Search for the Ark of the Covenant
ISRAEL, EGYPT, ETHIOPIA

Disclaimer Statement
The research and site survey being investigated by the BASE Institute has strong potential. Is it the path of the Ark of the Covenant? The BASE Institute does not make the claim that we have found the Ark of the Covenant. We'll let you draw your own conclusions. In our opinion, it's a candidate. The research continues.

EDITOR'S NOTE: While investigating possible locations of the Ark of the Covenant, the BASE research team has conducted expeditions to Ethiopia,Egypt, Israel and Rome. Although the subject is controversial and clouded with confusion, one emerging theory indicates that the Ark of the covenant was transported out of ancient Israel and may be in Ethiopia today. As unusual as this may sound, the BASE team has uncovered compelling evidence that the Ark may well have been spirited up the Nile River to an eventual resting place in the remote highlands of ancient Kush - modern Ethiopia.

ISRAEL (Jerusalem)

Although the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was the last known location of the Ark of the Covenant, its date of departure from the Temple is a topic of much debate. The last known reference alluding to the Ark's presence in the Temple dates from 701 BC, when the Assyrian king Sennacherib surrounded Hezekiah's forces in Jerusalem. Isaiah 37:14-16 reads, "And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying: 'O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim . . .'" This reference to the presence of God's Shekinah Glory abiding above the mercy seat on the Ark of the covenant, between the cherubim sculpted on the lid of the Ark, seems to confirm that the Ark was still located in the Holy of Holies in 701 BC.

It appears that the villain in the drama of the Ark was the subsequent king, Manasseh, and that the Ark most probably was taken out of the Temple during his reign. Although the extent of Manasseh's evil does not allow a full description here, the Bible summarizes his deeds by noting that he did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed. He practiced wizardry and sorcery, placed pagan idols in the Holy of Holies, and shed innocent blood in the streets of Jerusalem, from one end to the other. Our belief is that a pure Levitical priesthood, left over from the days of Hezekiah, would not have tolerated the degrading and polluting of the Temple containing the Ark of the Covenant. It is even possible that Manasseh would have ordered the Ark removed from the Temple before installing his own debased idols. Whatever the reason the Ark was removed, it is interesting to note that that just a short time after King Manasseh (687-642 BC), King Josiah (who brought great reform to the Jews) mentions the Ark's absence from the Temple. In 2 Chronicles 35:3 we read, "Then he said to the Levites who taught all Israel, who were holy to the Lord: 'Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the Son of David, king of Israel, built. It shall no longer be a burden on your shoulders.'" This not only appears to confirm that the Ark had been removed from the Temple, but also that the priests had been moving it somewhere in the manner prescribed by Levitical law. But if the Ark of the Covenant was removed from the Temple during the reign of Manasseh, where was it taken?

EGYPT (Aswan, Elephantine Island)

We have discovered historical evidence that during the reign of Manasseh in Israel, a colony of Jews - including Levitical priests - migrated from Israel and founded a colony on Elephantine Island in Egypt. It is strongly possible, if not probable, that the Elephantine Jews were escaping the desecration and persecution of wicked King Manasseh, and that they had the Ark of the Covenant with them. In our visit to Elephantine Island, we thoroughly investigated ruins of a replica Jewish temple that had been built by 650 BC, matching precisely the dimensions of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. Of course, the practice of building temples outside of Jerusalem was strictly forbidden by Deuteronomic Law, so only the most dire of circumstances would have compelled a group of Jewish refugees to undertake such a project. Moreover, a temple replica would have been fruitless at that point in history without serving its primary function as a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant.

A number of ancient documents (such as the Elephantine Papyri) seem to confirm the existence of a Jewish Temple at Elephantine. Egypt, or at least certain districts of Egypt, would have been a safe haven for Jewish refugees, as we see from King Neco's friendly appeal to Josiah in 2 Chronicles 35:20-21, less than a generation later. (It may even be that Josiah died trying to gain enough control over Egypt to reclaim the Ark). What's more, our scholarly contact in Egypt, Dr. Atif Hanna, curator of the Aswan Museum, has concluded from his investigation that the Ark of the Covenant did indeed come to Elephantine Island during the reign of Manasseh in Israel, and that it was housed in the replica temple. However, Dr. Hanna has also determined that the replica temple was destroyed for unknown reasons - possibly the advance of a new, aggressive from of idol worship - in 410 BC. That event, then, raises the question: Where would the Ark have been taken? Where might our search lead us next? At this point, all indicators pointed toward Ethiopia.

ETHIOPIA (Lake Tana)

Why take our search to Ethiopia? First of all, for centuries of Ethiopian history, there has existed strong tradition and legend that the Ark of the covenant indeed found its final resting place in Ethiopia. But even more important, the Bible and related sources are not silent on the subject of a direct connection between the Jews and Ethiopia. Josephus, Jewish historian to the Romans, cites a strong connection between Moses (during his princely upbringing in Egypt) and Ethiopia. In Book II, Chapter X of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus recounts an episode in which Moses, leading forces from Egypt, besieges the Ethiopian city of Saba, and subsequently receives an offer of marriage from the king's daughter named Tharbis. According to Josephus, Moses accepts and consummates his marriage to an Ethiopian, and so wins the city for Egypt. Is this fable or fact? It's hard to say for certain - but in Numbers 12:1 we find that ". . . Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian."