Mount Ararat after these had vanished from the popular mind, that the Armenian theologians ventured to locate on its eternal snows the resting-place of Noah's ark." The 13th century Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck is usually considered the earliest reference for the tradition of Mount Ararat as the landing place of the ark in European literature. The 14th century English traveler John Mandeville is another early author who mentioned Mount Ararat, "where Noah's ship rested, and it is still there." Most Christians identify Mount Ararat with the biblical "mountains of Ararat," despite the fact that six other landing places have been proposed,
Mount Ararat Ararat, / And passed by...! [...] It's now your turn; you too, now, / Stare at its high and lordly brow, / And pass by...!" Mount Ararat is the most frequently cited symbol in the poetry of Hovhannes Shiraz. In collection of poems, "Knar Hayastani" (Lyre of Armenia) published in 1958, there are many poems "with very strong nationalist overtones, especially with respect to Mount Ararat (in Turkey) and the irredentism it entailed." In one such poem, "Ktak" (Bequest), Shiraz bequeaths his son Mt. Ararat to "keep it forever, / As the language of us Armenians, as the pillar of