Babylonian Tablet ‘Confirms’ Noah’s Ark

Seeking confirmation of the Noah’s Ark story? Look no further than Babylonian cuneiform tablets. One was discovered as far back as 1872 that pre-dated the Bible with its own version of the Ark story.

Now a tablet has arrived at the British Museum that actually describes how to build the ark, according to Irving Finkel, who works at the museum’s Middle East department. The palm-sized tablet dates back to
1900-1700BC, is written in Semitic Babylonian, and has exactly 60 lines of text, writes Finkel in the Telegraph. It also explains that the ark built by Artra-hasis—the Noah-like figure who took instructions from the god Enki—was completely round.

“Draw out the boat that you will make,” Artra-hasis is told, “on a circular plan.” That contradicts our usual Ark image but does makes sense, because ancient Mesopotamian round boats—called coracles—were hard to sink and hard to steer, and who needs steering during a world-wide flood?

The boat was made of coiled, waterproofed rope with a base area of 38,750 square feet, about an acre in all, according to the tablet—which then reads, “and the wild animal[s of the st]ep[pe], two each, two by two.” While this supports the Ark story, Salon takes a dig at fundamentalists who believe the Ark housed “baby dinosaurs.”