Noah's Ark

Noah's Ark was a vessel of cypress (gopher) wood, three decks high and sealed inside and out with pitch, built to preserve Noah's household and a remnant of every kind of living creature through the Flood. By the traditional cubit it measured roughly 137 metres long, 23 metres wide, and 14 metres high (300 × 50 × 30 cubits) — a long, low, barge-like hull optimised for stability rather than speed. Genesis records that Noah laboured on the Ark for many decades while warning his generation, then loaded the animals and his family as the rains began. The Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat after the waters receded, and Noah's first act on dry ground was to build an altar and worship. Christian tradition has long read the Ark as a picture of salvation: a single appointed refuge, entered by faith before the judgment falls, carrying its occupants through death into a renewed world.