The location of the Ark of the Covenant, one of the Bible’s most infamous ancient relics, has befuddled archaeologists, thrill-seekers and biblical scavenger hunters for millennia.
According to the Book of Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant also known as Ark of the Testimony, was built by the Jews while they were wandering in the desert, en route to the Canaan.
They conceived it as an easily transportable resting place for God, a sign of His presence among the Israelites until years later when Solomon could build an actual temple.
The ark was a gold-covered wood chest that contained the Ten Commandments tabloid, the staff of Moses’ brother Aaron and a pot of manna.
It was treated with great reverence, generally hidden from view and never touched by human hands. After the building of the temple, the Ark of the Covenant was housed within.
But the Bible has no record of what became of the Ark of the Covenant following the fall of Israel to the Babylonian empire in 587 BC. Some ancient texts say it was carried off to Babylon as a trophy while others say some Hebrew escapees hid the Ark in nearby mountains.
One popular American legend says the Nazis captured it before it melted their faces off. Just a legend, right?
Well, the narrative of the relic has been changed by the latest report by the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE).
BASE – an institute dedicated to the quest for archaeological evidence to help validate to the world that the Bible is true and that it represents an accurate, non-fictional account of God’s will to bring the people of this world back into a relationship with Him – have claimed the locus of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant.
The US-based guild established that it has tracked the Ark to a location in Africa, the town of Axum in Ethiopia.
The theory would be that a group of Jews sneaked the Ark away from the Babylonian conquerors and took it to Egypt, eventually fleeing up the Nile before arriving at the Ark’s current alleged resting place in Ethiopia.
In a blog post on the organisation’s website, BASE said:
“Although the subject is controversial and clouded with confusion, one emerging theory indicates that the Ark of the Covenant was transported out of ancient Israel and may be in Ethiopia today. As unusual as this may sound, the BASE team has uncovered compelling evidence that the Ark may well have been spirited up the Nile River to an eventual resting place in the remote highlands of ancient Kush–modern-day Ethiopia.”
The Institute further states that the relic is kept at a church where it is being closely guarded by an ancient monastic order. Only one man is “holy enough” to see it, so the rest of the world has to take his word for it. It is said the world’s eyes would pollute the Ark.
Monks at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in the city of Axum told BASE investigators that the Ark of the Covenant was hidden within, but would not let them see it, which, judging by the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is for the best. What makes matters even more mysterious is how the man has no other name apart from “The Guardian of the Ark of the Covenant”.
“I was able to speak, through an interpreter, with the Guardian of the Ark, who told me that no other man besides himself could lay eyes on the Ark, that it was an absolutely holy object. He said that the world would not be allowed to pollute it by looking at it. He added that he and the villagers would protect the Ark with their lives, if necessary,” the researchers write.
“Interestingly, we were shown two silver trumpets that bore a remarkable similarity to the trumpets pictured on the arch of Titus in Rome, commemorating the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Trumpets like these were an essential part of the implements used in Temple worship.”
The researchers did find two people who claimed to have seen the Ark. One was a 105-year-old priest who said that twice in his lifetime, a so-called “Guardian of the Ark” had passed away and a new, younger man had to be trained in the religious rituals of the mantle.
On those occasions, the researchers say, the old priest saw the Ark and “he described it as a gold box with two winged angels on top.”
The description of the Ark given by the Guardian is also uncannily similar to the Biblical description.
While the BASE Institute did not claim the Ark had been found, it did say:
“At this juncture, we cannot say with certainty that it is, but neither can we say for certain that it isn’t. What we have concluded is that St. Mary’s of Zion church in Axum, Ethiopia, is the resting place either of an incredible replica of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, or of the actual Ark of the Covenant itself.”
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