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At the landing site of the ark – with Google Earth

I have found the resting place of the ark of noah - with Google Earth! Of course, that sounds a little bit crazy, so let me expain: In my book »Bible Earth« (only available in German) I wrote one year ago: »If Google Earth one day would offer high-resolution images of Mount Ararat, we can probably find the ark!« There are no better pictures of Ararat yet, but perhaps the ark is to be found somewhere else. In fact I think it had been on the Mount Cudi, as also mentioned shortly in my book. And Google's data offers better images of that area now!

Did Noah's Ark really exist?

This question is very important, because the credibility of the Bible is questioned by most researchers and also by many theologians today. Even the stories of David, Moses and Abraham are often described as legends. How could you then believe that a man and his family survived a worldwide flood within a ship?

But there is not only the biblical report about a Great Flood. Even the famous old-Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh tells about it, as well as many other traditions and cultures around the world. There are also some geological evidences of a Great Flood - at least in Mesopotamia.

Why should the Ark not have been landed on Mount Ararat?

Today the story of Noah is closely linked with the Mount Ararat at the Turkish border to Armenia. The Jewish and Christian traditions know only that possibility. Therefore a high amount of expeditions in the past 60 years tried to find remnants of the ark inside the glaciers upon the mountain with an elevation of over 5000 meters / 15000 ft. Again and again, there were reportings about wooden structures or remains under the ice - but nothing could have been certainly proved. Some researchers are now assuming that nobody is able to find anything, because searches took place on the wrong location.

The Koran tells about the Mount Cudi as the landing site of the ark. Even the Bible offers this option: the description Ararat could be identical to the Assyrian Urartu, an area in the north of Mesopotamia. The Mount Nisir mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh seems to not Mount Ararat far north of Babylonia. Werner Keller wrote in his famous book »The Bible as History«: »Old-babylonian texts describe very exactly where the Mountain Nisir is located: Between the Tigris and the Zab River, where the mountains of Kurdistan suddenly rise from the flat banks of the Tigris River.« The first mountain north of the Tigris is the Cudi Dagi!

One supporter of Mount Cudi is Bill Crouse, the reasons for his opinion is availalble as PDF at the web: Geological and historical reasons why Noah's ark did not land on Mt. Ararat in Turkey He also is one of the authors of a very interesting article in the magazine Bible and Spade (Autumn 2006), where he describes in detail why Cudi should be the preferred mountain of the ark's landing. Within the article »Mount Cudi  True Mountain of Noah's Ark« he mentions sources like the »Book of the Jubilees« and ancient historians like Josephus and Eusebius, that seems to point onto the Cudi instead of Ararat. Especially the Muslim and Kurdish traditions, but also the Christian church of the Nestorians testify that the Cudi mountain contained remains of the ark that could be viewed until the 2nd millennium A.D. As one further example I want to mention the Jewish scholar and traveller Israel Joseph Benjamin. He reported that the residents of the area around the Cudi celebrated a festival at the summit once a year to remember Noah. According to Gordon Taylor on the website of the Progressive Historians this ceremony took probably place until the 20th century, when it should come to an end because of the present conflicts in that area. A few miles south of the Mount Cudi are the borders to Syria an Iraq.

Bill Crouse compares the arguments for the landing of the Ark on the Cudi and on the Ararat. He finds that before 13th century, with only one exception, there was no evidence that the Mount Ararat was known as the landing place of Noah's ark.

In this edition of Bible at Spade, which is almost entirely dedicated to the search for the ark, you find also an interesting article of the German Dr. Friedrich Bender: He tells that he found a piece of wood at Mount Cudi in 1953 that could be 6500 years old, according to scientific investigations!

Bill Crouse stellt im Bible-and-Spade-Artikel seinen Argumenten für die Landung der Arche auf dem Cudi eine Analyse der Quellen zugunsten des Ararat gegenüber. Er befindet, dass es vor dem 13. Jahrhundert bis auf eine Ausnahme keine Hinweise dafür gab, dass der Berg Ararat als Landeplatz der Arche Noah gegolten hat.

In dieser Ausgabe von Bible an Spade, die sich fast komplett der Suche nach der Arche widmet, wird auch ein interessanter Fund des Deutschen Dr. Friedrich Bender beschrieben: Er hat am Fuße des Cudi 1953 ein Stück Holz gefunden und dies nach der C14-Methode datieren lassen. Ergebnis: ein Alter von 6500 Jahren!

Cudi Dagi  Der Berg Cudi

Mount Cudi is located about 320 kilometers southwest of Ararat, at the coordinates 37.3670N, 42.4951E (please copy & paste the bold letters into Google Earth or Google Maps). It is difficult to find detailed information about Cudi Dagi, even in Wikipedia: »Mount Judi« or »Mount Cudi« is 2089 meters high and is located in the Turkish province of Sirnak. The Koran tells that the ark landed here. Turkish forces are fighting against Kurdish fighters of the PKK in recent times.

What does science tell us about Cudi? Very low  the best informations are almost 100 years old an are out of the year 1909.

Gertrude Bell

At that time, the British research traveler Gertrude Bell visited the mountain. She climbed the summit, where the ark landed, and took some photos. These are (almost, more on this later) the only images that are available from the ruins of an old monastery on the top of the mountain. And she knows to tell a lot about the Cudi and his story:

• The eighth chapter of her book »From Amurath to Amurath« is dedicated to the section of her expedition to Mesopotamia, wehre she visited Cudi Dagi.

More documents of Gertrude Bell concerning the Mount Cudi can be found in the digital archive of Newcastle University in England:

• The diary entry from the date of arrival in Hassana (May, 12th 1909),
• from the day of the ascent of the mountain (May, 13th) and
• a letter to the parents of May, 14th, in which she also writes about the climbing.

Bells Photos of Cudi are also archived online:

• A view from the peak to the west
• The »Sefinet Nebi Nuh«, the ship of Noah at the summit of the mountain. Here the monastery of the Nestorians should be.
• The description of a panoramic photograph, that shows the view from west to east. Unfortunately the link is broken, but I found the picture anyway! It is very small, but based on this panorama, I was able to identify the exact position of the photographer with Google Earth.

Hard to find, but very instructive: This panoramic image shows the view from the top of Cudi.

• M_072 and M_073: two more photographs with the crew of Gertrude at the landing place.

The most important parts of the diary: »Thursday May 13, 1909: Off at 4 with Selim and the donkey, Abdul Mejid (one of my soldiers) Kas Mattai and Shim'un to Judi Dagh [Cudi Dag]. We walked for about 21/2 hours up through oak woods acanthus and along the upper slopes of the hills under precipitous crags. Then I climbed to the top and found alpine uplands with snow wreaths and a high rocky peak. [ &] At the bottom of the crags we left the donkey with Mejid and climbed up for half an hour to the sefinah which we reached at 8.35. The scarlet tulip still in flower round it.«

The crew of Gertrude Bell on the summit of Mount Cudi.

Die Sefinah  der Landeplatz der Arche

Gertrude Bell continues: »There is a good deal of ruin, rough chambers which have all been roofed with boughs and tree trunks and a tank built below where a snow wreath lay. One of the buildings is of very large stones and may be old. A little below on the S side are more ruins on a platform - this may have been the plan of the old monastery.«

(Nearly) the only picture of the so-called Sefinah was taken on the year 1909  Did the ark land on this peak?

»The actual ziarah consists of an open walled round space with some roofless chambers to the W. I think it is Moslem. In one of the chambers and in the enclosure there is a small niche to the S - mihrabs?

The view very fine and rugged but extraordinarily desolate. In the great valley to the N I saw only 4 villages, the largest was Shandokh which is the seat of some Kurdish aghas. We lunched and slept and left at 12.15.«

In her book »From Amurath to Amurath« she offers some more background information: One the peak that is called »Ship of the Prophet Noah  Sefinet Nebi Nuh«. »There was once a famous Nestorian monastery, the Cloister of the Ark, upon the summit of Mount Jûdî, but it was destroyed by lightning in the year of Christ 766. Upon its ruins, said Kas Mattai, the Moslems had erected a shrine, and this too has fallen; but Christian, Moslem and Jew still visit the mount upon a certain day in the summer and offer their oblations to the Prophet Noah. That which they actually see is a number of roofless chambers upon the extreme summit of the hill. They are roughly built of unsquared stones, piled together without mortar, and from wall to wall are laid tree-trunks and boughs, so disposed that they may support a roofing of cloths, which is thrown over them at the time of the annual festival.«

And what happend at Mount Cudi in the years since that May 13th in 1909? Not much. But some things sound interesting:

Dr. Friedrich Bender

Not a good photo but an interesting find: geologist Friedrich Bender seems to have found 6500 year old pieces of wood at Mount Cudi.

Also in Bible and Spade (Autumn 2006) you find an article from the German geologist Dr. Friedrich Bender, who found remains of wood at investigations at Mount Cudi in 1953. Kurdish Moslems told him that he could find remains of the ark of Noah at Cudi. He managed to find something on the southern slopes in a height of 1700 m, what he describes like this: »The shallow basin, open towards the south, is surrounded by the thickly banked, massive limestones and dolomites of the Cudi Group  (Altinli 1963). On the 6th of April, 1953, it was largely snow covered. Underneath the snow cover was a loamy silt sediment, which turned to a dark brown to black color at 0.80 to 1.00 m [2.6 to 3.3 ft] depth, and contained crumbly, up to pea-sized decayed wood remains. Many of the small wood fragments were bound together by an asphalt- or tar-like substance. My Kurdish guides did not permit any further digging or detailed examination. They considered the location a holy place.«

Bender was able to examine some of the remains with C-14 and found that it should be 6500 years old. He mentions that other archaeological findings point on a Great Flood in Mesopotamia in that time.

Dr. Charles Willis

Much more information you can find at the Mt.-Cudi-Page of NoahsArkSearch.Com. Plans to travel to Mount Cudi has Dr. Charles Willis, California. In 2008 he planned an expedition, but probably it will fail because of the dangerous situation in the southeast of turkey. He published his knowledge in the web: Ancient World Foundation. In the 1980s he went to Ararat four times, but then he began to believe that the landing took place on Mount Cudi. He has been there in 1995, 1996 and 2004 but it seems he didn't climb the mountain, yet.

Kurdish Guerilla-Fighters

The only photos that were taken on the top of Mount Cudi in recent times that I know, can be found in an online photo album of the kurdish organisation HPG. The Homepage of that group is also available in English. One of the photos is named »sefine.jpg« and shows  the landing place of the ark!

This picture is named »sefine.jpg«.

Google Earth

Since the end of 2007 Google Earth offers image data of DigitalGlobe for the Mount Cudi area in an impressive resolution. Now I put the pieces of the puzzle together  and they fit perfectly! The panoramic picture of Gertrude Bell and the Sefina image of the Kurdish photographers seem to be taken from the same position.

Based on the mountain ranges in the background, I have assembled the two photographs of the ruins at the summit into the panoramic picture from 1909: They seem to fit together.

Comparing the »view« with Google Earth, only one of the three summits is possible: 37.3670N, 42.4951E.

Looking north: the structures of the mountain seem to concur.

Also the look to the west fits.

And there should we are able to find the ruins. Indeed: The piece of wall from the HPG photo could be at 37.3659N, 42.4951E, looking northeast.

The ruin from the photo of the Kurdish freedom fighter? Surrounding rock formations and the direction fit the picture.

Gertrude Bells hexagonal structure of the building could be almost exactly in the middle of the rock formation: 37.3666N, 42.4954E. It is difficult to see, probably the weather within the last 100 years has worsened the condition of the structure. But nevertheless, it seems to be hexagonal an the direction should be also northeast.

Bad to recognize: this the hexagonal structure could be the ruin shown on the photo from 1909.

The picture with the three men was taken from the northwestern side of the ruins, as detected on the snow field in the background.

Very interesting are the fine lines and wells, that could be seen in the vicinity of the Summit. Both Bell and Bender mention a water tank: 37.3661N, 42.4956E, and perhaps 37.3648N, 42.4959E. Gertrude Bell mentions outlines of a former monastery. Could these outlines look like a ship? 37.3654N, 42.4933E!

The most interesting structures: 1) the ruins of Gertrude Bell, 2) the piece of wall from the HPG album, 3) alleged foundation walls of an ancient monastery in the shape of a ship.

On the slope of the summit, at about 1700 meters height and 3000 meters north of the village Karacaköy (Google Earth name, "Bender wrote Kericulya") Friedrich Bender must have found his piece of wood. The landscape fits with his description.

There is another peak on Mount Cudi, it is located 5.5 km northwest of Sefinah and it has, at first glance, the shape of a ship's hull. There also seem to be many man-made structures. I do not know whether that are ancient ruins or hidings of Kurdish PKK fighters.

Another summit of Cudi looks also interesting: 37.3913N, 42.4405E.

Conclusion

A detailed investigation on the ground would be really desirable after this surprisingly virtual findings. However  this fate the Cudi Mountain has in common with other major archaeological sites such as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (Morija), or Ur, Nineveh and Babylon in present-day Iraq  political conflicts prevent a more detailed investigation probably in the next few years, or even decades. There is nothing else left, as to discover, investigate and pilgrimage virtually: Google Earth is a fascinating tool for this. My book »Bible Earth« (only available in German) provides almost 200 coordinates and many archaeological informations for a journey into the world of the Bible at a computer. And I myself will have to investigate a few other places: the ancient traditions tell about the grave of Noah, an altar and a vineyard. Let us see what the future will offer &

Mount Cudi

Translation will be continued. Visit us again soon!

German Version of Bible Earth