Scientists Believe They’ve Found the Location of Noah’s Ark After Decoding a 3,000-Year-Old Babylonian Map

For centuries, the story of Noah’s Ark has been told as both religious allegory and historical mystery. But a recent discovery may bring the myth one step closer to fact.

A 3,000-year-old clay tablet, long kept in the British Museum and largely dismissed as symbolic art, is now at the center of groundbreaking research that suggests it may be an ancient map leading to the very place where Noah’s Ark came to rest.

Known as the Imago Mundi, the clay tablet dates back to ancient Babylon and was first brought to the British Museum in 1882 after being discovered in the Middle East. On one side are etchings that depict what appears to be an early attempt at cartography—complete with a central landmass, a surrounding double-ring “Bitter River,” and symbols indicating territories, mountains, and cities.

But it’s what’s on the back of the tablet that has stunned scientists. Written in cuneiform, the world’s oldest known writing system, the script describes creation myths, the structure of the Earth, and—most intriguingly—directions and landmarks for a long journey through these lands. This journey, experts now say, may be none other than the biblical voyage of Noah.

Dr. Irving Finkel, a senior curator and cuneiform specialist at the British Museum, has spent years deciphering the tablet’s script. He believes that a section referring to a trip of “seven leagues to see something as thick as a parsiktu-vessel” is not metaphorical, but literal. The term “parsiktu” appears in other Babylonian texts as the unit used to measure containers meant to survive catastrophic floods.

“This suggests the map is describing not just a geographic path, but a survival route,” said Dr. Finkel in an interview. “It even offers directions to Urartu, the ancient region we now associate with Mount Ararat.”

Mount Ararat, located in modern-day eastern Turkey near the borders of Armenia and Iran, has long been believed by many biblical scholars to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark. The Imago Mundi may be the first known ancient document to point directly to this location.

According to the newly translated sections, the tablet outlines a journey beginning in Babylon, traversing rivers and mountain passes, with markers to look for at specific intervals. One such clue describes a mountainous region where the water receded after a great deluge, and where a large vessel “as long as three fields” was stranded.

“What’s extraordinary is how much this correlates with Mesopotamian flood stories, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the Hebrew Bible,” noted Dr. Finkel. “The ark story was always seen as a myth, but the Babylonians clearly treated it as history.”

What’s particularly compelling is how many ancient cultures have flood myths that align remarkably well with the story of Noah—describing a global flood, a chosen family, and the survival of animals in a large boat. Babylonian flood stories predate the biblical account by at least a thousand years, yet they share nearly identical details.

The tablet’s new translation adds fuel to the theory that the story of Noah’s Ark was passed down orally across generations, later woven into religious texts like the Bible. But rather than dismissing the story as pure myth, some researchers are now asking a bolder question:

What if there really was a great flood—and what if remnants of the ark still exist?

Dr. Finkel and a team of researchers are now pushing for an archaeological expedition to the Ararat region, specifically targeting valleys and rock formations mentioned in the tablet. Satellite imaging has previously shown anomalies in the area that some believe could be the remains of an ancient ship buried beneath the ice and stone.

Critics caution against drawing too many conclusions from a single artifact. “We must be careful not to leap from poetry to prophecy,” said Dr. Lena Rajavi, an archaeologist at Oxford University. “But the tablet undeniably adds to a growing body of ancient evidence that flood stories were based on real events.”

Geologists have long theorized that a massive flood occurred in the Black Sea region around 7,500 years ago, possibly due to melting glaciers or tectonic activity. This flood may have wiped out entire civilizations, giving rise to stories of divine punishment and salvation through a great vessel.

The Imago Mundi does more than offer directions—it redefines the story itself. It places the ark in a historical framework rather than a purely religious one. It suggests the people of ancient Babylon saw the flood as part of their recorded past, not just oral tradition.

“The implications are profound,” said Dr. Finkel. “We may be on the brink of proving that what many believed to be fable was grounded in real-world experience—and possibly real-world geography.”

If an expedition uncovers even partial evidence of a man-made structure consistent with the ark’s dimensions—described in both the Bible and Babylonian texts as a massive, rectangular vessel—then history, religion, and science will have to reconcile a story long held as myth.

For now, the clay tablet that once sat unnoticed in a museum drawer is changing the way scholars view history. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the keys to the world’s oldest mysteries lie hidden in plain sight.

And if the journey etched into its back truly leads to Noah’s Ark, then this ancient artifact is not just a map of the world—it’s a map of human memory, guiding us back to a story we’ve been telling for thousands of years.