They were killed trying to stop the assailants from the lost ark of real life, an artifact so powerful and holy that they were never forbidden to see it.
The massacre of at least 800 people in an Ethiopian church in Tigray revealed the apparent setting of the Ark of the Covenant, one of the greatest mysteries of religion and the things of film legend.
The ark — a large wooden chest covered with gold that was said to contain the Ten Commandments of Moses — remained in Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem for centuries, but disappeared after Jerusalem was sacked in 586 or 587 BC. the Old Testament.
Since then, his whereabouts have been unknown, with rumors including that the Knights Templar were robbed and hidden in a rebuilt French cathedral, in addition to being buried next to Alexander the Great in Greece.
However, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians have long maintained that the ark has been kept in a chapel in the church of St. Mary of Zion, in the holy city north of Axum.
According to legend, the ark was brought to Ethiopia in the 10th century BC after being stolen by the staff of Menelik, son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel, who believed that theft was allowed by God because no of his men were killed.
The ark is said to be so dangerous that it was always covered while moving, and in Axum only virgin monks ordained to be its guardian are allowed to look at it.
There have never been any photographs, only illustrations based on the description of the exodus chapter 25, verses 10-21, of a box of “acacia wood” covered with gold and covered on two poles.
Even the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is “forbidden to see her,” then her boss, His Holiness Abuna Paulos, told Smithsonian magazine in 2007. “The guardian of the ark is the only person to the land that has that unparalleled honor, ”he said at the time.
The guardian “prayed constantly beside the ark, day and night, burning incense before him and paying homage to God,” the then high priest of Aksum told the magazine.
“Only he can see it; everyone else is forbidden to put their eyes on it or even approach it. ”
Thousands of people gather in Zion church in late November to celebrate the day Ethiopians believe the Ark of the Covenant was brought there, one of the reasons there were so many people during the November massacre, which was only recently reported.
“When people heard the shooting, they ran to the church to support the priests and other people who were there protecting the ark,” Getu Mak, 32, a university professor, told The Times in London. “Certainly some of them were killed for doing so.”
Reports of the destruction and looting of invaluable artifacts by troops sparked fears that the ark would be targeted. “Everyone was worried that he would be taken … or just disappear, including me,” Mak told the British newspaper.
It was not immediately known how the ark of the church was saved or what happened to its guardian.
Some historians also insist that sacrifices were made to defend a useless retort.
Edward Ullendorff, a late professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, previously told the Los Angeles Times that he saw the ark during World War II and that it was “a box of wood, but it is empty “.
“The mid-late medieval construction, when they were made ad hoc,” he said in the 1992 interview, saying the mystery surrounding it was “mainly to keep the idea that it is a revered object.”
Before he died, Ullendorff told his professor Tudor Parfitt that he “did not differ in any way from many coffins he had seen in other churches in Ethiopia,” Parfitt told Live Science in 2018.
“It wasn’t old and it certainly wasn’t the original ark,” Parfitt said.
Ethiopians have long dismissed these reports, however, insisting that people were shown forgeries to protect the royal ark, with their faith as strong as ever.
“If you attack Axum, you first attack the identity of Orthodox Tigrayans, but also of all Ethiopian Orthodox Christians,” said Wolbert Smidt, a specialized ethnohistorian in the region. “Axum is considered a church in the local tradition,” Axum Sion “.
With publishing cables