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 Poems" (1953) American poet Charles Olson, who grew up near the Armenian neighborhood in Worcester, Massachusetts, compares the Ararat Hill near his childhood home to the mountain and "imagines he can capture an Armenian's immigrant perspective: the view of Ararat Hill as Mount Ararat." Several major episodes in "Declare" (2001) by Tim Powers take place on Mt. Ararat. In the book, it is the focal point of supernatural happenings. Mt. Ararat is featured prominently in Armenian literature. According to Meliné Karakashian, Armenian poets "attribute to it symbolic meanings of unity, freedom, and independence." According to Kevork Bardakjian, in Armenian literature,