David Fasold

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From Noah's Ark: Adrift in Dark Waters - David Fasold with the Durupinar ark site in the background
From Noah's Ark: Adrift in Dark Waters - David Fasold with the Durupinar ark site in the background

David Franklin Fasold (February 23, 1939 - April 26, 1998) was a former United States Merchant Marine officer and salvage expert who is best known for his book The Ark of Noah, chronicling his early expeditions to the so-called Durupinar Noah's Ark site (Turkish: Durupınar). Fasold was a self-proclaimed "Arkologist".

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[edit] The Durupinar Site

The Durupinar site is a boat-shaped mound site named after Turkish Army Captain İlhan Durupınar who identified the formation in a Turkish Air Force aerial photo while on a mapping mission for NATO in 1959. It is near a village known as Uzengili (once known as Nasar) and a mount named Maşher Daĝi, it is near a mountain called Cudi (Al Judi), named in the Qur'an as the Ark's resting place. The site is located at approximately 39°26′26.26″N, 44°14′04.26″E two miles north of the Iranian border, ten miles southeast of Doğubeyazıt, in the Ağri province, and eighteen miles south of the Greater Mount Ararat summit, at an elevation of approximately 6,300 feet.

In May of 1948, heavy rains combined with three earthquakes exposed the impression from the mud. After İlhan Durupınar noticed the object in October 1959, he informed the Turkish government of his discovery. A group from the Archeological Research Foundation which included George E. Vandeman, İlhan Durupınar, and Dr. Brandenberger surveyed the site in September of 1960. After two days of digging and dynamiting inside the boat-shaped formation the disappointed expedition members found only soil and rocks. The official news release concluded that "there were no visible archaeological remains" and that this formation "was a freak of nature and not man-made". The site was ignored until 1977, when it was rediscovered and promoted by self-styled archaeologist and explorer Ron Wyatt. Throughout the 1980s Wyatt repeatedly tried to interest other people in the site, including ark hunter and former astronaut James Irwin and creationist Dr. John D. Morris, neither of whom were convinced the site was the ark.

In 1985 Wyatt was joined by David Fasold and geophysicist Dr. John Baumgardner for the expedition recounted in Fasold's The Ark of Noah. As soon as Fasold saw the site, he exclaimed that it was a ship wreck. Fasold had brought a state of the art frequency generator, set on the wave length for iron and searched the formation for internal iron loci. This techinique was later compared to dowsing by the site's detractors. Fasold and the team measured the length of the formation as 538 feet, close to the 300 cubits of the Bible if the Egyptian cubit of 20.6 inches is used. Later measurements by others found it to be 515 feet, exactly 300 Egytpian cubits in length. Fasold believed the team had found the fossilized remains of the upper deck and that the original reed substructure has disappeared. In the nearby village of Kazan, so-called drogue stones that they believed were once attached to the ark were investigated.

[edit] The Ark of Noah and the break with Wyatt

Ron Wyatt and David Fasold were both featured on a 20/20 television special soon after their expedition. Wyatt wrote a small booklet, presenting many of the evidence found at the site, including petrified wood from deck timbers, pitch, and metal rivets. Fasold took a different approach, concentrating on pre-biblical literature and, as a nautical engineer, recognized the likelihood that it was made, like other ancient large boats and rafts, of reeds. He concluded that the enigmatic "gopher wood" of Genesis 6:14 was in fact a covering of bitumen and reeds, and the words was related to kaphar or pitch. He also made the claim that there were two Dilmuns, one located on Bahrain and the original one in the Zagros mountains.[1] In 1988, Fasold published his own book, The Ark of Noah.

In The Ark of Noah, Fasold took many fundamentalists and creationists to task for insisting that the ark was rectangular in shape, made of wood, and must have landed on Mount Ararat (when the Bible states "the mountains of Ararat"). He also critically examined and dismissed many previous ark sightings at Ararat. The exposure of his find in the media led to further expeditions to the site in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During this time, Wyatt supposedly discovered petrefied wood and metal items, and exposed the remains of decayed rib timbers at the site. Fasold doubted many of Wyatt's claims during this time. While Fasold became a member of a special Turkish commission on Noah's ark during this time, Wyatt was accredited for his determined research in the face of severe opposition, and was invited to be guest of honor at the opening ceremony for the visitors centre, opened by the regional Turkish Governor, Sevkit Ekinci.

[edit] Doubts and the Plimer Case

After a few scientific expeditions to the Durupinar site that included drillings and excavation in the 1990s, Fasold began to have doubts that the Durupinar formation was Noah's ark. He surmised that if it was not Noah's boat, ancient peoples had erroneously believed the site was the ark. In 1996 Fasold's name was attached to a paper by Lorence Collins entitled "Bogus 'Noah's Ark' from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure" that concluded the boat-shaped formation was a curios upswelling of mud that just happened to look like a boat. During the 1990s, Fasold was caught between three opposing camps that derided his interest in the site. On one side were orthodox creationists who believed the ark could only lay on Mt. Ararat; the second camp was comprised of Wyatt and others who continued their research and made some very significant discoveries; the third camp included skeptical geologists and biblical minimalists who called the site a hoax. In 1997, Fasold was involved in an Australian case against a creationist named Allen Roberts who reproduced some of Fasold's artwork without permission. A co-plaintiff was Australian Humanist and skeptic Dr. Ian Plimer, who sued Roberts's organization Ark Search, claiming that Roberts and Ark Search made false and misleading claims about the Durupinar site. The case was promoted by the media around Australia and the world as a second Scopes Monkey Trial. Although Plimer's action against Roberts failed, the Australian courts awarded Fasold $2,500 in copyright damages, money he never collected.

[edit] Reaffirmation of the Site and Death

In early 1998, shortly before his death, Fasold again reaffirmed his belief that the Durupinar site was in fact the location of the ark and worked tirelessly to promote the Durupinar site on the internet.[2] Many observers, including Fasold and his friends, believed that people like Plimer and Collins had used Fasold's doubts to further their own agenda. In April 1998, David Fasold died of cancer in Corvallis, Oregon, financially broken from years of expeditions and research.

[edit] Writings and sources

[edit] Books

  • Fasold, David (1988). The Ark of Noah. New York: Wynwood Press. 
  • Fasold, David (1990). The Discovery of Noah's Ark. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. 
  • Fasold, David (1990). The Ark of Noah. New York: Knightsbridge Press. 

[edit] Books about Fasold's researches

  • Dawes, June (2000). Noah's Ark: Adrift in Dark Waters. Belrose, NSW, Australia: Noahide.  A biography of Fasold by an Australian friend.
  • Berlitz, Charles (1987). The Lost Ship of Noah. New York: Putnam's.  A work about Noah's ark with significant sections on Fasold.

[edit] Articles

  • Lorence D. Collins and David Fasold (1996). "Bogus 'Noah's Ark' from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure". Journal of Geoscience Education 44. 

[edit] Video

  • Ian Plimer and David Fasold. (1994) Crusaders for the Lost Ark [Documentary]. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corp..

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Fasold makes this claim in pp. 206-211 of The Ark of Noah, years before archaeologist David Rohl did in chapter eight of his book Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation. There are other similarities between their theories, though arrived at by different methodologies.
  2. ^ This comes from a phone conversation between Fasold and Durupinar proponent Don Patten, according to a letter located at Patten letter; see also Dawes, Noah's Ark: Adrift in Dark Waters.

[edit] External links and sources

[edit] Pro-Durupinar Sites

[edit] Anti-Durupinar Sites

[edit] Fasold/Plimer v. Allen/Ark Search Case

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