By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
LONDON/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Scientists say they have discovered that the world’s oldest known map refers to the likely location of Noah’s Ark, as mentioned in the Bible.
Their findings read like a script from Indiana Jones, the film franchise about Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr., the fictional professor of archaeology.
Yet unlike Hollywood’s character, the real ‘Indiana Jones’ persons of this world have deciphered a 3,000-year-old tablet that puzzled archaeologists for centuries.
The ancient Babylonian artifact, a map etched with cuneiform—a script using wedge-shaped symbols— was found in what is now Iraq before being acquired by the British Museum in 1882
Known as the Imago Mundi, it depicts a circular world map, illustrating early Babylonian ideas about the world’s creation.
The Babylonian map is thought to show the entire known world at the time, with Mesopotamia at the bottom center. That wasn’t a surprise as the ancient state of Babylonia was located in central Mesopotamia, which consists of today’s Iraq and parts of Syria and Iran.
Mesopotamia is enclosed by a circle representing a “bitter river” that was believed to surround the entire world, marking the borders of the known world at that time.
ANCIENT GUIDE
On the reverse side of the artifact, passages reportedly provide a guide describing what a traveler would encounter on a journey long before generations relied on Google Maps and other systems to find their way.
Experts discovered that it includes a path to “Urartu” and specific instructions on how to get there. One passage says: “To the fourth, to which you must travel seven leagues.”
Another passage reportedly instructs those on the journey to go through “seven leagues” to see something “thick as a parsiktu-vessel.”
The term “parsiktu” appears on other ancient Babylonian tablets, referencing the scale of a vessel meant to withstand the legendary Great Flood, experts say.
Researchers believe that Urartu, also known as Ararat, is linked to an ancient Mesopotamian poem recounting a family who, like Noah, landed their ark to preserve life. They landed the vessel after a 150-day flood that killed all life on earth except those in the Ark, resembling Noah, his loved ones, and animals
As the flooding ended, they were safely stationed at one of the peaks of Urartu, which aligns with “Ararat,” the Hebrew term for the mountain where Noah’s Ark reportedly came to rest after the flood.
Biblical texts also recount that Noah’s Ark came to rest on the “mountains of Ararat,” with Genesis 8:4 stating, “And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.”
Some Biblical scholars suggest that the flooding occurred over 4,300 years ago.
According to experts, the supposed ark site in Turkey aligns with the dimensions in the Bible of “300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits,” which translates to around 515 feet (about 157 meters) long, 86 feet (roughly 26 meters) wide, and 52 feet (nearly 16 meters) high.
While scholars may disagree on the exact location and timing, the Imago Mundi map “shows that the story was the same. And of course that one led to the other but also, that from the Babylonian point of view, this was a matter of fact thing,” noted Irving Finkel, a British Museum curator and cuneiform expert.
He added that the discovered artifact clearly shows that “if you did go on this journey, you would see the remnants of this historic boat,” Noah’s Ark.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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