Ancient Kingdom of Urartu
The
Bible's account of Noah, the ark, and the Genesis flood states that the ark came to rest on the
"mountains of rrt" where "rrt" has been translated "Urartu" or later "Ararat" during Armenian times.
At the beginning of the Christian era, Ararat (another version of the Hebrew "rrt" - no vowels in the original
Hebrew text of Genesis") was only a northerly subdivision of Armenia near the Araxes river. During the time
of the Old Testament though, the Urartian region was much more extensive
(as shown on the map above). From Assyrian texts, Urartu is known to have existed from about the late 13th century BC
to the 9th century BC as a loose federation of tribes. However, if one takes a conservative view of Moses
writing Genesis in the 15th century BC rather than the 13th century BC, then Urartu would have been known even in that era.
The Urartian Kingdom existed from the 9th century BC until the 6th century BC when it was destroyed by the Medes
and vanished from history, only to be rediscovered in the archaeology of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Thus there exists the possibility of a mis-interpretation of Genesis by post-Christian writers and Armenians
restricting the Ark's landfall to the smaller Araxes valley area including Mount Ararat rather than the
larger Urartian region or "mountains of Urartu" as described by Moses in Genesis.
However, some of this is speculation since there are no cross-references in 15th century BC writing so no one
really knows exactly where Moses was referring to when he stated that the ark came to rest on the
"mountains of rrt".
For a photo album of Urartu, visit the
ArcImaging Urartu Photo Album.
Back to Noah's Ark Search
