The Sign and the Seal

by Graham Hancock

  Leaving the Mai Shum behind us, we motored about half way up the steep and broken path leading to the site of King Kaleb’s palace and completed the journey on foot after first camouflaging the car. Hagos then led me into the ruins where he poked around for a while amongst the rubble before finally exclaiming in triumph: ‘Here! Over here! I think this is what you want to see.’

  I hurried to join him and saw that he had retrieved a block of sand-coloured stone about two feet square and six inches thick. Out of it had been carved four elliptical holes of precisely the same shape and disposition as the elliptical incisions near the carving of the lioness. In this case, however, because the holes passed right through the block, there could be no ambiguity at all about the shape of the remaining stone: it formed another perfect Templar cross.

  ‘When I was a child,’ mused Hagos, ‘I and my friends used to play up here. In those days there were many blocks like this lying around. I expect that all the other ones must have been removed since then.’

  ‘Where would they have been taken?’

  ‘The townspeople constantly re-use the stones from the ruins to build or repair their own homes. So we’re lucky to have found this block intact … But there are other crosses, just the same shape as this one, in the cellars under the palace.’

  We made our way down a flight of stairs into the dark dungeons that I had visited in 1983. Then, by flashlight, I had been shown a number of empty stone coffers which the Axumites believed had once contained great riches in gold and pearls. Now, producing a box of matches, Hagos showed me a Templar cross carved into the end of one of these coffers.

  ‘How did you know that was there?’ I asked in amazement.

  ‘Everyone in Axum knows. As I said, I used to play in these ruins when I was a boy.’

  He then led me into the next chamber, struck a match, and showed me two more Templar crosses – one, rather crudely formed, on the far wall and another, beautifully executed, high up on the longer side wall.

  Until the flame guttered out I stood gazing up at these crosses lost in thought. I knew that I might never be able to prove my hypothesis to the complete satisfaction of archaeologists or historians, but I now felt certain in my own heart that the Templars had indeed been here. The croix pattée had been their characteristic emblem, worn on their shields and on their tunics. It was entirely in keeping with everything else that I had learnt about them that some of their number should have come down here, into the obscure darkness of these dungeons, to leave that emblem on the walls – as a kind of puzzle perhaps, or as a sign, for future generations to wonder over.

  ‘Are there any traditions’, I asked Hagos, ‘about who carved these crosses here?’

  ‘Some of the townspeople say that they were the work of angels,’ replied the TPLF official, ‘but of course that is nonsense.’

  A bearer of bad news

  I did not hear from Hagos’s father until after night had fallen, and when I did the news was bad. He came round to the little guest house in which we were staying shortly after seven that evening to tell me that the Nebura-ed was out of town.

  My first reaction, which I did not voice, was that it was extremely unlikely that the chief priest of the Saint Mary of Zion church would be absent at this time of year. With Timkat just around the corner, and many preparations to make, his presence would surely be required in Axum.

  ‘How unfortunate,’ I said. ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘He has gone to Asmara … for consultations.’

  ‘But Asmara is still in government hands. How can he go there?’

  ‘The Nebura-ed may go anywhere.’

  ‘And will he be back before Timkat?’

  ‘I am told that he will not return for several days. His deputy will stand in for him during the Timkat ceremonies.’

  ‘So what does this mean for my work? Will I be able to talk to the guardian of the Ark, for example? There are so many questions that I have to ask.’

  ‘Without the permission of the Nebura-ed you will be able to do nothing.’

  Hagos’s father was clearly an innocent messenger, so I had no right or reason to feel furious with him. Nevertheless it seemed obvious that the information he had just delivered was part of a strategy to prevent me from learning more about the Ark. Though they would probably be polite and friendly towards me as individuals, the plain fact was that the monks and priests of Axum would not co-operate with my investigation without the permission of the Nebura-ed. Sadly, however, the Nebura-ed was absent. Therefore I could not obtain his permission. Therefore I would not be able to find out anything of any significance from anyone; nor would I be able to do any of the things that I had come so many miles to do. In this classically Abyssinian fashion, I would be neutralized without anyone actually having to refuse me anything. The clergymen would not have to be boorish or rude; on the contrary they would only need to shrug and tell me with deep regret that this or that could not be done without the sanction of the Nebura-ed, and that – on this or that matter – they themselves were not qualified to speak.

  ‘Is there any way,’ I asked, ‘that we can get a message to the Nebura-ed – about my work here?’

  ‘While he is in Asmara?’ laughed Hagos’s father. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘OK then. What about the deputy chief priest? Can’t he give me the permission I need?’

  ‘I do not think so. To give you that permission he would first have to obtain the permission of the Nebura-ed.’

  ‘In other words he would have to get permission to give me permission?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But can’t I at least try? Can’t I even meet the deputy and explain to him why I’m here? Who knows? He might be willing to help me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hagos’s father. ‘At any rate I will talk to the deputy tonight and I will bring you his answer tomorrow.’

  Sanctuary of the Ark

  The next morning, Thursday 17 January 1991, we were all up and about before dawn. Ed had wanted to shoot some general views at sunrise and Hagos had suggested that the summit of one of the several stony hills behind the town would provide the best vantage point.

  Accordingly, at four-thirty a.m. we rousted Tesfaye, our driver, out of the bed that he been sharing with a local prostitute virtually non-stop since our arrival. On the road before five, we shoved the aerial of Ed’s short-wave radio out of the window. The reception was bad, fogged with static. Nevertheless we managed to unscramble enough of the broadcast to understand that war had finally broken out in the Gulf, that American bombers had flown hundreds of sorties against Baghdad during the night, and that massive devastation had been caused. Apparently the Iraqi airforce had not managed to send up a single fighter in response.

  ‘Sounds like it’s all over,’ commented Ed with a certain amount of satisfaction.

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Hagos. ‘We will have to wait and see.’

  We sat in silence for a while, listening to the continuing reports, as Tesfaye manoeuvred us up the steep track towards the summit we were heading for. The sky was still almost completely dark and he was perhaps dreaming of the humid pleasures he had so recently been enjoying; at any rate he managed to half roll the vehicle at one point and only just avoided driving us over the edge of a small cliff.

  Ed, Hagos and I took this as our cue to get out. Leaving Tesfaye to deal with the camouflage tarpaulin we then walked the rest of the way to the summit.

  It was a short hike through the litter of an old battlefield. ‘This was where the last part of the Ethiopian army garrison held out when we took Axum from them,’ explained Hagos. ‘They were tough fighters, from the Seventeenth Division. We over-ran them in eight hours.’

  All around us were smashed military lorries, burnt-out armoured personnel carriers and gutted tanks. And, as the sun began to come up, I noticed that huge amounts of munitions were still lying underfoot. Most of the debris consisted of spent shells and chunks of shrapnel. There were also several 81mm mortar b
ombs, rusty but unexploded, which nobody had bothered to remove.

  Eventually we reached the summit, upon which perched the twisted and blackened wreckage of a barrack block. There beneath the crimson sky of morning, I stood and gazed gloomily down on the town of Axum.

  Behind me was the devastated ruin of a building. Its corrugated aluminium roof, still partially intact, creaked and groaned eerily in the cold dawn breeze. On the ground in front of me was a soldier’s helmet, split across the brow by some anonymous projectile. Further off, in a crater, lay a soldier’s rotting boot.

  The light was stronger now and far below I could see the garden in the centre of Axum where the main collection of giant stelae stood. Beyond, across a deserted square, set back in a secluded compound, rose the battlements and towers of the great church of Saint Mary of Zion. And by the side of that imposing edifice, surrounded by barbed iron railings, sat a squat grey granite chapel, windowless and barred, with a dome of green copper. This was the sanctuary of the Ark, near and yet far away, approachable and yet unapproachable. Within it lay the answer to all my questions, proof or disproof of all my work. Accordingly I looked down at it with longing and respect, with hope and agitation, with impatience but also with uncertainty.

  Men of straw

  We returned to the guest house for breakfast. And there we sat until mid-morning surrounded by a group of unusually sombre and pensive Tigrayans – all of whom had come to hear the news that boomed and crackled out of Ed’s short-wave radio and that Hagos solemnly translated for them. Looking around at the faces, young and old, handsome and plain, I was struck by the poignancy of this intense interest in a distant war. Perhaps it provided a distraction from the home-grown conflict that had killed and maimed so many in this little town. Perhaps it arose from feelings of sympathy at the thought of the savage bombing that others were now enduring.

  Taking in the nuances of this scene, I realized that such freedom of association would have been quite impossible for the browbeaten and terrorized townsfolk in the days when the Ethiopian government still ruled in Axum. And it seemed to me, though there was great poverty, though the schools were closed, though people could not move openly for fear of air strikes, though farmers could hardly plough their fields, and though famine threatened, that things were better here – far better – than they had been before.

  Around eleven a.m., after Ed’s filming schedule for the day had been worked out, Hagos and I walked into town in the direction of the main stelae park. At one point we passed a handpainted TPLF mural which depicted President Mengistu as a ravening demon with a blood-stained swastika on his cap and lines of armed soldiers marching out of his mouth. Half a dozen MiGs circled above his head and he was surrounded by tanks and artillery. The caption proclaimed in Tigrigna: We will never kneel before the dictator Mengistu.’

  We walked on through the pot-holed streets of Axum, past poor market stalls and empty shops, amongst the simple houses, encountering on our way a constant stream of pedestrians – monks and nuns, priests, urchins, dignified elders, peasants in from the countryside, townsfolk, a woman carrying a huge earthen pot of water, groups of teenage boys trying to look stylish like teenagers everywhere. And I thought: a few years ago I would have been quite happy to stand by while the government took all these people away to resettlement camps.

  ‘Hagos,’ I said, ‘things are so different in Axum since you expelled the government troops. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the atmosphere’s completely changed.’

  ‘It is because no one is afraid any more,’ the TPLF official replied a moment later.

  ‘Not even of the bombing and the air raids?’

  ‘We fear those things, of course. But they are more of a nuisance than a terror – and we have found ways to avoid them. In the past, when the government was here, we could not avoid the cruelty of the garrisons, the tortures, the random arrests. That was the terror that oppressed us for so long. Yet when we confronted it, do you know what happened?’

  ‘No. Not exactly.’

  ‘We discovered that it had been spread by men of straw and that freedom had always been within our grasp.’

  We had reached the garden of the stelae. As I walked amongst the great monoliths, I marvelled at the artistry and at the sheer skill of the forgotten culture that had conceived them. And I remembered that in 1983 the guardian monk had told me that they had been raised up by the Ark – by ‘the Ark and the celestial fire’.

  At the time I had not known what to make of the old man’s words: now, with all I had learned, I knew that he could have been telling the truth. In its history the sacred relic had worked many great miracles: the erection of a few hundred tons of stone would surely not have been beyond its powers.

  Miracle made real

  That afternoon at four Hagos’s father came to the guest house to report that the deputy chief priest would see us. He said that for reasons of protocol he could not accompany us there but gave us precise directions as to where we should go.

  Hagos and I then walked over to the Saint Mary of Zion church and entered into a warren of small dwellings built around the rear of the compound. Passing under a low arch we came to a gateway. We knocked and were admitted to a garden where, on a bench, sat an elderly man dressed in black robes.

  When he saw us approaching he murmured a quiet command. Hagos turned to me and said: ‘You must stay here. I will talk on your behalf.’

  An earnest conversation then ensued. Watching it from a distance I felt … impotent, paralysed, nullified, invalidated. I considered rushing forward and passionately pleading my case. But I knew that my entreaties, however heartfelt, would fall on ears tuned only to the rhythms of tradition.

  Eventually Hagos came back. ‘I have told the deputy everything,’ he explained. ‘He says that he will not talk to you. He says that on a matter as important as the Ark only the Nebura-ed and the guardian monk are qualified to speak.’

  ‘And I assume that the Nebura-ed is still away?’

  ‘Still away. Yes. But I have good news. The deputy has accepted for you to talk to the guardian.’

  A few minutes later, having followed a maze of dusty paths, we came to the Saint Mary of Zion church. Passing in front of it we arrived at the metal railings that surrounded the sanctuary chapel. I stood for a while, staring through these railings. I calculated that with an energetic climb and a short dash I could reach the locked door of the building in about ten seconds.

  Half joking, I mentioned this idea to Hagos, who responded with a look of genuine horror.

  ‘Don’t think of it,’ he cautioned. He gestured back in the direction of Saint Mary of Zion where half a dozen tall young deacons were loitering. ‘As a foreigner you command great respect. But if you were to commit such sacrilege you would certainly be killed.’

  ‘Where do you suppose the guardian is?’ I now asked.

  ‘He is inside. He will join us when he is ready.’

  We waited patiently until the sun was low in the sky. Then, as the darkness deepened, the guardian appeared. He was a tall, heavily built man, perhaps twenty years younger than his predecessor. Like his predecessor, his eyes were occluded with cataracts. Like his predecessor he wore thick robes redolent of incense.

  He showed no inclination to invite us in but approached and shook hands with us through the railings.

  I asked his name.

  In a gravelly voice he replied simply: ‘Gebra Mikail.’

  ‘Please tell him’, I said to Hagos, ‘that my name is Graham Hancock and that I have spent the last two years studying the history and traditions of the Ark of the Covenant. Please tell him that I have come all the way from England, a journey of more than seven thousand kilometres, in the hope that I will be allowed to see the Ark.’

  Hagos relayed this message. When he had finished the guardian said: ‘I know. I have been informed of this already.’

  ‘Will you allow me to enter the chapel?’ I asked.

  Hagos translated the que
stion. There was a long pause, and then the expected answer: ‘No, I cannot do that.’

  ‘But,’ I protested lamely, ‘I have come to see the Ark.’

  ‘Then I regret that you have wasted your journey. Because you will not see it. You should have known this if, as you say, you have studied our traditions.’

  ‘I knew it, and yet I hoped.’

  ‘Many hope. But other than myself no one may visit the Holy Ark. Not even the Nebura-ed. Not even the Patriarch. It is forbidden.’

  ‘This is a great disappointment for me.’

  ‘There are worse things in life than disappointment.’

  I asked: ‘Can you at least tell me what the Ark looks like? I think that I could go away content if you would tell me that.’

  ‘I believe that the Ark is well described in the Bible. You can read there.’

  ‘But I want you to tell me in your own words what it looks like. I mean the Ark that rests here in the sanctuary. Is it a box made of wood and gold? Does it have two winged figures on its lid?’

  ‘I will not speak about such matters …’

  ‘And how is it carried?’ I continued. ‘Is it carried on poles? Or in some other way? Is it heavy or light?’

  ‘I have said that I will not speak about such matters, and therefore I will not speak.’

  ‘And does it perform miracles?’ I persisted. ‘In the Bible the Ark was described as performing many miracles. So here in Axum does it also perform miracles?’

  ‘It performs miracles. And it is in itself … miracle. It is miracle made real. And that is all that I will say.’

  With this the guardian thrust his hand through the bars again and clenched my own hand firmly for a moment as though in farewell.

  ‘I have another question,’ I said insistently. ‘Just one more question …’