Includes bibliographical references (p. 388-400) and index.

About this book -- The wedge between us -- Worlds and people -- Recounting the flood -- The ark tablet -- Flood warning -- The question of shape -- Building the arks -- Life on board -- Babylon and Bible floods -- The Judean experience -- What happened to the ark? -- What is the ark tablet? -- Conclusions : stories and shapes -- Appendix 1. Ghosts, the soul and reincarnation -- Appendix 2. Investigating the text of Gilgamesh XI -- Appendix 3. Building the ark : technical report -- Appendix 4. Reading the ark tablet -- Textual notes to Appendix 4 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Index.

"British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel reveals how decoding the symbols on a 4,000 year old piece of clay enable 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."--Publisher's website