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 Here the story of Noah and the landing of his Ark on the Alfari slopes of Mount Ararat about 4300 years ago. OTHER NOAH: Christian sightings of Noah´s Ark Meet the President of Alfaristan Places of interest in Alfaristan Civic Coats of Arms Alfaristan Beside Noah´s Ark other places of interest in Alfaristan are the birthplace of the religious teacher and prophet Zoroaster (7th cent. B.C.) in Tekmer, the birthplace of Shamseddin Tabrizzi (teacher of on of the greatest mystics off all time: Mevlana Rumi) in the center of Alfaris. Visit also the tomb of Sidi Oral Ayach in Darbe. Oral is considered to be the founder of Alfaristan as independency. He led his tribe from the Rif-mountains of North Africa to the south of Alfaristan. His tomb is in the style of that of Oral´s father in North Africa. |
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About 4300 years ago after the great flood Noah´s Ark came to rest on the Alfari slopes of Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh or "the Mountain of Pain!"). According to the scripture Noah was the tenth in descent from Adam, in the line of Seth. He was the son of Lamech and grandson of Methuselah. (B.C. 2948-1998.) We hear nothing of Noah till he is 500 years old when It is said he got three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth and God decided it is time to eliminate "all flesh" and "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life", except Noah and his sons. Noah was a "righteous man and perfect", and "walked with God". Torah and Bible (Genesis 6:7) tells that Noah had three sons, each married to a wife. He built the ark in accordance with divine direction and was 600 years old when the flood came. About The
ark This "chest" or "boat" was to be made of gopher (i.e. cypress) wood, a kind of timber which both for its lightness and its durability was employed by the Phoenicians for building their vessels. The planks of the ark, after being put together were to be protected by a coating of pitch, or rather bitumen, both inside and outside, to make it water-tight, and perhaps also as a protection against the attacks of marine animals. The ark was to consist of a number of "nests" or small compartments, with a view, no doubt, to the convenient distribution of the different animals and their food. These were to be arranged in three tiers, one above another; "with lower, second and third (stories) shalt thou make it." Means were also to be provided for letting light into the ark. There was to be a door this was to be placed in the side of the ark. Of the shape of the ark nothing is said, but its dimensions are given. It was to be 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth and 30 in height. Taking 21 inches for the cubit, the ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet 6 inches in breadth and 52 feet 6 inches in height. This is very considerably larger than the largest British man-of-war, but not as large as some modern ships. It should be remembered that this huge structure was only intended to float on the water, and was not in the proper sense of the word a ship. It was in fact nothing but an enormous floating oblong box. The inmates of the ark were Noah and his wife and his three sons with their spouses. Noah was ordered by God to take also animals of all kinds into the ark with him, that they might be preserved alive. The animals were divided in "clean" and "unclean" before the chosen ones were taken into the ark. The flood . When the ark was finished and all its living freight was gathered into it as a place of safety, God shut him in and then there ensued a solemn pause of seven days before the promised destruction was let loose. At last the before the threatened destruction was flood came; the waters were upon the earth. A very simple but very powerful and impressive description is given of the appalling catastrophe. The waters of the flood increased for a period of 190 days (40+150, comparing to Genesis 7:12 and Genesis7:24. After those 190 days "God remembered Noah" and made a wind to pass over the earth, so that the waters were assuaged and the ark landed on the seventeenth day of the seventh month on the "mountains of Ararat". After this the waters gradually decreased till the first day of the tenth month, when the tops of the Great and the Small Mounts Ararat were seen but Noah. But his family did not disembark till they had been in the ark a year and a month and twenty days. Numerous traditions of other nations have preserved the memory of this great and destructive flood, from which a small part of mankind escaped. The foremost among these is the Chaldean. Notices of the flood are found in the Phoenician mythology. There is a medal of Apamea in Phrygia, struck as late as the time of Septimius Severus, in which the Phrygian deluge is commemorated. This medal represents a kind of a square vessel floating in the water. Through an opening in it are seen two persons, a man and a woman. Upon the top of this chest or ark is perched a bird, whilst another flies toward it carrying a branch between its feet. Before the vessel are represented the same pair as having just, quitted it and got upon the dry land. After the Flood One night, the oldest scriptures tell, Noah drank of the juice of the grape till he became drunk and exposed himself in his own tent. Two sons endeavored not to talk about it. But his son Ham mocked openly at his father’s nudity. When Noah recovered from his hangover, he declared that a curse should rest upon the sons of Ham. With the curse was joined a blessing on the other two. After this prophetic blessing we hear no more of the patriarch but the sum of his years, 950. Shem ben Nuh (Noah) Shem (sun), was the eldest son of Noah. He was 98 years old, married, and childless at the time of the flood. After it, he, with his father, brothers, sisters-in-law and wife, received the blessing of God, and entered into the covenant. With the help of his brother Japheth, he covered the nakedness of their father and received the first blessing. He died at the age of 630 years. The portion of the earth occupied by the descendants of Shem, (Genesis 10:21,31) begins at its northwestern extremity with Lydia, and includes Syria (Aram), Chaldaea (Arphaxad), parts Of Assyria (Asshur), of Persia (Elam), and of the Arabian peninsula (Joktan). Modern scholars have given the name of Shemitic or Semitic to the languages spoken by his descendants. Japheth ben Nuh (Noah) The descendants of Japheth (enlargement ) occupied the "isles of the Gentiles," (Genesis 10:5) --i.e. the coast lands of the Mediterranean Sea in Europe and Turkey-- whence they spread northward over the whole continent of Europe and a considerable portion of Asia. Ham ben Nuh (Noah) The descendants of Ham form the most illustrious nations, referred to as Hamite, including the Cushites, Phoenicians and Egyptians. Of the history of Ham himself (born B.C. 2448) nothing is related in the Torah and Bible, except his irreverence to his father and the curse upon his 4 sons Cush (black ), Mizraim (the two Egypts; red soil), Phut (a bow ) and Canaan (low, flat )." (Genesis 10:6). Mizraim ben Ham ben Nuh (Noah) Egypt is the "land of Ham" in the Bible. (Psalms 78:51; 105:23; 106:22), inherited by Noah´s son Miz’ra-im or Mizraim (the two Egypts; red soil ). Mizraim first occurs in the account of the Hamites in (Genesis 10:1) ... In the use of the name Mizraim for Egypt there can be no doubt that the dual indicates the two regions, upper and lower Egypt, into which the country has always been divided by nature as well as by its inhabitants. The name of Noah´s son Mizraim is the usual name of Egypt in the Torah and the dual of less frequently employed Mazor. Phut ben Ham ben Nuh (Noah) Phut (a bow) is the third name in the list of the sons of Ham (Genesis 10:6; 1 Chronicles 1:8) and elsewhere applied to an African country or people. The few mentions of Phut in the Bible clearly indicate a country or people of Africa, and, it must be added, probably not far from Egypt. (Isaiah 66:19; Jeremiah 46:9; Ezekiel 27:10; 30:5; 38:5; Nahum 3:9) Some identify it with Libya, in Africa; others with Nubia or Sudan, south of Egypt. Canaan ben Ham ben Nuh (Noah) Canaan (low, flat) is the fourth son of Ham according to Genesis 10:6 and 1 Chronicles 1:8. He is the progenitor of the Phoenicians [Zidon], and the nations who conquest people the seacoast of Palestine and the country westward of the Jordan before the Israelites. (Genesis 10:13; 1 Chronicles 1:13) The name "Canaan" is sometimes employed for the country itself in the Torah. In the summer of 1916, Lieutenant Roskovitsky of the Russian Imperial Air Force noticed, while flying high-altitude test to observe Turkish troop movements, on the slopes of Ararat "a half submerged hull of some sort of ship with two stubby masts and a flat catwalk along the top". Noah´s Ark was found, investigation officers sent photographs and reports by courier to the personal attention of the Tsar. But Nicholas II never received them during the breakdown of communications that followed the February and October Revolutions of 1917. The results of the investigation and pictures of the Ark came to the attention of Leon Trotsky, who destroyed them. In 1959 the Turkish Air Force was conducting an aerial survey of the Ararat and Alfari region. Seventeen miles south of Mount Ararat's peak, on the lower slopes (6300 feet), a photograph was taken by Lieutenant Ahmet Kurtis revealing the outline of a Noah´s Ark. Its dimensions were 500 by 150 feet and its protruding height, 45 feet, close to the Biblical dimensions of 450 by 75 feet and 45 feet in height. In 1960, dynamite charges were placed on the wall of the Buried Ark and exploded by the Turkish army. No inner chambers or clear evidence of beams were discovered. Bits of decayed wood were found in the remaining debris. In 1984, Ron Wyatt from Memphis, Tennessee, smuggled 8.6 pounds of stones, sand and earth from the Ark of Noah to New York for exhibition. The Turkish government was outraged over his lack of consideration for their national customs and regulations. This incident interrupted the official western expeditions on the mountain and Alfaristan guards trapped so called Ark searchers wearing t-shirts emblazoned with CRUSADERS FOR CHRIST that year. Accused for trying to steal Noah´s Ark, they were locked up in the Tower of Sille. Wyatt discovered also Sodom and Gomorrah, the place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea during the Exodus and the "true site" of Mount Sinai, including a rock split by Moses. His last discovery before he died in august 1999 was the 'Ark of the Covenant', the actual site of the Crucifixion of Jesus. It was due to the work of Ron Wyatt that the Turkish government promoted Mount Ararat in 1988 as a tourist destination.
Number of visitors on © MMVI by travel to alfaristan |
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