Is There Any Physical Evidence That Noah's Ark Existed?

May 2024 · 2 minute read

In 1876, historian and politician James Bryce climbed Ararat and claimed to have found "a piece of wood about four feet long and five inches thick, evidently cut by some tool, and so far above the limit of trees that it could by no possibility be a natural fragment of one" (as quoted in the book The Quest for Noah's Ark).

Official searches started in the 1940s with no results. Then in 1973, author Violet M. Cummings declared in her book "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" that the ark had been found on Mount Ararat (it had not), and in 1993, CBS interviewed somebody who claimed to have seen the ark (turns out he hadn't). By 2006, intelligence-gathering satellites were taking photographs of a geological anomaly on Mt. Ararat that (sort of) resembled the shape of the ark. That wasn't it either (via Live Science).

In 2012, "Baywatch" star Donna D'Errico joined a documentary film crew in search for the ark. She quit along the way, citing fears for her safety. The crew didn't find the ark either (as reported by Live Science).

The search for the ark became so popular that a new word was coined along the way. For creationists, Arkeology (the historical search for the ark) represents a lot more than searching for a boat — if Noah's ark is found, this would mean the story of the flood and the creation narrative are more than a myth (per NSCE).

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