Nexus - 0206 - New Times Magazine-pages

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IN SEARCH OF NOAH'S ARK AR: A cubit being an ancient measure which is a varying size that in the sense that there were several of them. Piazzi Smith of ments, but then again, it's been buried in mud for a very long time, and there has been a heavy burden on top, causing it to splay some- what, which is quite consistent with what we can see with the par- ticular dimensions we’ ve read there. last century, who measured the Great pyramid, quite compellingly found the ancient 20.6 inch egyptian cubit to be the standard throughout the mediterranean area and so we adopted it. That being the case then all one had to do is take the bible measure- ments (and disregard the other cubits that we couldn’t interface with) and it (20.6 inches) became consistent in the end. We’ve multiplied 300 (Noah’s Ark cubits) by 20.6, divided by 12 inches to give it in feet in length (515’ which we’ ve found) and have done the same for all dimensions, breadth and height. I was interested in biblical times, and particularly interested when I read the article, because it was claimed that this boat shaped formation was roughly the size of the Ark described in the scriptures, and I had longing to see it. But its not always easy for various reasons, the political one being its a very dangerous of course being on the border of Soviet Russia, Iran and Iraq. You couldn’t get a much ‘hotter’ spot than where it is. But it was when I teemed up with Ron White, and we did more research on the site, that we really started to move ahead. Ron had been there several times before me and has worked closely with the Turkish government and has set up a Commission with them. They are very efficient when it comes to archaeology and geology. RS: You mentioned before that they have a lot of archeological 4 The height is pretty well gone as it's been squashed out flat, but it's a hull as you can see, and is quite intact. You have a bow as you can see [referring to photos], a stern, and gammels. But the most interesting thing was what we found underneath using our sonar. It appears there are buttrage divisions running across and down to the centre and the bulkheads, but we haven’t fully finished the readings there. RS: How long were you on the site? AR: Oh, I’ve been there a number of times now, but there has been a lot of work done at the site before our team got there. I was- n’t there on the particular occasion that the famous astronaut James Irwin was there, but on that occasion some terrorists opened fire upon the team and several members were killed, so their work wasn’t fully finished. Inside, the shapes that you see there - the columns, we suspect- ed that they might be actual ribs, so we removed a little bit of the veneer which is quite thin on the port side that covers the column shapes, and we found that they were parallel stone shapes, all fos- silised now. I think, we have pretty sound evidence. Underneath you have the major structure you would expect find in such a vessel, bulk- heads and ribs. We also found using, powerful metal detectors, that we got some bleeps walking down the slope from aft to stern. Those bleeps came at regular intervals which shows some metal substance underneath. This might have been used for joinings of some sort and so what was done on that occasion, was the team decided to leave tapes on the regular intervals (as markers) and those tapes are very interesting because it qualified the divisions or walls or whatever you want to call them, bulkheads. Bulkheads run transversely, these were running down the ship. Now you put all that together and what you got is ROOMS! or compartments. And we think without much doubt this is what is underneath. Now it's interesting that the Genesis account, apart from the other details, says “rooms shalt they make too within the Ark”. It talks about decks, so of course we were not sure yet but with further research we may find evidence. The Bible also says that there is a door, and we’re about to let light on that. We believe we’re going to establish where it is and what it is, in detail. You know people are assuming that the people who built this boat were some sort of 'cave man’, well it's obvious that a ship of this size, the largest ship made of wood EVER in history, couldn’t have possibly been built by them! RS: You think definitely the wood has become petrified? AR: Well we’ve found lots of petrified wood, and it is not even large scale digging at this point. A few years ago, the governmor of Agri, (pronounced ar-ee), was on site with many other digni- taries, and declared it a National Site. Ron White, using informa- tion he gleaned from his sonar research, said to the governor “Your Excellency..”, (they call them that over there), “down here pre- sites there! AR: Yes, about 80,000 of them. One of the richest countries in the world for archaeological sites.. RS: Are there any other significant sites such as the “boat shaped object?” AR: I don’t know of any other that are as unique as this one but they have classified this one as one of major importance. It is classed in the highest category of archaeological sites in Turkey. They [the Turks] have gone a lot further than than we have with their research, but we don’t have all the information that they have gotten from the site, and they haven't yet made all their findings public. RS: Why do you think that is? AR: Like any Commission, they,are not going to make it public until they have all their materials properly ratified and of course until they want to move on it. We’ve just got to be patient and move when they want to. We have a good relationship with the Commission, so we are encouraged and aided, to do it soon, because the object is deteriorating from being exposed to the ele- ments. It's really very sad to see it decaying. You see, it's covered in mud, as well as being full of mud inside the ship, which of course is made of wood, now petrified wood. RS: So how far down under the mud is it? AR: Well we don’t know. There have been some recordings taken, but I don’t have the the exact measurements of those taken by the Turkish government. But the walls, or the hull, projects up over the surface of the mud barrier, standing up quite clearly. The size is quite remarkable, measured at 515 feet in length. The width is greater then it ought to be, according to the scriptural measure- NEXUS - 35 IN SEARCH OF NOAH'S ARK JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1992 - YEAR BOOK