The news reports that the long-lost Biblical Ark of the Covenant has been found in Zimbabwe has re-ignited interest in its guardians – the Lemba tribe.
But where does fiction finish and fact begin? Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. African proverb.
What’s claimed to be an ancient replica, a direct descendant of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant went on display at Harare’s Museum of Human Science, Zimbabwe, February 2010.
An opening ceremony was held to mark the exhibition of the ‘Ark’ otherwise known as Ngoma Lungundu (The drum of the ancestors), Government ministers attended. Can it be The Ark, as some experts have claimed? And how could it have ended up in Zimbabwe?
According to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the word of God. The Ark had power – Kings consulted it, people were forbidden to look at it.
The Wisdom of King Solomon described in the The Book of Wisdom
It played a part in the Battle of Jericho – helping to knock down a city wall. Later, when captured by the Philistines it broke a statue of their God Dagon and made the Philistines ill, giving them hemorrhoids or maybe tumors.
So the Philistines sent it back to the Israelite’s. The Ark was set in the field of Joshua the Beth-she-mite. Unfortunately, the men of Bethshemesh were curious:
And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
Over 800 Ethiopians killed after defending ‘Ark of the Covenant’
It was placed in King Solomon’s Temple. In 586 BC, the Babylonians entered Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon’s Temple. The Ark of the Covenant was lost.
But the Ark is an object of fascination and importance to many, so stories of its survival have circulated for two thousand years or so. In recent times the hugely popular movie Raiders of the Lost Ark renewed public interest.
In 2008 scholar Tudor Parfitt popularized one of the lesser known Ark stories. In his ‘The Lost Ark of the Covenant’ book he told us that the ancestors of the Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe carried the Ark away from Jerusalem then hid it in Africa.
Nehanda Radio / ABC Flash Point News 2025.
The Zimbabwe story is based on a hoax to change the real narrative. Solomon was connected with the Queen of Sheba and she took the Ark with her, when the Temple-mount got destroyed by invaders.
There is a slight problem in the narrative- according to a Jewish professor of archeology after spending a year at the so called Jericho battle site no trace of either a battle nor of any walls or part of walls on the site nor of any real historic evidence in the surrounding area . Even if the walls were used as building material later not even any foundations exist. King Solomon in the Bible/Tora “had many wife’s ” including “foreign ones ” completely going against his god “Yahweh,s ” commandments “thou shalt not take of the woman of other tribes… Read more »
Queen of Sheba (flourished 10th century bce) was, according to Jewish and Islamic traditions, the ruler of the kingdom of Sabaʾ (or Sheba) in southwestern Arabia. In the biblical account of the reign of King Solomon, she visited his court at the head of a camel caravan bearing gold, jewels, and spices. The story provides evidence for the existence of important commercial relations between ancient Israel and southern Arabia. According to the Bible, the purpose of her visit was to test Solomon’s wisdom by asking him to solve a number of riddles.
The Queen of Sheba appears as a prominent figure in the Kebra Nagast (“Glory of King”), the Ethiopian national epic and foundation story. According to this tradition, the Queen of Sheba (called Makeda) visited Solomon’s court after hearing about his wisdom. She stayed and learned from him for six months. On the last night of her visit, he tricked her into his bed, and she became pregnant. She returned to her kingdom, where she bore Solomon a son, Menilek. Menilek I was made king by his father, thus founding the royal Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, which ruled until the deposition… Read more »