But forget all those images of a long vessel with a pointy bow - the original Noah's Ark, new research suggests, was round.

A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia - modern-day Iraq - reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah. It tells a similar story, COMPLETE with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle - as well as the key instruction that animals should enter "two by two."