Tuesday, April 27, 2010

'Noah's Ark' found in Turkey... oh, Nevermind. It's a Kurdish hoax.

THE remains of Noah's Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.

They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team, said: "It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it."

He said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000ft in the vicinity, Yeung said.

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Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted.

The biblical story says that God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it was.

He then told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.

After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.

Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants ran aground.

via 'Noah's Ark' found in Turkey | The Sun |News.

This is from Dec 28, 2009:
If Noah’s Ark has been sitting on a mountain somewhere in the Middle East for a few millennia, a few more months of waiting are a small price to pay, at least for Randall Price.

Price, who heads Liberty University’s Center For Judaic Studies, talked in January about his planned two-season expedition into Turkey, with the hopes of finding the Biblical artifact. He arrived in Turkey over the summer.

But Price said since then, he’s faced pressure from a political group in Turkey that is forcing him to keep his excursion very hush-hush. ...

“We did penetrate about 18 feet down into the glacier, and we have some evidence that we’re in the right place,” Price said, adding satellite data puts them about 30 feet from their goal.

Price said he’s aware that whatever rests under the glacier might not be the jackpot he has been looking for.

“While we’d like to think it’s Noah’s Ark, we’re not sure what it is, but it’s in the right place,” he said.

Price said whatever there is to be discovered, it should be found when he returns in the coming summer.

“There is negotiation between Turkish authorities and this warring faction,” he said, “and that should enable us to go back without problems next year.” - link

They returned after the ice melted and found the wood. Here's why an archaeologist and former member of the team says it's a hoax :
Excursion continues to find Noah’s Ark in TurkeyA group of Chinese and Turkish explorers announced this week they are '99.9 percent' sure of their discovery on Mt. Ararat. While Noah's ark found in Turkey would bolster Bible literalists, an American ark-hunter says the latest discovery could be a hoax.

A longtime ark-hunter has serious doubts about this week’s announcement that Noah’s ark was found in eastern Turkey.

A Chinese-Turkish team from Noah's Ark Ministries International held a press conference April 25 in Hong Kong to present their findings and say they were “99 percent sure” that pieces of wood found at above 12,000-feet elevation and dated as 4,800 years old were from the biblical Noah’s ark.

Such a finding would provide evidence for a literal interpretation of the Bible and boost the evangelical Christian worldview in a relatively young Earth that was formed in seven days and where a wrathful God punishes the wicked.

But Dr. Randall Price, an evangelical Christian and former member of the Chinese-led team that announced this week’s finding, says the latest purported finding may not withstand closer scrutiny.

"If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that’s fine. My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be," he says.

'Difficulties with a number of issues'Dr. J. Randall Price - World of the Bible Ministries

Dr. Price, who is director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., was the archaeologist on the Chinese-led team in 2008 when this alleged discovery was first made. He says he has “difficulties with a number of issues related to the evidence at hand.”

Price declined to elaborate. However, a leaked email from Price – which he confirms that he wrote – shows that he has reason to believe that a group of local Kurdish men trucked wood up to the mountain and staged an elaborate hoax for the Chinese team.

A group of Kurdish workers “are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area (where the photos were originally taken) at the Mt. Ararat site. … During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film,” Price writes in the email.

Price is a longtime searcher himself for the ark. As a member of Noah’s Ark Search LLC, he had gone on a number of expeditions to Mount Ararat.

Price was not the only member to withdraw from the Chinese-led team over questions about their purported finding.

Not good evidence

Dr. John D. Morris, who is president for Dallas’ Institute for Creation Research and has been a consultant to the team since 2005, says he declined an invitation to be a part of this week's press conference in Hong Kong.

“I’m a scientist. I need to have good evidence,” says Dr. Morris. “As of right now, there is not.”  - csmonitor

1 comment:

Airla mistery said...

This isn't the first time they found the ark.They also found it in the 90's and maybe one other time before that.Remember,they aren't scientists. Before we get to the carbon dating, how about we see the wood, pictures, and layout of the thing they've found ?