Chinese team claims discovery of Noah’s Ark

IT has been sighted nearly more times than Elvis, but archaeologists now believe they have found the fossilised remains of the fabled Noah’s Ark.

The remains of the stout wooden vessel said, in Christian, Jewish and Islamic legend, to have saved humanity and animals from the great flood of the Old Testament, has turned up on Mount Ararat in Turkey, if latest claims are to be believed.

A Chinese filmmaker – who coincidentally happens to be an evangelical Christian – says he found the remains of Noah’s vessel during searches on Mount Ararat.

Yeung said he is almost 100% sure it was the ship mentioned in the Old Testament. He has filmed the discovery which was made during an expedition with Turkish archaeologists and scientists.

Hong-Kong-based Wing-cheung said he is only 99% sure it was indeed Noah’s Ark they saw because no one knows exactly what the ark is supposed to look like.

According to the Old Testament, God ordered Noah to build an ark and load it with a pair of every animal on earth. It must have been a huge construction as there was even room for the elephants’ trunks.

The searchers found the remnants at an altitude of 4,000m and plan to seek UNESCO World Heritage Listing while the site is being investigated.

The find has been described as a structure with wooden beams separated into a number of compartments. Carbon dating puts its age at 4,800 years old, which is consistent with the Biblical flood story. No evidence of human settlement has been found above 3,500m in the area.

“It’s not 100% that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9% that this is it,” said Yeung Wing-cheung.

In 2006, in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition claimed it had discovered rocks resembling the ark.

The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 4,000m on Mount Suleiman in Iran’s Elburz mountain range.