Ancient Mesopotamian Tablet Describes Ark, Well Before Noah

[stromboli]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/scien ... 6810293590

IT'S a few notches on a 4000-year-old clay tablet. But what it reveals about the ancient biblical story of Noah's ark has scholars crowing the world over.
The British Museum yesterday put the recently deciphered clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia - now Iraq - on display.
It's claimed to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever.
What it contains are specifications for the legendary Ark which was said to have saved two of each animal - and a handful of humans - from a catastrophic flood.
But some of the details are different to the generally known version.
It describes a circular vessel known as a coracle, not the rectangular vessel of modern mythology.
"It was really a heart-stopping moment - the discovery that the boat was to be a round boat," the tablet's discoverer, Irving Finkel said. "That was a real surprise."

The tablet records a Mesopotamian god's instructions for building a giant vessel - two-thirds the size of a soccer field in area - made of rope, reinforced with wooden ribs and coated in bitumen.
Etched in the clay is one of the story's key elements: It describes how the animals must enter "two by two".

The British Museum says the detail contained in the tablet can be analysed by naval architects to determine if such a vessel could have actually sailed.
Mr Finkel is the British Museum assistant keeper of the Middle East. He is releasing a book on the tablet titled: "The Ark Before Noah".
"(The tablet is) one of the most important human documents ever discovered," he said.
And the newly revealed design, he said, was "perfect".
"It never sinks, it's light to carry."

But Finkel said that while the design appear sound, but he isn't sure a "coracle" of that scale would have floated
David Owen, professor of ancient Near Eastern studies at Cornell University, said the British Museum curator had made "an extraordinary discovery."
Elizabeth Stone, an expert on the antiquities of ancient Mesopotamia at New York's Stony Brook University, said it made sense that ancient Mesopotamians would depict their mythological ark as round.
This is not the first time the ancient story of the ark has been found outside of the bible. But it is the earliest.
The flood story recurs in later Mesopotamian writings including the "Epic of Gilgamesh."
Finkel says the discovery may cause dissent among believers in the biblical story. When 19th-century British Museum scholars first learned from cuneiform tablets that the Babylonians had a flood myth, they were disturbed by its similarities to the story of Noah.

"Already in 1872 people were writing about it in a worried way - What does it mean that Holy Writ appears on this piece of Weetabix?" he joked to Fox News, referring to a cereal similar in shape to the tablet.
"I'm sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention," he said.
A television documentary due to be broadcast later this year will follow attempts to build the ark according to the ancient manual.
Does Finkel think the ark was real?
"I don't think the ark existed - but a lot of people do," he said. "It doesn't really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever."

Well gosh darn, the Noah legend actually stems from a Mesopotamian legend that predates even the Gilgamesh legend? Ooh, color me surprised.  :shock:

A Coracle, for the unenlightened, is a round boat made by creating a framework of flexible wooden spokes radiating out from a center hub and then formed into a bowl with a rope loop at the rim. Typically it was covered with rawhide stretched over the frame and allowed to harden, then covered with pitch to waterproof it. The name Coracle actually comes from the Welsh, who built a very similar craft out of Yew wood. And there's no way you could build one big enough to hold a sizable number of animals, so it is totally mythological. Tell that one to your buy bull believin' buddies.

[Poison Tree]

My religious facebook friends are passing around the foxnews story about this as proof that the bible is true

[Hydra009]

And in sumerian cosmology the earth is like a disc floating on water...  Huh.

[PickelledEggs]

You know what guys. There HAS to be a god. Do you know how I know? As people get smarter, it seems like someone is keeping the earth in balance by making people even more stupid. I don't know any other way of explaining it, therefore: god.  :Hangman:

[spoil:2zd7rswj]that was sarcasm for anyone that didn't catch it[/spoil:2zd7rswj]

[barbarian]

[ Image ]

And in sumerian cosmology the earth is like a disc floating on water...  Huh.

I wonder why the Professor and the Skipper didn't think of this to get them off of Gilligan's Island, I think this would have actually worked out good for them.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

OMG, OMG, OMG! :shock: We're like goin to H E double toothbrushes n shit now!

REPENT I SAY! REPENT before it's to late n shit!  :-k  

[Youssuf Ramadan]

INB4 "Checkmate, atheists!"  

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I saw snow today. Certainly god has nothing better to do than sit around designing special snowflakes all winter. When someone tells me they're praying when it snows I say, "Shhhh! Be quiet! God's busy designing snowflakes. He ain't got time for that shit."  

[SGOS]

Well, I'll be damned.  How about that?  An ancient relic supporting a myth.  See!  Even 4000 years ago, they knew about the myth.  It's most definitely a very ancient myth.  The Bible writers must have known about the myth.  Why else would it have been in the Bible?  This proves ...... ???

[stromboli]

Well gee, let's see.... Gilgamesh myth predates Noah myth by a couple hundred years or so, the Babylonians were the big kids on the block back then. Israelites were captured by the Babylonians, after which they went from a pluralistic to monotheistic religion, and had this myth about Noah, which just happens to closely resemble the Gilgamesh myth.

And the Gilgamesh myth evidently comes from an even earlier one. One damn coincidence after another.  :-k

[Damarcus]

uh...well, don'tcha see that this just proves that the bible is true? If other cultures have legends about a boat saving all the animals then that just reinforces the bible's Truth! As every True Christian knows, you can just ignore pesky things like "dates" and "credibility" by simply shouting the magic words "Radiocarbon dating is fake!"

It would be nice, but I doubt this discovery will change anyone's mind. They've ignored all the contrary evidence before, they'll just try and ignore this one. An interesting find though!

[mykcob4]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/a-4000yearold-tablet-from-ancient-mesopotamia-contains-the-specifications-for-an-ark-predating-the-story-of-noah/story-fnjwl1aw-1226810293590

IT'S a few notches on a 4000-year-old clay tablet. But what it reveals about the ancient biblical story of Noah's ark has scholars crowing the world over.
The British Museum yesterday put the recently deciphered clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia - now Iraq - on display.
It's claimed to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever.
What it contains are specifications for the legendary Ark which was said to have saved two of each animal - and a handful of humans - from a catastrophic flood.
But some of the details are different to the generally known version.
It describes a circular vessel known as a coracle, not the rectangular vessel of modern mythology.
"It was really a heart-stopping moment - the discovery that the boat was to be a round boat," the tablet's discoverer, Irving Finkel said. "That was a real surprise."

The tablet records a Mesopotamian god's instructions for building a giant vessel - two-thirds the size of a soccer field in area - made of rope, reinforced with wooden ribs and coated in bitumen.
Etched in the clay is one of the story's key elements: It describes how the animals must enter "two by two".

The British Museum says the detail contained in the tablet can be analysed by naval architects to determine if such a vessel could have actually sailed.
Mr Finkel is the British Museum assistant keeper of the Middle East. He is releasing a book on the tablet titled: "The Ark Before Noah".
"(The tablet is) one of the most important human documents ever discovered," he said.
And the newly revealed design, he said, was "perfect".
"It never sinks, it's light to carry."

But Finkel said that while the design appear sound, but he isn't sure a "coracle" of that scale would have floated
David Owen, professor of ancient Near Eastern studies at Cornell University, said the British Museum curator had made "an extraordinary discovery."
Elizabeth Stone, an expert on the antiquities of ancient Mesopotamia at New York's Stony Brook University, said it made sense that ancient Mesopotamians would depict their mythological ark as round.
This is not the first time the ancient story of the ark has been found outside of the bible. But it is the earliest.
The flood story recurs in later Mesopotamian writings including the "Epic of Gilgamesh."
Finkel says the discovery may cause dissent among believers in the biblical story. When 19th-century British Museum scholars first learned from cuneiform tablets that the Babylonians had a flood myth, they were disturbed by its similarities to the story of Noah.

"Already in 1872 people were writing about it in a worried way - What does it mean that Holy Writ appears on this piece of Weetabix?" he joked to Fox News, referring to a cereal similar in shape to the tablet.
"I'm sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention," he said.
A television documentary due to be broadcast later this year will follow attempts to build the ark according to the ancient manual.
Does Finkel think the ark was real?
"I don't think the ark existed - but a lot of people do," he said. "It doesn't really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever."

Well gosh darn, the Noah legend actually stems from a Mesopotamian legend that predates even the Gilgamesh legend? Ooh, color me surprised.  :shock:

A Coracle, for the unenlightened, is a round boat made by creating a framework of flexible wooden spokes radiating out from a center hub and then formed into a bowl with a rope loop at the rim. Typically it was covered with rawhide stretched over the frame and allowed to harden, then covered with pitch to waterproof it. The name Coracle actually comes from the Welsh, who built a very similar craft out of Yew wood. And there's no way you could build one big enough to hold a sizable number of animals, so it is totally mythological. Tell that one to your buy bull believin' buddies.

My friend and neighbor was shocked at this story, even though I had related the story several times before. I had even printed out the story from reliable sources to show him. He didn't believe the story until he saw it on FOX, and he acted as if it was the first time he had ever heard of it. Funny how the conservatives only believe what they see and hear on FOX. They don't even believe credible evidence from Harvard or Oxford, especially if PBS or NPR airs it.