Does the Imago Mundi, Known as the world's oldest map, Indicate the Location of Noah's Ark?

Most are familiar with the biblical account of Noah’s ark—the vessel that saved Noah, his family and pairs of all land-dwelling animals from the Great Flood. Fewer are familiar with the parallel ark/Flood accounts from the ancient world. Accounts such as the more than 4,000-year-old Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, relaying the story of Utnapishtim and his ark, with parallels to the biblical account right down to the species of birds released upon landing. Another example is the Babylonian Epic of Atra-hasis, with parallels including the entrance of animals into the boat two-by-two.

The item was acquired by the British Museum in 1882, following the excavations of Assyriologist Hormuzd Rassam at Sippar (central Iraq). The tablet’s obverse (front) bears a circular, rudimentary “map” with several lines of text above, and a reverse bearing additional text explaining the map in more detail. Dating at the earliest to the ninth century b.c.e.—or more likely somewhere closer to the seventh century b.c.e.—the item is famous as being the oldest map of the known world.

"The Imago Mundi depicts a circular world map, illustrating early Babylonian ideas about the world's creation. The map is thought to show the entire known world at the time, with Mesopotamia at the bottom center....On the reverse side of the artifact, passages reportedly provide a guide describing what a traveler would encounter on their journey, including a path to "Urartu" and specific instructions on how to get there. One passage says: "To the fourth, to which you must travel seven leagues." Another passage reportedly instructs those on the journey to go through "seven leagues to see something that is thick as a parsiktu-vessel. The term "parsiktu" appears on other ancient Babylonian tablets, referencing the scale of a vessel meant to withstand the legendary Great Flood. Researchers believe that Urartu, also known as Ararat, is linked to an ancient Mesopotamian poem recounting a family who, like Noah, landed their ark to preserve life following the 150-day flood. As the flooding ended, they were safely stationed at one of the peaks of Urartu, which aligns with "Ararat," the Hebrew term for the mountain where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest after the flood.

Most interesting, for our purposes, are the triangular extensions protruding from the map. These represent—again, very rudimentarily—mysterious mountainous territories at the limits of the known world. Though most of these triangles are missing, there would have originally been eight of them, and they correspond specifically to divisions of text on the reverse of the tablet, which explain these locations in more detail.

The first-century historian Josephus relates the following, in retelling the story of Noah in Antiquities of the Jews: “[T]he Armenians call this place, The Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day.” He then quotes the early third-century b.c.e. Babylonian historian Berossus (among others):