AXUM, Ethiopia (RNS) — The fabled Ark of the Covenant has become not only an icon of modern culture, thanks mainly to Indiana Jones, but also the most revered religious relic of all time.
In Ethiopia, people believe it rests in the Chapel of the Tablet in Axum, a northern town just a few miles from the troubled border with Eritrea.
Ark lore runs deep in this country. Copies of a 1993 book by British journalist Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, are displayed everywhere. And every church in Ethiopia has a set of tabots, replicas of the Ten Commandments that once were housed in the Ark.
RNS photo/Ron Csillag
Many Ethiopians believe that the Chapel of the Tablet in Axum, Ethiopia, houses the original Ark of the Covenant. A lone monk mans the chapel, and women are prohibited from going near it.
For one of the world's poorest countries to lay claim to the Ark does much to boost its image — not to mention its tourism.
The Ark was the portable wooden chest, gilded inside and out, adorned with cherubs and topped with a throne, constructed by the Israelites to house the Ten Commandments during their 40 years of desert wanderings to the Promised Land.
Whoever possessed the Ark was invincible. “Biblical and other sources speak of the Ark blazing with fire and light … stopping rivers, blasting whole armies,” Hancock writes in his book.
The Bible says the Philistines had it for awhile but were smitten for their troubles.
Taken to King Solomon's first Jewish temple, it lay in the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. But according to Jewish tradition, it vanished sometime around the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C., creating one of the greatest mysteries of all time.
Except in Ethiopia, where many educated people believe the real Ark rests in the Chapel of the Tablet, where it was moved from an adjacent 10th-century cathedral because divine “heat” from the relic had cracked the stones of its previous sanctum.
As the story goes, the Queen of Sheba, one of Ethiopia's first rulers, traveled to Jerusalem to partake of King Solomon's wisdom. On her way home, she bore the king's son, Menelik.
After Menelik went to Jerusalem to visit his father the king, Solomon gave him a copy of the Ark, and commanded that officials of his kingdom travel back to Ethiopia to settle there.
But the royal entourage traveling to Ethiopia could not bear to be away from the Ark, so they switched the copy with the original and smuggled the real thing out of the country.
Menelik learned of this only on his way home, and reasoned that since the Ark's awesome powers hadn't destroyed his entourage, it must be God's will that it remain in Ethiopia.
The Chapel of the Tablet is part of a larger compound known as the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. The area contains an airy modern church completed in 1960 by former Emperor Haile Selassie; the 10th-century stone cathedral featuring breathtaking frescoes of a black Jesus and Mary; and the Chapel of the Tablet, set behind an iron fence, its trim painted sky-blue.
During a recent visit, a group of grim-faced tourists from Holland, the United States and Germany — all of them women — stood at a distance from the cathedral.
“I'm sorry, women have to wait here,” explained a tour guide, Addis. Four women in the group smiled and proceeded.
“No, really,” Addis said, more firmly. “Wait here.”
Female tourists beware: Women are not allowed near the old cathedral or the chapel. These are the holiest sites in Ethiopia, the guide explained, and since women give off an “aura,” they distract the country's most senior — and celibate — monk, the Ark's guardian.
The guardian is hand picked by other senior monks, sort of like a papal election. And only he knows his successor.
“He prays constantly by the Ark, day and night,” Addis explained. “He fasts. He burns incense before it, paying tribute to God. Only he can see it.”
All others are forbidden to lay eyes on it or even go close to it.
He's not kidding.
Men may not get closer to the Chapel of the Tablet than about 25 yards. The monk comes out now and then to get some air and take delivery of provisions, but those ventures outside never are planned.
The Ark has been in the news in recent months. This spring, the University of Hamburg said researchers had found the remains of the 10th century B.C. palace of the Queen of Sheba, also in Axum, and an altar that, at one time, held the Ark.
The guide scoffed at the idea. “Why would she have kept it at home?”
Over the centuries, a few Western travelers claimed to have seen the Ark, and their descriptions have mirrored those in the Book of Exodus.
But the Ethiopians say that is inconceivable.
“If anyone has said he has seen the Ark,” Addis said with a wide smile, “it must have been a fake.”