Takers of the Lost Arc, Part I

It started off the strangest thing, like some tale out of Hollywood, the famed ‘Arc of the Covenant,’ with stone tablets, cherubs, and wood. Believed long lost to history, destroyed by Babylonians, the box that housed the commandments, back when Israel was begun. No one seriously thought that it was still in existence today, archaeology laughed at that, wouldn’t hear what folks had to say. Dismissed them as treasure hunters, unserious, undisciplined, would do more harm than good out there, not like trained academic kin. But it was just such a figure who went down to Axum one night, to St. Mary’s Church, that long claimed it had the true arc in its sight. How it came to Ethiopia is a mad story of it’s own, that Queen Sheba and Solomon had an affair that was unknown. That out of this came Menelik, who saw later ungodly kings, and took the arc from Israel, then left a copy of the thing Ii the temple to fool the priests, while with the real thing he went south, travelled to Ethiopia, where the great arc would settle down. Now few people believed all this, most Christians would laugh, as did Jews, but in Axum they did believe, no question the story was true. And one night that treasure seeker slipped into old St. Mary’s Church, taking with him a small chisel, in the dead of night got to work. He found a box, old and crumbled, half off the wood rotten clean off, and some gravely dust inside, once tablets, but now quite long lost. He chipped a small piece of the wood, then stole out like some common thief, the priest on duty was passed out, which made the man sigh with relief. Now when the man brought the wood back, and had it tested in a lab, the age came to four thousand years, this news made the fellow quite glad. He announced it to all the world, the Axum arc was the real thing, and held up all the test results to those he found were still doubting. This caused something of an outrage, Ethiopia was not amused, secular-types just rolled their eyes, it made for such drama-filled news. In fact that media frenzy, in their endless search for new clicks, brought attention none could deny, the guarding priests hated it. Where one man had snuck in before, now new people tried every week, they mourned the days when they were mocked, from this chaos they sought relief... CONTINUES IN PART II.