About three months ago, Abune (Father) Paulos, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, announced that the time had come for him to reveal the answer to one of the greatest mysteries in the history of civilization: the whereabouts of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, ostensibly guarded for millennia in a church in Axum, Ethiopia. Prior to his visit to Rome and his audience with Pope Benedict XVI, the patriarch decided to announce, at a press conference with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the public unveiling of the ark.
In any other century in human history, this would have been a cosmic event. However, at that time, the world was focused on the death of pop star Michael Jackson.
The fact that Paulos changed his mind 24 hours later - even someone who was sentenced to prison and exiled under the Derg military regime cannot always withstand the Church's pressure - destroyed, at least temporarily, any chances of discovering what happened to said ark, or of crossing off another theory regarding its location.
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I first became acquainted with Ethiopian beliefs and their connection to the Ark of the Covenant during a course in the late 1980s given by Dr. Steven Kaplan, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's department of African studies (which was since closed; there's no budget for frivolities). The course fired my imagination, and I vowed to learn more about the matter. Furthermore, I was troubled by what I learned in elementary school about the gross injustice suffered by naive Uzzah, who tried to prevent the ark from touching the ground and was immediately annihilated by God.
The Ethiopian Church is convinced that Ethiopia's kings are part of the Solomonic dynasty - i.e., descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The queen's visit to Solomon's bedroom resulted in Menelik, who later returned as a prince to visit his father in Jerusalem, whereupon he craftily "borrowed" the ark and its two tablets. According to Ethiopian tradition, it has been in Axum for the past 3,000 years.
Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is based on the theory that the Pharaoh Shishak, who captured Palestine in the 10th century B.C.E., took the ark back to Egypt, where it was buried with the pharaohs.
If we can believe the "Kebra Nagast," the chronicle of Ethiopia's kings written in 1210, or a story floated in a Hollywood movie with no historical basis - why not also give some credence to the biblical narrative?
In 2 Chronicles, we read how more than 300 years after Solomon and Shishak, King Josiah returns the ark to the Temple in Jerusalem. The Bible sadly reports that when the First Temple was destroyed, Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers demolished the ark, perhaps even melting it down and reusing its gold.
However, quasi-biblical works contain more uplifting narratives. In the Book of Maccabees, included in the Apocrypha ("external writings") for political reasons, we learn that after the Temple's destruction, God commanded Jeremiah to bury the ark in a secret cave on Mount Nebo. The exact location of this cave, the site of Moses' grave, is unknown. Undoubtedly, Mount Nebo's inclusion in the Hashemite kingdom is part of the divine plan. Had it been in Israel, the mountain would have been privatized, a franchise would have been issued for excavations and a scandalous entrance fee would be charged - probably a two-for-the-price-of-one deal.
According to another narrative, the ark was removed from Jerusalem before the city was destroyed, and ended up in the Jewish community on Elephantine Island in Aswan (some Ethiopians argue it was thereafter transported to Axum). Some people believe the Temple's priests buried the ark before Jerusalem's destruction, which would mean it's under the Dome of the Rock (as if we need more headaches!).
Wendell Jones, who believes he was the inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones, is an American archaeologist who excavated Qumran with Israel's leading archaeologists. A few years ago, he claimed he had found the ark in that site, near the Dead Sea, and he promised to reveal it on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish fast day commemorating the destruction of both temples. Only Arutz Sheva (a radio station primarily serving West Bank settlers) took his declaration seriously. Meanwhile, there are some eccentric Europeans who believe that when the Crusaders returned from the Holy Land, they hid the ark somewhere on their grandmother's estate.
The most captivating explanation also comes from Africa: The Lemba tribe, who believe they are descendants of Jews, tell stories of a holy box called the Ngoma Lungundu (literally, the voice of God), which came with their ancestors from Yemen to the Great Empire of Zimbabwe. Prof. Tudor Parfitt of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies discovered that the box's size and shape match the ark's description, that it was not supposed to touch the ground, and that the Lemba tribe brought it to the battlefield, where it usually changed the course of war. A large clan within the tribe, the Buba clan, has a gene characteristic of the Kohanim (descendants of Aaron).
Lemba tradition holds that the ark self-destructed when the Great Zimbabwe kingdom collapsed, and a wooden copy of it was made. The copy was discovered in a cave in 1940 and is now in a museum in Harare.
Food for thought.
Years after my class at Hebrew University, I traveled to Axum to visit the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, which is actually a complex of buildings, some of which are open only to men, and one of which, Chapel of the Tablet, is open only to priests. A monk guards the ark in the chapel's sanctum sanctorum - it's a lifetime job. No one but this monk can see the ark. Most people who try to sneak a glimpse are stopped at the gate by guards bearing large sticks and rocks to fend off troublesome children and curious foreigners. You can try getting past them, but then you will confront a soldier with a loaded Kalashnikov. Like the others, I could not get past him.
For those who believe in the New Testament and the Gospel of John, God will miraculously return the ark to the Temple when Jesus' Second Coming occurs. However, under the safe assumption that this will not happen, the mystery remains intact. Meanwhile, one can make do with the twice-weekly, early-morning procession in Axum, when priests bring out a copy of the ark and thousands of believers, wearing white and bearing candles, march after it around the church's massive complex. A truly spiritual experience.
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