On his head the priest carried the tabots, wrapped in ebony velvet embroidered in gold. Catching sight of the sacred bundle, hundreds of women in the crowd began ululating—making a singsong wail with their tongues—as many Ethiopian women do at moments of intense emotion.
As the clerics began to walk down a rocky pathway toward a piazza at the center of town a legacy of Italy's occupation of Ethiopia in the s , they were hemmed in by perhaps 1, more chanting and ululating devotees. At the piazza, the procession joined clerics carrying tabots from seven other churches.
Together they set off farther downhill, with the trailing throng swelling into the thousands, with thousands more lining the road. About five miles later, the priests stopped beside a pool of murky water in a park. All afternoon and through the night, the priests chanted hymns before the tabots, surrounded by worshipers.
Then, prompted by glimmers of light sneaking into the morning sky, Archbishop Andreas led the clerics to celebrate the baptism of Jesus by playfully splashing one another with the pool's water.
The Timkat celebrations were to continue for three more days with prayers and masses, after which the tabots would be returned to the churches where they were kept. I was more eager than ever to locate the original ark, so I headed for Aksum, about miles northeast.
Just outside Gonder, my car passed Wolleka village, where a mud-hut synagogue bore a Star of David on the roof—a relic of Jewish life in the region that endured for as long as four millennia, until the s.
That was when the last of the Bet Israel Jews also known as the Falasha, the Amharic word for "stranger" were evacuated to Israel in the face of persecution by the Derg.
The road degenerated into a rutted, rocky pathway that twisted around the hillsides, and our SUV struggled to exceed ten miles per hour. I reached Aksum in darkness and shared the hotel dining room with United Nations peacekeepers from Uruguay and Jordan who told me they were monitoring a stretch of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border about an hour's drive away. The latest U. The next day was hot and dusty.
Except for the occasional camel and its driver, Aksum's streets were nearly empty. We weren't far from the Denakil Desert, which extends eastward into Eritrea and Djibouti. By chance, in the lobby of my hotel I met Alem Abbay, an Aksum native who was on vacation from Frostburg State University in Maryland, where he teaches African history. Abbay took me to a stone tablet about eight feet high and covered in inscriptions in three languages—Greek; Geez, the ancient language of Ethiopia; and Sabaean, from across the Red Sea in southern Yemen, the true birthplace, some scholars believe, of the Queen of Sheba.
His finger traced the strange-looking alphabets carved into the rock 16 centuries ago. Abbay led me to another stone tablet covered with inscriptions in the same three languages. As we walked on, we passed a large reservoir, its surface covered with green scum. Ahead was a towering stele, or column, 79 feet high and said to weigh tons. Like other fallen and standing steles nearby, it was carved from a single slab of granite, perhaps as early as the first or second century A.
Legend has it that the ark of the covenant's supreme power sliced it out of the rock and set it into place.
On our way to the chapel where the ark is said to be kept, we passed Sheba's bath again and saw about 50 people in white shawls crouched near the water. A boy had drowned there shortly before, and his parents and other relatives were waiting for the body to surface. They believe the curse has struck again. Abbay and I made our way toward the office of the Neburq-ed, Aksum's high priest, who works out of a tin shed at a seminary close by the ark chapel. As the church administrator in Aksum, he would be able to tell us more about the guardian of the ark.
Only he can see it; all others are forbidden to lay eyes on it or even go close to it. But the Ethiopians say that is inconceivable—the visitors must have been shown fakes. I asked how the guardian is chosen. I told him I'd heard that in the midth century a chosen guardian had run away, terrified, and had to be hauled back to Aksum.
The Neburq-ed smiled, but did not answer. Instead, he pointed to a grassy slope studded with broken stone blocks—the remains of Zion Maryam cathedral, Ethiopia's oldest church, founded in the fourth century A.
Now that I had come this far, I asked if we could meet the guardian of the ark. The Neburq-ed said no: "He is usually not accessible to ordinary people, just religious leaders. The next day I tried again, led by a friendly priest to the gate of the ark chapel, which is about the size of a typical suburban house and surrounded by a high iron fence. A few minutes later he scurried back, smiling. A few feet from where I stood, through the iron bars, a monk who looked to be in his late 50s peered around the chapel wall.
He wore an olive-colored robe, dark pillbox turban and sandals. He glanced warily at me with deep-set eyes. Animals Wild Cities Morocco has 3 million stray dogs. Meet the people trying to help. Environment COP26 nears conclusion with mixed signals and frustration.
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The first, and most famous version, is found in the Book of Exodus and describes how a large amount of gold was used to build the ark.
The second version, found in the Book of Deuteronomy, briefly describes the construction of an ark made just of wood. Understanding the stories surrounding the ark is challenging because of the different accounts. Some scholars believe that multiple arks may have been constructed and used at the same time or at different times.
The story of the construction of the ark told in the Book of Exodus describes in great detail how God ordered Moses to tell the Israelites to build an ark out of wood and gold, with God supposedly giving very precise instructions. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Poles made of acacia wood and gold were used to carry the ark and two cherubim angels were to be sculpted out of gold and placed on the lid of the ark.
The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments were placed inside the ark. The Hebrew Bible directed that the Ark of the Covenant be placed within a movable shrine known as the tabernacle. A curtain that prevented people from viewing the Ark of the Covenant was set up within the tabernacle and an altar and incense burners were placed in front of the curtain. The incense was made of gum resin, onycham, galbanum and frankincense , and was to be burned by Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his sons at morning and sunset.
A man named Bezalel was chosen by God to build the Ark of the Covenant and furnishings located within the tabernacle, according to the Hebrew Bible. Oholiab was chosen by God to be Bezalel's assistant, with skilled craftsmen helping them, the Hebrew Bible says.
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