The Ark of the Covenant, the sacred relic of the Israelites containing the tablets carved with the Ten Commandments, has been missing for 2,500 years. We don’t know if it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; carried off by Titus to Rome; or brought to Ethiopia by the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
Perhaps the
Ark was hidden before the Babylonian invasion and is buried somewhere below the
Temple Mount? This possibility has fascinated countless biblical scholars and
archaeologists, but, spoiler alert, the Ark is still missing.
Raiders
of the Hidden Ark by Graham Addison (Edgcumbe
Press, August 2021) tells the largely unknown story of the Parker Expedition, a
group of British aristocrats and army officers that carried out excavations in
Jerusalem searching for Temple treasures between 1909 and 1911.
In this exhaustively
researched work, we meet Montagu Brownlow Parker, 5th Earl of Morley, who,
encouraged by the writings and explorations of other Christians, wanted to
prove doubters of the Bible wrong and more importantly to bring about the End
of Days. To organize his expedition, Parker enlisted “men similar to himself;
young upper-class Englishmen connected by social background, school, military
service and combat in the Boer War.”
But the
group was motivated as much by business considerations. They bought shares in a
syndicate that would benefit from the sale of any treasures discovered.
The
author provides detailed backgrounds of the expedition members, but this slows
down the narrative. Mentions of how novelist Joseph Conrad described steamships
in the Congo; Second Boer War battles in South Africa; and an attempted
assassination of Queen Victoria; may give readers a better understanding of the
personalities involved, but they do not contribute to one’s understanding of
the actual excavations in Jerusalem
The story
of the archaeological dig, of the team’s exploration of the tunnels, shafts, and
suspected hiding places of the treasures, only begins some 100 pages into the book.
Cyphers in Biblical texts suggested that “the Ark of the Covenant could be
found by working through underground passages from Gihon, which would lead … to
the mosque.”
Parker
and his band retrace the steps and digs of previous explorers and set off in
new directions underground the city. Their work, approved by the Ottoman
authorities but a thorn in the side for Palestinians whose homes were above the
tunnels, failed to bring them the riches they sought. Instead, their story is
just a historical footnote to the many archaeological digs conducted over the
years in Jerusalem.
Overall,
this book is more the story of the members of the expedition, than of the
expedition itself. While details of the only dig ever sanctioned inside the
Dome of the Rock itself are fascinating, less so are descriptions of the
“misfortunes which befell former members of the expedition” in the following
years.
The
expedition’s story, which sounds stranger than fiction, was ultimately unsuccessful
but may have served as inspiration for later archaeologists and for the creators
of action-adventure film “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The mystery of the Ark of
the Covenant’s location, as highlighted in this thoroughly researched book,
will no doubt captivate future explorers as well.
GrahamAddison worked for many years in the Human Resources department of firms
developing mobile communications, Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets, and search engines,
and at Apple's European headquarters. He also ran his own software company, but
his first love has always been history. After reading Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Jerusalem:
The Biography, he was captivated by a brief expedition to Jerusalem of
young Eton-educated men searching for the Ark of the Covenant, an expedition he
describes as a “crazy combination of Downton Abbey meets Indiana Jones meets
Dan Brown.” Raiders of the Hidden Ark is his first book.
Previously
published on The Times of Israel.
