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In the Book of Genesis, the mountains of Ararat (Biblical Hebrew הָרֵי אֲרָרָט, Tiberian hārê ’Ǎrārāṭ, Septuagint: τὰ ὄρη τὰ Ἀραράτ)[1] is the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood.[2] It corresponds to the ancient Assyrian term Urartu, an exonym for the Armenian Kingdom of Van.[3][4]
Since the Middle Ages the "mountains of Ararat" began to be identified with a mountain in present Turkey (historical Armenia) known as Masis or Ağrı Dağı; the mountain became known as Mount Ararat.[5][6]
It is worth noting that, contrary to Armenian Apostolic Church discourse and popular knowledge, it was probably as late as the beginning of the second millennium AD when the localization of the biblical Mount Ararat was permanently moved from the highlands hemming upper Mesopotamia to Mount Masis in the heart of historical Armenian territory.
When Armenians were first introduced to the biblical story of the flood, there was no special interest in the location of Mount Ararat. Most Armenian historians in the Early Middle Ages accepted the generally held Christian opinion of the time that Ararat was located near Mesopotamia in Korduk (Corduene), the southernmost province of Armenia. However, when European Crusaders on their way to free the Holy Land from Moslem rule appeared in the region in the 11th century, Armenian hopes for similar "salvation" helped to catalyze the final identification of Masis with Ararat. From the 12th century on, Catholic missionaries and other travelers to the region returned to Europe with the same story: that the mountain where the Ark landed was towering in the heart of Armenia.