Watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on AMC (slightly edited so that they can put in a bunch of crap called “Movies at our house”) got me to thinking about this. I know that one of Art Bell’s regular loonies claims that its in Ethiopia, but I ain’t buying it until I hear from a more reliable source.
It was looted and destroyed by the forces of the Roman general Titus in ~70 AD. Here is a link that shows photographs of the arch that was built in Rome to commerate the event. One of the reliefs is of Roman soldiers looting the temple.
That prick Titus barely got it done with forces that were better armed and outnumbered the Jews by 10 to 1. I was hoping to take a leak on the arch when I visited Rome a few years ago but it is fenced off. I had to settle for hocking a loogie on it.
The above oversimplification will be filled in by an actual historian soon enough.
Haj
The only post-Solomonic historical Biblical reference to the Ark of the Covenant, nearly 900 years after it was made, is at 2 Chronicles 35:3 where King Josiah, in 642 B.C.E., commanded that it be returned to the Temple. How it had come to be removed is not stated.
There is no mention of the Ark’s being taken to Babylon in 607 B.C.E. The Ark is not enumerated among the Temple articles carried off. Likewise, there is no mention of its being returned and placed in Zerubbabel’s rebuilt temple; neither was a replacement made for it. When and under what circumstances the Ark disappeared is unknown.
But, that’s the Bible. I’ll look up some secular stuff and see what I find. Again, like haj, unless a real historian shows up here.
The second Temple was looted and destroyed by the Romans. The Ark of the Covenant was never in the Second Temple; the Holy of Holies (the room containing the Ark) was empty. (The most notable object in the looting-the-Temple picture on the arch is of the Menorah.) According to Jewish tradition, the Ark was hidden away right before the destruction of the first Temple (a little under 500 years before the second destruction); nobody knows where it is.
I’ve definitely heard rumors that the Vatican has other objects taken from the Temple, such as the Menorah, altars, etc., although I take them with many grains of salt.
I see on preview that NoClueBoy covered all of the Biblical stuff I was about to look up, so I won’t bother.
I saw a PBS show (or somesuch) which made a compelling case for the Ark being somewhere in Ethiopia in the hands of some christian monks there.
http://www.ubalt.edu/kulanu/ark.html
http://www.baseinstitute.org/covenant.html
http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/St.Pachomius/Xtabot.html
Well, in my secular source search (and I even went to a couple of books, printed on paper), I found nothing but theories.
Sorry. I will wait with you for more posters.
Qaddie, your first link references The Sign and The Seal which is by Graham Hancock, who’s the Art Bell loony, I mentioned. He seems to think that it’s an Atlantean artifact (and that there was/is a civilization on Mars!) :rolleyes: . The other links say that Ethiopia’s a possibility, but that it could also be located under the Temple Mount. So, it looks like no one knows where it is.
There’s a good StraightDope Mailbag column on the subject, courtesy of C K Dexter Haven.
I’ve seen the Hancock story on TV and he places the Ark in a small church in Aksum, a small town in northern Ethiopia. Although his theories and conclusions are questionable, the people he talks to at the church assure him that the Ark is there. Further, Ethiopia is apparently the only country on Earth where there is a rich tradition of Ark worship to this day.
Coincidence? Probably. Draw your own conclusions, but I’m content to believe that’s where it is, assuming the Babylonians didn’t destroy it. Then again, I’m a sucker for a wild story.
According to Man And His Gods by Homer W. Smith the ark dissappeared at the time of the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadrezzer (spelling is seemingly optional) and the Babylonian armies ca. 586 B.C. and it hasn’t been seen since.
Part of the whole ‘Ark in Ethiopia theory’ is that the Ark is under heavy guard and nobody is allowed to see it. That’s supposedly why it hasn’t been seen since.
Of course!
And what wonderfully closed-mouth guards.
It seems like it’d be an important artifact for christians; why hasn’t some group of christian soldiers marched onward, subdued their foes and found out if it is the ark or not?
Some would say that they already have - in the The Templars Piers Paul Read mentions the Ark briefly.
The book is very much a factual/historical account of the Templars - avoiding the vast number of myths and legends that surround the Order.
He does, however mention that the Ark is one of the religious artifacts that the Templars were rumoured at the time to have in their posession, having dug it up in Jerusalem.
So if you are feeling conspiratorial, feel free to believe that the Templars found it - i’m sure you can find some “facts” out there on the web to back you up!
I’ve gone right off Graham Hancock, but I thought The Sign and the Seal was at least well-written and engaging. However, it’s clear that he’s really stretching to support his theory of the Ark being in Ethiopia; the only solid evidence is the very strong Ark tradition there.
A related off-the-wall archaeological theory is Kamal Salibi’s idea that the Israel of the Old Testament was actually in southern Saudi Arabia (some info here). He thinks lots of elements of the OT have been mistranslated and misinterpreted - for example, the crossing of the river Jordan actually refers to crossing a mountain range, and ‘Pharoah’ was actually a local king (this is from memory; I’ve only read The Bible Came From Arabia, and that was a while ago). He appears to go in to a lot of linguistic detail to back this all up, but for all I know that could be utter malarkey. Probably is, in fact. But again, it was an entertaining read.
BUT if Kalibi’s theory was all true (not that it seems like it actually is or anything), then clearly what happened is the Saudi Arabian ‘Israelites’ simply hopped the short distance across the Red Sea to Aksum, in Ethiopia, and set up camp, with Ark and all. Hmm…I could write a book about this. I’ve got at least as much of an archaeological background as Hancock. 
NoNONONONONO!!!
The Nazis tried to take it out, but Indy took it to the US of A.
Sorry, had to say that. 
According to the Talmud, it was hidden by King Josiah. The Talmud says that the verse in II Chronicles 35:3 (referenced earlier by NoClueBoy) does not refer to the Temple proper, but to hidden chambers which Solomon had constructed on or under the Temple Mount, and that that’s where the Ark was being brought to at that time…to remain safe from the doom that was foretold by the omen of the Torah scroll that had been found in the previous chapter.
Actually, the Talmud (Yoma 52b, 53b-54a) cites several opinions as to what happened to the Ark:
- It was hidden by order of Josiah, as Chaim mentioned. The hiding place was either:[list=a][li]under the Holy of Holies, or[/li][li]under the chamber where wood for the Altar was stored.[/li][/list=a]2. It was taken to Babylon, by order of Nebuchadnezzar, with the rest of the Temple’s vessels and treasures. [No explanation is given, according to this opinion, why it wasn’t sent back when the Temple was rebuilt, like the rest of the vessels (Ezra 1:7ff). Also, this opinion doesn’t say where the Ark is/was located following its capture.]
According to one of the books written by Richard Haliburton, which were old when I read them about 40 years ago, he explored the Tunnel of Hezekiah, under the city of Jerusalem in the then-British mandate of Palestine, and observed something of the proper size and shape glinting beyond a cave-in.
To what extent this is true and whether what he observed has anything to do with the Ark, is a whole different question.
Conjecture: Maybe, just like Moses’ body (Jude 9), God took the ark before the Babylonians came. It’s worth a thought. But that would really be a GD answer, not a GQ answer.
The Knights Templar are hard to research on the web, because there is so much mysticism surrounding them. Where does one go for a fact based discussion of them?