But that turned out to a ring of smugglers who were using the old legend to scare people away, which you may recall was pointed out by four helpful kids and a dog. They unmasked the high priest and he turned out to be …
Pardon me, but if you look closely you’ll see that it is in fact a satellite dish, no doubt so placed as to disrupt any attempts to scan the building.
Whatever’s in there, the local Christian and Jewish populations believe very strongly, and in a very significant way, that it is the actual Ark of the Covenant between Man and God, built by Moses. It would be the most sacred physical object in the world to those people, by a wide margin. So the chances of anyone but the chosen priest being allowed to see it, let alone examine it, are essentially nil.
But let’s assume for argument’s sake that there’s an open house. So the flipside to the above quoted situation would be that scientists end up saying “yeah, it’s an Ark, but we analysed the wood and metal and it’s clearly a replica from the 6th century AD [or whenever].” Bam, the foundation of the faith and rituals of the local people is shaken, just like that. Some degree of social chaos ensues. Also a very undesirable outcome.
But in more direct reply to the OP’s question, no, there’s currently no public technology that would allow us to remotely peer through the roof or walls and get a useful picture of what’s inside. You MIGHT be able to set something up on the ground, along the lines of the cosmic-ray counter they’ve got set up in that pyramid in Mexico right now, but (a) you’d be driven away by the locals pretty quickly, and (b) even if you could use such a system, I don’t think the resolution of the images would tell you anything more than ‘yeah, there’s a box of some sort on an altar in there’, which is already a given.
I agree as far as his amateur (or… I guess not as he has sold some books on it… um, unaccredited) archaeology. But not throwing out the baby with the bath water, Hancock has written some insightful stuff on Third World development organizations (this appears to be how he got into travelling to so many exotic locales). I especially recommend his book The Lords of Poverty. I read that first, and have since happened across many of his tinfoil hat books in bookstores, which caught my eye because of his name.
“Not every day you see an illustrated coffee table book on economics and development… odd cover! No, nothing about the World Bank here… uh-huh… Atlantis, riiiiiiiight…” [Puts book down, backs away]
Hmmmm. I wasn’t actually suggesting going in there and turning it into a tourist site. You don’t see folks shrugging on the Shroud of Tourin to see how it looks, do you? I meant a careful, respectful scientific look.
The idea that it might be a 1200 year old replica did not occur to me, for I did not know they had made acknowledged replicas. I suppose one would need to physically examine it and…well… I am not advocating a prolonged dissembly of whatever is in there.
Were there a way to establish it, it’d be interesting to know. If it could be done in a very non-destructive fashion.
It does look a lot like a satellite dish. No doubt it would have been difficult if not impossible for the Knights Templar to come to the same conclusion, hence the confusion with the holy grail.
Bad naughty Sky, installing all their confusing electronic equipment everywhere!
don’t think anyone mentioned where the picture is from… looked it up on the net and I think it’s at St. Mary of Zion Church in Aksum… or spelt Axum.
As for wondering what’s in there… doesn’t sound like there’s much security. Maybe you could gather some thug buddies and go down there and give them an old fashioned ass whooping… tranquilizer gun the monk guard then break and enter your way into the shed.
Since you’re being so precise with your numbers, where did the other 1% go? (49.98 + 49 + 0.01 + 0.01 =99) 
Or is the missing 1% to cover the likelihood that it’s in a wooden crate in some huge US Government warehouse?
Yep, cood catch. 