Researchers from the British Museum just revealed that the Imago Mundi, a 3,000-year-old Babylonian clay tablet, seemingly describes the location of an ark from an ancient story that parallels the Biblical account of Noah.
Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/Wikimedia CommonsThe Imago Mundi dates back to around the seventh century B.C.E. and is considered to be the oldest world map ever discovered.
The Imago Mundi, a 3,000-year-old Babylonian tablet that’s considered to be the oldest map of the world, contains depictions of the Earth as the ancient Mesopotamians understood it. Created around the seventh century B.C.E., the map centers around the Euphrates River and includes various cities, mountains, and other bodies of water in the area.
The cuneiform text on the tablet tells of the creation of the world by the god Marduk and mentions the king Utnapishtim, who built a giant ark to survive a flood in a story paralleling the Biblical account of Noah. Now, researchers have deciphered additional text on the tablet that has left experts baffled for centuries — and they think it may reveal the location of Noah’s ark.
The History Of The World’s Oldest Map
In 1882, the British Museum acquired a clay tablet that had been discovered in southern Iraq, not far from the ancient city of Babylon. It dated back 3,000 years and contained a map of Mesopotamia that included Babylon, the Euphrates River, and other cities and landmarks. They called it the Imago Mundi.
The map on the Imago Mundi is surrounded by a double ring called the “Bitter River,” and everything on the outside of that river was beyond the known world of the Babylonians. Triangles carved into the map past the river seemingly represent distant mountains or unexplored realms.
Public DomainAn illustration of the engravings on the ancient Babylonian map.
Dr. Irving Finkel, a curator and cuneiform expert at the British Museum, stated in a recent video, “You have encapsulated in this circular diagram the whole of the known world in which people lived, flourished, and died. However, there’s more to this map than that.”
Recently, Finkel and other researchers translated more of the cuneiform on the map — and it seemingly points toward the location of Noah’s ark.
Researchers Discover Ancient References To Noah’s Ark
One inscription on the Imago Mundi instructs readers journeying to the fourth triangle depicted on the map to travel seven leagues until they come across “something thick as a parsiktu-vessel.” Parsiktu is a rare term that refers to a boat of a particular size, and it most notably appears in the Babylonian flood story that parallels the Biblical tale of Noah’s ark.
In Mesopotamian myth, the ark was built by Utnapishtim in 1800 B.C.E., and it ultimately came to rest on a mountain called Urartu. Biblical scholars believe that Urartu is the same as Ararat, the mountain where the Bible states Noah’s ark landed. The Imago Mundi map seemingly points to the fourth triangle as the location of the ark.
The British MuseumUrartu, the potential location of Noah’s ark, as depicted on the map.
“That’s quite a meaty thing, quite an interesting thing to think about because it shows that the story was the same, and of course, that one led to the other,” Finkel noted.
Currently, the Imago Mundi tablet is on display at the British Museum, where it’s still revealing how ancient people saw their world. Each new discovery adds a little more to the story, connecting us with a civilization that mapped their surroundings while weaving in their cultural beliefs. It’s amazing to think that thousands of years later, we’re still learning from it.
After reading about the location of Noah’s ark depicted on the Imago Mundi, learn the story of Ron Wyatt, the amateur archaeologist who claimed to have found several Christian artifacts, including Noah’s ark. Then, go inside the complicated history of the search for the Ark of the Covenant, the gold-plated, wooden chest believed to hold the original Ten Commandments.
