The Ark Before Noah

This title has been listed for readers in Australia and New Zealand. If you are in the UK or other territories (non-USA) please search for the UK edition, if listed. Please note that not all Hodder titles are listed in the public NetGalley catalogue.

The Ark Before Noah is a compelling investigation into one of the most famous myths in the world, and shows how the rediscovery of an ancient tablet challenges our view of ancient history in a new and exciting way.

In The Ark Before Noah, British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel reveals how decoding the symbols on a 4,000-year-old piece of clay enabled a radical new interpretation of the Noah's Ark myth. A world authority on the period, Dr Finkel's enthralling real-life detective story began with a most remarkable event at the British Museum - the arrival one day in 2008 of a single, modest-sized Babylonian cuneiform tablet - the palm-sized clay rectangles on which our ancestors created the first documents. It had been brought in by a member of the public and this particular tablet proved to be of quite extraordinary importance. Not only does it date from about 1850 BC, but it is a copy of the Babylonian Story of the Flood, a myth from ancient Mesopotamia revealing among other things, instructions for building a large boat to survive a flood.

But Dr Finkel's pioneering work didn't stop there. Through another series of enthralling discoveries he has been able to decode the story of the Flood in ways which offer unanticipated revelations to readers of The Ark Before Noah.

Please enjoy this short sample of the much larger work.