Mount Ararat this legend "makes Armenia the cradle of all civilisation since Noah's Ark landed on the 'Armenian' mountain of Ararat. […] it connects Armenians to the biblical narrative of human development. […] it makes Mount Ararat the national symbol of all Armenians, and the territory around it the Armenian homeland from time immemorial." Mount Ararat has been depicted on the coat of arms of Armenia consistently since 1918. The First Republic's coat of arms was designed by architect Alexander Tamanian and painter Hakob Kojoyan. This coat of arms was readopted by the legislature of the Republic of Armenia on April 19,
Mount Ararat "largely because it would have been the first peak to emerge from the receding flood waters." Ararat is where the European tradition and most of Western Christianity place the landing of Noah's Ark. According to Spencer and Lienard the tradition "seems to be well entrenched in the Christian world." A 1722 biblical dictionary by Austin Calmet and the 1871 Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary both point to Mount Ararat as the place where tradition says the ark rested. American missionary H. G. O. Dwight wrote in 1856 that it is "the general opinion of the learned in Europe." James Bryce, while admitting