Ararat

Ararat designates a mountainous region in what is now eastern Turkey and Armenia, known in Assyrian sources as Urartu. The Hebrew text of Genesis 8:4 states that Noah's ark “rested on the mountains of Ararat” after the floodwaters receded. The plural “mountains” suggests a range rather than a single peak, though later tradition, followed by much popular usage, identified the resting place with the volcanic massif now called Mount Ararat (Agri Dagi), rising to approximately 17,000 feet.

Ararat also appears in the prophetic literature as the territory to which the assassins of the Assyrian king Sennacherib fled (2 Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38), identifying it as a distinct political entity northwest of Assyria. Jeremiah 51:27 summons “the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz” as agents of divine judgment against Babylon. The repeated association of Ararat with the ark's resting place gave the region a lasting symbolic significance in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions as the site of humanity's new beginning after the flood.