Bronze-level articleRon Wyatt

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Ron Wyatt (1933 - 1999) was a pseudoarchaeologist famed for alleged discoveries of material evidence in support of some of the major events recorded in the Bible.

His work was typically rejected by mainstream archaeology and Christians alike, the bulk of his support coming from the more extreme fringes of evangelical Christianity.

Wyatt's work is best characterized as being highly interpretive and suffering from a deficit of evidence. A schism developed after his death in which the ownership of his records fell in to dispute. This led to some of his records being difficult to locate.

Answers in Genesis (AIG) provides an appraisal of Wyatt's remarkable good fortune in discovering so many artifacts and sites of the bible:

Are the claims true? If they are, such a staggeringly impressive list would mean that Ron Wyatt had been almost as miraculously assisted by God as the patriarch Moses. If, however, a careful examination of just one or two of these claims reveals them to be false, fanciful or fraudulent, the ‘divine leading’ option evaporates, and it is clear that Christians are being seriously misled.[1]

This may be one of those odd occasions in which AIG is correct, since the alternative is to accept that Wyatt, an amateur archaeologist, did the archaeological equivalent of developing General Relativity, Gravitational Theory, and after a break for lunch went on to develop the Theory of Evolution.

Wyatt's work is typically cited by fundamentalists as proof that events in the Bible actually occurred, but even this is only attempted by the terminally ignorant or stupid. When AIG shies away from something, it's a pretty good indicator that it's broken on through to the other side of crazy.

Contents

[edit] Background

Wyatt was working as a nurse-anesthetist when in 1960 he saw a photo of the Durupınar site, a mountainous region of Turkey, in which rock formations appear to resemble a the hull of a large boat. This inspired him to grab his hat and whip and seek glory and riches as an amateur archaeologist.

In later years he founded Wyatt Archaeological Research (WAR) and the Wyatt Archaeological Museum to support and publicize his work.[2]

[edit] "Discoveries"

[edit] Noah's Ark

The rock formation at the Durupınar site that started Indiana Wyatt on his wacky adventures.

Noah's Ark was Wyatt's first "find". On noticing a formation shaped like a boat, Wyatt declared it to be the landing site of Noah's Ark.[3] There are a number of problems with Wyatt's claims:

  • There are multiple boat-shaped formations. Either these are natural formations or Noah had an armada of arks.[4]
  • The boat-shaped formation is consistent with a natural geological formation known as a syncline.[5]
  • The dimensions of the formation are inconsistent with the biblical account, particularly the breadth of the ship.
  • The Drogue stones (heavy stones hung from ships to stablise them) allegedly found in the area are made of stone native to the area, and could not have originated in Mesopotamia, the area postulated as the origin of the ark.[6]
  • Iron located at the site has been analyzed and found to be inconsistent with the iron that would have been produced during Noah's time period, the presence of impurities suggesting a natural origin.

Setting these reasons aside, the sheer lack of evidence for a global flood makes it highly improbable that some guy named Noah bobbed around in a boat while God smote all life on Earth. Also, one would expect Answers in Genesis to leap eagerly at such a discovery, yet they provide a pretty detailed dismissal of his findings.[7]

[edit] Ark of the Covenant

Wyatt's rather blurry photo of the Ark of the Covenant. Alternatively, it may be a photo of a giant brain. Or cotton candy. We report, you deride decide.

Wyatt's discovery of the Ark of the Covenant is, like his other "discoveries", incredibly light on evidence. Photos taken during Wyatt's excavations in the Garden Tomb area in Jerusalem are blurred and Wyatt's original records have been removed from circulation.[8]

There is certainly a chamber at the site, the purpose of which remains unknown, but Wyatt's claim to have seen a chest of beaten gold is supported only by the blurry photos he took. It is also alleged that he saw a giant sword, possibly formerly belonging to Goliath.[9]

The site of the Ark was also claimed by Wyatt to be below the site at which Christ was crucified. Wyatt is claimed to have found a strange black substance, later tested and found to be human blood. It's claimed to be the blood of Jesus because it contains half the number of chromosomes that would normally be present in a human male. Human males normally have 46 chromosomes, with 23 coming from the mother and 23 from the father. Jesus, having been the product of virginal conception, would have only obtained 23 chromosomes from his mother, Mary. Of course this ignores the fact that a person missing half their chromosomes would be unlikely to develop in any normal sense as a human being. [10]

Wyatt and his supporters have not explained how the tests on the blood were performed, nor have they released the data necessary to confirm their claims.

[edit] Red Sea crossing

Wyatt claimed to have discovered the point at which the Israelites crossed the Red Sea while being pursued by Pharaoh and his army. This was based on finding a beach (Nuweiba) that would seem appropriate for the event, and later by locating the remains of chariot wheels submerged nearby.[11]

The Red Sea crossing is described in the book of Exodus, but there's absolutely no extra-biblical support for the story of the Israelites' flight from Egypt or even their presence there under the circumstances of the bible in the first place. Somehow the entire nation of Israel managed to amble around the area for forty years, leaving behind no evidence of their travels. The Egyptians, famed for their pedantic record keeping, failed to notice the disappearance of around two million slaves and the death by drowning of some large number of their soldiers.[12]

Citing the discovery of chariot wheels as proof of the events of Exodus is a bit like finding finding Roman spear heads on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and taking this as evidence that Rome used the technology of Atlantis to build an underwater city. Given a choice between the highly improbable events of Exodus and the possibility that the chariot wheels were lost from a ship, the latter theory requires far fewer assumptions. Given Wyatt's track record, it's hardly surprising that his "chariot wheels" turned out to be nothing of the kind,[13][14] a conclusion with which even Wyatt's co-religionists agree.[15][16]

[edit] Carrying on the torch

While Ron Wyatt died in 1999 and can thus no longer "enlighten" us with his "discoveries", his widow, Mary Nell Wyatt,[17] has continued to defend her late husband's legacy as well as adding some similar nuttery of her own.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Answer in Genesis commentary on Wyatt's work
  2. Wyatt Archaeological Research
  3. Wyatt Museum article documenting the evidence of Wyatt's discovery of Noah's Ark
  4. Answers in Genesis: Noah's Armada
  5. Talk Origins article discussing the syncline formation
  6. Analysis of the drogue stones The stones are more commonly interpreted as being of pagan origin, with similar examples being found in Armenia
  7. Answers in Genesis on the discovery of the ark
  8. Wyatt's Ark of the Covenant records have been withdrawn
  9. Some photos and a rather uncritical write-up of Wyatt's findings
  10. To better understand this problem with Jesus only having 23 chromosomes, imagine trying to write a novel without the use of nouns and vowels. With only 23 chromosomes, Jesus would look like something from a b-movie, assuming he even survived beyond the zygote phase.
  11. WAR describes Wyatt's evidence of the Red Sea crossing
  12. The figure of two million is based on extrapolation of figures provided in Exodus and Numbers.
  13. Debunking Christianity takes Wyatt's "chariot wheels" apart
  14. PaleoBabble wheels out yet another debunking of Wyatt's chariots
  15. A Christian history and archaeology site debunking Wyatt
  16. and another one
  17. Ron Wyatt's Funeral
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