Ark of the covenant was a sacred chest made by the ancient Israelites according to the command and design of God. It housed and protected “the Testimony,” the Ten Commandments written on two stone tablets .—Exodus 25:8-10, 16; 31:18.

According to the Book of Exodus, the Tables of the Law contain the ten commandments God gave Moses high atop Mount Sinai. Some would date the event to the year 1440 BC.

Among the many lessons to be found in the Bible, prominent among them is “Look, but don’t touch.” When an Israelite named Uzzah laid hands upon the Ark of The Covenant, he was struck down by God. But, in 1933, an engineering professor theorized that the real cause of death was 10,000 volts of static electricity. The Arc has played an indispensable role in man’s salvation on this planet which continues to this day.

Firstly, we may encounter two spellings: ‘arc’ and ‘ark’ – though ‘ark’ is well associated with Noah’s Ark. Apparently, Noah did not escape the Great Flood by means of a boat – Noah’s Ark – but through the Arc of the Covenant within the Great Pyramid. There was, in fact, an incidence of a previous flood in which a boat was built: thus clearly the Noah’s Ark story is a partial fabrication to hide the true meaning of the Arc – yet the story was still based on truths so that it would intuitively feel correct to people being deceived.

Further proof of the Ark’s functions can be found in the First Book Of Samuel, Chapter 3:3 when the Ark directly speaks to Samuel:

And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God was, and Samuel was laid to sleep.

‘That the Lord called Samuel, and he answered here am I.

‘And he ran unto Eli, and said here am I, for thou calledst me. And he said. I called not, lie down again. And he went and lay down”.

This repeated itself on two more occasions and eventually Eli realized that the Lord was speaking to Samuel via the Ark, which he then told to Samuel, and on the fourth occasion Samuel was able to converse with the Lord, directly through this contrivance.

The only persons in the house at the time were Eli and Samuel, and it is quite blatant that it was indeed the Ark which ‘spoke’ to Samuel. This fuels the argument that the Ark, an alien invention, would have been an unseemly tool for the all-powerful true God of the Universe; HE would not need a technological artifice such as a Three-in-One communication device set, a religious receptacle and a weapon of destruction. The Ark had these uses; at all of the times of communication with ‘God’ and at the times of great battles, the Ark was invariably present. Apocryphal legends, part of common knowledge and tradition in northern Africa and some regions in the Middle East, attribute supernatural powers to the Tables. Around these legends, some others were woven, including the alleged Nazi obsession with occultism and relics that would give Indiana Jones one of his most famous missions.

But the truth is that, after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, nobody knows for sure where the Ark of the Covenant ended up. After disappearing without a trace – and with no known register of its whereabouts – it’s whereabouts (assuming it survived the destruction of the Temple) is still one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries. Nevertheless, almost 45 million Orthodox Christian Ethiopians are certain that the Ark of the Covenant was taken, almost 3000 years ago, to Aksum, in northern Ethiopia, and that it has been guarded ever since by these monks in the humble church of Saint Mary of Zion.

A large part of the history of Ethiopia is centred on the legend of the Queen of Sheba of Ethiopia and King Solomon of Israel. According to the legend of the Ethiopian history, while she was with him; King Solomon made Queen Sheba promise not to take anything from his house. King Solomon went to bed one night on one side of the chamber and Queen Sheba went to bed at the other side of the chamber. Before King Solomon slept, he placed a bowl of water near Queen Sheba’s chamber. As she was thirsty, Queen Sheba woke up in the middle of the night and found the water, which she drank. At this point, Solomon heard noises, woke up and found her drinking the water. He accused her of having broken her oath not to take anything from his house. Nevertheless, the beauty of Queen Sheba attracted King Solomon and the relationship between King Solomon and Queen Sheba was consummated, resulting in the birth of a son named Ibn-al-Malik (known as Menelik), the founder of Ethiopian Solomonic Dynasty.

When Menelik grew up (about 22 years old), he asked his mother who his father was and told him that it was King Solomon of Israel. Menelik told his mother that he wanted to go to visit his father in Jerusalem. He went to Jerusalem to visit his father and Solomon received him with great honour. Menelik stayed with his father in Jerusalem and learnt the Law of Moses for 3 years. Menelik then returned to Aksum, amongst those accompanying him was Azariah the son of the high priest (Zadok) of the temple of Jerusalem.

Before the journey, Azariah had a dream that told him to take the Ark of the Covenant with him to Ethiopia. Azariah did what the dream told him to do and he stole the Ark from the Temple, putting in its place a copy. Azariah told Menelik what he had done and Menelik was angry with him but Azariah convinced Menelik to take the Ark with them. Zadok, the high priest of the Temple, discovered the Ark’s disappearance and informed King Solomon. King Solomon and his army followed Menelik but could not catch him. Whilst this was taking place Solomon dreamt that his son should have the Ark and he returned to Jerusalem and ordered his high Priests to keep its disappearance a secret.

This is not the first time that the Ark is stolen. The time before, it was stolen by Moses from the treasure of Egypt. Pharaoh did everything to get it back. This time, what would refrain the powerful Solomon to pursue the thief? Menelik returned home quietly, with the Levites. Everything shows that it was the will of Solomon. And the Ark of the Covenant has blessed the son of Solomon. Became the first king of Ethiopia, Menelik founded the dynasty of Solomonids, the famous dynasty of the Lion of Judah who would rule for three centuries until 1975, at the death of the last Negus Haile Selassie.

Since then it’s been the goal of many adventurers and archaeologists to find it. Most-famously, but also fictitiously, Indiana Jones was shown in the 1981 Steven Spielberg film Raiders of the Lost Ark. There has also been a long-running claim from the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia that they have had the Ark for centuries, and since the 1960s it has apparently been kept in the chapel. This small and curiously-styled building is surrounded by spiked iron railings and situated between two churches, the old and new, of St Mary of Zion in central Aksum.

No one has been allowed to see the holy object, described in scripture as being made from acacia wood, plated with gold and topped with two golden angels, except one solitary elderly monk, who must watch over the Ark for the remainder of his life and is never allowed to leave the chapel grounds. But now the chapel – which was designed by the Ethiopian leader Emperor Hailie Selassie – has had to be covered in a tarpaulin to stop rain getting in. The water damage could mean the Ark will be moved for the first time in decades giving religious worshippers and adventurers alike a chance to see it

Ancient Astronaut theorists believe that the Ark of the Covenant was, therefore, a power generator or part of a more complex system of energy production. The energy that could be used as a weapon (Jericho) as a means of telecommunication (dialogue between Moses and god) and other miscellaneous uses and theorists state that the proof of its power lies in reading the instructions for the assembly of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, where the ark was guarded and the precise rules for accessing it inside in order to protect human lives.

While many people are unaware of this, in the representations of the Battle of Kadesh at Abu Simbel we can see that the army of Ramses II had a device which is extremely similar to the “Ark of the Covenant” as we know it from the Bible, and it was held in a tented camp from where mysterious powers would be invoked. The device which was housed in a tent similar to the one referenced to in the bible has two vultures represented with wings, almost identical to the classical architecture of the Ark of the Covenant.

Does the ark of the covenant exist today?

There is no evidence that it does. The Bible shows that the Ark is no longer needed because the covenant associated with it has been replaced with “a new covenant,” one based on Jesus’ sacrifice. (Jeremiah 31:31-33; Hebrews 8:13; 12:24). The Bible thus foretold a time when the ark of the covenant would be no more, yet God’s people would not miss it.—Jeremiah 3:16. In a vision given to the apostle John after the new covenant was established, the ark of the covenant appeared in heaven. (Revelation 11:15, 19) This symbolic Ark represents God’s presence and his blessing on the new covenant.

Did the Ark serve as a sort of magic charm?

No. Possessing the ark of the covenant did not guarantee success. For example, the Israelites had the Ark in their camp when battling the city of Ai, yet they suffered defeat because of one Israelite’s unfaithfulness. (Joshua 7:1-6) Later, they were defeated by the Philistines despite taking the ark of the covenant to the battlefield. That conquest was due to the wickedness of the Israelite priests Hophni and Phinehas. (1 Samuel 2:12; 4:1-11) The Philistines captured the Ark in that battle, but God struck them with plagues until they returned it to Israel.—1 Samuel 5:11–6:5.

References: