From Turkey Ararat ‘74 -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bible and Spade (First Run)
Volume: BSP 03:4 (Autumn 1974)
Article: From Turkey Ararat ‘74
Author: Anonymous


From Turkey
Ararat ‘74

The Institute for Creation Research, under the leadership of John Morris, had hoped to put a team on Mount Ararat in July and August of 1974 to continue their exploration work (see Bible and Spade, Summer 1974, pages 90–96). Because of the Cyprus situation, however, the team was unable to secure a permit to visit the highly sensitive area.

Although the ICR team did not make it, veteran arkaeologist John Warwick Montgomery was able to get on the mountain for a brief period of work in June of 1974. Dr. Montgomery, Professor of Law and Theology at the International School for Law in Washington, D.C., accomplished a significant feat in that he relocated the site where Fernand Navarra made his historic discovery many years before.

It was in 1955 that French industrialist Fernand Navarra, accompanied by his then eleven year old son Raphael, recovered a piece of hand-hewn wood, apparently of great antiquity, from a crevasse high on Mount Ararat. The find was made above Lake Kop (see map, page 127), at about the 13,600 foot level. Here is the account of Navarra’s exciting discovery in his own words:

Once on the edge of the crevasse, I lowered the equipment on a rope. Then I secured the ladder and climbed down myself, assuring Raphael I would not be long.

Passing through the corridor, I found the sloping terrace and started clearing off the snow, to uncover the dark strips I had seen the day before.

Navarra stands at the edge of the crevasse where he recovered the wood which he believes is from Noah’s ark.

Soon the strips appeared, but — This was the worst disappointment of my life. These shapes were not wood, but frozen moraine dust! It was easy to be fooled; from a distance, the mass looked like a ship’s carcass. I cleared off the snow along another fifty yards. Everywhere it was the same.

At that moment Raphael’s voice, distorted by the echo, came to me.

“Well papa, have you cut off a piece of wood?”

“No, it isn’t wood, it’s only moraine dust.”

“Have you tried to dig in?”

In my dismay, I had not thought of it! Attacking the ice shell with my pickaxe, I could feel something hard. When I had dug a hole one and one half feet square by eight inches deep, I broke through a vaulted ceiling, and cleared off as much icy dust as possible.

There, immersed in water, I saw a black piece of wood!

My throat felt tight. I felt like crying and kneeling there to thank God. After the cruele...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()