From at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275 – 339 AD) to the present day, the search for the physical remains of Noah's Ark has held a fascination for Christians, Jews and Muslims. Despite many rumours, claims of sightings and expeditions no scientific evidence of the ark has ever been found.
The search for the ark has been called a “wild goose chase” by some archaeologists. Ark searchers have had little to guide them to the Ark beyond Genesis' mention of the “mountains of Ararat”. By the middle of the 19th century, archaeologists had identified a 1st-millennium BC kingdom and region of Urartu, contemporaneous with the Assyrian empire and the early kingdoms of Judah and Israel, located in the mountains of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey.
Not until the 19th century was the region settled enough, and welcoming enough for Westerners, to make it possible for significant expeditions to search for the Ark.
By the beginning of the 21st century, two main candidates for exploration had emerged: the so-called Ararat anomaly (pictured above) near the main summit of Ararat (an “anomaly” in that it shows on aerial and satellite images as a dark blemish on the snow and ice of the peak), and the separate site at Durup?nar near Dogubayazit, 18 miles (29 km) south of the Greater Ararat summit.
