The Sign and the Seal. A quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant

103 Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, op. cit., p. 49. Professor Edward Ullendorff, in his paper 'James Bruce of Kinnaird', op. cit., describes Bruce as 'one of the great universal savants and men of action of the eighteenth century' and quotes the comment of the brothers d'Abbadie, the French explorers, who said that they had consulted the Travels as a daily text-book and 'had never discovered a mis-statement, and hardly even an error of any considerable importance'.

104 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. III, p. 615.

105 Ibid., p. 131.

106 Reported in 'the Annals of Emperor Iyasu I' in I. Guidi (ed.), Annales Iohannis I, lyasu 4 Bakaffa, Paris, 1903, pp. 151-9. See also Jean Doresse, Ancient Cities and Temples of Ethiopia, op. cit., p. 180. See also R. Basset, 'Etudes sur l'histoire d'Ethiopie', Journal Asiatique, Octobre-Novembre-D mbre 1881, p. 297.

107 I subsequently learned from Professor Richard Pankhurst (conversation in Addis Ababa Tuesday 4 December 1990) that Bruce had in fact owned copies of the two principal documents of Iyasu's life, the full chronicle and the abbreviated chronicle. Both these documents tell the story of the king going into the Holy of Holies and opening the Ark. In his Travels Bruce gave a potted history of all the solar eclipses and comets that had been seen in Ethiopia during the few centuries prior to his own visit. In this potted history he drew extensively on lyasu's abbreviated chronicle, which had mentioned a sighting of Richaud's Comet in 1689. As Pankhurst put it: 'The point is this. After describing the comet, the abbreviated chronicle goes on in the very next paragraph to report Iyasu's encounter with the Ark in 1690. So Bruce must have known about it. That being so, his suggestion that the relic had been destroyed by the Muslims in the early 1500s does indeed look suspicious.'

108 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 365-492.

109 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 471-3.

100 Ibid., vol. I, p. 472.

111 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 472-3. See also pp. 444-6.

112 Ibid., vol. I, p. 475.

113 Ibid., vol. I, p. 476.

114 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 471 and 478.

115 Ibid., vol. III, pp. 128-33. E.g.: 'On the 18th, in the morning, we ... came into the plain wherein stood Axum' (p. 128); and: 'On the 19th of January, I found the latitude of Axum to be 14 6' 36" north ...' (p. 133).

116 See Chapter 1 above.

117 The tradition of the original Ark being brought out only at Timkat is also confirmed, for example, in Ruth Plant, Architecture of the Tigr Ethiopia, Ravens Educational and Development Services, Worcester, 1985, p. 206: 'It is said that the original Ark of the Covenant, brought by Menelik I from Jerusalem, is held in the Treasury. Only one monk is allowed to see it, although the casket is led in procession at the time of Timkat.'

118 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'James Bruce of Kinnaird', op. cit.,

p. 141.

119 Ibid., p. 141.

120 Ibid., p. 141.

121 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 483-4.

122 Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, op. cit., p. 31.

123 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., Budge's Introduction, pp. xxxii and radii.

124 Around the third to second centuries BC. See R. H. Charles (trans.), The Book of Enoch, Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, London, 1987, Introduction, p. xiii.

125 H. F. D. Sparks (ed.). The Apocryphal Old Testament, Clarendon Paperbacks, Oxford, 1989, p. 170: 'Among the Ethiopic manuscripts that Bruce brought back were three containing what is now known as "I Enoch" or "Ethiopian Enoch". One of these manuscripts (now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford) contained "I Enoch" only; the second (also in the Bodleian) contained "I Enoch" followed by Job, Isaiah, "the Twelve", Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Canticles and Daniel; the third (now in the Biblioth e Nationale in Paris) is a transcript of the second.'

126 Kenneth Mackenzie, The Royal Masonic Cydopaedia, op. cit., pp. 200-2.

127 Ibid.

128 Major F. B. Head, The Life of Bruce, the African Traveller, London, 1836.

129 J. M. Reid, Traveller Extraordinary: The Lift of James Bruce of Kinnaird, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968.

130 Elgin occupied the position of Grand Master Mason of Scotland, 1961-5. Debretts Illustrated Peerage, Macmillan, London, 1985, p. 412.

Chapter 8 Into Ethiopia

1 For further details see Chapter 12 below.

2 Richard Pankhurst, writing in Graham Hancock, Richard Pankhurst and Duncan Willetts, Under Ethiopian Skies, Editions HL, London and Nairobi, 1983, p. 24. See also Yuri Elets, Emperor Menelik and his War with Italy, Saint Petersburg, 1898.

Chapter 9 Sacred Lake

1 James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770,1771, 1772 and 1773, Edinburgh, 1790, vol.III, pp. 425-7.

2 E.g. Sergew Hable-Selassie, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to ram, Addis Ababa, 1972, p. 26.

3 See note 102 to Chapter 7 above.

4 See, for example, Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, Penguin Books, London, 1984, pp. 12-13 and 34. See also Major R. E. Cheesman, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile: An Abyssinian Quest, Macmillan, London, 1936.

5 Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, op. cit., p. 17.

6 For a further discussion see, for example, Lucie Lamy, Egyptian Mysteries, Thames & Hudson, London, 1981, pp. 7-8.

7 H. L. Jones (ed.), The Geography of Strabo, Loeb Library, London, 1940.

8 E. L. Stevenson, Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, New York, 1932.

9 Aeschylus, Fragment 67, quoted in Jean Doresse, Ancient Cities and Temples of Ethiopia, Elek, London, 1959.

10 For a discussion see Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 2.

11 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. III, p. 387.

12 See for example Gaalyah Cornfeld, Archaeology of the Bible Book by Book, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1976, pp. 25 and 118.

13 Leviticus 4:6.

14 Leviticus 5:9.

15 Herbert Danby DD (trans.), The Mishnah, Oxford University Press, 1933, pp. 166,167 and 168.

16 Ibid., p. 168.

Chapter 10 Ghost in a Maze

1 E. A. Wallis Budge, The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menelik, being the 'Book of the Glory of Kings' (Kebra Nagast), Oxford University Press, 1932, p. 145.

2 Which had supposedly taken place during the reign of Solomon in Jerusalem, i.e. in the tenth century BC. Axum was not founded until some eight hundred years later. See S. C. Munro-Hay, Excavations at Arum, British Institute in Eastern Africa, London, 1989, pp. 19-24.

3 E.g. the guardian monk. See Chapter 11 above. E. A. Wallis Budge also (wrongly) makes the assumption that Menelik's destination with the Ark was Axum. In the Introduction to his English translation of the Kebra Nagast he states: `The Tabernacle of the Law of God, i.e. the Ark of the Covenant, had been brought from Jerusalem to Axum by Menelik, Solomon's firstborn son, according to the Ethiopians.' Many Ethiopians do say this. It is significant, however, that the Kebra Nagast makes no such claim and only specifies 'Debra Makeda' as the place to which the Ark was brought. For the Budge passage quoted above see Kebra Nagast, op. cit., Introduction, p. xvii.

4 Major R. E. Cheesman, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile: An Abyssinian Quest, Frank Cass, London, 1968 (first published 1936), pp. 174-5 and 179. Cheesman, who visited Tana Kirkos in the early 1930s, was also told of the Ark traditions on the island (see pp. 174-80). This is the only other reference to these traditions that I have been able to find in the literature a reflection of the extreme isolation of Tana Kirkos and of the fact that the island has never been the subject of a proper scholarly or archaeological study.

5 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980. See, for example, pp. 132 and 392-405.

6 Margaret Fitzgerald Richey, The Story of Parzival and the Grail as Related by Wolfram von Eschsnbach, Basil Blackwell & Mott, Oxford, 1935, p. 198. Another interpretation of the meaning of Munsalvaesche is `wild' or 'savage' mountain. See, for example, footnote by Professor A. T. Hatto to Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 123.

7 Psalm 130:3-7. Emphasis added.

8 See for example The New Collins Thesaurus, Collins, London and Glasgow, 1984, p. 594.

9 Wolfram von Eschenbach. Parzival, op. cit., p. 121.

10 Ibid., pp. 120 1.

11 Confirmation of this fact is available in a wide range of sources, for example in the survey of Christian and Jewish Ethiopian customs provided by J. S. Trimingham in his authoritative Islam in Ethiopia, Frank Cass, London, 1976, p. 26. See also David Kessler, The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, Schocken Books, New York, 1985, p. 68.

12 I Kings 9:26: 'And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Elath, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.' For the identification of Ezion-geber with modern Elat see, for example, Gaalyah Cornfeld, Archaeology of the Bible Book by Book, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1976, pp. 110-11.

13 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., pp. 77-8: 'And they loaded the wagons, and the horses, and the mules in order to depart . . . And as for the wagons, no man hauled his wagon . . . and whether it was men, or horses, or mules, or loaded camels, each was raised above the ground to the height of a cubit; and all those who rode upon beasts were lifted up above their backs to the height of one span of a man, and all the various kinds of baggage which were loaded on the beasts, as well as those who were mounted on them, were raised up to the height of one span of a man, and the beasts were lifted up to the height of one span of a man. And everyone travelled in the wagons . . . like an eagle when his body glideth above the

wind.'

14 See for example Biblical Archaeolog Review, May/June 1988, p.

31.

15 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 78.

16 I later confirmed that the Takazze was frequently referred to by Ethiopians as 'the Nile' and vice versa for example, in Axumite texts of the fourth century and many later documents. For a discussion see L. P. Kirwan, 'The Christian Topography and the Kingdom of Axum', Geographical journal, London, vol. 138, part II, June 1972, pp. 172-3.

17 I later learned that this same route was much more than just plausible. Throughout recorded history it had been greatly favoured by merchants and by pilgrims travelling between Ethiopia and Jerusalem. See 0. G. S Crawford, Ethiopian Itineraries, Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, London,

1958.

18 James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770,1771,1772,and 1773 Edinburgh, 1790, vol. III, p. 252.

19 J. M. Flad, Falashas of Abyssinia, London, 1869, p. 10.

20 See, for example, The Falashas: The Jews ofEthiopia, Minority Rights Group Report Number 67, London, 1985. See also David Kessler, The Falashas, op. cit., p. 10, and Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements in Abyssinian (Monophysite) Christianity' Journal of Semitic Studies, vol.1, no. 3, 1956, p. 254.

21 David Kessler, The Falashas, op. cit., p. 92.

22 In general for historical detail on trade and pilgrimage routes between Ethiopia and Jerusalem through Egypt and the Sudan see Ethiopian Itineraries, op. cit.

Chapter 11 And David danced before the Ark...

1 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 465.

2 Ibid.

3 See, for example, Richard Pankhust, A Social History of Ethiopia, Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, 1990, pp. 41 and 193.

4 The absolute non-recognition by Coptic Christians of the unique tabot/ Ark traditions of Ethiopia was forcefully confirmed in June 1989 in an interview in London with Bishop Serabion and Father Bishoi Boushra of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The interview was carried out on my behalf by Caroline Lasko, a freelance researcher.

5 Aymro Wondmagegnehu and Joachim Motovu, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, The Ethiopian Orthodox Mission, Addis Ababa, 1970,pp. 1-14.

6 The Independent, London, zo November 1990, p.

7 Ibid. See also The Falashas: The Jews of Ethiopia (Minority Rights Group Report No. 67), Minority Rights Group, London, 1985, pp. 12-13.

8 Frederick C. Gamst, The Qemant: A Pagan-Hebraic Peasantry of Ethiopia, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1969.

9 Ibid., p. 4.

10 Ibid., p. 122.

11 Genesis 12:9-10.

12 Genesis 41:27.

13 Leviticus 11:3-4, 7: 'Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven footed, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat. Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean to you . . . And the swine, though he divide the hoof and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.'

14 See Deuteronomy 14:21: 'Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself.' See also Leviticus 17:13-14: 'And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel . . . which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof.. . For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.'

15 Exodus 23:19 and 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21.

16 Compare Exodus 35:2-3: 'Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.'

17 Genesis 21:33.

18 In his Archaeology ofthe Bible Book by Book (Harper & Row, San Francisco, 976, p. 65), Gaalyah Cornfeld puts it this way: 'Altars were the focal point of both high places, bamoth, and temples. The bamoth were essentially Canaanite sites of worship, but were acceptable also in earlier Israelite religion. They were usually open areas, with sacred trees and stone pillars, masseboth, associated with the altar.'

19 See, for example, Judges 6:25, 1 Kings 16:33; 2 Kings 21 :3; 2 Kings 23:15; Isaiah 27:9.

20 2 Kings 23:7.

21 The Falashas: The Jews of Ethiopia (Minority Rights Group Report No. 67), op. cit., p. 9.

22 Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Jerusalem Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1989, p. 684.

23 Ibid., p. 548.

24 Leviticus 15:19: 'If a woman have an issue [of] blood . . . she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.'

25 'And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised', Leviticus 12:3.

26 Leviticus 1:9.

27 See Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements in Abyssinian (Monophysite) Christianity', journal of Semitic Studies, vol. I, no. 3, London, 1956, pp. 249-50. Ullendorff states: 'The date of circumcision on the eighth day is shared . . . by Jews and Ethiopians only. This is the more remarkable because members of the Coptic Church in Egypt [which was responsible for Ethiopia's conversion] are circumcised at an age between six and eight years, and Gallas, Muslims and other influences in Ethiopia, with widely varying dates, would all combine to shake the Ethiopian confidence in the eighth day. Yet this date has been steadfastly maintained, no doubt under the influence of the Pentateuchal injunction ... I have no doubt that the maintenance of circumcision among Abyssinians is part of those elements of Hebraic-Jewish lore which have been so tenaciously preserved in that part of Africa.'

28 Ibid., pp 243-4.

29 Ibid., pp. 245-6. See also Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, op. cit., pp. 192-4 and 604-6.

30 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements', op. cit., pp. 242-3 and 247, note 3.

31 See in particular Exodus 19:15 and Leviticus 20:18.

32 Genesis 32:32: 'Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh.'

33 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic Jewish Elements' op. cit., p. 242.

34 Ibid., p. 236. I am greatly indebted to Professor Ullendorff's paper for alerting me to these correspondences.

35 Exodus 28:4.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid. See also Exodus 28:17-21.

38 Archbishop David Matthew, Ethiopia, London, 1947, p. 12.

39 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements', op. cit., 235.

40 Ibid., pp. 235-6.

41 This also was the view of the Scottish traveller James Bruce, who argued that Frumentius and other Christian missionaries who came to Ethiopia in the fourth century AD, 'finding Jewish traditions confirmed in the country, chose to respect them rather than refute them. Circumcision, the doctrine of clean and unclean meats, and many other Jewish rites and ceremonies are therefore part of the religion of the Abyssinians at this day.' James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768,1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, 3rd edn, Edinburgh, 1813, vol. III, p. 13.

42 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic Jewish Elements', op. cit., p. 227 (emphasis added).

43 Ibid., P. 251.

44 Leviticus 16:2-13.

45 Leviticus 16:13.

46 ofessor Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic Jewish Elements', op. cit., p. 238, quoting Isenberg's Dictionary of the Amharic Language, London, 1841, p. 112.

47 The begegna is a hand-held, ten-stringed wooden harp, today found only in Ethiopia and said to be descended from the biblical Harp of David. See Tesfaye Lemma, Ethiopian Musical Instrumnts, Addis Ababa, 1975, p. 10.

48 2 Samuel 6:5-16.

49 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980, p. 121.

50 And throughout the Pharaonic period. See Adolf Erman, Life in Ancint Egypt, Dover Publications, New York, 1971, pp. 279,296, 390.

51 II Chronicles 5:12-13. See also I Kings 8:11.

52 11 Chronicles 6:41 (Jerusalem Bible translation, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968, p. 464).

53 Sir Gamin and the Green Knight, translated by J. R. R. Tolkien and edited by Christopher Tolkien, Unwin Paperbacks, London, 1988, pp. 26 and 21.

Chapter 12 Magic ... or Method?

1 Date from The Jerusalem Bible, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968, 'Chronological Table', P. 343.

2 These dimensions in feet and inches are extrapolated from the ancient cubit which measured approximately eighteen inches. See Dr J. H. Hertz (ed.), The Pentateuch and the Haftorahs, Soncino Press, London, 1978, p. 327. The Jerusalem Bible, footnote (b), p. 87, concurs.

3 The translation given here is from the Jerusalem Bible. The King James Authorized Version states 'corners' instead of 'supports' in Exodus 25:12.

4 Exodus 25:10-22.

5 Exodus 31:2-4.

6 Exodus 37:3-9.

7 'I came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the Ark', Deuteronomy 10:5, supposedly quoting Moses's own words. See also Exodus 40:20, 'He [Moses] took the Testimony and placed it inside the Ark. He set the shafts to the Ark and placed the throne of mercy on it.'

8 Exodus 40:21: 'He [Moses] brought the Ark into the Tabernacle and put the screening veil in place; thus he screened the Ark of Yahweh, as Yahweh had directed Moses.'

9 Leviticus 10:1.

10 Ibid.

11 Leviticus 10:2. The full passage reads: 'And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died there before the Lord' (King James Authorized Version). The Jerusalem BIble translation of the same, which makes use of'Yahweh' (YHWH), the mystical name of God, reads as follows: 'Then from Yahweh's presence a flame leaped out and consumed them and they perished in the presence of Yahweh.' It is important to stress that in this and many other similar contexts the Bible is actually and quite explicitly referring to the Ark when it speaks of 'the Lord' and/or 'before the Lord', or of'Yahweh' and/or 'in the presence of Yahweh'. This is best illustrated by the following passage from Numbers 10:35: 'And it came to pass, when the Ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered and let them that hate thee fall before thee' (King James Authorized Version). The Jerusalem Bible translation of the same verse reads: 'And as the Ark set out, Moses would say, Arise, Yahweh, may your enemies be scattered and those who hate you run for their lives before you.' The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible comments: 'The Ark is not only seen as the leader of Israel's host, but is directly addressed as Yahweh. There is virtually an identification of Yahweh and the Ark ... there is no doubt that the Ark was interpreted as the extension or embodiment of the presence of Yahweh.' The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1962, pp. 222-3.

12 Leviticus 16:1-2, amalgam of King James Authorized Version and Jerusalem Bible translations.

13 Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1911, vol. III, p. 210.

14 Ibid. Compare Exodus 40:35.

15 The Ark was installed in the Tabernacle on the first day of the first month of the second year after the Israelites had fled Egypt (Exodus 40:17). It was on the eighth day of the same month that the priests were invested and the deaths of Nadab and Abihu occurred (Leviticus 9:1 et seq.). The entry of Moses into the Holy of Holies to which I am referring here took place soon after, and indeed in the same month, since this entry is described in Chapter 7 of the book of Numbers and since Chapter 9 of the same book is still set 'in the first month of the second year' clearly an eventful period (Numbers 9:1).

16 Numbers 7:89.

17 Louis Ginzberg, Legnds of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 210.

18 Ibid., vol. III, p. 157. See also The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Funk & Wagnells, New York, 1925, vol. II, p. 105.

19 Numbers 10:33,35-6, Jerusalem Bible translation.

20 Louis Ginzberg, Legnds of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 228.

21 Julian Morgenstern, 'The Book of the Covenant', in Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. V, 1928, reprinted by KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1968, p. 20, footnote 25. See also The Jewish Encyclopaedia, op. cit., vol. II, p. 105.

22 E.g. during the crossing of the Jordan. See The Jewish Encyclopaedia, op. cit., vol. II, p. 105.

23 Ibid. And see also Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 194.

24 Louis Ginzberg, Legnds of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, P. 395. Another legend, supported by Midrashic commentaries, says that during the wilderness wanderings: 'The Ark gave the signal for breaking camp by soaring high and then swiftly moving before the camp at a distance of three days' march' (Ibid., vol. III, p. 243).

25 Julian Morgenstern, 'The Book of the Covenant', op. cit., pp. 27-8: 'The oldest Biblical references to the Ark agree absolutely in representing it as discharging two specific functions, that of choosing the way it wished to go, and that of going into battle with the army of Israel and giving it victory over its enemies ... These two important functions the Ark was able to discharge, all the evidence indicates, because of a positive divine power resident in it. And all these earliest sources agree in identifying this divine power with Yahweh' (emphasis added). For further corroboration of the frequency with which the Ark was taken into battle see Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 284 and 409; vol. IV, p. 143.

26 The Jewish Encyclopaedia, op. cit., vol. II, p. 106.

27 Numbers 14:44-5 (amalgam of King James Authorized Version and Jerusalem Bible translations).