THE LAND OF NOAH
Nakhchivan. All of us know the story of Noah and the Ark told in Genesis (chapters 6-9). But do you know where Noah’s grave is?
Genesis 9:28-9 says “Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.” But it doesn’t tell us where.
Yet there is a tradition thousands of years old that he died and is buried here in the Land of Noah – Nakhchivan. “Noah” is the Anglicized spelling of the Hebrew Noach, pronounced “knock” here, spelled “nakh.” “Van” means “land,” “chi” means “of.” (And yes, the map above has the place spelled wrong but it was the best I could find.)
Nakhchivan is an isolated enclave of Azerbaijan, cut off from the rest of the country by a strip of Armenia reaching Iran. You never heard of it because it’s unknown with a strange name – but the name literally means the Land of Noah. His tomb has been built, destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again repeatedly over the millennia. It’s now been built yet again on the original site. Here it is:




