contents - Description: Description: Description: Description ...

about 30 yards, where it was blocked by stone and debris.
There has been many stories concerning the location of the Ark of the Covenant. Some
believe it is still buried in a secret chamber on the Temple Mount. Jewish historian Eupolemus
wrote that many of the Temple treasures had been plundered by Babylon, “except for the Ark
and the tablets in it. This Jeremiah preserved.” According to the apocryphal Second Book of
Maccabees 2:4-8, which has been dated to 163 BC, the prophet Jeremiah had concealed the Ark
(as well as the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense) in a cave on “the mountain where Moses
went up and beheld the heritage of God.” Some researchers believe that this could refer to either
Mount Sinai or Mount Nebo, which is located in what is now the country of Jordan, and is the
traditional burial place of Moses. The contention was made, that since these articles were made
under the leadership of Moses, they may have been deposited at the site of his burial. Various
archaeological expeditions had failed to turn up anything there.
During the 1920’s, American explorer, Antonio Frederick Futterer, searched various
locations in Jordan for the Ark, based on the clues in 2 Maccabees, and believed the location to
be on Mount Pisgah, the highest peak on the Mount Nebo range. He claimed to have found an
inscription on the sealed entrance of a tunnel which said: “Herein lies the golden Ark of the
Covenant.” In 1981, while following Futterer’s map of Mount Pisgah, a gully was discovered by
Tom Crotser, an American explorer, which led to a 4’ X 7’ tunnel that plunged 600 feet into the
ground, ending at a wall, which when broken down, revealed a 10’ X 12’ crypt which held a
rectangular chest 62” long, 37” high and 37” wide, wrapped in a blue cloth, which he believed to
be the Ark. Beside it was another bundle, which he thought contained the carrying poles, the
cherubim which had been mounted on the top, and the legs. The cave is located near the Church
of the Franciscan Fathers of Terra Santa, and is under a building which contains the remains of
an old Byzantine church. He didn’t disturb the find, thus he doesn’t know for sure what he saw.
He reported it to the media, and he claimed that God told him to send the photographs he took to
London banker David Rothschild, who some people have claimed is a direct descendant of Jesus,
and has been chosen to build the third Temple. Rothschild refused to accept the pictures, and
they were returned to Crotser. Noted archaeologist Siegfried Horn visited his home in Winfield,
Kansas to see the pictures. Only two had any images at all– one is fuzzy, but does show a
chamber with a yellow box in the center. His opinion was that it was “not an ancient artifact but
of modern fabrication... ”
In January, 1979, archaeologist Ronald Wyatt, while sightseeing near the Damascus Gate,
felt that the location of Jeremiah’s Grotto was near an ancient stone quarry on the northern
extension of Mt. Moriah, that is sometimes referred to as the ‘Calvary Escarpment’ (because it
contains the skull face configuration that has been connected to the Golgotha). He believed that
during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem from 587-586 BC, when the city was surrounded, it
would have been impossible to remove the Ark, so it had to be there. With the permission of the
landowner, and a permit from Israeli officials, he excavated the area. On January 6, 1982, he
entered a chamber that contained the Ark, and other artifacts from the first Temple, which had
been hidden there by Jeremiah. The 22-foot long cave is actually located directly beneath the
area where Christ was crucified. According to Wyatt’s research, when Jesus was crucified, his
blood flowed down to the ground, through a split in the rock, and onto the Ark.
Most serious researchers doubt his claim, saying that, as far back as the first Temple, the area
of Mt. Calvary was used as burial grounds, so it is highly unlikely that the Ark would have been
placed on defiled ground. Scholars have questioned his lack of archaeological training, and his
techniques; yet Wyatt’s work gained more acceptance because of other discoveries, such as the