The Last Secret of the Ark

by James Becker

  ‘But even if you believe that the Kebra Nagast is accurate, there are numerous holes in whichever version of the story you accept, one of which is glaringly obvious. The Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred religious relic the Israelites possessed. It was kept in its own special room in the Temple, the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies, a secure room that could only be entered by one man, the High Priest of the Temple, and only on one day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The reason why the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is still so important to the Jewish faith is because that’s the closest any Jew can get to where the First Temple once stood and where the Ark was kept. It’s just possible that Solomon permitted Menelik to look into the room while he was in Jerusalem, but the Temple priests would never have allowed any more contact than that. Not even Solomon had the right to enter the Holy of Holies.’

  Angela broke off as their starters arrived. Ethiopian cuisine featured a lot of vegan and vegetable dishes, usually highly spiced. Angela had selected a local dish called ful medames, fava beans served with hard-boiled eggs and injera, a sourdough flatbread, while Bronson had more cautiously chosen a small dish of pasta and beef. Angela would normally have started with a salad, but whenever she travelled outside Europe, she avoided anything that had been washed rather than cooked. There were no pharaohs in Ethiopia and never had been, but that didn’t mean the pharaoh’s revenge wasn’t waiting in the wings to pay her a visit.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ she went on, ‘that the Ark had been designed by God for the Israelites and was of overwhelming importance to them. It was also very dangerous. There are stories in the Old Testament of people being killed instantly if they touched it, sometimes if they even looked at it, which is why it was always covered when the Israelites were wandering about the desert, and then held in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The idea that Menelik’s people could have knocked up a convincing replica and then just strolled into the Temple to swap them over makes no sense at all. They simply couldn’t have done it. So the story’s badly flawed for that reason alone.

  ‘And then there’s what apparently happened after that. The Ethiopians believe that after the Ark had been removed from Jerusalem, it was transported via Egypt to Ethiopia, to the island of Tana Kirkos in Lake Tana, where it stayed for four hundred years. Today that island is home to about thirty men, all of them priests or monks. Women haven’t been allowed there for centuries in case the mere sight of them inflames unwanted passions in the younger monks. There’s no electricity or telephone, and virtually no contact with the modern world. There’s a small monastery, a church and a few houses.

  ‘According to some of the monks there who have talked to Westerners trying to trace the history of the Ark, it was kept outside in the open, placed on a specific flat rock that still bears faint marks where its feet would have been positioned. That makes no sense either. The Ark was basically a wooden box, and it would already have been old by this time. The Bible, as usual, is noticeably vague about dates and facts, but from the time of its construction to its placement in the First Temple couldn’t have been less than about a century and was probably a lot longer than that. If it had been left out and exposed to the elements on that island, I doubt it would have lasted four months, never mind four hundred years. And the Ark was never, ever supposed to rest on the ground. Even when it was in the tabernacle, it was always on some kind of a stand.

  ‘Quite probably something was placed on that island, but I don’t think it was the Ark. Next to this rock is a green-painted metal shed with a corrugated-iron roof, and inside are shaped stones used for the sacrifice of sheep and goats, animal sacrifice being a feature of the early Judaean religion. That does suggest a link between Ethiopia and Judaea. For years there was an oppressed minority people here called the Falashas, black Jews. They practised the earliest and oldest Jewish traditions, including animal sacrifice, for centuries after the mainstream Jewish religion had abandoned them. Most of them left Ethiopia in the 1970s.’

  ‘Okay,’ Bronson said, finishing his pasta. ‘I can’t pick holes in what you’re telling me because I know almost nothing about it, and you always do your research. So you’ve traced the Ark, or more likely something completely different, to this island in the lake. Where’s it supposed to have gone from there?’

  Angela mopped up the last mouthful of ful medames.

  ‘It was moved to Axum, not far from where we’re sitting now. The official resting place of the Ark of the Covenant is the Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion. It’s visited by thousands of people every year, drawn here by the story. In fact, there are two cathedrals and the Ark isn’t actually in either of them. It’s allegedly kept in a separate building known as the Chapel of the Tablet in the cathedral grounds. It’s occupied by a single man, a guardian monk, chosen by divine prophecy. Once selected, he stays in the chapel for the rest of his life. He’s not allowed to see the Ark, only to guard it and pray to it.’

  ‘And that’s the building you’re interested in,’ Bronson said.

  ‘Yes, because if the Ark really is here, despite all the evidence against it, that’s where it’ll be. In fact,’ she added, ‘there are lots of Arks here. The Ethiopians refer to them as tabots in the local language, though the word means the tablets, the Ten Commandments, not the Ark itself. And that extends to the name of the chapel. It’s called the Chapel of the Tablet, not the Chapel of the Ark, which is a bit of an anomaly. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church worldwide has a replica of the Ark and the tablets in its own mak’da or holy of holies, where only the most senior priests can enter. If it hasn’t got one, then it can’t be classed as a church, so they do take this idea very seriously.’

  ‘Could we get to see one of these replicas?’ Bronson asked.

  ‘Possibly, but it wouldn’t do us any good, because they aren’t really replicas in the sense that you or I understand the word. They aren’t copies of the original in shape, size or material and don’t even resemble each other. They’re just wooden boxes of various sizes holding stone copies of the Ten Commandments, and their function is purely symbolic. But even these replicas are believed to have huge power.

  ‘Every year on the nineteenth of January there’s a celebration called Timkat, meaning the Feast of the Epiphany, when every church in the country brings out its own tabot to parade it through the streets. I’ve read one account of the Timkat here in Axum that was filmed by a Westerner outside the church. Normally a priest carries the replica Ark on his head, with a cloth covering it. The person watching saw one side of a red wooden box decorated with three large metal protrusions incorporating a starburst design, and four smaller ones. He estimated it was about two and a half feet long and roughly a foot high, which means it was much smaller than the genuine Ark. Other replicas seen in public look like flat boxes only a few inches high, so there’s no commonality in their design. They’re just symbols, nothing more.’

  Bronson nodded as the waiter approached with their main courses, both of them opting for pasta.

  ‘I like pasta,’ he said defensively as Angela looked at his plate with a slightly raised eyebrow, ‘and so do the locals round here. It’s a legacy of the Italian occupation during the last war. So the short summary is that we’re just wasting our time here. Is there any chance at all that the Ark really is here in Axum?’

  ‘Not in my opinion. Even if Menelik’s people did manage to steal it, and against the odds it survived the journey here from Israel and its time on the island, it still might not be here. It could have left the country later. The Knights Templar visited Ethiopia in the thirteenth century, and if they had found the real Ark here, I’ve no doubt they would have taken it away with them, by force if necessary. But I still think it’s very unlikely it was here in the first place. And there’s one other piece of evidence that’s particularly significant.

  ‘A man named Edward Ullendorff served here as a British army officer during the Second World War. When he was interviewed in 1992, he said he had been inside the chu
rch here in Axum in 1941 and had been able to examine the alleged Ark for himself. I remember his description of it. He said: “They have a wooden box, but it’s empty. Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc.” The real point is that he wasn’t just some soldier giving an uninformed opinion about a box he’d seen. Ullendorff knew a lot about this country – he ended up as a professor of Ethiopian studies at the University of London, so by any standards he was an expert witness. As far as I know, he’s the only non-Ethiopian ever to have seen the alleged Ark here, so his opinion is a clincher as far as I’m concerned.

  ‘The counter-argument is that because the Ark and the tablets have supposedly been guarded in the same way almost since the days of Menelik, no visitors could possibly have seen the genuine article. If they had seen anything like an Ark, it must have been a fake. But I still think what Ullendorff said is probably correct.’

  ‘So I was right about something,’ Bronson said. ‘We’re just wasting our time here.’

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘But you still want to check out the chapel?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why we’re here. Let’s try tomorrow morning, when it’s warm but not too hot. The guardian’s job is to guard the Ark, obviously, but he’s also required to pray beside it, surrounded by burning incense and worshipping God. But he doesn’t stay in the chapel all the time. He wanders about within the metal fence surrounding the building, and sometimes talks to people, especially priests or monks, as long as they speak Oromo or Amharic. We’d get nowhere with him using English, but we don’t want to talk to him. We just want him outside the chapel and ideally distracted by a visitor. If we wait until the afternoon, it’ll be too hot and he’ll probably stay in the chapel because it’ll be cooler inside. Is the device ready?’

  ‘I’ve checked it, and I’ve made the modifications I told you about to increase its endurance. That makes it a bit unstable but nothing I can’t handle, so as far as I can see we’re ready to go.’

  ‘Good. Let’s watch the sunset from our balcony. And tomorrow afternoon I thought we might just do the tourist bit and take a taxi ride down to Lalibela.’

  ‘What’s there?’ Bronson asked.

  ‘You’ll see tomorrow, but I guarantee you’ll be impressed, even amazed. It’s one of the must-see places in the world. Think Petra in Jordan, only downwards not sideways.’

  And with that somewhat enigmatic statement, Angela stood up and led the way out of the dining room.

  Chapter 2

  They were up, breakfasted and walking along the cobbled pavement of the street outside the hotel by 9 a.m. Angela was carrying a large bag made of colourful woven material that she’d bought locally, and Bronson was carrying nothing at all.

  When they reached the cathedral, they found several people around the building and in the grounds. Most were locals, judging by their dress and skin colour, but there were also clumps of tourists, some in organised tour groups and others couples or families having a look around.

  They walked around the old Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion, which looked more like a fortress than a place of worship, with solid stone walls pierced by very few openings and crenellated around the top. Dating originally from the fourth century ad, it had been destroyed and rebuilt over the years, and last rebuilt and enlarged in the seventeenth century. It was unusual in that only men were permitted to enter it, probably because in the tenth century the building was destroyed by the forces of Queen Gudit. The only woman permitted inside was Mary, the saint to whom the building was dedicated, and she was a permanent resident.

  Almost next to it was the new Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion, a much more modern building begun in the 1950s by the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. This one was open to both sexes. It was a circular domed structure with an impressive and restful interior.

  Nestling between the two was the Chapel of the Tablet, a small, brownish single-storey stone building marked by blue-painted decoration within the windows, blue fence posts, a crucifix above the door and another adorning the dome in the centre of the roof.

  Angela looked around as they approached. There were a couple of locals standing right beside the steel perimeter fence, perhaps hoping to exchange a few words with the guardian monk. He was obviously inside, the door of the chapel shut.

  They were in no hurry and picked a spot to sit some distance from the boundary fence, because women were not permitted to get close to the chapel. From that location they had a good view of the door of the building, and also the benefit of a tree to provide a measure of shade.

  ‘This is almost ideal,’ Angela said, lowering herself to the ground and opening her voluminous bag to take out a thick novel. She passed the bag over to Bronson and adjusted her wide straw hat to shade her face from the sun. She was wearing a pair of large sunglasses that rendered her eyes invisible to anyone looking at her, which was convenient because she wasn’t reading the book she was holding but watching the door of the chapel.

  Bronson was also wearing sunglasses and a hat, as was every other tourist, male or female, in the vicinity, but he didn’t have a book to read. Or even to pretend to read. Instead, he reached into the bag Angela had handed him, took out a small cardboard box with a brightly coloured lid and opened it up.

  Inside were a few sheets of paper covered in printing, diagrams and pictures, and underneath those were two objects. The first was what looked like a small computer game controller, including a clamp that was obviously designed to hold a smartphone. He took his mobile out of his pocket and fitted it in place. The previous evening at the hotel he’d synched the components together and tested everything.

  He removed the other object from the box, a tiny plastic mechanism that he had purchased – on Angela’s detailed instructions – for this single purpose. It was an Eachine E10W mini quadcopter, a so-called nano-drone, fitted with a tiny high-definition two-megapixel camera capable of taking both video and still images. Two versions of this nano-drone existed, the other model being the E10C, which was slightly cheaper but lacked the FPV – first-person view – facility that was essential for what Bronson intended to do. This allowed him to see the view through the drone’s camera on his linked mobile phone screen. He would be able to tell exactly where the device was pointing, just as if he were actually on board the drone.

  Fitted with four rotors, the E10W was a mere six centimetres – just over two and a quarter inches – in diameter and was not in exactly the same state as it had been when Bronson had first opened the box. On a flying object of that size, weight was critical, so he’d identified the lightest battery he could find with the same or better power output than the one fitted inside the drone, then attached it to the underside of the quadcopter and wired it into the device.

  The first test flight hadn’t gone well, but after a certain amount of fiddling about, he’d sorted out the weight distribution and got the quadcopter into a controllable state. More importantly, he’d doubled its total endurance from about five or six minutes to roughly eleven minutes, a very significant increase. And he knew he’d probably need every extra second he could manage. He’d spent hours learning its characteristics and how to pilot it, concentrating on navigating it in confined spaces.

  The E10W came with LED lights to identify it in poor light conditions. The one thing Bronson definitely didn’t want was bright lights flashing on it: the whole point was for it to be as undetectable as possible. So he’d removed both the LED lights and the associated wiring. Tiny, lightweight components, but on something weighing only fifteen grams, even the smallest fraction of a gram was significant.

  As standard, the drone had a white underside, white rotor blades and metallic blue paint on its upper surface. Bronson had applied the thinnest possible coat of blue paint to the underside and the blades. The device was so small that its rotors would be inaudible more than a few feet away, and the new paint meant that it should also be invisible from below against the almost constant solid blue sky ov
er Ethiopia.

  The onboard camera was supposed to take a memory card, but Bronson hadn’t fitted one to save a little bit more weight. His smartphone would record whatever the camera saw as well as letting him navigate the drone.

  He’d fully charged all the batteries overnight, including the two on the drone, and he made a final check that the tiny machine was ready to fly. When he was happy with it, he put the controller and the drone back in Angela’s bag. Now all they could do was wait.

  The door of the Chapel of the Tablet remained firmly closed until just after 10.30, by which time Angela had stopped pretending to read and was already well into the third chapter of her book, and Bronson had begun dozing off in the warm still air.

  The door suddenly swung wide open with a creak and a groan from the hinges, and the guardian monk, a tall and somewhat gaunt figure wearing a saffron-yellow robe, sandals and a dark-coloured turban appeared in the opening and stared out for a few moments, blinking in the harsh sunlight. Then he stepped back inside, leaving the door wide open.

  ‘You know he has to be a virgin, don’t you?’ Bronson asked as the tall figure disappeared. ‘I read about it on the Internet. And that when he knows he’s near death he has to discuss the matter of his successor with senior priests and then nominate the chosen monk, who also has to be a virgin. I’m not quite sure how can you tell that, for a man.’