Mrs. Violet M. Cummings, author of Noah’s Ark: Fact or Fable (Creation Science Research Center, 2716 Madison Ave., San Diego, CA. 92116, 1972, $3.95) accompanied her husband, long-time Ark hunter Eryl Cummings, to Turkey last summer in search of the elusive Ark. Mrs. Cummings has graciously given BIBLE AND SPADE the following firsthand account of the 1972 expedition.
“A five-man team led by John Morris of Los Angeles was also on the mountain this year. John is the son of Dr. Henry Morris of Creation Science Research Center in San Diego. My husband was director of another small very compact group which was joined for two or three days at the beginning of the venture by Dr. John
Eryl A. Cummings at his party’s camp 10,200 feet high on the northeast face of Ararat. The summit is out of sight to the left.
BSP 2:1 (Winter 1973) p. 26
Warwick Montgomery and Gary Oliver. This summer everyone had to contend with the worst weather in years on Ararat. Blizzards, snow, hail, wind, electrical storms that almost ended in tragedy for one of the groups. But in spite of the unfavorable conditions, some progress is made each year, and there is always another year to beckon them on! Ararat, I understand, is one of the highest turbulence areas in the world. As our veteran Alpine guide put it, the mountain is a ‘dragon’ — a ‘monster’ — when it comes to wresting its secret from the icy crevasses on its higher, extremely rugged and dangerous slopes!
“.. . this year my husband and Dr. Hewitt as well as the Morris group and a four-man team from Texas, were able to revisit the ruins at Karada at the base of the mountain, where they made more discoveries of ruins and inscription which, when submitted to the experts, will no doubt provide additional information and confirmation to the early history of the area and Genesis record.”
Dr. Montgomery, professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and author of The Quest for Noah’s Ark (Bethany Fellowship, 6820 Auto Club Rd., Minneapolis, MN. 55438, 1972, $6.95), gave the following report of the 1972 expedition in the December 22, 1972 issue of Christianity Today:
“With assurance of government clearance at the top level, we carried out operations in August on the north face [where all Ark sightings have concentrated], eliminated the east side of the Ahora gorge as a possible resting place for the vessel, and obtained complete photographic coverage of the west side of the gorge in preparation for future systematic coverage of the area between the gorge and the site of Navarra’s 1955 find, above Lake Kop, of 5,000-year-old hand-tooled wood. Our expedition activities came off like clockwork, aided by the superlative management of Dr. Hewitt [physician, botanist, and head of the Archaeological Research Foundation expedition that in 1966 carried out the most detailed twentieth-century investigation of the geology and glaciology of Ararat], the labors of Eryl Cummings, Gary Oliver, and my son [David], and the services of a translator and two gendarmes supplied by the Turkish government.”
Bible and Spade 2:2 (Spring 1973)