ancient language.

The back of the tablet acts as a key, describing what a traveler will see on their journey, with one part saying they must pass “seven leagues… (to) see something as thick as a parsiktu vessel.” ‘

The word ‘parsiktu’ has been found on other ancient Babylonian tablets, specifically to explain the size of a boat needed to survive the Flood.

Researchers followed the instructions and found a path to ‘Urartu’, where an ancient Mesopotamian poem claims that a man and his family landed an ark to save their lives.

The location is the Assyrian equivalent of ‘Ararat’, the Hebrew word for the mountain where Noah crashed the Biblical ship built for the same purpose.

Dr. Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum, said: ‘It shows that the story was the same, and of course that one thing led to another, but also that from the Babylonian point of view this was a fact.

“That if you made this trip, you would see the remains of this historic boat.”

The Imago Mundi has baffled researchers since it was discovered in 1882 in what is now Iraq.

The ancient text, written in cuneiform script, was used only by the Babylonians, who etched astronomical events, future predictions and a map that was then considered to represent the entire “known world.”

At the bottom center of the map is Mesopotamia, enclosed by a circle representing a ‘bitter river’ that was believed to encircle the entire world.

The tablet has since been damaged, but once contained eight triangles that researchers determined meant mountains matching the descriptions on the back.

‘Nnumber four says, ‘Until the fourth, where you must travel seven miles,’ said Dr. Finkel in a YouTube video.

He went on to explain that the passage continues to explain how a traveler will eventually come across a gigantic ship.

‘This parsiktu reading is something that makes an Assyriologist perk up their ears and the fact is that it has only been known once otherwise from cuneiform tablets and it is quite an interesting cuneiform tablet too,” said Dr. Finkel.

“Because it is the description of the ark that was theoretically built by the Babylonian version of Noah.”

On the back of the tablet you will find instructions for reading the card. One passage tells the traveler to pass through the sea and that he will come to ‘Urartu’, where an ancient Mesopotamian poem claims that a man and his family landed an ark to save life

The location is the Assyrian equivalent of ‘Ararat’, the Hebrew word for the mountain where Noah crashed the Biblical ship built for the same purpose

The Babylonian version of the story says that the god Ea sent a flood that swept away all humanity except Utnapishtim and his family, who built an ark at the god’s command and filled it with animals.

‘In this account the details are given and the God says, ‘You must do this, this and this’ and then the Babylonian Noah says, ‘I did this, this and this. I did it! And I made these structures like thick parsiktu vessels,” Dr. Finkel.

The story of the Gilgamesh flood is known from clay tablets that are about 3,000 years old; the Biblical flood was about 5,000 years ago.

Dr. Finkle explained that anyone who hiked the trail to Urartu would theoretically see the wooden ribs of the ship on the mountain “like those in the Bible.”

The Bible claims that the Ark settled on the ‘Mountains of Ararat’ in Turkey after a 150-day flood that drowned the earth and every living thing on it that was not housed in the wooden ship.

And the mountain in question has a lid that matches the shape and dimensions of Noah’s Ark.

The ship was said to measure ‘300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits’, which equates to a length of 500 feet, a width of 80 feet, and a height of 50 feet.

The idea that the Ark landed on Ararat is surrounded by controversy, as some scientists claim the formation was shaped by nature and others are certain it came from a higher power.

A team of experts led by Istanbul Technical University has been excavating the mountain for years, revealing in 2023 that they found clay, marine materials and seafood that brought humans to the site between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Dr. Andrew Snelling, a young earth creationist with a Ph.D. of the University of Sydney, had previously said that Mount Ararat could not have been the site of the Ark because the mountain only formed after the flood waters receded.

Although it is considered a historical event, most scholars and archaeologists do not believe in interpreting the Ark story literally.