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Contents 1 Comments 1.1 Sections 1.2 An alternative approach 1.3 Personalities inexorably linked 1.4 New section, "Description" 1.5 Mt Cudi/Judi

[edit] Comments

[edit] Sections

Dear Wikipedians who wanted sections and references:

I have put some sections in and references where the one guy wanted them. I have removed the tags (is it appropriate for me to do that? I do not know. If it was inappropriate, I apologize and will learn my lesson.) As to the "spam" external link, I think it is just one the "Noah's Ark Adrift in Dark Waters" one, which is a link to where June Dawes sells the book. However, there is a brief description of the contents of the book, which I think is helpful and I have duly noted in the links section now. I hope that helps.

TuckerResearch 23:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An alternative approach

It seems to me that the article is unduly personality-oriented - Fasold, Wyatt et al get all the attention at the expense of what's actually at the site. There are already articles about these individuals. How about re-doing this to concentrate on the site itself - what's visibly there, the claims and their history, the scientific investigations? PiCo 07:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personalities inexorably linked

The "who did what when" aspects of the article under the "Discovery" section are important, and necessarily speak of the Fasold, Wyatt et al. Those should remain as is, and be added to as further work is conducted at this site. The discussion of the Collins paper and some of the controversy between the views of varioius individuals/camps in the "Doubts" section might be moved to the Fasold article. Firewall 06:18, 30 September 2006 (EST)

The Durupinar article is quite literally an abridged version of the David Fasold article, with very little, if any, additional material. It realy does need to be re-thought. That said, I agre that a brief history of the discovery and promotion of tyhe site is still needed, and that the current length of the history section of this article is about right - but it needs to be less Fasold-centric, and it needs far more on what's actually at the site. I'll have a try later and you can se what you think. PiCo 04:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New section, "Description"

Added a new section, headed "Description", which simply sets out the geology of the ste in as neutral a manner as I can manage. The material regarding the iden tification of the site as the Ark is still there, but I had to rearrange some sentences from the existing introduction to allow the new section to make sense. Added an illustration to show what a syncline looks like. (Would be nice to haev some more miullustrations - one of a reconstruction of the Ark, one of Ron Wyatt...). Some more work could be done - I still feel the overall article is excessivly Fasold-centric. For discussion.PiCo 10:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The description section is a good idea, but the description needs to be accurate. The description that is there after the last edit is taken from Collins' article which is full of assumptions (in private conversations with a Turkish geologist who has been on site many times, Collins' article in his words is, "not significant"). Collins never visited the Durupinar site and made his assumptions from Fasold's aerial photographs and comments from Fasold. His analysis of materials is made from Fasold's undocumented uncataloged collection of rocks in cardboard boxes his garage. The description as it stands comes across as fact, rather than conjecture (which it is). Further, the inclusion of the syncline photo implies that it was taken at the Durupinar site (I had to re-read it closely to see that this wasn't from the site), and is thus, misleading. Ground penetration radar studies (by Fasold, Baumgardner, Wyatt) concentrated on the structure itself and not the surrounding area to either side (in order to establish that it is part of the existing geology and not transported there in the mud slide as some claim). Also, bar holes dug to extract samples again only concentrated on the structure itself, and not the surroundings. To make the claim that this is a doubly plunging syncline is just one of several assumptions and carries less authority than some others made by on-site geologists. I think this section needs to be dropped until it can be made to reflect other views because in its present form, it is quite misleading. Firewall 03:10, 1 October 2006 (EST)

Thanks. I haven't got time to do any more right now, and won't for a week or more, but I'll get back when in I can. In the meantime fel free to do whatever editing you think appropriate. PiCo 02:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mt Cudi/Judi

Where does the claim originate that Mt Cudi, which the Kor'an describes as the Ark's resting place, is close to Mt Ararat? They are far apart - see chapter 4 of David Rohl's book Legend, in particular the map on p147. Rohl argues that Ararat in the Bible means Urartu, a region far south of Mt Ararat. - AG, Stockport, UK.

There are at least five Mt Judi/Mt Cudis in the region. The Durupinar one is very recent, being renamed in the 80s by the provincial governor in order to encourage tourism. PiCo 01:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the reference concerning the 80s governor making this pronouncement? In a 1998 meeting at Atatürk University, we heard from a Prof. of Islamic Religion who made the claim that al Cudi referred to a region and not a specific peak. It would be interesting to know if ANY of the multiple peaks named Cudi in the region were so named prior to the Quran or whether they are all artifacts of people naming peaks Cudi based on what they read in the Quran. User:Firewall 10:38, 14 December 2006

There is an unbroken tradition that the Mt Judi shown on Rohl's map is the one referred to in the Kor'an; this tradition runs further back at least to Josephus (Rohl p148). I suggest the sentence saying Judi/Cudi is close to Durupinar/Ararat be deleted. - AG, Stockport, UK.

There's certainly a Mt Cudi at Durupinar - the question is when and how it got it's name. Drat, I can't find my source for the statement that it was renamed by the governor of the region in the 80s - as usual, I got it out of Google, that reliable source of trustworthy information. But the name of the governor was Sevkit Ekinci, and the province is called Agri. Have a look here. And then google away. Good luck :-)PiCo 04:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've been checking with my contacts in Turkiye, esp. the geologist formerly over this region. He informs me that (in his own words):

1. in Quran the statement is this way: Noahs Ark rested on the Cudi ( Al Cudi).. not on the Cebel al Cudi ( Cudi Mountain) therefore location described in Quran is not a Peak or Mount, it is an area (wide and high) so, we do not need any peak called Cudi or Ararat... near [Durupinar] site. Similar hint from Bible, by making it plural... the Ark landed on the mountains of Ararat - the same approach again, it is area - not a point
2. The sharp point to SE of the Site, at Iran Frontier, has no particular name on maps. There is Ziyaret Tepe ( which means Ziggurat Hill ) ... but no Cudi name....I didnt see any map with this name....

This is consistent with what we were told in 1998 by the Atatürk University Prof. of Islamic Religion. Regarding Sevkit Ekinci in the Snelling article, he's long gone, having since been replaced by many other governors. These governors are all appointed by Ankara (coming from western Turkiye), are not usually familiar with this region of eastern Turkiye, and probably unlikely to name topography since this would be in conflict with the official military maps of the region. I have one of these military maps (ca 1980s) and there is no reference to Cudi although Ziyaret Dağı (Ziyaret mountain) does refer to escarpment above the site (as mentioned in the personal communication above).

If, in fact, al Cudi refers to the region, one would not expect to find a peak with this name. Note that Ağrı Dağı ("painful mountain" in Turkçe) did not get dubbed "Mt. Ararat" until recent history either, whereas the "mountains of Urartu" (Ararat) which does not exclusively refer to the volcano Ağrı Dağı, is language at least as old as the writing of the book of Genesis. User:Firewall 8:38, 17 December 2006

Interesting. I wouldn't delete the statement in the article that there's a Mt Cudi at Durupinar, simply because so many people now believe this - if they don't see it, they'll ask why it's not there and probably add it back in. What's needed is a sentence or two saying that the name is if doubtful authenticity - and giving references that anyone can check (which means, unfortunately, that your Turkish friends can't be used as sources, since not everyone can check with them). PiCo 02:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thats why I asked earlier what your source was. It is difficult to argue from the point of "absence of information", so stating that there is no Mt. Cudi near Durupinar because it doesn't show up on recent maps (or any maps) is not a "proof". Fasold and others told me that the peak to the SW is Cudi, but no documentation... The "regional" al Cudi arguement seems to be plausible, but again, other than verbal claims, there is no written source that I can appeal to right now. Personally, I don't put any credance in the Ağrı Govenor story because I have met with several of them and they simply don't have the horsepower to change maps in the military zone along the Iranian border. I think the best thing to do is to find the earliest documented maps of the region and show that they either DO or DO NOT reference a Mt. Cudi within 100 miles of Durupinar. Doing this still doesn't negate the "al Cudi is a region" arguement, but the basis for that would likewise need to be substantiated in some early writings-- somthing that will probably take an Islamic scholar to dig up. User:Firewall 12:07, 18 December 2006

I've made an addition to the footnote in the article (the footnote immediately after the first reference to Mt Cudi) - see what you think. But I really do think that in the interests of accuracy the article should say that this only one of several Cudy/Judis. PiCo 05:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The footnote is good and the reference to Geissler's site is probably as good as you can get as background material for this subject, but in the main text it still says, "it is near one of the mountains called al Cudi..." which I don't believe can be substantiated. Perhaps it would be better to say, "it is near several currently unnamed peaks, one of which some claim to be al Cudi..." Then I would add something like, "On the other hand, scholars of Islamic religion at Turkiye's Atatürk University have suggested that "al Cudi" actually refers to a region, not a specific mountain, in much the same way that the Bible refers to the mountains (plural) or Urartu (Ararat) rather than a single mountain (see Genesis 8:4)." User:Firewall 10:08, 18 December 2006