Noah's Ark

"Archaeology is the search for fact… not truth."

The subject of this article has conflicting canon sources, with contradictory information originating from Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. A unified continuity for this has not been established by Lucasfilm Ltd.

ARTIFACT
Noah's Ark
Discovery
Location	Mount Ararat, Turkey Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq
Date	1927 1937
Discoverer	Indiana Jones Emmerich Voss
Collector	None

"Look, for me, it's not a matter of belief. Maybe there was an ark; maybe there were lots of arks that set out during some great flood in ancient times. Maybe there is one of them on this mountain. But the Ark was just a legend."

―Indiana Jones, on Mount Ararat in 1927

Noah's Ark was, according to Abrahamic religions, a large vessel built at God's command to save Noah, his family and a core stock of the world's animals from the Great Flood.

According to most traditions, as the waters of the flood receded, the Ark landed on Mount Ararat, modern day Turkey.

The story is told in chapters 6-9 of the book of Genesis, with later variations in the Qur'an and a number of other sources.

History

"You found the Ark of the Covenant, yes, but I found Noah's Ark!"
"What makes you think it's the real one?"

―Emmerich Voss and Indiana Jones

The story of Noah's Ark was retold in Genesis.

According to the Bible, Noah received instructions from God to build an ark to bring aboard samples of the different animal species of the world in order to repopulate the Earth after the flood waters of the incoming Great Flood, which God intended to generate to eradicate the sinful but had chosen Noah and his family to be spared from, subsided. Once his Ark was assembled, in order for him to accomplish the task, Noah was gifted seventeen stones from the Metatron, an angel acting as God's voice, and imbued the stones within his Ark's wheel to teleport the animals on board across the globe. Following the event, the Ark was seemingly hidden away from the world while the Nephilim Order was established to watch over the stones to protect them and prevent anyone from finding them and misusing them if they were to find out Noah's Ark.

In 1927, American archaeologist Indiana Jones, Jack Shannon, Vladimir Zobolotsky and his daughter Katrina sought Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat.

The Ark in 1927.

They eventually found what they believed to be the Ark, as Jones speculated that maybe there were lots of Arks set out during the Great Flood in ancient times, half-buried in a glacier. After Jones' party climbed inside the vessel for shelter, a series of gunshots fired outside caused an avalanche which sent the Ark sliding down the mountainside. Coming to a rest, the Ark was buried under an ocean of snow, once more hidden from the world.

Nine years later, Indy sarcastically told Reeko that he would pay him five hundred dollars if he had Noah's Ark, the Holy Grail and Atlantis "wrapped up in one".

In 1937, Nazi archaeologist Emmerich Voss of the Third Reich Special Antiquities Collection found a vast ancient vessel buried under the Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq while searching for the last of the seventeen stones connected to the sites along the Great Circle. When Voss' forces captured Indiana Jones who was chasing the Allmaker, the last relic, to keep it from the Third Reich, Voss declared that he had found Noah's Ark much like Jones had found Moses' Ark of the Covenant. Although Jones questioned its legitimacy (having already acknowledged the vessel as the Ark to his companion Gina Lombardi), Voss went on to explain the central recurring figure in Great Flood mythologies as the archetypal Noah who used the stones' teleportation powers to save the Earth's animals from the rising water.

The fate of the Ark.

The Nazis took the Ark out onto Lake Hammar to experiment on the stones which rested within the Ark's wheel and Jones tried in vain to warn Voss that Noah had been chosen by God for his task. When Voss activated the relics to create portals with which he could perform blitzkriegs in multiple enemy countries on Nazi Germany's behalf, his actions also invited a second Great Flood but the giant Locus, a third party from the Nephilim Order allied with Jones trying to ensure no-one captured the artifacts, took control of the stones and killed the Nazi leader after he refused to accept the consequences of his actions nor obey his commands. After Jones and Gina Lombardi abandoned ship, Locus teleported Noah's Ark through a portal out of mankind's reach to Antarctica.

Behind the scenes

There is inconsistency in the Indiana Jones continuity in that the titular character has encountered Noah's Ark twice.

In 1927, during Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge, Indiana Jones and his party find Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, Turkey (albeit after Jones shares his personal speculation that maybe there were lots of Arks that set out during a Great Flood in ancient time, considering Noah's one as a legend) half-buried in a glacier before the Ark slides down the mountainside which causes it to be buried under snow.

Then, ten years later in 1937, Jones once again encounters Noah's Ark but this time under Emmerich Voss' Nazi base at the Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq as part of the events of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. As Jones questions the legitimacy of the find (albeit after confirming that it is the Ark to Gina Lombardi) and Voss names Noah as the hypothetical helmsman of the vessel for the sake of argument, it's unclear to what extent (if any) that the Genesis Deluge storyline has been deliberately, if not outright, retconned. Ed Curtis-Sivess, the Senior Narrative Designer for the game, was seen with a copy of the book on their desk in a behind-the-scenes video with BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

In both appearances, the Ark is ultimately left abandoned in the snow. Also the design of the Ark in Great Circle is different from the version seen on the Indiana Jones World Map.

Appearances

• Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge (First appearance)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark novel (First mentioned)
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Revenge of the Ancients" (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (Mentioned only)

Sources

• Close Encounters of the Random Kind (Ambiguously canonical appearance)
• From Slavery to Freedom (Non-fiction source)
• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
• Indiana Jones action figures (Pack: The Lost Wave)
• Indiana Jones World Map
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Digital Art Book