The Search for Noah's Ark

[Guest]

Expeditions Past: GEORGE HAGOPIAN

 

George Hagopian has first hand knowledge of the ark. As a young child, he walked along the Ark's planks with his uncle. Artist, Elfred Lee, drew this picture of the Ark as directed by George Hagopian. The following excerpt is from Charles Berlitz, The Lost Ship of Noah , which details the fascinating story.

 

"He was eight years old, Hagopian said, and it was in the year 1908 [note: another account says the year was 1905 and Hagopian was 10 years old] when his uncle took him up Ararat, past Ahora Gorge, passing the grave of St. Jacob on the way. As the mountain grew more precipitous his uncle carried him on his shoulders until they came to something that looked like a great ship located on a rock ledge over a cliff and partially covered by snow. It had flat openings like windows along the top and a hole in the roof. Hagopian had first thought it was a house made of stone but when his uncle showed him the outline of planks and told him it was made of wood he realized it was the Ark, just like the other people had described it to him. His uncle boosted him up from a rock pile to reach the Ark roof telling him not to be afraid, "because it is a holy ship ..." (and) "the animals and people are not here now. They have all gone away." Hagopian climbed on the roof and knelt down and kissed the surface of the roof which was flat and easy to stand on.

 

While they stood alongside the Ark his uncle shot into the side of it but the bullets bounced off as if it were made of stone. He then tried to cut off a piece of the wood with a sharp knife and was equally unsuccessful. On this first visit to the Ark they spent two hours there looking at it and eating some of their provisions. When Hagopian returned to his village eager to tell the other boys about his adventure they replied, rather anticlimactically, "Yes, we saw the Ark too."

 

Hagopian died in 1972. Since he was unable to read maps with any accuracy he was unable to pinpoint on a map of the mountain where it was that he had seen and climbed on the Ark. He consistently told his interrogators that if he could get back to Mount Ararat he could lead a party to the Ark.

[Guest]

Save us all from the "ark nuts"! Ararat has, over the past two centuries, been fully explored - if there was anything there then it would have been found long ago. (And anyway there is scientific evidence that there could never have been an event which NEEDED an ark).

 

Did anyone see the TV program a few years ago about the group of nutters visiting the "ark site" to the south-east of Ararat (the boat shaped outline). They came across some Armenian gravestones nearby and pronounced them to be "anchors" from the ark. They glanced at the obvious Armenian writing on these stones - and seemed to think they were some sort of prehistoric alphabet! Presumably they never knew Armenians ever lived in this region, and the Turks were certainly not going to tell them.

 

I've been to the boat shaped "object". It is actually 100 percent earth - you can kick lumps out of it if you desire to (I had the desire). To judge by the erosion, its outline is very new, probably under 100 years, and is probably the result of the erosion of neighbouring slopes, IE: it is 100 percent natural.

 

Steve

[Guest]

Gayane, can't you tell the difference, for the record, Steve and I HALF BREED/FARSISTEVE are not the same person!

[Guest]

So-rry! We only got a bit confused because he sounds a little like you at times as well!

[Guest]

Oh, no, another Steve...or are you the same one?...lol...I'm confused

[Guest]

My step mother claims to "have seen the ark" on Ararat when she was young. Has anyone here acually seen it i mean in person/pictures etc...?

[Guest]

http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/vortecpan/colchis3.jpg

 

I just saw this on Ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?V...&item=504010029

http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/bin/imageserver.x/0011277c/vortecpan/munster.jpg

 

 

1552 Armenia, Colchis, Iberia, Syria, and Mesopotamia from "De la Cosmographie" by Sebastian Münster

Armenie, Colchis, Iberie, Albanie

Des provinces de Syrie, Mesopotamie, Cypre, Arabie & Babylone.

 

Single authentic woodcut page from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster. French edition; Basel printing house of Heinrich Petri 1552. Universelle livre, Book IV, page 1231/1232. Corresponding pages in the 1550 German edition (Basel, Petri): MXCVIII/MXCIX.

 

Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and Hebrew scholar whose Cosmographia (1544; "Cosmography") was the earliest German description of the world and a major work in the revival of geographic thought in 16th-century Europe. Appointed professor of Hebrew at the University of Basel in 1527, Münster edited the Hebrew Bible, 2 vol. (1534-35), which was accompanied by a literal Latin translation and a number of annotations. In 1540 he published a Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, illustrated with 27 woodcut maps after Ptolemy and 21 of Munster's own design. Of about 40 editions of the Cosmographia, the 1550 (German and Latin) and 1552 French editions, containing portraits, city views, and costume illustrations, are most valued. Although other cosmographies predate Münster's, he is given first place in historical discussions of this sort of publication, and was a major influence on his subject for over 200 years.

 

In nearly all works about Münster, his Cosmographia is given pride of place. Despite this, we still lack a detailed survey of its contents from edition to edition, during the years 1544 to 1628, and an account of its influence on a wide range of scientific disciplines. Münster obtained the material for his book in three ways. He used all available literary sources. He tried to obtain original manuscript material for description of the countryside and of villages and towns. Finally, he obtained further material on his travels (primarily in south-west Germany, Switzerland, and Alsace). Cosmographia contained not only the latest maps and views of many well-known cities, but included an encyclopaedic amount of detail about the known - and unknown - world and undoubtedly must have been one of the most widely read books of its time. Aside from the well-known maps and views present in the Cosmographia, the text is thickly sprinkled with vigorous woodcuts: portraits of kings and princes, costumes and occupations, habits and customs, flora and fauna, monsters and horrors. Münster divided his material into six books. Book I is a useful summary of astronomical-mathematical and physical geography. Book II deals with England, Spain, France, and Italy. Book III deals with Germany and surrounding lands. Book IV embraces northern, eastern, and south-eastern Europe. Books V (Asia and America) and VI (Africa) are of modern proportions.

 

This page of Cosmographia is devoted to geography and history of Greater Armenia and the Caucasus and Caspian region. Page 1231 (top) contains some information about Armenia (Armenie). Münster mentions Mount Ararat (Ararar), where - according to the Old Testament - Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood. Colchis was an ancient region at the eastern end of the Black Sea south of the Caucasus, in the western part of modern Georgia. It consisted of the valley of the Phasis (modern Riuni) River. Historically, Colchis was colonized by Milesian Greeks. United with Lazica in the 4th century AD, Colchis constituted an important buffer state between the Sasanian and Byzantine empires. Iberia was an important kingdom in the region that now makes up modern Kartli and Kakheti, with Samtskhe and adjoining regions of southwestern Georgia. The campaigns of Pompey led in 66 BC to the establishment of Roman hegemony over Iberia and to direct Roman rule over Colchis and the rest of Georgia's Black Sea littoral. Münster dwells on the similarity between Iberia (Georgia) and Iberia (Spain). The North Azerbaijan was known as Caucasian Albania, with its statehood and independence since at least 400 B.C. Caucasian Albania became important in history because it included the Caspian gates at the city of Chol, near present-day Derbent, which served as a bridge between Europe and Asia.

 

The page contains two splendid pictures:

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Garo (edited November 24, 2000).]