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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CH505.7:

In the summer of 1943, while a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Hamadan, Iran, Ed Davis became friends with some local Kurd tribesmen (or Lourd, in Davis's original account), who told him of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat. The ark and items from it were considered holy relics, generally kept from outsiders, but the patriarch's friendship with Davis made him an exception. They showed him items from the ark, including a cage door, latches, and shepherd staffs. All the wooden items were described as petrified. Tribal leader Abas-Abas and seven of his sons led Davis up the northeast side of Ararat, but bad weather prevented getting closer than half a mile to the ark. But Davis did see it; it was broken into three or four pieces, of which Davis saw two; the nearer had at least three floors. Abas-Abas supplied other details. The living space for people is at the top; the ark's door was hinged at the top; construction was done with wooden pegs.

Source:

Shockey, Don, 1986. Agri-Dagh, Mount Ararat: The Painful Mountain, Fresno, CA: Pioneer Publishing.
NoahsArkSearch.com, n.d. Ed Davis drawings from 1985-1986. http://www.noahsarksearch.com/DavisEd.htm

Response:

  1. Davis said he saw Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh) from Hamadan, and that they traveled to it in less than a day. But Ararat is 400 miles from Hamadan. Davis originally described his friends as Lourds, which do not live near the base of Ararat. (Davis later changed his story to call them Kurds, which do live around Ararat.) Davis described springs and caves on the mountain, which are rare on Ararat. Davis probably visited Kuh e Alvand, a mountain sixty miles west of Hamadan which locals believe to be the ark's landing spot (Crouse 1993).

  2. From Davis's description, the ark was not prohibitively hard to reach, and many people knew its location. Even if its sacredness kept them from showing it to other Westerners, news of its exact location should have spread to Moslems. The ark could not so easily be kept secret.

  3. Parts of Ed Davis's story are not credible. For example, he tells of edible food remaining after 8,000 years, yet all the wood is petrified. He has no corroboration -- no witnesses, photographs, or artifacts. He passed a polygraph test, but one with only six questions, and he showed unusual stress on the question, "Are you lying when you state that no one ever told you about the ark other than Abas and the Bible?" (Crouse 1993). Davis's story is consistent with someone who saw some fog-shrouded blocks and was told they were the ark.

Links:

Lippard, Jim, 1993. Sun goes down in flames -- The Jammal Ark hoax. Skeptic 2(3), http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ark-hoax/jammal.html or http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/sunhoax.htm

References:

  1. Crouse, Bill, 1993. Ararat Report #32, Christian Information Ministries, International, 2050 N. Collins Blvd., Suite 100, Richardson, TX 75080. http://surge.ods.org/idle/religion/hoax1.htm

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