Flood myths were common to many ancient cultures — Chinese, Greek, Norse, Irish, Aboriginal, Mayan. The most famous flood myth, the Hebrew Bible story of Noah’s Ark, is theologically pivotal to all three of the world’s major religions. What happened on that boat determined the rest of history. 

Noah’s story, along with the rest of what is called the “primeval history” section of the book of Genesis, was likely written down in the 6th century BCE. Its authors were influenced by other flood myths, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem from ancient Mesopotamia written 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. 

In 2018, graduate students from the Antiquities Institute at the University of Tehran were excavating a portion of the Çalköy Cave system on the Black Sea coast of eastern Turkey when they uncovered 26 ceramic amphorae containing reels of ancient audio tape. 

The Institute’s scholars have since theorized that sometime during the Bronze Age, a collective of Akkadian Empire priests placed the recordings inside the caves, which lie just 300 miles from Mt. Ararat — described in Genesis as the resting place of Noah’s ark. 

AIUT researchers spent years restoring the magnetic coating before daring to place the delicate film in a playback recorder. In 2024, when they finally held their breath and hit “play,” what they heard was astounding: a clear and complete recording of Noah and Naamah — captured by their unemployed son Japheth — discussing life aboard the ark with thousands of animal pairs. 

In partnership with the Antiquities Institute at the University of Tehran, we have digitized a selection of those 5,000-year-old interviews and now present them publicly for the first time in this historic podcast.