1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Tonight, one of the Bible's best known stories. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:10,000 A catastrophic flood wipes out nearly every living thing on Earth, 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:15,000 except those saved by Noah and his fabled Ark. 4 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:18,000 Human kind become evil and sinful, 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,000 and God decides to sort of hit the reset button. 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 Could this tale be more than mere legend? 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,000 And if the answer is yes, what evidence supports it? 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000 Research has found that a piece of the Ark may actually have survived. 9 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Now, we explore the theories behind this biblical mystery. 10 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,000 Sir Walter Raleigh suggested that we should be looking for Noah's Ark 11 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:46,000 in a massive mountain range in India. 12 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,000 Could be that the story of Noah's Ark was actually based in ancient Greece. 13 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:55,000 What in the world is a boat doing 13,000 feet up on a mountain in Turkey? 14 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,000 Was there really a great flood? 15 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000 And if so, what became of the Ark? 16 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,000 Uzengili, Turkey, 1959 17 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:26,000 Army Captain Ilhan Derupinar flies an aerial reconnaissance mission for NATO. 18 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000 Captain Derupinar is there to take photographs from his plane 19 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 in order to map a remote area in the Turkish Highlands. 20 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:37,000 A few years prior, there had been three large earthquakes that altered the terrain, 21 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,000 so the government wants updated images. 22 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:45,000 The flight is routine, until he spots something strange. 23 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000 He's flying over basically the middle of nowhere. 24 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 When he sees a startling and unusual formation amongst the rocks below, 25 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,000 which of course, he photographs. 26 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:00,000 When the film is developed, the captain is surprised to see what appears to be 27 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:07,000 the remains of a large ship far inland and 6,500 feet above sea level. 28 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:13,000 What in the world would a boat be doing way up there? 29 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:19,000 He doesn't know it yet, but he may just have stumbled onto the answer, 30 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:24,000 some people think, of a great biblical mystery that has been out there for thousands of years. 31 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000 The Mystery of Noah's Ark 32 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 The story of Noah's Ark is told in the biblical book of Genesis. 33 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,000 After God creates the universe and mankind begins with Adam and Eve, 34 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:38,000 they go on to populate the earth. 35 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,000 Ten generations later, Noah's born. 36 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:47,000 According to Genesis, during Noah's time, God loses faith in humanity. 37 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Humankind become evil and sinful, and God sees all this and is very, very displeased by it, 38 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:58,000 and he essentially decides to sort of hit the reset button. 39 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:04,000 He's going to wipe out all living things that he has created and start afresh. 40 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:10,000 God spares Noah and his family on one condition. 41 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:16,000 He must build an ark and stock it with pairs of every animal on earth. 42 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:22,000 So the ark is a giant ship that's designed to survive this cataclysmic flood that's about to cover the earth. 43 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,000 God gives Noah extremely detailed instructions on how to build this ark, 44 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,000 how many floors it should have, how many rooms, what type of wood to use, 45 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:37,000 and even its exact dimensions, 515 feet long, 86 feet wide, and 51 feet tall. 46 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:43,000 According to the book of Genesis, the flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. 47 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:53,000 Eventually, as the waters receded back into the earth, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 48 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 And actually, there is a mountain today called Mount Ararat. 49 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:02,000 It's a huge peak in Turkey, and Darupinar's aerial photo is taking just a few miles south of there. 50 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:12,000 For centuries, religious scholars and historians view the story of the great flood as a metaphor, 51 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:16,000 a warning that God punishes sin. 52 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:21,000 But curiously, the flood is also mentioned in both the Torah and the Koran. 53 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:27,000 Could these photos be proof that Noah's tale is in fact true? 54 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:33,000 Darupinar's photos create a kind of firestorm of controversy and excitement, 55 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:39,000 especially when they're featured in a story that Life Magazine puts out in 1960. 56 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:45,000 People are super excited because if these photos actually show Noah's ark, 57 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:51,000 then they can prove that everything that's written in the Bible about this whole event is actually true. 58 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 This is a historical event that actually happened. 59 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:02,000 Inspired by the article, a team of Americans led by Ron Wyatt begins researching the site in the 1970s. 60 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:10,000 One of the first things the team learns when they arrive is that the locals call the mountain where the Darupinar site is located, Mount Kuddi. 61 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:11,000 And why is this important? 62 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:19,000 Well, the Koran also tells the story of Noah's ark, and in the Koran's version, the ark comes to rest on a mountain called Al-Guddi. 63 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,000 So they think Kuddi is actually Al-Guddi. 64 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:27,000 So the team now believes that they're able to connect the site back to the Koran and the Bible. 65 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Everything seems to be adding up. 66 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:34,000 And so they embark on this arduous hike all the way up the mountain, convinced that they're on the right track. 67 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:43,000 Near the Darupinar site, they actually discover several very large boulders with holes bored through them. 68 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:49,000 And the marine archaeologists who are part of the team are very excited about this because they look at them and they recognize them. 69 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,000 They say, you know what these are? These are something called drogue stones. 70 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 Drogue stones are ancient anchors. 71 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:03,000 Archaeologists have found evidence of drogue stones used as anchors in some of the oldest shipwrecks in Egypt and the Mediterranean. 72 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:08,000 So could these stones be the anchors used on Noah's ark? 73 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:15,000 Next, the team examines the strange boat-shaped formation with ground penetrating radar. 74 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:20,000 While they're performing the scan, the team is excited to note the measurements of this formation. 75 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:25,000 In the Bible, the ark is 300 cubits or about 515 feet long. 76 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:29,000 This structure on the mountain is 538 feet long. 77 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:33,000 It's almost an exact match and they can't believe this coincidence. 78 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:38,000 The scan also reveals what appears to be a man-made internal structure. 79 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:44,000 The team believes this could be fossilized remains of chambers inside the ark. 80 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:51,000 If this is an ancient ark, it's unlikely that any wood could survive all these thousands of years. 81 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:57,000 So this might be an incredible stroke of luck if some of the remains have been petrified or fossilized. 82 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:03,000 The team drills down. They take some samples when the samples are analyzed. 83 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:09,000 They're found to be nothing other than soil and regular sedimental rock. 84 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:14,000 In other words, it seems to be just a natural formation. 85 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000 But that doesn't end the hunt for the ark in this area. 86 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000 See, there are two things researchers can look for. 87 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:27,000 Now, the boat itself is one of them, but another avenue to explore is looking for evidence of a giant flood. 88 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:32,000 Large-scale natural disasters leave traces behind that can last thousands of years. 89 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:38,000 And interestingly enough, research has found that a massive flood may indeed have taken place 90 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:43,000 and it happened right near where Darupinar's photograph was taken in Turkey. 91 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:48,000 In 1997, a team of geologists, geophysicists and oceanographers, 92 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:53,000 led by a couple of Americans, William Ryan and Walter Pittman, 93 00:07:53,000 --> 00:08:00,000 analyzed the area around the Black Sea and they find evidence for what they call the Black Sea deluge. 94 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:06,000 And at the bottom of the saltwater Black Sea, they find remains of freshwater animals 95 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,000 dating back to around 5,000 or 6,000 BC. 96 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,000 And soil samples in bedrock tests also prove that this once was a freshwater lake, 97 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,000 and then it changed very quickly. 98 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:22,000 So the theory runs that about 8,000 years ago, there was a huge glacier, 99 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,000 and suddenly that glacier collapses. 100 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:32,000 It causes this massive upsurge of the Mediterranean Sea that floods all the surrounding areas, 101 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:35,000 including what's now the Black Sea. 102 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:40,000 Every day, the equivalent of 200 Niagara Falls worth of water floods in 103 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:44,000 and this goes on for 300 days straight. 104 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,000 Madness, the existing freshwater lake that will become the Black Sea, 105 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:52,000 it gets bigger and deeper at the rate of one mile a day. 106 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:58,000 If you lived in this region in just a matter of hours, your home could be at the bottom of the sea. 107 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:05,000 In 2000, marine archaeologists, led by former Navy Officer Robert Ballard, 108 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:14,000 find evidence of a flooded ancient human settlement over 300 feet down on the bottom of the Black Sea. 109 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:19,000 The flood was actually the size of Colorado before receding. 110 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,000 It could have affected thousands upon thousands of people. 111 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:31,000 According to the study's authors, any survivors could possibly have passed the flood story down through the generations. 112 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:37,000 Now we may have evidence of a great flood right here, and this reignites interest in the Darupinar site. 113 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:45,000 The Turkish government sanctions further ground penetrating radar studies in 2014, in 2019, and again in 2021. 114 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:53,000 So as the technology advances, the scans get better, and we're finding evidence for straight lines. 115 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:58,000 Now any time you have a straight line like that, it could be the result of human occupation. 116 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,000 Although Turkish authorities currently restrict access to the site, 117 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:08,000 some remain hopeful that evidence of the ark may eventually be found. 118 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:13,000 So there's pretty good evidence for a large ancient flood here in Turkey, 119 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:17,000 and if it turns out that this is a boat that dates to the same time as the flood, 120 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,000 then pretty good chance that we've found the inspiration for Noah's Ark. 121 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:26,000 But this is not the only candidate, not by a long shot. 122 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:35,000 When evidence of a massive ancient flood is discovered near the Black Sea in 1997, 123 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:40,000 many believe it may be proof the story of Noah's Ark is real. 124 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:45,000 This story is famous in three of the world's major Western religions. 125 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:50,000 It's in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and it's also in the Koran. 126 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:57,000 But each of these books only give archaic or vague locations for precisely where this might have taken place. 127 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:01,000 Names of mountains and regions that have been lost to time. 128 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:05,000 But one additional ancient text may hold clues. 129 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:10,000 There's an early Roman historian named Josephus who was writing around the same time 130 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,000 that some of the Bible was written in the first century AD. 131 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:23,000 Flavius Josephus is the most important source of information about Judaism outside of the Bible that we have. 132 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:27,000 Josephus is actually Jewish, but he's raised and educated in Rome, 133 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:34,000 and one of the things he seeks to do in his writings is to kind of explain the Jewish people for a Roman audience. 134 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:40,000 The particular book that Josephus writes still exists. It's known as the Antiquities of the Jews. 135 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:48,000 In researching it, he talks to other Jewish historians and combs through all these ancient documents as many as he can find. 136 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:55,000 Based on his research, Josephus believes he's found a new location for the story of Noah, the Ark, and the Great Flood. 137 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:59,000 He believes it all took place in the Kingdom of Armenia. 138 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:08,000 While researching his book, Josephus comes across the writings of a Babylonian historian whose name is Borossus. 139 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:13,000 Now Borossus is writing between 300 and 200 BC. 140 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:19,000 According to Borossus, the remains of Noah's Ark are still around in 200 BC. 141 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:27,000 Borossus writes, quote, the Ark, grounded in Armenia, some parts still remains in the mountains of Armenia. 142 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 Armenia is very mountainous, and where would you start to look? 143 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:40,000 As amazing as this little kind of piece of historical lore goes, it's still really very vague and unspecified. 144 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:44,000 Instead, Josephus tries to track the Ark's pieces. 145 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:53,000 Josephus cites Borossus as saying people are going up into these mountains in Armenia to grab chunks of the ship, 146 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,000 taking them as keepsakes and amulets. 147 00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:02,000 Eventually, according to Josephus, most of the Ark ends up in a city in the Kingdom of Armenia called Kare. 148 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:10,000 During Josephus' time, he says they're still showing pieces of the Ark to visitors, and if true, this could be a tremendous lead. 149 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:14,000 Who knows, maybe today, some traces of the Ark could still be found there. 150 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:17,000 But there's one problem. 151 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:22,000 In 1260, the Mongols invade and burn down Kare. 152 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:27,000 Luckily, the trail doesn't end there. 153 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:33,000 According to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a piece of the Ark may actually have survived. 154 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:41,000 The Armenian Apostolics believe that in the 4th century AD, a holy man by the name of Jacob of Nisibus, 155 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:48,000 climbed a sacred holy mountain in Armenia, and there he found a piece of Noah's Ark. 156 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:54,000 Now, once again, we don't know precisely where this mountain is, but we do know what happens to the piece. 157 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:59,000 Jacob brings it to the Cathedral of Etchmiadzin in the Armenian Mountains. 158 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:05,000 The Cathedral of Etchmiadzin still exists today in Armenia. 159 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:15,000 It dates back to the year 301 AD, and it is believed by many to be the oldest Christian cathedral in the world. 160 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:21,000 And the cathedral claims to still possess Jacob's piece of Noah's Ark. 161 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:30,000 There was an ornate reliquary built in the Cathedral of Etchmiadzin in 1698 that supposedly housed this piece of wood. 162 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:33,000 No one's ever tested it, and we don't know how old it is. 163 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:36,000 We're not even sure what kind of tree it comes from. 164 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:46,000 It is unlikely that it will ever be allowed to leave the cathedral since it is a precious religious relic. 165 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:53,000 But maybe someday, science can definitively link it to the Great Flood. 166 00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:00,000 Even if you accurately date this piece of wood, that doesn't necessarily mean it's part of the story from the Bible. 167 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:05,000 But there's possible evidence that Noah's Ark is based on a real story, and it's not because of an object. 168 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,000 It's because of the story itself. 169 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:10,000 Sure enough, there is another ancient flood story. 170 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:16,000 This one is older than Christianity, it's older than Islam, and it comes out of ancient Greece. 171 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:25,000 The ancient Greek flood story is surprisingly similar to the biblical account. 172 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:30,000 So once again, in this you have a man, a flood, and a boat. 173 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:39,000 The protagonist of this particular story is called Dukallion, and Dukallion lives in a very mountainous region of Greece called the Peloponnese. 174 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:46,000 Zeus, God of Lightning, the leader of the Greek gods, becomes enraged because mankind is corrupt and evil. 175 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:53,000 And according to the story, Zeus unleashes a massive deluge with the rivers and the sea flooding everywhere. 176 00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:00,000 Dukallion builds what is described in the flood story as a giant chest. 177 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:09,000 And he and his wife climb into this chest, and they float around through this deluge for nine days and nights. 178 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:14,000 Finally, it touches down on solid land on a mountainside. 179 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:20,000 And just like Noah, Dukallion and his wife, Pira, are the only human survivors of this great flood. 180 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:28,000 Dukallion's flood is one of the key stories in Greek mythology, and it's pretty interesting that this same tale pops up in more than one place. 181 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:32,000 But again, it makes you want to ask, is this just a myth? 182 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:39,000 Then in the early 1600s, a key new piece of evidence emerges. 183 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:49,000 There's a man called Thomas Howard. He's a British nobleman, and he is like many of the elite men of his day. 184 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,000 He's very interested in going on what's called the Grand Tour. 185 00:16:52,000 --> 00:17:06,000 That is, he would travel to all the archaic regions, Italy, Greece, what's now Turkey, and he would on this tour bring back as many antiquities as he could possibly carry back with him. 186 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:13,000 In 1627, he buys two small pieces of marble with ancient Greek writing on them. 187 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:19,000 They're given to a respected English scholar named John Selden, who begins working on a translation of the writing. 188 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:32,000 As Selden starts this process of translating these texts, he realizes that he has in his hands something really interesting and really important. 189 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:40,000 What he's got is a listing of historical events since ancient antiquity. 190 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:48,000 Since these marble pieces originated on the island of Paros, he calls this the Parian Chronicle. 191 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:56,000 And right there on the Parian Chronicle, amongst all the other historical events, is an entry for Dukeliin's flood. 192 00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:03,000 There it is, just carved in stone with a date that may just prove this version of Noah's Ark is actually real. 193 00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:18,000 When the Parian Chronicle is discovered in ancient Greece in the early 17th century, some scholars believe it could hold the answer to the mystery of Noah's Ark. 194 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:30,000 The Bipolkole story could, in fact, be inspired by the story of Dukeliin, or it's possible that they both related to the same historical event. 195 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:40,000 Either way, according to the Parian Chronicle, Dukeliin's flood was an actual historical event and it took place in 1581 BC. 196 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:51,000 When historians get a look at that date, they get pretty excited because there's a real life event that fits that timeline, which could well have inspired this widespread flood myth. 197 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:56,000 There's a huge natural disaster that is so catastrophic. 198 00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:01,000 Observers as far away as Egypt and even China record its impact. 199 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:05,000 It's called the Minoan eruption on the Greek island of Thera. 200 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:10,000 Thera is an active volcanic island in the Aegean Sea. 201 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:17,000 And right there, some point in the late 1500 BC, this volcano suddenly erupts. 202 00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:24,000 What's even deadlier than this eruption is actually the tsunami that it creates. 203 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:30,000 It has an estimated wave height of 400 feet, radiating out from the eruption site. 204 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:35,000 This floods and destroys everything for hundreds of miles in every direction. 205 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:41,000 And many believe the destruction of the island of Thera inspired Dukeliin's flood. 206 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:47,000 If this is Dukeliin's flood, what became of his version of the ark? 207 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:57,000 Depending on which ancient author you believe, there are four possible locations for the mountainside where this chest of Dukeliin comes to rest. 208 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:03,000 Of the four, there's only one that shows evidence that dates back to around the 2nd millennium BC. 209 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,000 They have Parnassus. 210 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:13,000 Mount Parnassus features an ancient settlement called Delphi, most known today for its famed oracle. 211 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:19,000 If there were any survivors of the flood, this is one of the best candidates for where they might have set up a new town. 212 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:26,000 But so far, no ark, no boat, no giant chest has been found in Delphi. 213 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:32,000 But could there be an entirely different location where Noah's ark came to rest? 214 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:39,000 According to famed 17th century explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, the answer is in the Bible. 215 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:48,000 Late in life, Raleigh sets on writing a very ambitious project called The History of the World in five books. 216 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:55,000 Sir Walter Raleigh is a Christian and he really kind of goes back to what he sees as the most important historical text. 217 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:59,000 And that's the Old Testament starting with the book of Genesis. 218 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,000 And he takes a close look at the story of Noah's ark. 219 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:11,000 During Sir Walter Raleigh's time, people believed that the ark landed in the mountains of Erarath in Turkey. 220 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:15,000 But Sir Walter Raleigh came up with a shocking proposal. 221 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:23,000 According to his research, the story of Noah and the Great Flood occurred some 2,000 miles away from Turkey in India. 222 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,000 Raleigh finds several key clues that suggest India. 223 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:35,000 The Bible talks about the descendants of the flood traveling to a place called Shinar. 224 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:40,000 It's a name for a Mesopotamia from the east, Mikedam. 225 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:51,000 Now Walter Raleigh asked the question, why would the descendants of the flood be traveling to Shinar from the east 226 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:55,000 if Mount Erarath is to the northwest? 227 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:03,000 So he suggested that we should be looking for Noah's ark in a massive mountain range to the east of Mesopotamia. 228 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:06,000 And that would be the Himalayas in India. 229 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:15,000 The other thing he's looking for is vineyards because in the Bible it says that one of the first things Noah does when he lands is plant a vineyard of grapes. 230 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:21,000 Raleigh points to another written account to support his claim. 231 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000 Raleigh reads a history of Alexander the Great's conquest in India. 232 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:28,000 It says that after a successful campaign in India, 233 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:36,000 quote, did Alexander feast himself and his army 10 days together finding therein the most delicate wine? 234 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,000 This pretty much seals the deal for Raleigh. 235 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,000 Of course, today we'd say his argument is a little thin. 236 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:47,000 But there may be more substantial evidence to prove his theory. 237 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:54,000 Raleigh doesn't seem to be aware of this, but there's a well-known story of a massive flood in Indian folklore. 238 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:01,000 The Indian flood legend appears in a sacred text known as the Matsya Purana. 239 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:11,000 In this story, Vivasvata Manu is warned by Vishnu, one of the chief Indian deities of a great flood. 240 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:17,000 Manu survives the flood by crafting a giant boat and saves humanity. 241 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:24,000 Yet again, the similarities to Noah are uncanny, and so we find ourselves wondering, was Raleigh actually right? 242 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:28,000 Did the great flood take place in India? 243 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:36,000 In 2017, Indian archaeologist Bibi Lal believes he's uncovered the answer. 244 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:41,000 Bibi Lal is the former director general of the Archaeological Survey for the state of India, 245 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:50,000 and he was doing research in the Indus Valley looking at the civilizations from 4,000 to 1,000 BCE. 246 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,000 He's actually trying to solve a different mystery. 247 00:23:53,000 --> 00:24:00,000 This ancient culture describes a great holy river in northwestern India called the Saraswati, but it's not there anymore. 248 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,000 It's said to have just disappeared. 249 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:13,000 He discovers that there was a massive tectonic shift around 2000 BC that suddenly obstructed the Saraswati River's path into a nearby valley, flooding it in a massive delusion. 250 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:19,000 Lal believes that this explains both the fate of the Saraswati River and Manu's flood. 251 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:23,000 He believes he's proven that Manu's flood is real. 252 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:30,000 If correct, could this be the origin story of Noah's infamous flood? 253 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:37,000 Bibi Lal passes away, unfortunately, in September of 2022 before he's able to further develop his Indian flood theory. 254 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:50,000 But it is kind of interesting to see how this well-known English researcher and this great Indian archaeologist both point to the same conclusion 400 years apart using very different methods. 255 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:57,000 The Indus Valley remains a hotbed of archaeological exploration, so who knows what they might turn up? 256 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:04,000 Maybe one day we'll find out that both Raleigh and Lal were right, and this is the location of the great flood. 257 00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:11,000 In 1985, the long hunt for Noah's Ark takes a sudden turn. 258 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:19,000 When a 4,000-year-old clay tablet is discovered in the attic of a British Air Force veteran, it takes many years to translate. 259 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:29,000 But some believe it could finally solve the mystery of where the Bible's great flood took place and where the Ark itself landed. 260 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:35,000 In the 1980s, in England, a man by the name of Leonard Simmons passes away. 261 00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:45,000 Simmons had led a really interesting life, so he had been a Royal Air Force officer and as such, it traveled a lot around the world, around the Mediterranean basin. 262 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:52,000 And he had collected on his travels a lot of different artifacts which he brought back to England with him. 263 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:59,000 Simmons' son Douglas would like to know what some of these things are, so every so often he'll take one and bring it to the British Museum. 264 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:06,000 One day in 1985, he arrives with a tiny clay tablet, maybe four inches high, not very big. 265 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:13,000 It's covered front and back in cuneiform script, the writing of ancient Mesopotamia. 266 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:21,000 Simmons meets with Dr. Irvin Finkel, who is chief curator for Near Eastern artifacts at the British Museum. 267 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:29,000 And when Finkel starts working with this text, he is apparently really amazed. 268 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,000 Finkel knows that every single scratch on this tablet is gold. 269 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:42,000 His eyes scan the first line and he's almost drowning in excitement at this point, because here in this tiny tablet is an account of a devastating flood. 270 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:49,000 Finkel asks Simmons if he can keep the tablet to fully translated, but Simmons declines. 271 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:58,000 Finkel really wants a crack at this tablet because he's devoted his life to the study of these cuneiform writings and he knows that this is something special. 272 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:09,000 Finkel's department at the British Museum includes over 130,000 of these clay cuneiform tablets, most of which were unearthed in 1852 in Iraq. 273 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:18,000 Ancient Mesopotamians used cuneiform essentially to kind of keep track of things like provisioning, how many ducks were needed for a feast, things like that. 274 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:27,000 But they also wrote down at least one exciting historical tale, one of my favorites, the epic of Gilgamesh. 275 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:37,000 The poem recounts the exploits of King Gilgamesh, who ruled in ancient Mesopotamia, an area near modern day Iraq. 276 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:46,000 The story begins with a great flood that is sent by the gods that basically wipes out everything. 277 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:57,000 Most scholars believe that the epic of Gilgamesh was written between three and four thousand years ago, and it plays out almost identically to the story of Noah's art. 278 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:08,000 But it's important to remember that this story was written a thousand, if not more, years before the story of Noah's art. 279 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:16,000 So the big question that we have is, was there one original event or were there lots of different floods or different flood stories? 280 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:26,000 In the epic of Gilgamesh, an immortal man by the name of Utnapishtim rounds up various animals and brings them with him into an ark. 281 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,000 Together they survive this catastrophic flood. 282 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:37,000 Utnapishtim's boat comes to rest on a mountain called Mount Namush. 283 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:51,000 And this story is so similar to the story of Noah's ark that many scholars believe that the story of Noah's ark is a direct descendant of the story of Utnapishtim and the epic of Gilgamesh. 284 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:57,000 That means Noah's great flood actually takes place in Mesopotamia in modern day Iraq. 285 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:07,000 When Dr. Finkel first examines Douglas Simmons' clay tablet, he hopes it holds answers that Gilgamesh doesn't. 286 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000 The tablet at the British Museum that Gilgamesh is written on is missing some pretty critical lines. 287 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,000 It says the ark that you are to build, blank, be equal, blank. 288 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,000 It's like going through a tunnel with your cell phone. You miss certain parts. 289 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,000 The tablet is broken. The story is incomplete. 290 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:26,000 Finkel is hoping that this new find from Simmons' attic can fill in the blanks. 291 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:31,000 Finkel finally convinces Douglas Simmons to let him translate the tablet in 2009. 292 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:35,000 And as expected, it's a retelling of the Mesopotamian flood story. 293 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,000 The tablet is so old that he's having a hard time reading it. 294 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:51,000 So he has to have it 3D scanned in order to complete the translation. 295 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:55,000 In 2013, he's finally ready to publish his findings. 296 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,000 Finkel believes that this was worth the nearly 30 year wait 297 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:05,000 because what he's got in there is explicit instructions for how to build the ark. 298 00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,000 I mean, this is incredible. 299 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:14,000 A British tourist buys a souvenir in 1948, puts it in his attic where it sits for decades until his death. 300 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,000 And the whole time, he had the ark's instruction manual. 301 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:26,000 The tablet describes in great detail the measurements, materials, and construction process. 302 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:31,000 It reads more clearly than most build-it-yourself furniture instructions these days. 303 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,000 It describes how to make the ropes to bind together, 304 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:38,000 how to space out and connect 30 ribs and 3600 stanchions, 305 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,000 and how to waterproof it with bitumen. 306 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,000 The boat built as described is enormous. 307 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:49,000 It's 4300 square yards about the size of a modern football field. 308 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,000 And its walls are about 20 feet tall. 309 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:59,000 The length of rope that's needed on this boat would stretch from New York all the way to Pittsburgh. 310 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:05,000 And the weird thing about this boat is that it's not rectangular, it's actually circular. 311 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,000 This is much different from the vague metaphor of the biblical story of Noah. 312 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,000 It also rings much truer. 313 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:13,000 It's more convincing. 314 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:18,000 The level of detail of these instructions, it seems like they're meant to be followed. 315 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:23,000 It seems like this is a literal boat that is supposed to be actually built. 316 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:29,000 So the natural next step, if you've got these instructions, is to build it. 317 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:40,000 In 2014, a 4000-year-old tablet, translated by Dr. Irving Finkel, 318 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:45,000 reveals instructions to build a massive boat. 319 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:50,000 Many people believe that this tablet is proof that Noah's Ark was real 320 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:55,000 and that it was used to survive the great flood that was in Mesopotamia, 321 00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,000 which is now modern-day Iraq. 322 00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:04,000 To test that theory, a team of Indian archaeologists attempts to build a version of the Ark. 323 00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:08,000 They don't have the money or the time to build the full-size version. 324 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:14,000 So they decide they're going to make their replica at one-fifth the size of the original version. 325 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:21,000 Even scaled down, the finished product weighs 35 tons and is made of wood, rope, and bitumen, 326 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,000 which is a form of natural tar that will waterproof the boat. 327 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:29,000 So this team sets up shop, they gather all the necessary tools that they would need, 328 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,000 and they're really kind of keeping it to the sorts of tools and materials 329 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,000 that would have been available in ancient Mesopotamia. 330 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:41,000 No metal, no adhesive, no power tools. 331 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:46,000 The wood acts as like a sort of skeleton that they wrap over a mile of rope around. 332 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,000 Kind of like a giant basket. It's like they're weaving it almost. 333 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,000 Then they add the bitumen last, which waterproofs the hull. 334 00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:57,000 Finally, after four months of building, they construct a platform with rollers 335 00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,000 to launch their creation into the Indian Ocean. 336 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,000 It's the moment of truth. Dr. Finkel himself comes to India to observe. 337 00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,000 The team is holding their breath. Will this bizarre looking ship actually float? 338 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:14,000 They manage to get it into the water and the Ark floats. 339 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:19,000 I mean, this is pretty incredible. We're talking about a set of instructions that are thousands of years old, 340 00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:24,000 and they work. Dr. Finkel is ecstatic. In press interviews, 341 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,000 he says a boat like this could potentially have floated all the way to New York. 342 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:33,000 So now there's even more evidence to tie the story of Noah's Ark to Mesopotamia. 343 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:38,000 We have a legendary great flood and instructions for a sea-worthy Ark. 344 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,000 But where could that Ark have ended up? 345 00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,000 One man thinks he knows the answer. 346 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:49,000 Bob Cornikey is an amateur archaeologist who specializes in biblical geography. 347 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,000 He spends over a decade searching for Noah's Ark. 348 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:57,000 Cornikey is a biblical apologist. He wants to prove the Bible to be true. 349 00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:04,000 So he starts out looking for Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, and of course, he's unsuccessful. 350 00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,000 Then he meets a man named Ed Davis. 351 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:13,000 In 1943, Ed Davis was working for the Army Corps of Engineers in the Hamadan province in Iran. 352 00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:19,000 According to Davis, the locals take him up to the top of a mountain 13,000 feet up, 353 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:25,000 and they show him what they believe to be the remains of Noah's Ark. 354 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:33,000 This sounds like a tall tale, but Davis takes a lie detector test and passes it. 355 00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:37,000 And the more research Cornikey does, the more convinced he becomes. 356 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:44,000 To try and locate the mountain for himself, Cornikey examines a thousand-year-old map. 357 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:52,000 The Hereford Mapa Mundi is a massive medieval map of the ancient world. 358 00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,000 When it's huge, it's like four feet by five feet. 359 00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:03,000 And right there in the middle of this medieval map, in the center of it, is Noah's Ark. 360 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:08,000 In Hamadan, which is right next to where Ed Davis is stationed. 361 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,000 Cornikey is able to locate a holy mountain in this area known as Mount Suleiman, 362 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,000 which is also known as the Throne of Solomon. 363 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:22,000 Cornikey flies to Iran in 2005, intent on climbing Mount Suleiman. 364 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:29,000 He climbs the mountain and at 13,000 feet up at the same elevation where Ed Davis described the Ark, 365 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,000 Cornikey finds several rocks that are quote, 366 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,000 Uncannelly beam-like in appearance and quote. 367 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,000 He believes these are petrified wood. 368 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:43,000 He also finds a worship shrine littered with wood fragments. 369 00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:48,000 So Cornikey takes these rocks to be analyzed and sure enough, it's petrified wood. 370 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:52,000 He also claims to find fossilized clams. 371 00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:58,000 And to Cornikey, this is evidence of a great flood from a couple thousand years ago. 372 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:03,000 But not all of Cornikey's evidence can be proven. 373 00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:08,000 Cornikey has the wood fragments dated and they turn out to be only 500 years old. 374 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,000 So they can't possibly be from Noah's Ark. 375 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:18,000 Cornikey argues that these wood fragments most likely were just part of a shrine that was built and rebuilt, 376 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:22,000 basically commemorating this area of where the Ark rested. 377 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:28,000 He believes that people have been worshiping here ever since the Mesopotamian Ark came here to rest after the great flood. 378 00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,000 Further research is still ongoing at this site. 379 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:39,000 And Cornikey hopes to one day be able to go back to Iran and pursue more evidence on his theory of Noah's Ark. 380 00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:03,000 But there are some academics who are not swayed by this evidence. 381 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:09,000 Because according to their own findings, the story of Noah and the great flood never happened. 382 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:17,000 When William Ryan and Walter Pittman published the Black Sea Deleuch theory back in 1997, 383 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:22,000 which suggests Noah's Ark is based on a real life flood in ancient Turkey and Armenia, 384 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,000 critics come forward to suggest that maybe that flood isn't all it was cracked up to be. 385 00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:32,000 Most people would agree that something did happen. You can see geological evidence for it. 386 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,000 But probably it wasn't cataclysmic. 387 00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:41,000 It could very well have been a change that took place over a much longer period of time. 388 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:45,000 And if it really happened in around 8000 BC in the close of the Ice Age, 389 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:49,000 it was really before any significant human activity in the area. 390 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:55,000 Regardless of when it occurred, some experts believe it was more of an inconvenience than a disaster. 391 00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:00,000 People could have just packed up and moved up the hill a little bit and they'd have been fine. 392 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,000 Some feel the same way about the ancient Greek flood. 393 00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:10,000 The volcanic eruption on Thera most definitely destroyed that island and took a lot of people with it. 394 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,000 But the after effects have been hotly debated. 395 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:17,000 There may be evidence of a destructive tsunami hitting nearby Crete, 396 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,000 but others believe that destruction was due to an earthquake, not a flood. 397 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,000 As for Mesopotamia, there was flooding there all the time. 398 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,000 Flooding was a very necessary part of Mesopotamian cultures. 399 00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:32,000 The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers. 400 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,000 It's actually this area that lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. 401 00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:44,000 And the point of being on that flood plain is that twice a year, these two rivers would overflow their banks. 402 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:49,000 It was a necessary thing because it would make the soil really fertile. 403 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:56,000 So flooding in a controlled manner was a regular part of the agricultural cycle. 404 00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:02,000 But when the floods get out of control, when the levee breaks and destroys a city, 405 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:10,000 to the people who are devastated by these floods, they see these as apocalyptic world-ending events. 406 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:17,000 That can be true without the story of Noah's Ark being true. 407 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,000 Other parts of the story have been questioned as well. 408 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,000 So then there's the thing about the animals, you know, two by two. 409 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:31,000 This doesn't show up in every single flood myth, by the way, but as we know in the Bible, Noah saves two of every animal. 410 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,000 And of course, this didn't happen. 411 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:38,000 We have traced the genetic origins of, I don't know, thousands of species, 412 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,000 and they simply didn't just all come from one place. 413 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:54,000 If you put every species of animal on the Ark, the Ark, as described in the Bible, is nowhere large enough to hold all of these animals. 414 00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:58,000 And forget about the animals excrement and the food for the animals. 415 00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:01,000 You need a lot of food every day. 416 00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:07,000 And so this becomes the problem of a literal reading of the story of Noah's Ark. 417 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,000 It just doesn't make any sense. 418 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:16,000 But there is at least one part of Noah's story that rings true to most. 419 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,000 Ultimately, we have to think, what is the point of this story? 420 00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:25,000 Why do so many different cultures tell different variants of this kind of flood story? 421 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,000 Because it makes the same point, all of them. 422 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:34,000 It tells us that again, as a species, what we do best is survive. 423 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:39,000 I'm pretty sure that at many points in history, a group of human beings put their heads together 424 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,000 and figured out a way to endure a massive flood. 425 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,000 It happened in 2004 in Indonesia. 426 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,000 It happened in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. 427 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:56,000 And it certainly happened 5,000 years ago, inspiring a story that we still tell to this day. 428 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,000 One thing is for certain. 429 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,000 The hunt for Noah's Ark continues. 430 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,000 Perhaps Turkish authorities will find evidence on Mount Ararat. 431 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,000 Perhaps Bob Kornacky will be able to make a return visit to Iran. 432 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:20,000 And perhaps one day, science will find definitive proof of the Bible's great flood and of the Ark itself. 433 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,000 I'm Lawrence Fishburne. 434 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:27,000 Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.