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 Indeed, the phrase is translated as "mountains of Armenia" ("montes Armeniae") in the Vulgate, the fourth century Latin translation of the Bible. Nevertheless, Mount Ararat is considered the traditional site of the resting place of Noah's Ark. It is therefore called a biblical mountain. Mount Ararat has been associated with the Genesis flood story since the 11–12th centuries. The local Armenian population began to identify it as the ark's landing place during those centuries. F. C. Conybeare wrote that the mountain was "a center and focus of pagan myths and cults [...] and it was only in the eleventh century,