It’s thought the resting place of Noah’s Ark has been found (Picture: The British Museum/NoahsArkScans.com)
Scientists have deciphered the world’s oldest map after years of study – and they believe they’ve unearthed the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.
The Imago Mundi, a 3,000-year-old Babylonian artifact, is a clay tablet featuring a writing system using wedge-shaped symbols to describe how Christians believe the world was created.
But researchers at the British Museum, where the tablet is housed, have carried out deeper analysis to decipher the map and uncover the biblical references within the ancient cuneiform language.
The back of the tablet acts like a key, describing what a traveler will see on their journey, with one portion says that they must pass through ‘seven leagues… [to] see something that is thick as a parsiktu-vessel.’
The word ‘parsiktu’ has been found on other ancient Babylonian tablets, specifically to explain the size of a boat needed to survive the Great Flood.
Researchers followed the instructions, finding a path to ‘Urartu’ where an ancient Mesopotamian poem claims a man and his family landed an ark to preserve life.
Researchers finally solved the puzzle of the oldest known map of the world (Picture: The British Museum)
It’s thought the Imago Mundi points towards the remains of Noah’s Ark (Picture: NoahsArkScans.com)
The location is the Assyrian equivalent to ‘Ararat,’ the Hebrew word for the mountain Noah crashed the Biblical vessel that was constructed for the same purpose.
Dr. Irving Finkel, British Museum curator, said: ‘It 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.
‘That if you did go on this journey you would see the remnants of this historic boat.’
The Imago Mundi was first found in what is now Iraq back in 1882. It features cuneiform text, a language only used by the Babylonians, who etched a map of what’s thought to show the entire known world at the time into the tablet.
At the bottom center of the map sits Mesopotamia, enclosed by a circle representing a ‘bitter river’ that was believed to surround the entire world.
The tablet has since been damaged, but once featured eight triangles that researchers determined signified mountains that match descriptions on the back.
‘Number four says ‘To the fourth, to which you must travel seven leagues,’ Dr Finkel said.
He continued to explain that the passage continues to explain how a journeyer will eventually come upon a giant vessel.
‘This parsiktu measurement, is something to an Assyriologist which makes their ears prick and the fact is it’s only once otherwise known from cuneiform tablets and it’s rather an interesting cuneiform tablet too,’ he added.
The ‘directions’ are written in the ancient cuneiform language
‘Because it is the description of the Ark which was built, theoretically, by the Babylonian version of Noah.’
The Babylonian version of the story says the god Ea sent a flood that wiped out all of humanity except for Utnapishtim and his family, who built an ark at the command …read more
Source:: Metro
