The Ark of the Covenant
The holy grail and the ark of the covenant are supposed to be the most elusive relics in history. According to tradition, the ark contains the ten commandments, the ones that God himself carved into stone and gave to Moses. It's said that the ark was then brought to Jerusalem and kept in King Solomon's temple. That temple got destroyed and nobody knows where the ark went. Assuming it even existed in the first place, where could it be?
We all have in mind the super famous movie, "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark", where Harrison Ford plays the amazing character created by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The whole story was based on a biblical story, the idea that the mysterious ark actually existed.
The Ark of the Covenant is box made of pure acacia wood, specifically created to hold the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments that God supposedly engraved and gave to Moses. This box is first mentioned in the Old Testament. The story goes that the Jews carried it around during their super long journey in the desert, until they finally put it in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. According to tradition, this artwork, being a physical manifestation of God, was believed to have some extraordinary power. The Ark of the Covenant was able to cause disasters and defeats for the enemies of the Jews. Apparently, this magical box was responsible for parting the waters of the Jordan River so the Jews could pass through and for bringing down the walls of Jericho so they could conquer the city. According to the biblical story, the Ark eventually disappeared into the sky when the temple of God opened up. Some people actually believe that the Ark was a real physical object and that it's still hidden somewhere on Earth. Can you believe that?
According to the common interpretation of biblical historians, the ark would have been destroyed in 587 BC, a period when the Babylonians, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon. However, not everyone has accepted this interpretation. There is no mention that the ark was taken away. So the ark disappears and we have no clue what happened or where this super important biblical object is nowadays. It just vanishes from history. Among various theories, some people think that the ark might have been stolen from the temple before the Babylonians arrived. In the second book of Chronicles, for example, it says something about the fifth year of King Robot Amo's reign, which historians think is around 925 BC. Some even say it ended up in Egypt.
In the thirteenth dynasty, they marched against Jerusalem and took away the treasures from the Lord's temple. They took everything, even the golden shields left by Solomon. It is assumed that they also took the Ark. This is what George Lucas and Steven Spielberg thought when they created the character of Indiana Jones. Back in the time of the Pharaoh Social, the capital of Egypt was Abu Basti, located on the Nile Delta. This is the place where Indiana Jones finds the Ark. Others, on the other hand, have imagined epic adventures where maybe the Knights Templar would have found the hidden Ark in an underground chamber of the Temple of Solomon, and then transported it along with other treasures to some mysterious place like Chartres Cathedral or Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.
But the most interesting discovery seems to be the one made by archaeologist James Brooks, a sort of real-life Indiana Jones. In 1760 James Brusche, a real pioneer in archaeology found a document that somehow suggested a possible connection between Ethiopia and the Jews. According to the texts, back in the day an Ethiopian queen named Saba had a kid with King Solomon and they named him Menelik II. Legend has it that around 950 BC, Menelik stole the Ark from the temple and took it to Ethiopia. Later, a British journalist named Graham Hancock decided to dig deeper into it. He believed the Ark of the Covenant could be hiding in Ethiopia, specifically in Axum. There's actually a temple there that they say could be the spot. Hancock was actually trying to find out if the Ark of the Covenant was really preserved. There were so many questions and weird things that needed answers. He always writes in his book about the existence of a population of Ethiopian Jews who practiced ancient testament Judaism. The fact that a Christian country worships a pre-Christian relic is mind-boggling. And the fact that no other country claims to possess the true Ark, just adds to the mystery. Hancock was determined to find answers to all these mysteries. He spent two years doing research to write his book, almost 600 pages long! It's called "The Mystery of the Holy Grail". His conclusions are kinda disappointing. After the whole journey and extensive research, he ends up just having a chat with the guardian of the temple. The guardian tells him "Entrance is forbidden. Only I can go inside the temple, no one else." So, besides the guardian, no one else could see the ark! So Hancock is in front of the only proof of the existence of the ark, just relying on the word of the guardian. It's a bit sketchy, to be honest. Of course, the mystery fuels curiosity, especially since no one can actually see the ark.
Another question that people have been pondering is what the mysterious object could have actually been. Some peeps have given it supernatural powers, just like in the movie, based on biblical descriptions. There are even those who think the ark was the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and that Moses had all these frequent chats with God as evidence of some ancient connection with more advanced beings. Obviously, there are different theories on this.
The writer Erich von Daniken is convinced that the Ark is like some kind of radio, where passing spaceships would communicate their desires to the prophet. Fondani writes that he vaguely recalls the Ark being surrounded by sparks, and that Moses would use this transmitter thingy. He would call it whenever he needed help or advice, and Moses would hear his Lord's voice, but could never see His face. So, basically, the ark was actually a mini reactor that produced some kind of weird radiation. Fondani believes that the radiation creates a stuff called manna, which was made up of dew and green algae. He thinks the whole notion of the ark being some kind of ancient technological device is fascinating and captivating. It's so captivating, in fact, that these two English me, Michael Blackburn and Mark Bennett, decided to investigate into it too. They tried to find out more in the Bible, because it says that the folks carrying the ark had to dress a certain way and nobody could touch it. So, during one of the transports, the ark it's about to fall and an Israelite man named Puzza tries to save it by reaching out his hands. He drops dead on the spot, like he got struck by lightning or something. So, Blackburn and Bennet start wondering if the ark was actually some ancient electric capacitor.
The ark is also described as a wooden box covered in gold with two golden cherubs on the lid. These cherubs have their wings pointing inwards and almost touching each other. The two cherubs, according to the enthusiasts, seem to be acting like the positive and negative poles of the jar, while the wood of the box acts as the insulating layer. Keep in mind, this jar is as big as a box and can store up to 220 volts. The box could probably hold about 125 similar jars, enough to kill anyone who touched it. That's why they had to be super careful when transporting it. This story is pretty fascinating but doesn't really give us answers. Instead, it just raises new questions. Like, how did ancient Jews figure out about static electricity?
So, they were able to charge up the ark with electricity before inventing it? What could such a thing be used for other than zapping anyone dumb enough to approach it? These questions will probably always remain a mystery. The ark is more of a symbol than an actual object. That's what those ancient legends say about it.
What is strange is that when the ark was around, nobody talked about it. Now that it's gone, everyone keeps talking about it all the time. That's something that needs to be emphasized. No one in the Bible mentions the ark, except for the prophet Jeremiah, but his text was revised and corrected at least a century later, after the temple had already been destroyed. Another contemporary, Ezekiel, could have talked about the ark but he doesn't. Borgonovo continues to say that the ark only appears in biblical texts after Solomon's first temple was destroyed, and it disappeared. However, this disappearance is probably not real, and there may never have been an object like it in the Jerusalem temple. Probably the ark is just a fancy picture loaded with symbols. It's no coincidence that it becomes a big deal in Christian tradition. It's the object that holds a copy of the tablets. Now, why would they choose a large box as a symbol? One might wonder. Well, it probably has to do with the Egyptian origins of the Israelite tradition. Not surprisingly, it was Tutankhamun who made the most beautiful description of it back in the 14th century BC.
The person who really wanted the story of the forgotten young pharaoh to be engraved on the fancy walls of the colonnade that's still standing today, going east from Ramsete II's palace in Luxor, was the one who built the Ark. The peta festival celebrates the Egyptian year and reaches its peak with the flooding of the Nile, which is obviously crucial for the next agricultural season. The connection between the festival on Pet Street and the Ark of the Covenant is obvious when you think about how the Egyptians used to parade their gods around in these mini boat models, held up by dudes wearing robes during the Abet festival. So, what did these arks contain? Small stone replicas of deities, just like how the Ark of the Jews contained the stone tablets, which were like the symbol of the god of Israel.
The story, that nowadays is interpreted in a thousand different ways, once you go back to its origins you find out it has a perfect religious and theological explanation in the Egyptian context. That's where the whole idea of the Ark as a tool to transport the gods originated from. No doubt there will always be people who want to imagine it on a large scale.
The ark is an object that maybe someone will even go searching for, but before starting the journey, maybe it's better to delve deeper into the story and understand where certain events and legends come from.
