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The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions)

A palm-sized cuneiform text giving the flood hero a coracle to build

Beginnings & the Patriarchs · tablet · Accepted by scholars · found 1985

Found 1985 — Brought to the British Museum in 1985 by Douglas Simmonds, whose father Leonard Simmonds had acquired it in the Middle East around 1945–48; read and published by Irving Finkel (British Museum) in 2009–2014

Where Unknown findspot in Iraq (unprovenanced) (Iraq)

Dates from c. 1900–1700 BCE · Old Babylonian · Primeval history; the Flood tradition

Now at British Museum, London (on loan from the Simmonds family), displayed beside the Babylonian Map of the World

How The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions) was found

Simmonds showed the tablet to Finkel at a museum identification day. Finkel later borrowed it, read all 60 lines, and published it in 'The Ark Before Noah' (2014). A full-size coracle built to its instructions was floated in Kerala, India, for a 2014 documentary.

What it is

A clay tablet 11.5 by 6 cm, written on both sides in 60 lines of Akkadian cuneiform. The god Enki tells Atra-hasis to build a boat that is round, with an area of about 3,600 square metres and walls 6 m high, made of coiled rope waterproofed with bitumen, with the animals entering 'two by two'. The text is a version of the Atrahasis flood story.

Why it matters for the Bible

The tablet is a real, accepted addition to the Mesopotamian flood texts, older than the Gilgamesh Tablet XI copy from Nineveh. It gives the first detailed boat specifications in any flood account and uses the phrase 'two by two' known from Genesis 7. Its round coracle shape shows that the story adapted to local boat-building: Genesis describes a rectangular chest sealed with pitch, the Babylonian text a giant reed-and-rope river boat. Scholars accept the reading; the disagreement is only about how the biblical and Babylonian versions relate.

The Hebrew word: KOH-fer

כֹּפֶר

כֹּפֶר is pronounced KOH-fer and means pitch, bitumen (Genesis 6:14); the same word family as 'atonement covering' (Strong's H3724).

People this discovery connects to

Events

Building the ark; animals entering two by two

The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions) in Scripture

Genesis 6:14 'Make yourself an ark... and cover it inside and out with pitch'; the tablet likewise specifies bitumen waterproofing. (First mention of ark (Noah).)

Genesis 7:9 'Two by two they came to Noach into the ark'; the tablet uses the same expression for the animals.

Questions people ask

What is The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions)?
A clay tablet 11.5 by 6 cm, written on both sides in 60 lines of Akkadian cuneiform. The god Enki tells Atra-hasis to build a boat that is round, with an area of about 3,600 square metres and walls 6 m high, made of coiled rope waterproofed with bitumen, with the animals entering 'two by two'. The text is a version of the Atrahasis flood story.

When was The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions) discovered?
It was found in 1985 by Brought to the British Museum in 1985 by Douglas Simmonds, whose father Leonard Simmonds had acquired it in the Middle East around 1945–48; read and published by Irving Finkel (British Museum) in 2009–2014, at Unknown findspot in Iraq (unprovenanced).

Where is The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions) today?
British Museum, London (on loan from the Simmonds family), displayed beside the Babylonian Map of the World.

Which Bible verses does The 'Ark Tablet' (Old Babylonian round-ark instructions) relate to?
Genesis 6:14, Genesis 7:9.

Related discoveries

Sources

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