ARK OF NOAH WAS A REED BOAT

( Image Source: https://www.yachtingworld.com/extraordinary-boats/viracocha-iii-chilean-reed-boat-pacific-voyage-123954  )

ARK OF GOPHER 

"Make for yourself a TEBAT (ark) of 

gopher wood.

 Make qinnim (nests) in the ark, and cover it with kopher (covering) to the house and outside." - Genesis 6:14

The writer here borrowed the Egyptian

 "t-b-t" 

to describe Babylonian word "tubbu," a round rectangular reed boat (of probably Tob sailors) in ancient Hit, Iraq. It could be from Arabic term "tubbu" or "tub," which in Assyrian Eastern dialect " tupa" means "to fold:" it folded the long rounded boat - that is, forming a rectangular-oblong boat. Or it could be referring to the 14th century BCE men of Tob at southeastern Sea of Galilee in northeastern Jordan in the direction of Hit, Iraq. Tob was Hebrew of "tubbu" or Ugaritic "thābu"  from Akkadian "jâbu" ('to be good'), which may mean 'desirable.' So, the boat is desirable. Ancient Germanic people might have retained such a boat with the name "tubbe." 

And he also untranslated the 2nd millennium BCE word "gopher," related to Assyrian "gipāru" ("woven reed mat"), derived from 2500 BCE Sumerian terminology "gipar." 

In Exodus 2:3 the Hebrew translation for "tebat 'āsê-gōpher" ("ark of gofer wood") is

 "tebat gōme" ("papyrus ark, ark of bulrushes," "wicker basket"), 

and it is clearly understood as such when Isaiah 18:2 describes "bikle gōme" ("papyrus vessels") for Egyptian ambassadors' sea-going vessels. 

Another possibility is that 

"asê-gopher" 

is a Hebrized of Sumerian two words "esir" ('bitumen') and "gapir" ('reed mat'), which may mean 'bitumized reed-woven shelter.'

Why "goper" is called "wood"? 

Because during the time of Noah (2029 BCE) and Moses (1309-1189 BCE), "reedwork" was designated as "wood." 

Judaeans and Jews likely did not know this designation that's why in the 1st century they understood it as cypress or cedar wood. 

That the said goper (reedwork) was belonged to woody materials is mentioned in the c. 2050 BCE "Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta." 

" I shall say it again in his 

gipar,

 fruitful as flourishing mesh-tree, to my king, the lord of Kulaba.

"Messenger, speak to your king, the lord of Kulaba, and say to him: " Let him put in his hand and contemplate a sceptre that is not wood, nor 

designated as wood

 [ ... ] not ildag wood, not shim-gig wood, not khashur cypress, nor palm wood, not cedar wood, nor zabalum wood, not cypress wood, not hard wood, not popular as in a chariot, not 

reedwork

 in whimp handles..." - "Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta" line 215-218, 397-405

Here "gipar" is a marriage house of gods (priests); formerly it was made of "reeds," but later the term was also applied to any palace of gods (priests), particularly the brick-made temple as bricks appear like reed-woven mat bed. Three other words are possibly branched out from the term "gipar" or "tebat asê-gopher" :

"gaparit" ([pitch of] sulphur, Gen.19:24, Deut.29:23, Job 18:15, Isa. 30:33);

"gōme" (bulrushes, reeds, papyri, etc. Exo.2:3, Isa. 18:2);

and 

"kufar" (made of palm-leaves, millow-branches, and so on, woven like a basket and coated with bitumen on the inside; Arabic "kufr," derived from Hebrew "gofer" and Arabic "quffa," from Akkadian "quppu" ['basket']), which was popularized by ancient Armenians and mentioned or depicted by Assyrian kings Assurnasirpal II (883-859), Sennacherib (705-681), and Gilgamesh Epic editor Assurbanipal (669- c.627). According to Herodotus (c.484 - c.425 BCE) it was used in Babylon. Historically, it was the ancient wine sellers of Ararat region who made the willow frames of kufars and might have transported the story of a huge ark of the Ararat river flood (cf. "The History of Herodotus,1" G. Rawlinson, 1885). 

In Gilgamesh Epic, the boat of the flood hero must be covered over like Apsu boats. Apsu may also mean a fresh water marsh near the temple of Ea. 

"Like the Apsu you shall roof it" - Atrahasis Epic 3.1.29,  & Gilgamesh Epic 11.31

"I will go down [the river] to the apsû to live with Ea, my Lord." - Gilgamesh 11.42

The temple of Ea at Eridu is called apsu-house or " E-abzu" ("House of the deep water"), as the holy shrine "gipar" for Inanna at Uruk called "E-ana" ("House of Heaven"). 

Aratta did not have great holy palace for Inanna in 2100 BCE and Inanna, through her priest, is asking the ruler of Aratta to make great temple for her.

Holy gipar could be understood too as "abzu shrine."

"Let Aratta build a temple brought down from sky - your place of worship, the Shrine Eana; let Aratta skilfully fashion the interior of the

 holy gipar,

 your abode; may I the radiant youth, may I be embraced there by you. Let Aratta bring down for me the mountain stones from their mountain, build the great shrine for me, make the great abode, the 

abode of the gods,

 famous for me, make my decree prosper in Kulaba, make the abzu grow for me like a 

holy mountain,

 make Eridug gleam for me like mountain range, cause the 

abzu shrine

 to shine forth for me like the silver in the life. When in the 

abzu

 I utter praise, when I bring the decree from Eridug, when, in lordship, I am adorned with the crown like a purified shrine, when I place on my head the holy crown in Unug Kulaba, then may the ... of the great shrine [bring you into the gipar, and may the great shrine] of the 

gipar

 bring me into the great shrine." - Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta, line 25-32

In this passage "Aratta" is understood as a "holy mountain" of abzu, suggesting that the term is derived from the ancestor of Sanskrit language. In Genesis 8:4 such word is untranslated as "Ararat" - an evidence that the source of Moses (Torah) was from 2000 or 1300 BCE.

Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta line 25-32 describes that Aratta (Urartu) has "gipar" made not of bricks and not as a holy place for Inana (moon god). 

During the time of Moses (1309-1189 BCE), holy gipar E-ana could be understood as "abzu shrine," as the former is for the high moon, the latter is for the lowest water. 

Abzu is very common in Ararat region because of the mouth of rivers in divers places. The term "abzu" is derived from Sumerian ZU.AB, which means "ab" ('water') + "zu" ('deep'), and in Genesis 7:11 it is mentioned as "fountains of the great deep." It is "apsû" in Akkadian language. 

Utnapishtim could be using a double meaning for the term "absu": house of Ea near the water, and gipar, a reed house that may mean also a reed boat. 

The house of Utnapishtim was a reed house, as that was the common type of house during his time, particularly for goddess (priestess) and god (priest).

Such a house is also mentioned in this passage:

"His slave Enkidu ... replied to (deity) Gilgamesh "...so lacking in understanding! [ ... ] A captured high priestess returned to the gipar ! A captured gudug priest restored to his wig of hair!" - Gilgamesh and Humbaba (version B), lines 148-154

There was a famine of grain in Aratta in around 2050 BCE before the abundant water (probably from melted ice and much evaporation) flooded the mountains of Ararat. The lord of Aratta did not surrounder to the lordship of the king of Uruk, unless grain would be brought to Aratta. During this time was written the legendary story Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta, the account that says moon god Inanna, possibly through her priest, asked the lord of Aratta to send metals and precious stones (likely from Metsamor and Musasir) to build the apzu of Enki (Ea) at Eridu as she is not pleased to Aratta and made her allegiance to Unug (Uruk). 

 Ea (Ya), the God who made man out of earth's substances & life of god, intervened in Utnapishtim's dream and whispered an instruction that he should build a huge boat out of his reed house whatever the cost to save his life and of his beloved.

The Bible and Gilgamesh Epic use the same terminology for the covering material of the boat. 

The Bible mentions :

"... wa-kapharta (and cover)

'otah (it)

mi-bayit (to the house) 

u-mihus (and outside)

ba-koper (with pitch). " - Genesis 6:14

Kāphar is possibly Hebrized of Akkadian "kapāru" (to smear on). 

The untranslated "koper" (pitch, tar) here is mentioned "kupru" in the epic, and in 

Assyrian language it means "bitumen." 

"Three sars (3,600 units) of raw 

kupru (bitumen)

 I poured into the bitumen kiln" - Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh Epic 11.65

It is also reported that the builders were reedworkers. 

" Just as dawn began to glow

the people assembled around me.

The carpenter carried his hatchet,

the 

reedworker

 carried his flattening stone, . . . . . .

The child carried the pitch,

the weak brought whatever else was needed.

On the 5th day I had laid out her exterior.

It was a field in area,

its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height,

the sides of its top were of equal length, 120 cubits each [the boat was cubic].

Then I designed its interior structure as follows:

I provided it with six decks,

thus dividing it into seven levels.

The inside of it I divided into 

9 compartments.

I drove plugs to keep out water in its middle part.

I saw to the punting poles and laid in what was necessary." - Gilgamesh Epic, 11.48,54,58

What shape did the Noah's ark may have had? 

Here is how boats during the time of Noah (2029 BCE) look like. The bundles of reeds are arranged crosswise to the length of the boat. This very same arrangement could be discerned from the fossilized shape of the 515-foot ark-shaped mound in Akyayla site in the "mountains of Ararat." 

BOGUS SCIENTIFIC OPINION OF LORENCE GENE COLLINS AGAINST ARK-SHAPED MOUND

He's continuously using his position as a scientist to destroy what scientific instrument can show us by using his opinions or by not presenting scientific images as a counter attack.

He started his internet article with a title and then this paragraph: 

"Lorence Gene Collins                  

Department of Geological Sciences         

California State University Northridge    

Northridge, California 91330-8266

email: lorencecollins@gmail.com"

and ended it with the following line:

"Dr . Lorence G. Collins

Department of Geological Sciences

California State University Northridge

18111 Nordhoff Street

Northridge, CA 91330-8266

FAX 818-677-2820."

And then shamelessly, in his introduction, claims that

" investigators found the boat-like appearance (Figure 2) to be 

only 

superficial."

This claim in his article is a form of lie because investigators in 1960 - 1980 did not dig the deepest portion of the ship-shaped mound to found out that the structure's 

BOAT-LIKE APPEARANCE

would be 

ONLY SUPERFICIAL. 

The horrifying thing on this article is that he is dragging the name of science on this bogus scientific feeling-based opinion by using science publication. He says:

"The above has been published in the Journal of Geosciences Education, v. 44, 1996, p. 439-444..."

Why horrifying? 

Since when that geosciences are using ignorance as a tool to judge or to render bogus scientific opinion? 

("Ignorance" because no one of them really knew its inner 3-D appearance, except that the results of Fasold and Wyatt's testings are not considered valid for personal reasons.)

And to cover up his bogus scientific opinion, he is attacking subsurface scientific data without presenting his counter subsurface data but by stitching his imaginary explanations of some natural geological materials and processes, as if his imaginary opinions are superior than what scientific instruments can show us. 

First of all his bogus opinion that "investigators found the boat-like appearance to be 

only 

superficial"

  uphold by his fans is a lie because no investigators have entered the inner portions of the ship-shaped mound to claim that the boat-like appearance is ONLY SUPERFICIAL. 

And the most important, scientific instruments could slap his face by showing that the boat-like appearance is not just superficial rather even deep inside the said mound. 

If it is ship-shaped down inside the mound, then how natural geological processes could make such a boat-like shape in the soil?

So, we have to remind every one here that sometimes scientist is using his title (the name science) to abuse and mislead or even to lie to his fans. 

So, he has to prove first that there are investigators who entered in it by any means to claim that its boat-like appearance would be ONLY SUPERFICIAL, and he has to prove that it is "ONLY SUPERFICIAL"  by presenting scientific 3-D images of the deeper portions of the said mound.

 

Not because he could lie whenever he wanted to, it immediately means no one will react to his lie.

(Between 8 and 7 meters inside the structure is a boat-like appearance)

I can present direct counter evidence against his bogus scientific feeling-based opinion (which he has stitched from his imagination of natural geological processes). 

Here are scientific images derived from the data of ground penetrating resistivity scanning done in 2014 and so on by other scientists.

(Images released by Anadolu Agency, News Broadcasting System in 2019)

In 3-D images, we can see that deep inside the mound there is a ship-shaped structure, contrary to the bogus scientific feeling-based opinion of the antagonists. 

ARK SOIL

SHIP-SHAPED SOIL

As of now this could be the biggest fossilized shape and the most studied object of curiosity since 1959. 

On May 19, 1948 after heavy rains and three earthquakes in Telçeker village, the ark-shaped mound started to re-expose from the surrounding mud; and Reshit Sarihan, a Kurdish shepherd, discovered it. News writers might have distorted his report, claiming that he saw it on Mt. Ararat, the favorite mountain of the European chronographers, who identified Masis (Mashu) as the mountain where the Noah's ark was claimed had landed upon - and this was the reason why Europeans called Masis as "Mount Ararat." 

At the back of that twin volcano (Masis) to the southern direction is a plain known in Gilgamesh Epic as 

"Waters of Death" 

possibly because molten materials from erupting Tendurek and Masis volcanoes are frequenting it in the pass, one of which was likely in 550 BCE and probably during the era of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669- c. 627 BCE), a possible editor of recent standard Epic of Gilgamesh. 

Such volcanic activities became the sources of volcanic rocks.

There are two sites of sacred stones (now known as "Anchor or Drogue Stones") associated with the flood hero. Those stones on Nasar (Akyayla site) in Telçeker, near to the purported first landing site of the ark, and those in Arzap (Kazan) village. In the epic they are called "SACRED STONES " used by gods or priests (probably to determine the volcanic activity of Mt. Ararat). 

The hole of this Stone is toward the tip of Mt. Ararat (Masis).

(David Franklin Fasold  and the Sacred Stone at Arzap.)

Those were sacred most likely because they were from the volcanoes there, from Hades deep underground fire. The preliminary conclusion of Lorence Gene Collins of California State University Department of Geological Sciences supports the conjecture that those stones are indeed of volcanic origin, and as from the region of Mt. Ararat (Pearce and others, 1990), corroborating the biblical hint that Noah was from Ararat region. 

And the owner of those sacred stones, as told in the Gilgamesh Epic, was Urshanabi, the ferryman who lived in the then island of Arzap and a friend of the flood hero Utnapishtim (Noah) who was visited by a king of Uruk after the 2029 BCE river flood in Ararat. 

The volcanic earthquakes and eruptions and heavy rains could be the reason why the ark was carried away by mud flows from its former landing site to the lower ground.

(Image Source: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/3d-images-of-noahs-ark-site-to-be-shown-in-documentary-148738 )

Apparently the remains of the ark were repaired during the Iron Age as it became sacred and then Ararat's wine sellers were selling kufars' willow frames and popularizing to Babylon the story of a wine planter flood hero. This was also the time that the region where the big boat was located was identified as one of the hills of Nisir (a mountain range from Telceker down to between Great Zab river and Lake Umria to Adiabene). 

The big reed boat was looted in ancient days and the first historically referenced to do this was king Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), who called the relic as "Beth Nisroch," masculine form of "Nisar" of a Babylonian goddess of agriculture, as the vicinity was known Nasar by the inhabitants and made a temple which he called Araske, likely named after the Lesser Araske river near Arzap and Dogubeyazit. This Assyrian emperor made his version of ship house in what is now called Mt. Cudi. 

Subsequently Akyayla site became a pilgrimage area (hence the mountain where it is belonged is now called Ziyaret Dag) and many pilgrims in the 300 BCE to 1st century AD and 300 AD are reportedly having looted its remaining woods, leaving only its hardened rock and fossilized shape. 

Apparently, after Josephus gave notice to the world of this ark in Mt. Baris, it was repaired, measured its length and the woods were fastened with nails in the 2nd century AD, and Eusebius (c.275-339) became interested to find this ark, and Yaqob Nsibnaya (fl. 337 AD) found it in Sararad mountain in mountainous region of Armenia near the boundary of Ayrarat territory where Masis is located. But Armenians and pilgrims pulled out its nails and woods during the time of Philostorgius (c.368-439 AD).

Rains and mud flows might have moved it to a lower location and covered it, and by the time of historian Isidore (c. 560-636) its exact whereabouts was not known, and they only named Masis as the Mt. Ararat and the possible location.

Centuries, after when remained nothing on it but the shape which is full of natural sedimentary materials, it reappeared when under ground volcanic activities jiggled the covering soil. 

And soft and washable soil which might have detached by earthquakes and heavy rains were most likely also the reason why this fossilized ark shape has resurfaced in September of 1948.

In October 1959 Turkish Air Force Army Captain Ilhan Durupinar,a  cartography expert, took aerial photographs of the region on a mapping mission for NATO, and eventually saw the ship shape mound. 

By the altitude or distance of the aircraft to the object, the shadow of the ship-shaped object, and the measurements of the lenses, Captain Durupinar has calculated its approximated length to 500 feet. 

On a military aircraft, Turkish-Armenian photojournalist Ara Güler took the photographs, and said:

 “If this is the sign of Noah’s Ark, it’s like seeing God down there.”

And he shared to the world the photographs, and it was first published in Australian Pix magazine on July 9, 1960, and then by American Life Magazine (shown on the image).

“ Noah's Ark? A Boatlike Form Seen Near Mt. Ararat Raises a Fascinating Question

While routinely examining aerial photos of his country, a Turkish army captain suddenly gaped at the picture shown above. There, on a mountain 20 miles south of Mt. Ararat, the biblical landfall of Noah’s Ark, was a boat-shaped form about 500 feet long. The captain passed on the word. Soon an expedition including American scientists set out for the site.

At 7,000 feet, in the midst of crevasses and landslide debris, the explorers found a clear, grassy area shaped like a ship and rimmed with steep, packed-earth sides. Its dimensions are close to those given in Genesis: ‘The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, and the height of it 30 cubits,’ that is, 450x75x45 feet. A quick two-day survey revealed no sign that the object was man made. Yet a scientist in the group says nothing in nature could create such a symmetrical shape. A thorough excavation may be made another year to solve the mystery.”

The  Life magazine, September 5, 1960, p.112, speaks about two sides here: first the boat-shaped object and then the quick judgment that there is no man-made in it. 

 George Vandeman, captain Ilhan Durupinar, and professor of photogrammetry Brandenberger of Archeological Research Foundation (ARF) surveyed the site in September 1960 after the Turkish government received the report of this mound.

 Unlearned how to conduct other scientific means to study the subject, some of their companions destroyed one of its little portion by a dynamite, and found nothing on digging it but "dirt, rocks and more dirt," and their dig brought disappointment to the expedition members. 

The part of the ark structure destroyed by military dynamite under George Vandeman and Sigfried Horn.

Their 2 days archeological destructive digging and ocular inspection resulted to a conclusion that 

 "there were no visible archaeological remains" and that this boat-shaped object "was a freak of nature and not man-made."

Because of the dynamiting, the portion of the ark structure becomes penetrable by water and may lead to further destruction internally, as shown (red) here in a 3-D resistivity image photographed by John Larsen.

This is one of the possible reasons why destructive archaeologists are later not allowed to continue to destroy it, and it was not allowed to be destroyed even before the 1980's.

 And for this was one of the possible reasons too why biblical archaeologists do not recognize any other scientific study of the ark-formation as a valid scientific means to learn more about it. That is, they rejected any other scientific means to study it except by archaeological dig, and there are biblical archaeologists who do not even recognize it as ark fossil in layman's terms or as an ark-shaped formation. And on their comments, scientists who studied this ark-formation are considered under pseudo-archaeology, bringing the populace thinking that there are no other scientists except biblical archaeologists. 

So, there is no other scientific means in the world but archaeology and there is no other way of archaeology but to destroy it?  Good luck to your archaeology. 

Some scientists and proud experts are even blatantly lying in suggesting that this ship-shaped mound is not allowed to be scientifically studied because the local government wanting it to be a tourist destination, regardless if it is about Noah's Ark or not. But this lie is proved false many times when the local government there is allowing any other scientific method of studying it, except destructive. 

Nondestructive scientific studies, however, are allowed by the Turkish government in some instances.

One of these studies is by using nondestructive deep penetrating radar scanning. 

The first to conduct scientific research on the site and the ark fossil were geologist Dr. Salih Bayraktutan of Erzurum’s Atatürk University and the scientists of California University’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. They studied the ark fossil and the nearby places that have boat-shaped formations too, and on their 80-page scientific report suggests that:

“It is highly likely that the formation underground is [of] a ship. Archaeological excavations must be launched..."

Turkish scientist's studies made that area a protected archeological site, and government of that province made it a Noah's Ark park. 

Some pseudo-archaeologists are suggesting that it was the yellow-ribbon activity of Ron Wyatt the reason why it was made by the provincial government as a Noah's Ark tourist destination.  

And other pseudo-archaeologists say that the reason why this is protected by the government is for tourist attractions (needless to say, pseudo-archaeologists do not recognize other scientists from their preliminary scientific testings on the structure).

It was David Fasold who was permitted by the Rector of the Erzurum's Ataturk University under the project leader, Associate Professor Salih Bayraktutan.

Fasold discovered circumstantial evidence to suggest that this structure could have been the fossilized shape of an ark:

(1) Its length and width are in agreement with what the Bible prescribed:

 "300 by 50 cubits."

 (Egyptian cubit is between 523.6 mm, 20.6 inches and 529.2 mm, 20.84 in);

 (2) Nine divisions are detected inside the buried structure, corroborating with what has been described by Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh: "Its innards I divided into nine parts," and the ark-shaped formation displays an area of 44 100, similar to flood hero's description:

"One IKU (acre) was its whole floor space" (Gardner and Maier, 1984). 

Guner (1986) reported that other streamlined rock-shapes have been found in the area, but according to geologist Bayraktutan, these shapes do not display the same morphological and internal features. 

Dr. Bayraktun  found it difficult to explain why the site had so many geometric properties if it were just some randomly formed natural outcrop, thus seems to confirm what the ground-penetrating radar detected in the ark fossil, that is, it has symmetry and regular distribution (Fasold, 1988).

 

The haste conclusion of Lorence Gene Collins based on the feelings of other investigators that its boat appearance be 

"ONLY superficial" 

is proved wrong by other scientific studies. 

Why the haste conclusion of Collins is bogus? Because he or even other scientists are not using 3-D images of the internal parts of the said mound as supporting sources. So, his conclusion that the boat-like appearance is "Only superficial"  is purely based on imagination. 

In 2014 geophysicist John Larsen was given a permission by the Turkish government to conduct with a then advance ground penetrating resistivity scanner, so that we have had now a scientific 3-D resistivity images of the internal portions of the ark fossil. And what he has seen using that scientific instrument? 

Scientific instrument used by geophysicist John Larsen and archaeologist & computer engineer Andrew Jones reveals that even 8 or 7 feet below the ground, the appearance of the structure is still like a ship (© 2020 by these scientists).

The ark shape is not just superficial as claimed by Collins but in fact even deep inside the ground. And this scientific confirmation that it is ship-shaped has partly vindicated the belief of renowned photogrammetry and Earth scientist Arthur Brandenberger of Ohio University.

(Credit: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/vg/video-gallery/3d-images-of-noahs-ark-to-be-shown-in-documentary/0 )

After scientific testings using  nondestructive cables to sent to and receive reflected electric signals in the ark-shaped object done by John Larsen and also by computer engineer & archaeologist Andrew Jones, 

Cem Sertesen, the director of the documentary 2017 “Noah’s Ark," commented that these are the actual images of the ship-shaped structure.

"They are neither fake nor simulation." 

"They show," he said to Anadolu Agency, "the entire ship buried underground."

"It's a ship, but it’s too early to call it Noah’s Ark. We have to do a lot of work. This can only be done with the support of universities and the Turkish state.” 

Therefore, so-called scientific opinion that the ship-shaped structure is ONLY surface appearance is of the pseudo-archaeologist. So, all biblical archaeologists who also have the same feeling-based opinion are themselves pseudo-archaeologists. Therefore, the so-called anti-pseudoarchaeologists are themselves sometimes pseudo-archaeologists. One reason why this happens is because antagonists have the habit of using ignorance as a tool to judge rather than to based on scientific experimentations. Scientific instruments can show to us that it is ship-shaped even deep inside the soil. 

Pseudo-archaeologists, usually Noah's ark antagonists, are in a habit of using a lie or fallacy, like saying Noah had built ark in southern Mesopotamia, when the Bible suggests that Adam lived in western part of Assyria and the ark was floating on the flooded earth of Ararat (Genesis 2:14-15 & 8:4).

In Gilgamesh Epic, Utnapishtim (Noah) had built his big boat near a body of water, most likely on Lake Van or on Lesser Araske river near Arzap. 

I am not saying that all biblical archaeologists are practicing this, but most of them become pseudo-archaeologists with regards to Noah's ark structure in the "mountains of Ararat."

Instead to correct the erroneous terminology usually use by laymen, they brought them into more error. One of the erroneous terminology is the term "Noah's ark" itself. 

If Noah's ark was made of biodegradable materials, then it is expected that now its materials have already decomposed, so what would be left likely is its shape, as expectedly the "shape"  could be fossilized by natural geological activities. So, what could we have had now is the ark-shaped fossil, which is the fossilized shape of the ark. 

And if it is an ark-shaped fossil, it is very unlikely to destroy it, that is, destroyers of ark-shaped fossil are enemies of the ark-shaped fossil. 

But Dr. Andre A. Snelling on September 1, 1992 (in Creation 14, no. 4) accused Agri governor Sevkit Ekinci of having " a number of times intervened to stop a dig [on it] because he may not want to run the risk that excavation shows it not to be the Ark, and thus have no further tourist potential." 

This high speculation is a form of a lie because even before it was declared as Noah's Ark tourist destination

 it was forbidden to dig. 

And any scientific examination of it, except destructive, is allowable since 1985. 

Why some scientists are engaging themselves in such a lie? 

Because there are westerner experts and their adherents believing that Noah's Ark landed on Mt. Ararat (Masis). 

The Bible does not say that the ark landed on Mt. Ararat, rather it says it had rested on the 

"mountains of Ararat." 

The Bible gives the region where it was rested, not the name of the "mount." 

 "Mountains" is plural and may refer to an area or region.