Where is Noah's Ark? Here's why it will never be found

National Geographic

18 hours ago

A painting of Noah's Ark. The Old Testament tale has not only inspired countless generations of artists, but also more than a century of 'scientific' attempts to locate remains of the fabled vessel. Painting by Simon de Myle via Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty
For more than a century, people have sought the precise location of Noah's Ark. Archaeologists say it's a fool's errand.
Noah's Ark is among the best known and most captivating of all Old Testament stories. After creating humans, God became so displeased with them that he struck Earth with an all-encompassing flood to wipe them out.
But there was one noteworthy (and seaworthy) exception: the biblical patriarch and his family. Accompanied by pairs of each of the planet's animals, all rode out the deluge in an enormous wooden vessel.
For people who accept the religious text as a historically accurate account of actual events, the hunt for archaeological evidence of the Ark is equally captivating. It's inspired some intrepid faithful to comb the slopes of Mount Ararat and other sites in eastern Turkey for traces of the wooden vessel among the rock formations.
In 1876, for example, British attorney and politician James Bryce climbed the mountain, where biblical accounts say the Ark came to rest. There he claimed a piece of wood that 'suits all the requirements of the case' was in fact a piece of the vessel.
More modern 'discoveries' exclaiming 'Noah's Ark found' take place on a regular basis. Most recently, a group called Noah's Ark Scans, led by Andrew Jones, claims that soil samples taken from the Durupinar site in eastern Turkey contains organic matter that differs from the surrounding area. However, many argue the boat-shaped site is a natural geological formation. A shepherd tends his flock near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. Many people have looked for evidence of the Ark on the mountain's slopes, despite the fact that the Book of Genesis describes the Ark as coming to rest in a yet-unidentified range of mountains in western Asia. Photograph by John Stanmeyer, Nat Geo Image Colllection
Such searches for the Ark site draw everything from exasperation to disdain from academic archaeologists and biblical scholars. 'No legitimate archaeologist does this,' says National Geographic Explorer Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, of modern searches for evidence of Noah.
'Archaeology is not treasure hunting,' she adds. 'It's not about finding a specific object. It's a science where we come up with research questions that we hope to answer by excavation.'
(Which animals were on Noah's Ark? Here are a few theories.) Was the Old Testament flood fact or fiction?
Stories of destructive floods and those who survive them predate the Hebrew Bible, the oldest parts of which are thought to have been written in the 8th century B.C.
Legends about a deluge that destroys civilization at the behest of a supernatural deity appear in multiple Mesopotamian texts. They run the gamut, from the Epic of Gilgamesh written around the early second millennium B.C. to a recently deciphered Babylonian cuneiform tablet from about 1750 B.C. describing how the ark was built. Flood and ark accounts very similar to that of the Old Testament predate biblical accounts. One from the early second millennium B.C. Epic of Gilgamesh, shown in this Assyrian depiction, was recorded more than a thousand years before the Bible. Photograph by CM Dixon, Print Collector/Getty
Could these flood myths be based in fact? 'There does seem to be geological evidence that there was a major flood in the Black Sea region about 7,500 years ago,' says National Geographic Explorer Eric Cline, an archaeologist at George Washington University.
But scientists disagree on the extent of that event, just as historians of the era differ on whether real life inspired writings about a deluge. It seems likelier that floods were simply experienced in different places and at different times—and that those events naturally made their way into the world's oral and written lore, like the Genesis flood narrative.
(What do the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the origins of Christianity?) Where is Noah's Ark? It's complicated.
Scholars differ on the precise location of Noah's Ark according to the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Genesis, the ark came to rest 'upon the mountains of Ararat' located in the ancient kingdom of Urartu, an area that now includes Armenia and parts of eastern Turkey and Iran—not the single, iconic peak that bears its name today.
'There's no way we can determine where exactly in the ancient Near East it occurred,' says Magness.
Both Cline and Magness add that even if artifacts from the Ark have been or will be found, they could never be conclusively connected to historical events.
'We have no way of placing Noah, if he really existed, and the flood, if there really was one, in time and space,' says Magness. 'The only way you could determine that would be if you had an authentic ancient inscription.' Even then, she points out, such an inscription could refer to another Noah or another flood.
That hasn't stopped the proliferation of pseudoarchaeology that upholds the Bible as literal truth. The fruitless searches are often aligned with adherents of 'young-earth creationism,' the belief that, despite evidence to the contrary, Earth is only thousands of years old.
(Inside the search for the oldest pieces of Earth) Same evidence, very different conclusions
Such groups use secular archaeological evidence to bolster their literal interpretation of Scripture—and simply disregard or attempt to disprove evidence to the contrary. But they don't all share the same tactics.
Answers In Genesis, a self-described apologetics ministry that focuses on scientific issues and even runs a Noah's Ark-themed amusement park in Kentucky, acknowledges the ubiquity of flood-related myths beyond the Old Testament story of Noah, and even concedes that the Ark could never be found.
'We do not expect the Ark to have survived and been available to find after 4,350 years,' says Andrew A. Snelling, a geologist and Director of Research for Answers In Genesis who has spent decades attempting to prove Earth's youth.
Snelling differs from archaeologists, however, about why the vessel's remains will never be found. 'With no mature trees available for Noah and his family to build shelters after they got off the Ark, there is every reason to expect they dismantled the Ark (which they didn't need anymore) to salvage timber from it,' he says.
While the ministry does not rule out the potential of one day finding the Ark, Snelling rues what he calls 'questionable claims' by Ark-seekers that 'blunt the potential impact of a true discovery.'
For Magness, who currently leads excavations at a late-Roman synagogue in Galilee. the search for Noah's Ark not only confuses the public, but diminishes excitement about actual archaeological finds, even ones that offer support for parts of the Bible, such as the existence of the House of David.
Cline says when he was younger, he attempted to rebut the purported biblical evidence that enchants the public year after year. Eventually, he quit.
Now he focuses on both his expeditions and translating his research for those willing to accept the results of the scientific process. 'People are gonna believe what they want to believe,' he sighs.
That won't change any time soon. For now, he's focused on unearthing an 18th-century B.C. Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri in what is now northern Israel. 'For us, [the floor] is incredibly important, because it shows international relations and contacts from almost 4,000 years ago,' he says.
'It's not Noah's Ark, but it's a painted floor,' the archaeologist says, 'which is good enough for me.' This article originally published on November 22, 2022. It was updated on June 30, 2025.