A Dashing Explorer
In a true story of star-crossed lovers, the gallant Captain Montagu Parker vowed to find the hiding place of the Lost Ark of the Covenant to win the hand of a beautiful American socialite. A war hero, this English nobleman dreamed of finding true love by solving the mystery of the Lost Ark’s hiding place.
A Scandalous Beauty
Celebrated as one of the most beautiful women of her era, Ava Astor had promised Captain Parker that he could win her affections by fulfilling this ancient quest. Smitten by her charms, the dashing captain ignored the rumors about Ava’s affairs and dreamed of winning her hand by finding the world’s greatest lost treasure.
A Mystical Poet
Arriving in Jerusalem in 1909, Captain Parker began his search for the Lost Ark with the help of a mystical Swedish poet. Claiming to have deciphered a secret code in the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, the poet Valter Juvelius assured Parker that he could find the Lost Ark using this code. The best place to start digging, he said, was near the spring known to Christians as Mary’s Pool.
Broken Dreams
After two years of exploration, Captain Parker despaired of Juvelius’ promises. But after leading a nighttime raid on a Muslim shrine rumored to hold the Lost Ark, Parker returned to England in disgrace. By now wealthy from a divorce settlement and her ex-husband’s demise on the Titanic, Astor rejected his romantic advances.
Secrets Unveiled
In 1913, a young French-Syrian woman and her husband inherited a set of stone tablets inscribed with the writings of the prophet Ezekiel and a legend about the hiding of the Lost Ark. Seemingly copied from a mystical book entitled The Valley of the King, this legend described the hiding of the Lost Ark and King Solomon’s treasures at mysterious locations in ancient Babylon and Israel.
Words of a Prophet
When her husband died, Madame Durand decided to donate the stone tablets to a museum or religious group interested in the treasure story attributed to the prophet Ezekiel. She began showing the tablets to scholars, amid rumors that they had been taken from Ezekiel’s Tomb near Babylon.
A Secret Rendezvous
In 1947, following the collapse of French rule over Syria, Durand made plans to move to France. On the same day that the United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states, she met secretly with a senior Jewish official and arranged to donate the tablets to the new State of Israel.
A Daring Rescue
As war and expulsions raged throughout the Near East, David Hacohen was charged by Israel’s modern founder, David Ben Gurion, with rescuing the so-called Ezekiel Tablets. The tablets were smuggled into Israel and donated to a museum in Jerusalem, which sadly allowed the two tablets inscribed with Ezekiel’s treasure legend to disappear into the black market.
A Secret Cave
After the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, archaeologists began searching for more scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea. In 1952, an archaeology team discovered a secret cave that had been walled up in the first century CE. Intrigued by this hidden cave, the archaeologists were not disappointed when, inside the cave, they found a rolled-up scroll made of copper, broken into two pieces.
A Timeless Quest
When the so-called Copper Scroll was cut open and translated, scholars were shocked to learn that this artifact was a treasure map. Listing sixty locations of buried treasure at mysterious locations, the Copper Scroll promised vast wealth to the courageous fortune hunter who deciphered its clues.
A Brave Explorer
There was just one problem. Most of the clues made no sense. Was there a secret code that needed to be solved? Were the locations listing impossibly large quantities of gold and silver merely decoys? Was this the same code used in the mysterious Ezekiel Tablets? Joined by a scholar who had studied those tablets, archaeologist John Marco Allegro made progress toward solving the mystery, while publishing the first translation of the Copper Scroll.
Dreaming of Peace
In 1960, Allegro began a search for the Copper Scroll treasures that continues today. Confident that he had deciphered some of the important clues, he began excavating a pair of mysterious tunnels in the Judean Desert. Insisting that the Copper Scroll treasures were the common heritage of the world’s cultures and religions, he asserted that their discovery could serve as a ”bridge to peace” in the troubled Near East.
In the valley of shadow
After his archaeology camp by the Judean Tunnels was destroyed by a violent desert rainstorm, Allegro was forced to abandon his search for the Copper Scroll treasures. Forty years later, a renowned Israeli archaeology named Oren Gutfeld resumed excavation work at this site, intrigued by Allegro’s research on the mysterious Copper Scroll.
At a Place of Darkness
After twenty years of excavation work, Gutfeld’s team was perplexed to have found little more than a goat skeleton dating to the sixth century BCE. Determined to learn why these tunnels had been dug beneath the desert to depths of 175 and 400 feet, respectively, Gutfeld and his team brought ground penetrating radar equipment to the base of each tunnel.
Searching for Answers
In February 2020, Gutfeld’s team was shocked when the GPR equipment revealed the presence of cavities beneath the floor of each tunnel. When these secret chambers were opened, the team was even more surprised to find more cavities in the rock, hidden under ancient manmade concrete. Their plans for further excavation, though, were indefinitely delayed by a global plague and a regional war.
A Light that Shines
With work in the tunnels now resuming, what will Gutfeld’s team find? Could this archaeology team make an important discovery that might solve the greatest mystery of the ancient world? Is it possible that Allegro’s dream of the Copper Scroll treasures serving as a “bridge to peace” might somehow come true?
Together Again
What about the Lost Ark? If this ancient golden chest can somehow be found, what secrets will it reveal? Perhaps the answer lies in the mystical writings of The Valley of the King, the original published source of Ezekiel’s treasure story. Two golden angels, one male and one female, embody our faith, this ancient source tells us. As the Lost Ark’s hiding place near Mary’s Pool reminds us, humanity is one, embracing both our Father in heaven and the Mother Earth who sustains everything we know and love.
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