h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The legend of the Ark of the Covenant - A1037963
Author: Archangel Galaxy Babe ACE - U128652

Here you go, something to argue about on a Sunday

AGB

Nice one AGB

Some additional information which you might or might not want to include.

It's not known when the Ark disappeared from the Temple in Jerusalem, but the prime suspects are at the sack of Jerusalem by Shishak, the reign of King Manasseh, who defiled the temple precincts, and the fall of Jerusalem to King Nebuchadnezzar.

It may have got to Ethiopia via the Jewish temple at Yeb/Elephantine in Upper Egypt.

The Ark of the Covenant is not unique. Transportable containers for holy books/relics are also known from Egyptian funerary equipment. A paticularly well preserved one was found in the tomb of (I think - it's a while since I read this) Tuthmosis III.

There's a great deal of controversy about the dating of Moses in respect to Egyptian history. The Bible gives PiThom and PiRamesses, a 13th Dynasty and a 19th Dynasty pharaoh respectively, as the cities which the Israelites were forced to build.

Noggin

your link about Flinders Petrie includes what seems to be an exhaustive summary of his excavations but I can't find anything that really resembles what you describe as his "astonishing" discovery. The excavation in the Sinai in 1904 seems pretty unremarkable:

"At Serabit el Khadem, Petrie excavated a temple on a hilltop, 250 feet up the Wady,
where there were a series of courts where great pillars stood. Petrie found scripts of
Egyptian officials who visited the area with the mining expeditions which are known
as the 19th dynasty Proto-Sinaitic Scripts. He also found a portrait of a head of Queen
Tiy (wife of Amenophis"

No mention of white powder. There is a mention of Ali es Suefi finding gypsum covered tombs at At Ghurob (Tell Medinet Ghurad).
Where did you find the story about the white powder?

Thank you Noggin, it's difficult to write about what happened to the Ark with so many conflicting stories. That's why I just wrote about where it might be *now*.

Anhaga, I found the story about the white manna/powdered gold in a book by Laurence Gardner, called "Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark".
http://www.mediaquest.co.uk/lgardner.html
I debated whether to talk about it at all, but "something" has to explain the Ark's legendary levitation powers.

I included that website about Flinders Petrie so that people could find out more information about him. That's not where I researched my information about the Ark from though.

aargh! I had a wonderfully composed post ready and eat got eaten by the windows demon.

In a nutshell:

I think the ark is a fascinating subject but virtually everything about it is legend and speculation.

I think that the description of Flinders Petrie's discovery should be "is said to have" "is rumoured to have" or "is alleged to have". Since there is no documentation except for Gardner's account (a century after the fact) it really should be considered one more legend.

the identification of mfkzt with monatomic gold is speculative at best. As near as I understand it, monatomic gold has not been conclusively proven to exist, and if it did, it is not clear that it would have a grain size large enough to be visible at all, let alone as a white powder. It would more likely be a gas.

gold does not have to be a white powder in order to be safe to ingest. it is safe to ingest in its ordinary gold coloured form, as many who have ingested gold-leafed birthday cakes may attest.

Again, sorry the post isn't more carefully crafted but I'm running out of time (the meaning of that must remain a mystery)

Sorry to bring the tone of the piece down, but can you also mention the film "raiders of the lost ark" at some point.

I commented on this entry elsewhere, but now that it is in Peer Review, I'll reproduce my comments here:

Some comments on the content of the entry:

This is certainly an interesting slant on the story of the Ark. I think it needs two major extra sections.

1. You mention monatomic gold in a footnote the very first time you give the word mfkzt. This seems to be saying that there is a substance called monatomic gold and that the stuff known as mfkzt is definitely the same thing. This is not established fact. You should remove the footnote, develop your description of the white powder, then put in a section on powdered gold, saying what is beleived today You can then propose the theory that mfzkt was in fact monatomic gold. Having looked up 'monatomic gold', I can see that an awful lot of things have been claimed about it. Most of these look like complete drivel to me. So be wary of claiming any of these things yourself, unless you are really prepared to fight your corner. But it's perfectly OK to report the theory that Moses and his followers believed in the magical properties of this substance.

2. You talk about the creation of the Ark and then you jump to a section on 'where is it now'. Since the entry is entitled 'The Ark of the Covenant', you should say more about the Ark itself after it was constructed. Talk about the Covenant. Talk about the Israelites living for 40 years in the desert, carrying the Ark with them wherever they went. Talk about the special tent it lived in (the tabernacle?). Talk about the voice of God coming from it, the cloud on top of it and so on. Talk about Solomon building the first Temple specifically as a resting place for the Ark now that they had reached the promised land. Talk about the fact that suddenly the bible has no further references to the Ark.

The reference to the ark in the Book of Hebrews actually says:

"This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant."

That might be worth quoting.

Some style points:

I think links in the text itself should refer to other h2g2 entries only. External links should be at the end in a 'Further Information' section. I don't know if there is anything in the writing guidelines about it, but it is something I always do. You can think about whether you agree.

Hieroglyphics is the study of the ancient writing of the Egyptians. The symbols themselves are called 'hieroglyphs'.

You might like to mention that the Egyptian writing did not record the vowels, so we don't know what the original pronunciation of mfkzt was.

It should be 'The Church of St Mary of Zion'.

A good read AGB.

Has this entry been recommended? It's marked 'not for review', but i couldn't see it in the 'Coming up' section, or have I overlooked it?

There's a big section in the current 'Kindred Spirit' magazine about the Ark of the Covenant, where it suggests that there is evidence about myzft and that this could be used by scientists to power stealth type planes to avoid radar and to be put in fuel rods to power rockets and suchlike. Is it too late for this kind of information to be included?

Hi ZSF
I removed the entry from PR myself, due to not having the time to re-work the entire entry as suggested by everyone.

I'll try and get back to it one day and work on it some more.

Can't promise though.

Ah, now I'm back from holidays (it's been half term), I should get time to look out my information.

I gather you may have other priorities, though, AGB?

Yes, a lot going on in RL.


I promise, however, that I won't start any new entries until I've finished my half-finished entries, so this may appear back in PR one day.

s

Hope things in RL settle down soon and you can get back to this!