Mountains of Ararat
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The Mountains of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noah's ark came to rest after the great flood (Genesis 8:4). Abrahamic tradition associates the mountains of Ararat with Mount Ararat in Turkey located 750 miles (1200 kilometers) northeast of Jerusalem. Mount Ararat was for many centuries part of Armenia and subsequently part of the Ottoman Empire. Briefly after WWI it was returned to Armenia, but since a 1923 treaty between Turkey and the USSR it has been part of Turkey.
Historians have long sought to corroborate the biblical reference to the mountains of Ararat with Mount Ararat or to ascertain the actual location of the mountains mentioned in the account. An alternative identification is with Urartu people ("Urartu" may possibly be cognate with "Ararat"). This culture was centered around Mount Van in Armenia during Biblical times ( Currently it is in Turkey). Mount Ararat has the distinction of holding this tradition in its name and among its surrounding cultures for centuries, and is also geographically within ancient Urartu, giving it the most legitimate potential claim as the Biblical Ararat. However, the biblical account could plausibly have been intended refer to any of the mountain ranges associated with Urartu.
Other potential Ararat candidates have been proposed over the millennia at locales as widely distributed as Ethiopia, Ireland, and Iran.
The Latin Vulgate says "requievitque arca [...] super montes Armeniae", which means literally "and the ark rested [...] on the mountains of Armenia", which was corrected to "... mountains of Ararat" in the Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate).
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