Near the ruins of Aksum is another interesting place, known as the Church of Our Lady, Mary of Zion. Ethiopia claims that the Ark of the Covenant is inside this church, resting in a small chapel. The problem is, only one person is allowed to see the ark. A guardian monk. That sounds like my kind of job. This guardian monk serves for life and is sequestered in the church. He never leaves. He never visits Disney World. He’s allowed outside in a small garden like area, but that’s it. Occasionally, he will talk with people on the other side of the fenced in garden. Okay. Maybe not my kind of job.
Is the Ark of the Covenant really there? It’s possible. The story is that Solomon and the queen of Sheba had a child together named Menelik. This royal young man is thought to have taken the Ark from Israel to Ethiopia (Sheba) after meeting and visiting his father. Some say Solomon gave him the ark. Some say he absconded with the ark. In any case, he returned home and founded the Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopian rulers that lasted some three thousand years. Until 1974, to be specific. The last Solomonic king was believed by many to be the Returned Jesus. Until he was strangled in his bed by disillusioned members of the military. I hate when that happens.
As far as I can tell, besides Ethiopia, there are only a few viable places for the Ark to be hidden. One would be Babylon; the ark would have been a great war trophy for Nebuchadnezzar. Another would be right there in Jerusalem, somewhere deep beneath the Temple; a few attempts to look for it there have been made but you can’t exactly do excavations on a sacred Muslim area (that’s where the Dome of the Rock is). It’s also possible the ark was just melted down for its gold. That’s not a very satisfying explanation. I would expect some Indiana Jones style pyrotechnics if anyone actually tried to destroy the ark.
I would really like to take a peek in that chapel of the ark!