The Ark of the Covenant.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ... they [the children of Israel] shall make an ark of shittim [the acacia tree] wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and thou shall make upon it a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof; and two rings shall be in one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shall put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them. The staves shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee." Exodus 25:1, 10-16.

Moses receiving the tablets of stone, from a sixteenth century tapestry.
		The two figures on top of the Ark are cherubims and not angels. Note the rings and staves.
King David leading a procession, along with the Ark, presumably into Jerusalem. If not into the Holy City, then out to battle. Their custom was to take the Ark into battle to show that their god was on their side.
		The argument that, by virtue of its construction and placement, the Ark can serve as an electrical capacitor and thus dazzle the faithful masses, is very much flawed. In the first place, a capacitor must have an alternating current type source of electrical energy to hold a charge. The production of an alternating current is a man made engineering contrivance. Secondly, all electrical forces in nature are of the direct current type and a capacitor will not store that type of energy. And finally, no electrical device or component can possibly operate without a source of power. The notion of simply setting such an ark on the ground and the earth generating enough current is difficult to believe. Even if that were true, any current generated would be immediately returned to the earth. That is why all electrical circuits are grounded. But of course, if one is truly faithful, then anything can happen.

For purposes of discussion, we will assume that the biblical treatises are indeed true. What happened to the Ark?

Theories and conjecture abound. One of the better theories that I have seen was put forth by Graham Hancock in his book, The Sign and The Seal. Hancock suggests that the Ark was taken from Solomon's Temple and, by a circuitous route, and over a period of over a thousand years, wound up in Aksum, an ancient city in northern Ethiopia, where it is today. Click here for a synopsis of that book.

Another theory is that there were five arks and that the Knights Templar recovered them during the Crusades and brought them back to Rosslyn, Scotland, where they are all buried underneath a small chapel.

The acacia tree.

It is said that inside the ark itself are the actual Ten Commandments, Moses' staff (the one he had in his right hand when he parted the waters of the Red Sea), Aaron's rod, and the proverbial manna.