In 2009, Douglas Simmonds, son of RAF pilot, Leonard Simmonds, who’d acquire a small cuneiform tablet while serving in the Middle East in the 1940s, took his father’s tablet to Dr. Irving Finkel, one of the world’s leading Assyriologist, a curator at the British Museum.  Dr. Finkel translated the tablet and discovered that it contained a remarkable account of the Mesopotamian Flood story, where Atrahasis, the Mesopotamian Noah, was commanded by Enki, the son of the High God An, to construct a circular boat to survive the deluge.

The tablet, known as The Ark Tablet, dated to the Old Babylonian period (circa 1900-1700 B.C.), is particularly significant for its detailed portrayal of the ark as circular in shape, its emphasis on housing the heart of life within, its meticulous attention to waterproofing the vessel, and for its focus on the ark as a sanctuary offering protection from the catastrophic floodwaters.  These elements collectively suggest that the ark was not just a boat, but a temple- a microcosmic model of the macrocosm.

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