Was Noah's Ark ROUND?

[Fay Dickson-- AKA doofs]

Was Noah's Ark ROUND? 3,700-year-old clay tablet reveals giant boat was made out of reeds and bitumen 

• Dr Irving Finkel has translated cuneiform text on an 3,700-old clay tablet 
  
• The ancient script details the Mesopotamian story of Noah's Ark 
  
• The text also contains instructions on how to build an ark to escape a flood 
  
• But its describes the craft as being a round 220-ft diameter coracle 
  
• The design is very different to the popular imagining of a traditional ship 
  

By MARK PRIGG

PUBLISHED: 14:12 EST, 24 January 2014 | UPDATED: 04:37 EST, 25 January 2014

It was a vast boat that saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood.

But a controversial new theory claims that in fact, Noah's Ark was round - and made of reeds.

a leading academic claims a recently deciphered 4,000-year-old tablet from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) reveals the striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah.

It was a vast boat that saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood.

But a controlversial new theory claims that in fact, Noah's Ark was round - and made of reeds.

a leading academic claims a recently deciphered 4,000-year-old tablet from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) reveals the striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah. 

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Irving Finkel, curator in charge of cuneiform clay tablets at the British Museum, poses with the 4000 year old clay tablet containing the story of the Ark and the flood, that claims the Ark was actually round

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN ARK

The text describes god speaking to Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who is the Noah figure in earlier versions of the ark story. 

He says: 'Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same.'

The ancient Babylonian text describes the ark as a round 220-ft diameter coracle with walls 20-ft high.

According to the tablet, the ark had two levels and a roof on the top. 

The craft was divided into sections to divide the various animals into their own sections.

The 60 lines of text, which Dr Finkel describes as a 'detailed construction manual for building an ark', claims the craft was built using ropes and reeds before being smeared with bitumen to make it waterproof.

It tells a similar story, complete with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle — as well as the key instruction that animals should enter 'two by two.'

The tablet went on display at the British Museum today, and soon engineers will follow the ancient instructions to see whether the vessel could actually have sailed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545494/Was-Noahs-Ar...