# So, Has NOAH's ARK Been Found? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488 "2006-06-20T21:54:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/61 "2026-10-03T05:08:11Z")
_Antediluvian_ gets used as a pejorative term for basic or unsophisticated things. Not so much now - more often we call such things “stone age” or the like. But the idea is the same. My father was from an ecclesiastical background, and was wont to use the term. He was, none the less, an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/62 "2026-10-03T06:29:00Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Around 6 million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea dried up after the Straight of Gibraltar was closed up. Eventually, the straight reopened, and water flooded back into the basin. So the Mediterranean held a straight flush? ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/63 "2026-10-03T06:35:31Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > So the Mediterranean held a straight flush? Never shown to a human though. I guess everyone folded. ---
**Author:** ![happywaffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ee59a6/32.png) [@happywaffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happywaffle)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/64 "2026-10-03T10:34:41Z")
I love how this thread came roaring back to life after _ **over 20 years** _ and nobody commented on it. I was surprised to get an email notification about it, and even more surprised that my account still worked. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/65 "2026-10-03T10:58:19Z")
Not to mention the discovering a whole mass of continents and other islands, collecting a bunch of kangaroos, platypodes and kiwi and things but not keeping any records. How did the kiwi get home? That’s what I wanted to know when someone told me the story as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/66 "2026-10-03T12:22:59Z")
> [@happywaffle](#): > > I love how this thread came roaring back to life after _ **over 20 years** _ and nobody commented on it. I was surprised to get an email notification about it, and even more surprised that my account still worked. Welcome back! Hope you stick around. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/67 "2026-10-03T12:32:05Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > kangaroos,[i] platypodes [/i] and kiwi I just learned a new word! Although I did already know the correct word for where zoos in Australia keep them: the platypussary. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/68 "2026-10-03T12:55:28Z")
And baby ones are called puggles. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/69 "2026-10-03T12:59:07Z")
now _ **that** _’s some ignorance that I needed to be fought! 🙂 Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/70 "2026-10-03T15:05:31Z")
Presumably the Mesopotamian cities got covered same way the Nile treated Egypt -regular floods depositing silt. The difference was the Nile floods were regular, the Mesopotamian ones less so. The same with most of the area - IIRC reading that the whole of the Middle East experienced a bit more rain than it does today. Plus, apparently the giveaway for archaeologists was that often the location of an ancient city was a mound of debris as succesive generations build on the existing mess without carting things away. That was their tell. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/71 "2026-10-03T15:11:06Z")
ISWYDT! ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/72 "2026-10-03T15:27:47Z")
The New World also has flood myths. So, no. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/73 "2026-10-03T15:47:38Z")
how could a timber ship be found if it wasn’t in a preserving situation ? Either totally dry or oxygen free (the peat bogs etc ) ? Harsh conditions of damp dry , frozen , thawed cycles will cause the timber to split ? If you say, suppose the ship was made of magic timber, then it could be preserved ? But then why build it at all ? Why not just magically save all you want save… ? Or better yet, magically kill all you want to kill ? (Which is already a problem with the story.. someone magically sent 40 days of rain.. um … ) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/74 "2026-10-03T16:22:56Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Not to be a wet blanket, but being as we are supposed to be fighting ignorance here, shouldn’t we forgo the ‘ship on a mountain’ bit and go straight to the ‘it’s impossible to repopulate the world with it’s diversity from a handful of one-breeding-pair of animals’? One person saving the fauna of the entire world from a flood by taking a pair of every animal on a ship is, of course, completely implausible. But one person saving his immediate family and a few of their more valuable livestock from a smaller but still locally-devastating flood by taking them on a ship, and then the tale growing in the telling among his descendants, is just maybe plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/75 "2026-10-03T17:40:23Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Did that guy get in a time machine and relate this story to the writers of Genesis? Or the writers of Gilgamesh. Or the writers of the myth the flood story in Gilgamesh was based on. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2026, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/76 "2026-10-03T17:49:28Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > The New World also has flood myths. > So, no. Back in Usenet days someone post 100 flood myths from around the world in talk.origins. They were fascinating. Lots of them had the last survivors be met by their friends coming over hills. I guess that’s what you get from stories written before the invention of logic. > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Not to be a wet blanket, but being as we are supposed to be fighting ignorance here, shouldn’t we forgo the ‘ship on a mountain’ bit and go straight to the ‘it’s impossible to repopulate the world with it’s diversity from a handful of one-breeding-pair of animals’? I always find it hilarious that flood proponents, who all disparage evolution, believe in something that would require hyper-evolution at a level that is totally absurd. They’ve given up getting all species today onto the ark, and now claim that undefined “kinds” were on instead, which became the current set of species. But that’s not even the worst part. If you compute the weight of water that would have had to fall to flood the earth, the ark would have been squashed flat. But, no matter, since the potential energy of all that water up high released when it hit the ground/sea would have burned everything up. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2026, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/77 "2026-10-04T00:07:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One person saving the fauna of the entire world from a flood by taking a pair of every animal on a ship is, of course, completely implausible. Do literalists truly believe this? That a pair of every single species on earth could fit on a single boat? Including species Noah couldn’t have even been aware of such as polar bears? If not, how do they account for the ones that didn’t make the boat? Because they don’t believe in evolution… ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2026, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/78 "2026-10-04T02:52:07Z")
Yes. Yes but not species, every “kind”. Yes every “kind” was guided to The Ark by God (apparently). No “kind” wasn’t on The Ark. Yeah, they don’t believe in “evolution” but hyper-rapid speciation from “kinds” is somehow on the table. Hyper-rapid meaning a new species in every birth. And, according to some apologists, God using the region’s volcanos to launch Australian animals to their proper habitat. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2026, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/79 "2026-10-04T03:02:18Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Yeah, they don’t believe in “evolution” but hyper-rapid speciation from “kinds” is somehow on the table. Hyper-rapid meaning a new species in every birth. > And, according to some apologists, God using the region’s volcanos to launch Australian animals to their proper habitat This is like a flat-earther explaining why the moon only _appears_ to be a sphere to astronauts. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2026, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488/80 "2026-10-04T03:07:41Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > And, according to some apologists, God using the region’s volcanos to launch Australian animals to their proper habitat. Hence the high propensity for Australian animals to have springy legs. It all makes perfect sense when you do your own research and reason it out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-has-noahs-ark-been-found/361488.md?page=5)