Mountains of Ararat Mountains of Ararat In the Book of Genesis, the mountains of Ararat (Biblical Hebrew , Tiberian "", Septuagint: ) is the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood. It corresponds to ancient Assyrian Urartu, an exonym for the Kingdom of Van. Citing historians Berossus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus, Josephus writes in his "Antiquities of the Jews" that "[t]he ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia, . . . over Minyas, called Baris." Likewise, in the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translates Genesis 8:4 to
Mount Ararat fire left in the old volcano of Ararat?" The Genesis flood narrative was linked to the Armenian myth of origin by the early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi. In his "History of Armenia", he wrote that Noah and his family first settled in Armenia and later moved to Babylon. Hayk, a descendant of Japheth, a son of Noah, revolted against Bel (the biblical Nimrod) and returned to the area around Mount Ararat, where he established the roots of the Armenian nation. He is thus considered the legendary founding father and the name giver of the Armenian people. According to Razmik Panossian,