To the explorers that found them they are the remains of Noah's ark - the ship that saved the Hebrew patriarch, his family and specimens of every animal from the Great Flood.
Now Hongkongers can see for themselves - the petrified wooden samples will be exhibited in AC Hall in Baptist University from December 25 to 28, before returning to Turkey.
A 10-man team, comprising a Hong Kong documentary crew and Turkish scientists, made the findings in Turkey two months ago. They visited the cave 3,800 metres above sea level on Mount Ararat, which various literatures through the ages say was the last resting place of the ark.
Ahmet Ertugrul, a mountaineering expert who was born and grew up in the area, discovered the cave in 2005.
'I found it by chance,' he said in Hong Kong yesterday. The finding, the culmination of a search lasting two decades, was made as he wandered on Mount Ararat one day and spotted a small rock entrance.
'The walls in the cave were different from normal rock caves,' he said, adding that he left and returned later with better equipment.
Last August he offered a sample collected in the cave to the University of Hong Kong for examination and it turned out to be a petrified wood structure. This led to the formation of the exploration team this year.