A one-third scale replica of a Babylonian "ark" was constructed in 2014 based on recently discovered tablets from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In 2009 the Deputy Keeper of the Middle East at the British Museum, Irving Finkel, made a study of a cuneiform tablet from 1750 BCE that contained a flood narrative similar to that of the story of Noah's Ark.
[1] Dr. Finkel first encountered a recently discovered small cuneiform tablet in 1985, which was one of several pieces brought to the British Museum for expert assessment.
Finkel was able to read the clean first verses of the tablet famous among Assyriologists as the opening lines of the Atra-Hasis Flood Story.
The tablet described enough palm-fibre rope, wooden ribs and stanchions to build a coracle 3,600 square meters in area, almost two-thirds the size of a soccer field, with walls six metres high.
The team used the original specification and materials (wood, bamboo, palms and reed to secure the joints) without modern power tools, nails or glue.