Durupinar formation ("Noah's Ark")

The Durupınar site is a boat-shaped ridge about 164 metres long in eastern Turkey, near the village of Üzengili and about 29 kilometres south of Mount Ararat. It lies at roughly 2,000 metres above sea level. Because its shape looks like a ship, some believers have promoted it as the stone remains of Noah's Ark.

Geologists have a different answer. Researchers of different backgrounds, including both a creationist and an anti-creationist geologist, say it is a completely natural formation made largely of the iron mineral limonite. A Turkish government geologist agreed. So the ark story is a legend, and the ridge is a rock formation.

What happened

According to local reports, heavy rain and earthquakes uncovered the shape from the mud on 19 May 1948. A Turkish army captain, İlhan Durupınar, then spotted it on an air force photograph in October 1959, and the site was named after him.

A team surveyed it in September 1960. After two days of digging and blasting they found only soil and rocks, and called it a freak of nature rather than a man-made object.

The legend versus the facts

The legend says Noah's boat landed on Ararat. Others have pointed to different places, and people later promoted this ridge again from 1977.

The facts are simple: no timbers, nails or ship remains were found. Scientists see a natural shape, much like a long rock outcrop, which only looks like a boat from the air.

On the globe

The model shows the long boat-shaped ridge near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that some people call Noah's Ark.