How Not to Find the Ark

In 1970 AND 1971, Ark searchers faced a grim prospect owing to the political situation in eastern Turkey. Demonstrations by leftist students in Istanbul made waves that splashed against the Ankara government, and the government, in turn, pounded on key areas of potential dissent.

Mt. Ararat, the geographical and symbolic center of the native Kurdish population of ancient Armenia, constituted such a hot spot, for the Kurds in Russian Erivan, just across the Turkish border from Ararat, could well claim that Turkish Kurds deserved “liberation”—Russian-style—from Turkish “oppression.” So in 1970 the only Westerners permitted on Ararat were those who were willing to stick to an “orthodox” trail on the mountain’s southern face; Americans (because of negative Russian-American relations) were discouraged from doing even that, and only by special permission was I allowed on August 17 to conquer the summit. In 1971, the situation remained basically unchanged, but my son David and I were able to do some preliminary work on the crucial north face (the side of the mountain that overlooks the Russian border and where all Ark sightings have concentrated).

The middle of this summer (1972), however, brought a dramatic change in the permissions atmosphere. The south face—the route from Dogubayazit—was suddenly declared off-limits and the north face opened up!

Our own plans had been laid months before this shift in the political climate. On Thursday, May 25, David and I drove from Strasbourg, France, to Frankfurt, Germany, for a vital planning session with Dr. Lawrence B. Hewitt, physician, botanist, and head of the Archaeological Research Foundation expedition that in 1966 carried out the most detailed twentieth-century investigation of the geology and glaciology of Ararat.

Three days later we met again in London, in private session with a member of the Turkish presidential family. We were assured of clearances to work in the key area on the mountain, and we were informed that a certain American organization still soliciting funds for Ararat work would never be allowed back on the mountain, because of that organization’s activities in the Near East in 1970.

With assurance of government clearance at the top level, we carried out operations in August on the north face, eliminated the east side of the Ahora gorge as a possible resting place for the vessel, and obtained complete photographic coverage of the west side of the gorge in preparation for future systematic coverage of the area between the gorge and the site of Navarra’s 1955 find, above Lake Kop, of 5,000-year-old hand-tooled wood. Our expedition activities came off like clockwork, aided by the superlative management of Dr. Hewitt, the labors of Eryl Cummings, Gary Oliver, and my son, and the services of a translator and two gendarmes supplied by the Turkish government.

The only clouds across the exploratory horizon came from the presence of five well-meaning arkeologists who appeared as if by magic when the north-face restrictions were—as they put it—“providentially relaxed.” The possibility that their activities may herald a tidal wave of similar efforts leads me to some words of admonition, based upon their work and upon that of the American organization referred to earlier.

My advice is given negatively, in deference to the supposed death-wish of Ark searchers who really do not want to carry out a thorough search for fear it will prove them wrong—as in the case of the traveler in Bishop Blougram’s Apology who “saw the Ark a-top of Ararat;/But did not climb there since ‘twas getting late, / And robber bands infest the mountain’s foot.” In order not to find the Ark, robber bands are by no means necessary; the following techniques will certainly suffice!

1. Insult the Turkish government. One of the members of the highly publicized American organization that tried unsuccessfully to operate on Ararat in 1970 was so disturbed by the refusal of Ankara to provide his group with appropriate permissions that he castigated the Turkish government in comments to Greek journalists. As a result, this organization is permanently persona non grata in Turkey.

2. Obtain only local permissions to climb; don’t bother with red tape or the central government in Ankara. This procedure was followed by the five-man team that turned up this summer. Without clearance from Ankara, the group had no gendarme protection. The Kurds on the mountain enjoy a certain amount of bullying and pilfering in the absence of gendarmes, so the five found (a) their vehicle used for target practice, and (b) all their equipment stolen, including the very trousers worn by one of them.

3. Ignore the safety rules of mountaineering, and don’t clutter up your team with a physician. The five searchers this summer had no doctor with them (one of them had some kind of certificate in mountain first-aid). Leaving the first-aid man at camp, three of them (a civil-engineering graduate, a Bible-college graduate, and an industrialist with nine children back in the States) climbed to an extremely precarious position on the mountain, got caught in a lightning storm, stayed in the open, were struck by lightning and knocked out, and after partially recovering somehow made their way back to base camp. Had they been permanently injured or killed, the authorities would doubtless have stopped all exploratory work on Ararat for the indefinite future.

4. Rely on your spirituality. When questioned about the wisdom of such activities as the preceding (“shall we sin that grace may the more abound?”), the reply was that they were doing the Lord’s will, and were led by his Spirit. (The group has personal, though not official, connections with an extremely rightist, Americanist, fundamentalist college in southern California.) The leader of the group constantly talked about his “witnessing to the Turks and Kurds,” but I quickly discovered that his knowledge of their languages was so paltry that he could not give the simplest gospel presentation. When will we learn as evangelicals that the Gospel is not our “experience” or our “spirituality,” but the message of Scripture that must be conveyed in words? And when will we learn that our sanctification can never absolve us from using our heads?

If the Ark is ever to be found, it will require the consistent, long-term planning of a Cape Kennedy operation, not the perspective of a Boy Scout outing. Perhaps the Ark is no more significant than the cradle in which the Saviour lay on the first Christmas, but Luther saw fit to compare that cradle with the Scriptures. The quest for a scriptural artifact demands the clarity of heart of a relic-seeker and the clarity of mind of a scientific investigator.

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