THE REALNOAH’S ARC1x50 min - Filmed in HD - A Blink Films ProductionBritish Museum curator, Dr Irving Finkel and a team of experts embark on a challenge to build the vessel that inspired the Biblical Ark, using instructions taken from an ancient tablet. The quest reveals an untold history of boat building and story-telling that sheds new light on the origins of Noah’s Ark and the Hebrew Bible.

In 1948, a British RAF pilot, Leonard Simmons, discovered a tablet covered in mysterious writing when he was serving in Iraq. He brought it home as an intriguing memento, and it sat collecting dust on his mantelpiece for decades.

After 40 years lying forgotten, his son Douglas brought it to an expert, Irving Finkel, at the British Museum. Immediately it became clear that the tablet was 3,700 years old. Closer investigation revealed that it was an ancient instruction manual for building a huge boat to survive a flood – a boat that would go on to inspire the Epic of Gilgamesh, which in turn led to the story of Noah’s Ark. The tablet reveals that the boat was circular in shape, made of reeds and bitumen, and designed to carry a large number of animals. Some 3,700 years later, Dr Irving Finkel sets out on a journey to build a version of the ark described in the tablet. He tracks down three ancient boat-building experts who have experience in reconstructing vessels from texts and manuscripts. The tablet describes the ark as a giant coracle made out of plant fibre bundles attached to a wooden frame, entirely covered in bitumen – to serve as a waterproofing seal. While the ark building team start construction, landscape archaeologist, Professor Jenny Pournelle is engaged in a revolutionary coring project in Southern Iraq. Her aim is to learn more about the deep history of Iraq’s landscape. During her study she has learnt more about Iraq’s flooding history; she has found evidence of not one great flood - like the flood myth suggests - but many localised floods during different periods in antiquity. Jenny believes this persistent flooding environment created the flood myth that inspired the story of Noah’s Ark.

The team complete the 35 tonne, 12 metre diameter, reed, wood and bitumen ark. The climax of the film follows Irving as he boards his floating ark and is towed out into the lake. It is a dramatic end to an extraordinary journey.

© Blink Films

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