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

30 See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edn, 1991, Micropaedia, vol. IV, pp 441-2.

31 See Chapter CLXXV of the Book of the Dead where Thoth (in his capacity as universal demiurge) resolves to send a flood to punish sinful humanity: 'They have fought fights, they have upheld strifes, they have done evil, they have created hostilities, they have made slaughter, they have caused trouble and oppression ... [Therefore] I am going to blot out everything which I have made. This earth shall enter into the watery abyss by means of a raging flood, and will become even as it was in primeval 1ime' (from the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead, quoted in E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit., p. 198). This compares intriguingly with Chapter 6 of Genesis: 'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart ... And God said, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence ... And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die' (Genesis 6:5-17).

32 E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit., pp. 197-8.

33 Good summaries of the Plutarch account are given in M. V. Seton-Williams, Egyptian Legends and Stories, op. cit., pp. 24-9; and in E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit., pp. 178-83.

34 See in particular E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit, p. 182. The Plutarch story has the coffer floating across the Mediterranean to `Byblos' near modern Beirut. Budge dismisses this as a mistranslation, pointing out that byblos was simply a name for the papyrus plant.

35 Ibid., p. 180.

36 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, translated by H. St J. Thackeray, Heinemann, London, 1930, vol. IV, books I-IV, p. 263.

37 Philo, Life of Moses, translated by F. H. Colson, Heinemann, London, 1935, vol. VI, p. 285.

38 E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit., pp. 181-2.

39 Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character, University of Chicago Press, 1963. See also John Oates, Babylon, Thames & Hudson, London, 1979.

40 New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, op. cit., pp. 58-60.

41 Jonah 2:10; 3:2.

42 Genesis 6:19.

43 Genesis 6:14.

44 Genesis 9:1.

45 Luke 24:19.

46 John 3:5.

47 Mark 1:9-11.

48 See E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, Kegan Paul, Trench, Tr London, 1901.

49 J. A. West, Ancient Egypt, op. cit., p. 8.

50 Thor Heyerdahl, The Ra Expeditions, Book Club Associates, London, 1972, p. 17. Heyerdahl adds, without much further comment, that the pyramid boat had clearly been built 'to a pattern created by shipbuilders from a people with a long, solid tradition of sailing on the open sea' (p. 16).

51 J. A. West, Ancient Egypt, op. cit., pp. 132-3. See also A. J. Spencer, The Great Pyramid, P. J. Publications, London, 1989.

52 Christian Desroches-Noblecourt, Tutankhamen, Penguin, London, 1989, pp. 89, 108,113 and 283.

53 A. J. Spencer, The Great Pyramid, op. cit.

54 See, for example, W. B. Emery, Archaic Egypt, op. cit., P. 68.

55 General History of Africa, UNESCO, Paris, 1981, p. 84-107.

56 For further discussion see W. B. Emery, Archaic Egypt, op. cit., particularly Chapter 4; Lucy Lamy, Egyptian Mysteries, Thames & Hudson, London, 1981, p. 68; and UNESCO Gneral History of Africa, op. cit.

57 J. A. West, Ancient Egypt, op. cit., p. 158. The Greeks later appropriated Imhotep, under the Hellenized name Asclepius, as the founder of the science of medicine.

58 E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God, op. cit., p. 161.

59 Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hennes, op. cit., p. 33.

60 Ibid., p. 23.

61 J. A. West, Ancient Egypt, op. cit., p. 12.

62 Ibid., p. 340.

63 Ibid., P. 343.

64 The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Funk & Wagnells, New York, 1925, vol. II, P. 497.

65 Collins English Dictionary, Collins, London, 1982, p. 261. 66 Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templar, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 62. See also pp. 61,67,69,100,101,147,163-4,167,175,178,182-3,185-8,210, 249.

67 G. Legman, Tice Guilt of the Templars, Basic Books, New York, 1966, p. 85.

68 See H. J. Schonfield, The Essne Odyssey, Element Books, London, 1984, pp. 162-5. The code is known as the Atbash cipher. See in particular p. 164.

69 Ibid., p. 164.

70 E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Methuen, London, 1904, vol. I, p. 415.

71 Ibid., P. 414.

72 Ibid., p. 414.

73 David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 85. The Masons had venerated Thoth in his later incarnation as Hermes, the Greek god of wisdom. As Stevenson explains: 'The Greeks had identified their god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth, scribe to the gods, and himself a god of wisdom' (ibid., p. 83).

74 Ibid., p. 85 (wit- Thoth again in his incarnation as Hermes).

75 In De Revolutionibus. For a discussion see Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Bodley Head, London, 1988, p. 65.

76 From The Harmonies of the World, quoted in Timothy Ferris, Coming ofAge in the Milky Way, op. cit., p. 79.

77 The quotation is from Newton's Principia, cited in Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: a Biography of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 435.

78 Ibid., P. 434.

79 John Harrison, The Library of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press, 1978.

80 Frank Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton, Oxford University Press, 1974, p. 86.

81 Gale E. Christianson, In the Presnce of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times, Collier Macmillan, London, 1984, p. 262.

82 Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest, op. cit., p. 346.

83 Gale E. Christianson, op. cit., pp. 256-7.

84 Ibid., p. 257.

85 Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest, op. cit., p. 250.

86 John Maynard Keynes, 'Newton the Man', in Newton Tercentenary Celebrations, Cambridge University Press, 1947, pp. 27-9.

87 Gale E. Christianson, In the Presnce of the Creator, op. cit., p. 362.

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid., p. 222

90 Yahuda Manuscript Collection, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, MS 16.2, pp. 48,50 and 74.

91 Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest, op. cit., p. 355.

92 Ibid., p. 356. See also Gale E. Christianson, In the Presnce of the Creator, op. cit., p. 255.

93 See Gale E. Christianson, In the Presnce of the Creator, p. 256.

94 Piyo Rattansi, 'Newton and the Wisdom of the Ancients', in John Fauvel, Raymond Flood et al. (eds), Let Newton Be! : A New Perspective on his Life and Works, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 188 and 195.

95 Quoted by Jan Golinski in ibid., pp. 159-60.

96 Gale E. Christianson, in the Presence of the Creator, op. cit., p. 222.

97 Isaiah 45:3.

98 J. A. West, Ancint Egypt, op. cit., p. 33.

99 Joshua 6:11-21.

100 1 Samuel 6:13-19.

101 1 Samuel 5.

102 Louis Ginzberg, The Legnds of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1911, vol. III, p. 194.

103 Exodus 3:8.

104 Exodus 16:35. See Chapter 12, note 28 above.

105 The shortest route was the Way of the Sea' (known to the Egyptians as the 'Way of Horus' and to the Bible as the Way of the Land of the Philistines'). Slightly longer, but also quickly traversed, was the more southerly Way of Shur'. See Itzhaq Beit-Arieh, 'The Route Through Sinai', Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1988, p. 31.

106 Indeed, this is hinted at in the Bible. According to Exodus 13: 'When Pharaoh had let the people go ... God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness' (Exodus 13:17-18).

107 E.g. Exodus 14:9-12; Exodus 14:31; Exodus 15:22-4; Exodus 15:25; Exodus 16:2-3; Exodus 16:4-36; Exodus 17:1-4; Exodus 17:6-7.

108 Exodus 17:6-7.

109 Exodus 15:25.

110 Exodus 16:4-36.

111 Numbers 12:1-2, and in general Numbers 12.

112 Numbers 12:10.

113 Numbers 12:10.

114 Numbers 16:2-3.

115 Numbers 16:4.

116 Numbers 16:5-7, 17. See also 16:39 (King James Authorized Version translation) or 17:4 (Jerusalem Bible translation) for confirmation that the censers were brazen/bronze. There can be no doubt that the phrases 'put fire therein and put incense in them before the Lord' (King James Authorized Version) and 'fill them with fire and ... put incense in them before Yahweh' (`Jerusalem Bible translation) explicitly and unambiguously mean that they were to burn incense before the Ark. See Chapter 12, note 11, above for a full explanation of why this is. See also note 121 below.

117 Numbers 16:7.

118 Numbers 16:18.

119 Numbers 16:19.

120 Numbers 16:20-1.

121 Numbers 16:22 and 35 (amalgam of King James Authorized Version and Jerusalem Bible translations). Numbers 16:35 in fact states 'there came out a fire from the Lord' (King James Authorized Version translation). The Jerusalem Bible translation says 'a fire came down from Yahweh'. See Chapter 12, note 11 above for a full explanation of why the work is implied. It is worth adding with reference to this passage that the Israelites did not accept that it had been 'the Lord' who had blasted the hapless rebels. Instead they pinned the blame fairly and squarely on the man who controlled the Ark. Numbers 16:41 states: 'All the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses saying. . . You have brought death to the people' (amalgam of King James Authorized Version and Jerusalem Bible translations). The latter is doubly logged as Numbers 17:6. (Emphasis added.)

122 Numbers 17:12-13 (King James Authorized Version translation). In the Jerusalem Bible the same passage is logged under Numbers 17:27-8.

123 See Chapter 12 above for a full discussion.

124 Acts 7 :23-4.

125 Exodus 2:12-15.

126 Exodus 7:7.

127 Exodus 2: 15-25

128 Ahmed Osman, Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt, Grafton Books, London, 1990, p. 171. Osman identified Moses with Pharaoh Akhenaten who briefly introduced a version of monotheism into Egypt before being overthrown.

129 A good summary account of Flinders Petrie's expedition to Serabit-el-Khadem is given in Werner Keller, The Bible as History, Bantam Books, New York, pp. 126-9. See also William M. Flinders Petrie, Researches in Sinai, Dutton, New York, 1906.

130 Itzhaq Beit-Arieh, 'The Route Through Sinai', op. cit., p. 33. See also William F. Albright, The Prato-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment, Harvard University Press, 1969; Frank Moore Cross, 'The Evolution of the Alphabet', Eretz-Israel, vol. 8, 1967, p. 12; Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1982.

131 Itzhaq Beit-Arieh, 'The Route Through Sinai', op. cit., p. 33.

132 For further details see, for example, Aviram Perevolotsky and Israel Finkelstein, 'The Southern Sinai Route in Ecological Perspective', Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1985, pp. 27 and 33. See also Egypt: Insight Guide, APA Publications, Singapore, 1989, Pp. 243-6

133 Again for further details see Perevolotsky and Finkelstein, 'The Southern Sinai Route in Ecological Perspective', op. cit., p. 27.

134 Ibid., P. 33.

135 Ibid., pp. 27 and 33. See also Egypt: Insight Guide, op. cit., pp. 243-6, and Itzhaq Beit-Arieh, 'The Route Through Sinai', op. cit.

136 Itzhaq Beit-Arieh includes a helpful chart of other contenders for the role of Mount Sinai in his paper The Route Through Sinai', op. cit., p. 37. He concludes that the Exodus almost certainly did follow the southern route through Sinai leading to Mount Sinai as it is presently identified. The same conclusion is drawn in The Times Atlas of the Bible, Guild Publishing, London, 1987, p. 56.

137 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980, p. 232

138 See Julian Morgenstern, 'The Book of the Covenant', Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. V, 1928; and 'The Ark, the Ephod and the Tent of Meeting', Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. XVII, 1942-3; both reprinted by KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1968. See also Chapter 3 above.

139 Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1978; reprinted 1985 by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, USA, p. 246.

140 Exodus 19:3.

141 Exodus 19: 2-13 (Jerusalem Bible translation).

142 Exodus 19:16,18 (amalgam of Jerusalem Bible and King James Authorized Version translations).

143 Exodus 24:12.

144 Exodus 24:15-18 (amalgam of Jerusalem Bible and King James Authorized Version translations).

145 See Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 118-19.

146 Exodus 31:18; 32:15-16.

147 Exodus 32:19. The well known golden calf incident begins at Exodus 32:1.

148 Exodus 32:28.

149 Exodus 34:28.

150 Exodus 34:29.

151 Exodus 34:29 (Jerusalem Bible translation).

152 Exodus 33:7, Jerusalem Bible translation: 'Moses used to take the Tent and pitch it outside the camp. He called it The Tent of Meeting.'

153 Exodus 33:1r.

154 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 119.

155 Exodus 34:29-35.

156 Exodus 34:30.

157 Exodus 34:33.

158 Exodus 34:34-5.

159 See Moshe Levine, The Tabernacle: Its Structure and Utnsils, Soncino Press, Tel Aviv, 1969, p. 88.

160 See, for example, The Oxford Reference Dictionary, Guild Publishing, London, 1988, p. 793, which gives the measure of a span or hand-breadth as nine inches. See also The Oxford Libra?), of Words and Phrases, Guild Publishing, London, 1988, vol. III, p. 451.

161 Rabbi Shelomo Yitshaki was born at Troyes in AD 1040 and died in the year 1105. He is generally referred to as Rashi (an acronym based on his full title and name). See Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Judaism, Jerusalem Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1989, p. 583.

162 Exodus 39:1-32.

163 See, for example, Exodus 28:43 and Leviticus 10:6.

164 Numbers 4:5-6 and 15: 'When the camp is broken, Aaron and his sons [Eleazar and Ithamar] are to come and take down the veil of the screen. With it they must cover the Ark ... On top of this they must put a covering of fine leather, and spread over the whole a cloth all of violet. Then they are to fax the poles to the Ark.. . [Then] the sons of Kohath are to come and take up the burden, but without touching any of the sacred things; otherwise they would die.'

165 Ibid.

166 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 228: 'The most distinguished among the Levites were the sons of Kohath, whose charge during the march through the desert was the Holy Ark. This was a dangerous trust, for out of the staves attached to itwould issue sparks that consumed Israel's enemies, but now and then this fire wrought havoc among the bearers of the Ark.'

167 See passage quoted in note 1 64 above which specifies that the 'veil of the screen', a layer of leather and a layer of cloth were used towrap the Ark. When the Tabernacle was pitched and at rest, the 'veil of the screen' hung in the entrance to the Holy of Holies. It was made of 'blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunningwork' (Exodus 26:31). Unusually for such an important accessory, it did not contain any gold and neither, of course, did the 'covering of fine leather' or the 'cloth of violet'. In other words before the Ark was moved it was first thoroughly wrapped and insulated by several layers of non-conductive materials.

168 The view that the Ark was dangerous to carry for some possibly electrical reason is supported by the Jewish tradition quoted in note 166 above. The same tradition adds further credibility to this notion when it states that the Kohathites, rather than behaving as though they were honoured by being given the job of carrying the Ark as one might have expected if it was indeed nothing more than a symbol of their God in fact tried to avoid the duty, 'each one planning cautiously to shift the carrying of the Ark upon another.' Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, op. cit., vol. III, p. 228.

169 Leviticus 1 0:2. The full passage reads: 'And there went out the 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 verse reads: 'Then from Yahweh's presence a flame leaped out and consumed them and they perished in the presence ofYahweh.' See Chapter 12, note II above for m explanation of why the Ark is implied.

170 Leviticus 10:4-5 'Jerusalem Bible translation).

171 1 Samuel 5. 172 E.g. the slaying of Uzzah by what sounds like some kind of electrical discharge. See 2 Samuel 6:3-7.

Chapter 14 The Glory is departed from Israel

1 See Chapter 5 above.

2 Mecca and Medina are the first two. For details as to the date of construction of the Dome of the Rock see Dan Bahat, Carta's Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, Carta, Jerusalem, 1989, p. 44-9.

3 See Chapter 12 above. See also Zev Vilnay, Legnds of Jerusalem: The Sacred Land, vol. I, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1973, pp. 1 -12.

4 See Chapter 5 above, and later parts of this chapter, for further details.

5 For further details see Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 84-6.

6 See Chapter 5 above.

7 1 Chronicles 28:2.

8 For a good concise history of the successive stages of building and destruction on the Temple Mount see Caria's Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, op. cit. As regards archaeological confirmation that the Dome of the Rock does indeed stand over the sine of the original Temple of Solomon, see Kathleen Kenyon, Jerusalem: Excavating 3,000 Years of History, Thames & Hudson, London, 1967, p. 55: 'From the present structure back to Solomon there is no real break. One can therefore be certain of the site of Solomon's Temple.' See also Kathleen Kenyon, Digging up Jerusalem, Benn, London, 1974, p. Ho.

9 Islam also accepts Jesus Christ as a prophet. Muhammad is regarded as exceptional because he was the last of the prophets the last of the messengers sent by God to teach and enlighten humankind and whose honour it therefore was to complete the divine message. There can be no serious dispute that the God worshipped by the Jews, Christians and Muslims is, in essence, the same deity. The onness of this God is accepted by all three faiths although Muslims believe that Christians are confused by such notions as the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. An Arabic inscription within the Dome of the Rock reads as follows: '0 you People of the Book, overstep not bounds in your religion, and of God speak only the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is only an apostle of God, and his word which he conveyed into Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him. Believe therefore in God and his apostles, and say not Three. It will be better for you. God is only one God. Far be it from his glory that he should have a son.'

10 See Zev Vilnay, Legnds of Jerusalem, op. cit., pp. 123 and 324, footnote 136. See also Neil Asher Silberman, Digging for God and Country: Exploration, Archaeology and the Secret Struggle for the Holy Land 799-1917, Knopf, New York, 1982, p. 186.

11 Quoted from 'The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch' in H. F. D. Sparks(ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, PP. 843-4.

12 Ibid.; see 'Introduction to the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch', particularly p. 837.

13 See Chapter 5 above.

14 See Chapter 12 above.

15 1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11,27.

16 1 Kings 1:4-5.

17 1 Kings 4:30-10

18 Each wing measured five cubits (about seven and a half feet). See Chronicles 3:11 and 1 Kings 6:24. According to the Jerusalem Bible translation, the cherubim were made of olive wood plated with gold.

19 1 Kings 6:19 (Jerusalem Bible translation).

20 Twenty cubits, by twenty cubits, by twenty cubits. See 1 Kings 6:20.

21 2 Chronicles 3:8 states that 600 talents of fine gold were used to overlay the walls, floor and ceiling of the Holy of Holies. An ancient talent weighed approximately 75 pounds, therefore 600 talents would have weighed 45,000 pounds more than twenty tonnes. For further details, and academic support for the amounts of gold specified in the Bible as having been used in King Solomon's Temple, see Professor Alan R. Millard, 'Does the Bible Exaggerate King Solomon's Golden Wealth?', Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1989, pp. 21-34. See also 1 Kings 6:20, 22 and 30.

22 2 Chronicles 3:9.

23 1 Kings 7:13-14 (amalgam of King James Authorized Version and Jerusalem Bible translations).

24 Chr en de Troyes, Arthurian Romances (translated by D. D. R. Owen), Dent, London, 1987, p. 375; emphasis added.

25 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980. See in particular pp. 62-7 and 70-1.

26 See Kenneth Mackenzie, The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1987 (first published 1877), pp. 316-17. See also Alexander Home, King Solomon's Temple in the Masonic Tradition, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1988, pp. 262-8 and 272-9. See also John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, Century, London, 1990, pp. 217-18. Hiram of Tyre, the bronzeworker and skilled craftsman, is of course not to be confused with King Hiram of Tyre who supplied Solomon with cedarwood for the construction of the Temple, and who also sent him a number of skilled artisans to assist with the work.

27 John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit., p.

28 1 Kings 7:23, 26.

29 See Shalom M. Paul and William G. Dever (eds), Biblical Archaeology, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1973, part III, p. 257.

30 Bruce Metzger, David Goldstein, John Ferguson (eds), Great Events of Bible Times, Guild Publishing, London, 1987, p. 89.

31 Shalom M. Paul and William G. Dever, Biblical Archaeology, op. cit., p. 257.

32 1 Kings 7:38.

33 See Chapter 12 above.

34 See Chapter 11 above.

35 1 Kings 7:40, 45.

36 1 Kings 7:15,21-2.

37 Kenneth Mackenzie, The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, op. cit., pp. 349-50. See also David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemason'', Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 143-52.

38 Alexander Home, King Solomon's Temple in Masonic Tradition, op. p. 219.

39 Ibid.

40 Joshua 15:48; Judges 10:1; Judges 10:2; Chronicles 24:24.

41 E.g. Deuteronomy 27:5: 'And there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.' See also Joshua 8:31.

42 Moses was said to have used the Shamir in the desert to engrave writing on the precious stones worn in the breastplate of the High Priest. See Louis Ginzberg, The Legnd of the Jews, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1909, vol. 1, p. 34, and vol. IV, p. 166.

43 Ibid., vol. I, p. 34.

44 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 166.

45 Ibid., vol. I, p. 34. On the vanishing of the Shamir see also Herbert Danby (trans.), The Mishnah, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 305.

46 Louis Ginzberg, Legnds of the Jews, op. cit., vol. I, P. 34.

47 From Islamic traditions about the Shamir, reported in Alexander Home, King Solomon's Temple in the Masonic Tradition, op. cit., p. 165.

48 Jerusalem Bible, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968, Chronological Table, p. 344.

49 1 Kings 14:25-6.

50 The only objects specifically mentioned are the 'shields of gold which Solomon had made', 1 Kings 14:26.