Mountains of Ararat

File:Ararat Ms. 11639 521a.jpg

Depiction of Noah's Ark landing on the "mountains of Ararat", from the North French Hebrew Miscellany (13th century)

In the Book of Genesis, the mountains of Ararat (Biblical Hebrew Template:Script/Hebrew, Tiberian Template:Lang, Septuagint: Template:Lang)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood.<ref name="genesis84">Template:Cite web</ref> It corresponds to the ancient Assyrian term Urartu, an exonym for the Armenian Kingdom of Van.<ref name="lang">Lang, David Marshall. Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. London: Allen and Unwin, 1970, p. 114. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="redgate">Redgate, Anna Elizabeth. The Armenians. Cornwall: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 16–19, 23, 25, 26 (map), 30–32, 38, 43. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Since the Middle Ages the "mountains of Ararat" began to be identified with a mountain in present Turkey known as Masis or Ağrı Dağı; the mountain became known as Mount Ararat.<ref name="Agadjanian2016">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Petrosyan2001">Template:Cite book</ref> The Kurdish population is primarily concentrated on the Van plateau, from which numerous tribes radiate over a vast area, including territories extending toward Mount Ararat.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

History

File:Martin Behaim's Erdpfel,1492 (Reproduction) Ararat in Armenia with Noah's Ark.jpg

The ark on top of Mount Ararat in Armenia, from Martin Behaim's Erdapfel (1492)

Citing historians Berossus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus, Josephus writes in his Antiquities of the Jews that "[t]he ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia, ... over Minyas, called Baris".<ref name="josephus">Template:PACEJ</ref>

Likewise, in the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translates Genesis 8:4 to read: "Requievitque arca ... super montes Armeniae" ("and the ark rested ... on the mountains of Armenia");<ref name="latinvulgategen84">Template:Cite web</ref> though in the Nova Vulgata as promulgated after the Second Vatican Council, the toponym is amended to "montes Ararat" ("mountains of Ararat").<ref name="novavulgatagen84">Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Deluge masseot abaquesne faience ecouen.jpg

16th-century faience art depicting the ark atop Ararat

By contrast, early Syrian and Eastern tradition placed the ark on Mount Judi in ancient Upper Mesopotamia, what is now in Şırnak Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region,<ref name="conybeare1901">Template:Cite journal</ref> an association that had faded by the Middle Ages and is now mostly confined to Quranic tradition.Template:Citation needed

The Book of Jubilees specifies that the ark came to rest on the peak of Lubar, a mountain of Ararat.<ref name="jubilees">Template:Cite web</ref>

Sir Walter Raleigh devotes several chapters of his Historie of the World (1614) to an argument that in ancient times the mountains of Ararat were understood to include not only those of Armenia, but also all of the taller mountain-ranges extending into Asia. He maintains that since Armenia is not actually located east of Shinar,Template:NoteTag the ark must have landed somewhere in the Orient.Template:Citation needed

See also

• Armenian highlands
  • Mount Ararat
  • Mount Tendürek
    • Durupınar site
• Searches for Noah's Ark
• River system of Mesopotamia
  • Euphrates
  • Tigris
• Taurus / Zagros Mountains
  • Mount Judi

Further reading

• Murat, Friedrich (1901). Ararat und Masis: Studien zur armenischen Altertumskunde und Litteratur. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.
• Raleigh, Walter Sir (1614). The Historie of the World. London: Printed by William Stansby for Walter Burre, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard at the signe of the Crane.