Posted on 07/07/2006 10:05:17 PM PDT by freedom44
High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark.
The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range.
"It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition.
Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge.
"We have had [cut] thin sections of the rock made, and we can see [wood] cell structures," Cornuke said.
Cornuke acknowledges that it may be hard to prove that this object was Noah's ark. But he says he is fairly convinced that the rock formation was an important place of pilgrimage in the past.
The BASE team has uncovered evidence of an ancient shrine near the outcrop, suggesting that this was an important place to people in the past, Cornuke says.
"We can't claim to have conclusively found the ark, but it does look like the object that the ancients talked about," Cornuke said.
Noah and the Flood
The story of Noah's ark is told in three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
The Book of Genesis describes a great flood created by God "to destroy all life under the heavens."
But before the flood, God told Noah, one of his human followers, to build an ark and fill it with two of every species on the Earth.
But this location doesn't fit the description given in Genesis of the ark's passengers journeying from the east to arrive at Mesopotamia.
Cornuke and his team think that Mount Ararat might be a red herring.
"The Bible gives us a compass direction here, and it is not in the direction of Turkey. Instead it points directly towards Iran," Cornuke said.
Pilgrim Shrine?
Using the Book of Genesis and other literary sources, the BASE team journeyed to Iran in July 2005 to climb Mount Suleiman.
They chose Mount Suleiman after reading the notes of 19th-century British explorer A. H. McMahan.
In 1894, after climbing Mount Suleiman, McMahan wrote in his journal, "According to some, Noah's ark alighted here after the deluge."
McMahan also spoke of wood fragments from a shrine at the top of the mountain where unknown people had made pilgrimages to the site.
"We found a shrine and wood fragments at 15,000 feet [4,570 meters] elevation, as described by McMahan," Cornuke said.
Subsequent carbon dating of samples from the shrine showed the wood fragments from the site to be around 500 years old.
Lower on the mountain, expedition members came across the ark-like rock formation, which they estimate to be about 400 feet (122 meters) long.
Rocks From the Sea?
Not everyone is convinced by the BASE team's claims.
Kevin Pickering, a geologist at University College London who specializes in sedimentary rocks, doesn't think that the ark-like rocks are petrified wood.
"The photos appear to show iron-stained sedimentary rocks, probably thin beds of silicified sandstones and shales, which were most likely laid down in a marine environment a long time ago," he said.
Pickering thinks that the BASE team may have mistaken the thin layers in the sediment for wood grain and the more prominent layers as beams of wood.
"The wider layers in the rock are what we call bedding planes," he said.
"They show fracture patterns that we associate with … the Earth processes that caused the rocks to be uplifted to their present height."
The boat-shaped structure can also be explained geologically, says retired British geologist Ian West, who has studied Middle Eastern sediments.
"Iran is famous for its small folds, many of which are the oil traps. Their oval, ark-like shape is classical," he said.
Meanwhile, ancient timber specialist Martin Bridge, of England's Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, is doubtful that a wooden structure would have lasted long enough to petrify under ordinary conditions.
"Wood will only survive for thousands of years if it is buried in very wet conditions or remains in an extremely arid environment," he said.
Bible scholars think that Noah built his ark somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, making preservation highly unlikely except in extreme environmental conditions.
And even if the wood had petrified, there seems to be little evidence of Noah's carpentry, according to Robert Spicer, a geologist at England's Open University who specializes in the study of petrification.
"What needs to be documented in this case are preserved, human-made joints, such as scarf, mortice and tenon, or even just pegged boards. I see none of this in the pictures. It's all very unconvincing," Spicer said.
Bridge, the Oxford timber specialist, points out that it would also be impossible for a boat to run aground at 13,000 feet.
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
Uh, He didn't say a word about it. I stated a fact and instead of addressing it, you whine and call it a "personal attack". And you STILL haven't addressed the fact that you act as if you are not able to comprehend the concept of stories, even ones written down, changing over generations. You know, I'm trying to give you the benefit of doubt here, because if you aren't being "willfully ignorant" then the only other possibility is that it's an inate and permanent condition. For your sake, I'm hoping you're just "acting dumb" for the sake of losing your point.
Evidently, like your partner, you believe that everything on the subject is known and that you know it. Again, I ask, how do you know what was recorded in writing by the descendants of those that survived the flood? What we have today may very well be bits and scraps of what was recorded.
I know you won't like that answer, or any answer I could provide, because you aren't looking for answers, only for things to grasp in your hope that there is no God.
Yeah, the universe and creation is all just some cosmic fluke. And you accuse people of believing in fables with a straight face? THAT is the biggest laugh of all.
Good night.
Here...chew on this science while I look up some more....
Well, I think you can see my point. I will grant that what they found is not proof of the Ark, but neither is it "proof" that they didn't find the Ark. Personally, I have no opinion on what it is. I would have to see a lot more proof to be convinced that it's the Ark.
Pinpointing how humans differ from apes
Wednesday, September 23, 1998
By Michael Woods, Post-Gazette Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- An international quest to identify a handful of genes responsible for the striking differences in physical appearance and brain power between humans and apes has reached its first milestone.
Researchers say they have discovered what may be the first gene for "humanness." The gene is mutated in humans compared to its counterpart in man's cousins, the Great Apes, the animal family including chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas that most closely resembles people.
"My group has discovered what is to our knowledge the first major biochemical and genetic difference between humans and great apes," said Dr. Ajit Varki, of the University of California at San Diego. Though admitting the finding is intriguing, he urged restraint in speculating about the implications for determining humanness until further studies are done.
"At the moment, we can only say that this finding has potential implications for understanding differences between humans and apes in communication between cells within the body," he said.
It also may be involved in differences in disease susceptibility between humans and apes, Varki said. Apes tend to be less susceptible to many diseases that affect humans, including influenza and malaria.
Varki and associates Elaine Muchmore and Sandra Diaz plan to publish two formal scientific reports on the discovery in the weeks ahead. Details, however, were buried in a long report on the search for humanness genes that appeared early this month in Science.
The report described a growing effort by researchers to start a Primate Genome Project, an international program to decipher all the genes in man's animal cousins. Primates include apes, monkeys and scores of other mammals that share common physical traits.
It would be a counterpart to the Human Genome Project, which is identifying the entire bounty of genes, termed the genome, that makes up people.
Scientists have recognized since the 1970s that humans and chimpanzees, for instance, differ genetically by the slimmest margin. About 98.5 per cent of the genes in humans and chimps are identical.
The human genome consists of anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 genes. Thus only 900 to 1,500 genes set humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom in their ability to speak, write, reason, create complex technology, philosophize, strive to ethical and moral ideals and other distinctly human traits.
An international Primate Genome Program would allow scientists to compare genomes of humans and other animals, revealing the specific genes that make people human. Although the effort is in its infancy, the report predicted that ethical pitfalls lie ahead.
For instance, the knowledge might be used to give chimps human traits, such as a larynx, or voice box, that would provide the missing apparatus for speech.
Varki's pioneering step involved a study of blood and tissue samples from 60 humans from diverse ethnic groups. Scientists compared the samples to those taken from Great Apes. It showed that the outer surfaces of human cells have a different form of one common sugar molecule, termed sialic acid, found in all other primates.
Sialic acid has a number of roles in health and disease. Bacteria and viruses use sialic acid to gain a foothold in infecting cells and causing disease. It also acts as a gateway for chemical messenger molecules that cells use to communicate and coordinate their activities in everyday life. In addition, sialic acid may be important for early brain development.
Varki found that the human sialic acid molecule differs in its lack of a single oxygen atom. The atom is missing at a key point in sialic acid's molecular architecture that could affect how cells communicate and their vulnerability to infections. He believes sialic acid may account for humans being more susceptible to certain diseases than other primates.
What difference does the missing oxygen mean for an animal's health or behavior? Japanese scientists have already begun a study to find out. Using genetic engineering techniques, they are raising a colony of mice with the gene segment intentionally deleted.
Here's logic for you.
Perhaps the mountains themselves, i.e. high ground, served the function as the arc, and not a literal boat.
In this scenario, those species that could make it to high ground survived, and the rest sleep with the fishes.
donkeys never range far from home....
all indians walk single file, atleast the one I saw did
The Bible is an amazing book filled with rich history and moving stories.
If you believe God is great, each day is a gift, and rainbows are a sign of His love... It should not matter if Noah's hands actually loaded 2 of every animal into a giant wooden ship.
The story itself is the treasure. One of many!
And if you do not believe... then it is just a book and does not matter.
"If we evolved here as presented , from a common ape ancester....then one would assume that our closest genetic cousin would be the apes....but they arent...or closest genetic cousins are dogs and pigs..."-- Crim Post 103
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"Scientists have recognized since the 1970s that humans and chimpanzees, for instance, differ genetically by the slimmest margin. About 98.5 per cent of the genes in humans and chimps are identical."-- Crim Post 124
In regards to your mention of Mt Saint Helens...
I remember the day that it blew- We lived south of there and had a thick layer of dust on our car in the morning. I also remember "scientists" postulating how bad it all was because the heat had killed all seeds and that no life could have survived. You should see the area full of vegetation 26 years later!
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
According to the bible the water came from WITHIN the earth"..the vaults of the great deep opened..."
I thought there was a canopy of water above the earth, not below.
Trouble there is that Moses wrote Genesis. Moses was not illiterate and was quite well educated having been raised as a prince in Egypt.
Actarctica -- the great deep vault of ice breaking up? A theory Z. Sitchin proposed.
The bible doesn't say specifically "Mt Ararat", it does say "in the mountains of ararat".
Ararat used here is describing the mountain chain which really only borders Turkey and extends mostly into Iran.
The articles claim could very well be credible.
It's been extremely difficult for search expeditions to get permission from the Turkish govt and I would imagine getting one from the mad mullahs in Iran to look for a Christian artifact might get your head chopped off.
"I thought there was a canopy of water above the earth, not below.'
I never heard of a canopy except perhaps the water in the air itself being called that. But the King James states "...and the vaults of the great deep opened...". I noticed this wording in church when i was eight years old and it has always made me wonder why it was phrased that way. The water, if it came from the earth would have been ejected upward and then 'rained down'.
The interesting thing about water coming from INSIDE the earth is that such a catyclisim would leave its mark upon the earth. There have been recent studies tha purportedly show such a mark. I recall seeing cable special on the subject.
You would think that a boat made out of steel would sink right away!
I will look for info on that. The canopy is a blanket of water or mist. It protected the earth from the sun I guess and gave us a greenhouse effect. There would have been no rain but dew covering the earth. More like a garden of Eden affect. Thats just a theory I once read.
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