04x06 - The Ark of the Covenant

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, we explore

one of the Bible’s

most powerful artifacts.

Anybody who is unworthy

could be blinded,

or if they touch it,

they’ll be k*lled.

A holy relic that’s been missing

for over 2,000 years.

People continue to believe

that the Ark is still out there,

that it still can be found.

Now, we uncover the top theories

surrounding its disappearance.

It was simply carried

to Ethiopia.

It’s in the Vatican

Secret Archives.

He hid it in anticipation

of the Babylonian destruction.

Can a new search finally reveal

its location?

I’m confident

that this is the mother lode.

What became of the legendary

Ark of the Covenant,

and can it ever be found?

Qumran, Israel, 2014.

After 16 years of hard work,

researcher Jim Barfield

believes he’s closing in

on one of history’s

most mysterious artifacts.

This ancient Jewish settlement

is where the Dead Sea Scrolls

were found in 1947.

But I believe it hides

an even greater treasure.

I believe I’ve found

the location

of the greatest biblical

archaeological discovery,

the Ark of the Covenant.

If Barfield is correct,

he could solve

a mystery that begins

thousands of years ago.

According to the Book of Exodus,

the story of the Ark

dates back to Ancient Egypt

in the 13th century BCE.

The Exodus is one

of the most

famous stories ever told.

Moses and the Israelites

survive a plague that takes

the first-born sons of the land.

Moses leads the Israelites

out of the land of Egypt,

and they move across

the Red Sea,

where the waters

miraculously part

when he holds up

his magical staff.

They arrive at a mountain

in which God gives them

the Ten Commandments.

The Israelites build

a holy vessel,

a sacred box to hold these

tablets of the Commandments.

It’s called

the Ark of the Covenant.

The Bible gives

a very clear description

as to what the Ark of

the Covenant looks like.

God himself is, in fact,

the architect of this,

so it’s very precise

about the measurements

and the way that

it has to be built.

It’s made of acacia wood

two and a half cubits long,

one and a half cubits wide,

and one and a half cubits high,

or about 52 inches long,

31 inches wide, 31 inches high.

It’s covered entirely in gold

inside and out.

It has four gold rings

on which poles are attached

for it to be carried.

Finally, it’s topped off

with an ornate gold lid

that has two sculptures

of cherubim on top.

According to the Old Testament,

the Israelites carry the Ark

for 40 years

wandering through the desert.

Along the way,

it displays great power.

In the Book of Joshua,

when they reach

the River Jordan,

the Ark miraculously

dries up the waters

so that they can cross.

The first battle

that the Israelites fight

is against the great city

of Jericho.

Israelites were commanded

to circle the city seven times,

blow the horns, and then

in the presence of the Ark,

the walls of Jericho would fall.

The Israelites

would take the city

and they would gain possession

of that area

of the land of Israel.

Further accounts in

First and Second Samuel

note that anybody

who is unworthy

who even looks at the Ark

could be blinded,

or if they touch it,

they’ll be k*lled.

There’s also the story

of the Philistines.

The Philistines capture the Ark.

They’re suddenly afflicted

with a plague of mice or rats,

and with horrible boils

that the Philistines get

all over their bodies.

They actually end up

giving the Ark back

to the Israelites,

and along with it,

a coffer filled

with gold sculptures

kind of an apology for having

taken the Ark

in the first place.

Eventually, the Ark

is brought to Jerusalem,

where King Solomon builds

the first Jewish temple

at a place called

the Temple Mount.

He houses the Ark inside

within a special room

called the Holy of Holies.

The temple is completed

by around 950 BCE,

and for four centuries,

the Ark in the temple

becomes the center

sort of thrumming heart

of the Kingdom of Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant

was the focal point

of religious devotion,

a place where God

spoke to the world.

Then, w*r breaks out in 587 BC.

The Babylonians att*ck Jerusalem

and finally destroy the city

after a 30-month siege.

And the Babylonians

are absolutely brutal.

They tear down the temple.

They force Zedekiah to watch

every one of his sons m*rder*d

in front of him.

They then blind him

so that this image

is the last thing he sees.

They take him to Babylon

and they make him

a prisoner there

until his death.

They also set Jerusalem on fire,

and everything burns,

including, perhaps, the Ark.

This isn’t just a Bible story.

We have archaeological evidence

that the Babylonians

destroyed Jerusalem.

Babylon loots the city

before it burns.

And we have some records

of some of the things

that they took, but something

that’s never mentioned

in any of those records

is the Ark of the Covenant,

something that would have

certainly been mentioned

had they taken it.

So, a large amount of historians

believe that the Ark

of the Covenant

was in Jerusalem up to 587 BC.

After that, it’s almost entirely

absent from the biblical text.

Is that really it?

Is this immensely powerful

object really gone

after centuries of it being

this kind of center of worship?

All of a sudden,

it just disappears?

Nobody wants this to be

the end of the Ark.

According to some

ancient texts, it’s not.

There’s a reason

why so many people

continue to believe

that the Ark is still out there,

that it still can be found.

There’s a reason

they’re still looking for it.

It’s because there are stories

that the Ark

narrowly escaped the temple’s

destruction in Jerusalem.

These stories come

from first and second-century

Jewish sources, including one

called the Mishnah.

And the Mishnah

is actually a collection

of oral traditions that claim

to go all the way back

to the destruction of the temple

at the hands of the Babylonians.

In one such story,

one Rabbi Yehudah

tells that before the Babylonian

destruction of the temple,

an earlier king, Josiah,

worried about the Ark,

and he hid it

in anticipation

of the Babylonian destruction.

According to Rabbi Yehudah,

the Ark is hidden

with a chest of gold

and a sacred walking stick

carried by Moses’ brother Aaron.

King Josiah

also hides this chest

that the Philistines

sent to the Israelites

along with the Ark

of the Covenant

in an effort to say,

"We’re sorry we stole

the Ark of the Covenant

from you."

Rabbi Yehudah offered the idea

that the priests of Jerusalem

prepared a secret

underground chamber

beneath the Temple Mount,

and that’s where

they hid the Ark.

The site

of Solomon’s original temple,

the Temple Mount,

has long been a powerful

and mysterious location.

There are at least

35 acres of ancient rooms

and over 50 tunnels

that we know of

under the Temple Mount.

Some of these date all the way

back to King Solomon.

Many Orthodox Jews

believe that

the Ark of the Covenant

was hidden in one

of these chambers,

and that one day

it will be rediscovered.

It’s 1970, and one theory

about the Ark of the Covenant

is about to be tested

as Israeli authorities

begin excavations

close to Jerusalem’s

Western Wall

near the site

of Solomon’s original temple.

It’s a major archaeological dig.

The Western Wall

runs along the west side

of the Temple Mount,

and beneath it are thousands

of years of construction,

structures, tunnels, artifacts.

This is a huge project,

planned to take

a total of 18 years.

It’s a project that

also creates religious tension,

as the site is now home

to the Dome of the Rock,

an Islamic shrine

built in 691 AD.

Because the Temple Mount

is under Islamic control,

you also have the political

part of this,

which is Israelis digging

into the Islamic part

of the city.

And any excavation

that cuts under the Temple Mount

by the Israeli government

would just be

a political timebomb.

But if you believe, like many

Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem,

that the Ark of the Covenant

is hidden in the Temple Mount,

then this excavation project

is coming tantalizingly close.

One such believer

is Rabbi Yehuda Getz.

Rabbi Getz is not affiliated

with this dig, right?

This is an Israeli government

scientific excavation.

But Rabbi Getz wants to find

the Ark of the Covenant.

And in the middle

of that excavation,

Rabbi Getz realizes

that they are close

to where he believes the Ark

of the Covenant might be.

So, Rabbi Getz

gathers up some workmen

and begins a secret excavation

of his own.

Getz chooses a spot

called the Warren Gate,

which leads straight under

the Temple Mount.

He’s had 11 years

to prepare for this moment.

He’s reviewed

archaeological reports,

ancient maps, he’s consulted

with experts,

and he is convinced that this is

the closest possible location

to the Holy of Holies chamber

that once held the Ark.

After some weeks of digging,

Muslim worshippers

in the Al-Aqsa Mosque

hear all kinds of banging

going on under their floor.

And so, the Muslim guards

go down to see what’s going on,

and they encounter a group

of Israeli young people

smuggling dirt

out of these tunnels.

A violent confrontation ensues

between these amateur excavators

armed only with shovels,

hoes, and picks,

and the guards rushing in

from all sides.

Israeli police have to come

to quell

a full-scale underground riot.

In 1982

the government orders the tunnel

to be resealed, and it remains

cemented shut to this day.

Rabbi Yehuda Getz claimed

that at the end of the tunnel

that he dug,

he could see something

something golden

and something glowing.

Is it perhaps

the Ark of the Covenant?

We may never know how close

Rabbi Getz got

to the Ark of the Covenant,

but those tunnels

are still there.

And maybe if some time

the political situation

changes in Israel,

we might be able to access them,

and perhaps reveal

that the rabbi

was right all along.

Others believe that

whatever Rabbi Getz

spotted in 1981,

it wasn’t the Ark,

because that relic was moved

centuries earlier.

After the Babylonians

destroyed the first temple,

let’s just assume that the Ark

is safely underneath

the Temple Mount,

and as years roll by,

other conquering people

come and go, and the Ark

is still there.

Eventually the Jews are allowed

to return to Jerusalem,

and they build a second temple

on the same site.

And then, a new sheriff

comes to town.

In 63 BCE, the Roman Empire

conquers the entire

Eastern Mediterranean region.

And when the Jews

rebel against Rome,

Rome decimates them.

The Romans destroy

the second temple in 70 AD,

and they dismantle it

stone by stone,

taking its treasures

back to Rome.

Some believe

one of those treasures

is the Ark.

There are many artworks

and writings from the Romans

describing the many spoils

from the Jewish w*r.

The Ark of the Covenant

is not shown among any of them.

But did the Romans know

that they captured the Ark,

if they captured the Ark?

Well, they didn’t know what

they captured in the temple.

They called the Menorah,

the great candelabrum

that the Jews had built

for the temple,

they just call it a candlestick.

With or without the Ark,

the temple’s spoils

are paraded around

the city of Rome

before they are put on display

in the ironically-named

Temple of Peace

that faces the Coliseum,

which is at that time

being built,

and largely funded by spoils

from the Jewish w*r.

The Temple of Peace

stands in Rome

for nearly 500 years.

After that, if the Ark is there,

we don’t know where it goes.

Rome is invaded by barbarians

and falls in the year 476 AD.

For hundreds of years,

it seems that the Ark

has just disappeared,

until the 12th century,

when it is mentioned in a book.

It’s supposedly still in Rome,

but it is not at

the Temple of Peace.

The book is called

the "Descriptio Lateranensis

Ecclesiae."

It’s written by John the Deacon,

and he works at

the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

And he claims that this is where

the Ark of the Covenant

is being kept.

It’s the oldest church in Rome,

founded in the year 324 AD

while the Temple of Peace

is still standing,

and it’s only located

a half a mile away.

Some theorists believe

that after Constantine

legalizes Christianity

in the Roman Empire

in the year 312,

this church is built right away

to house the Christian relics

of Rome.

Around 1160, this is exactly

what John the Deacon writes.

He says that

the Ark of the Covenant

and many other temple treasures

are stored in the Lateran Church

beneath the altar.

Six-hundred years later,

the Ark is mentioned again

in papal records.

In 1745, the pope at the time,

Benedict XIV,

has three sacred objects

moved from the Lateran

Treasury

the Staff of Moses,

there’s Aaron’s Rod,

and lastly, there’s the Ark

of the Covenant.

Now, this is the last

mention of the Ark in Rome.

But some theorists believe

that the Ark

has remained in the possession

of the popes ever since,

and they think it’s in

the Vatican Secret Archives.

Hidden beneath

St. Peter’s Square,

the archives have an estimated

53 miles of shelves

holding thousands of years’

worth of church documents

and artifacts.

They have the correspondence

of Martin Luther.

They have Henry VIII’s request

for a marriage annulment.

Who knows what else is in

the Vatican Archives?

Could the Ark of the Covenant

be down there?

But let’s be very clear.

No pope, no church official

has ever claimed

that the Vatican has possession

of the Ark of the Covenant.

Axum, capital of

an ancient African kingdom

known as one of the world’s

four great powers

in the first century BC.

Today, it’s the holiest city in

the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

This religion’s

36 million followers

have no doubt where

the Ark of the Covenant rests.

They know it’s here.

What the Ethiopians say,

according to their religion,

is that these Ark hunters

focused on what happened

following the destruction

of Jerusalem in 587 BC

are all on a wild goose chase.

The Ethiopians believe

that actually the Ark

left Jerusalem

about 350 years earlier than

the destruction of the temple.

And it wasn’t lost in a w*r,

and it wasn’t destroyed.

It was simply picked up

and carried off.

And it ends up being carried

all the way to Ethiopia,

where it remains to this day.

According to this tradition,

the Ark leaves Jerusalem during

the reign of King Solomon.

In the Bible’s

first Book of Kings

and second Chronicles,

there’s a story of King Solomon

who greets in his kingdom

a queen.

While she’s known

as the Queen of Sheba,

and her origins

were actually unknown,

modern-day historians

associate her

with the land of Ethiopia.

In the Bible, the Queen of Sheba

comes to Jerusalem

to test the wisdom

of the mighty King Solomon.

She brings him gold

and all kinds of presents,

and having discovered that

he is everything she’s heard,

the Queen of Sheba returns

to her kingdom in Africa.

But the Ethiopian texts

like to elaborate on this story,

that the Queen of Sheba

comes to visit Solomon,

and by the time she returns,

she’s pregnant

with Solomon’s baby.

And she gives birth to a son

and names him Menelik.

Menelik is raised in Ethiopia,

and when he comes of age,

his mother, the Queen of Sheba,

decides it’s time for him

to go to Jerusalem

and meet King Solomon,

his biological father.

So, they meet

for the first time,

and Solomon is really

favorably impressed

with this young man.

He asks Menelik to stay

and to become his heir.

Menelik declines,

returning to Ethiopia

as his mother’s heir.

When Menelik

returns to Ethiopia,

he’s shocked to discover

that along with his supplies,

he finds

the Ark of the Covenant.

Now, Ethiopian accounts vary

as to whether this was a gift

from Solomon,

or whether someone

in his entourage stole it.

But the Ark of the Covenant

is there in Ethiopia,

and they believe the Ark

is rightfully theirs.

Unlike, say, the story

of the Philistines

taking the Ark for themselves,

nothing bad happens

to these Ethiopians

for having

the Ark of the Covenant there.

There’s no plagues,

there’s no tumors,

there’s no walls collapsing,

and no instant death

for the people who gaze upon it.

Instead,

Menelik’s kingdom thrives.

Menelik’s family line,

which claims to be

the Solomonic Dynasty,

flourishes for 2,000 years.

And to this day,

the church that they founded

claims to possess

the Ark of the Covenant.

Every aspect

of Ethiopian Orthodoxy

has the Ark at its core.

There are tens of thousands

of Ethiopian Orthodox churches

in the world, and every one

of them, to be consecrated,

must have a replica

Ark of the Covenant

inside its Holy of Holies

its inner sanctum chamber.

On special occasions,

the Ark of the Covenant replica

can be brought out

and paraded around.

But even it remains covered,

because even these replicas

are thought to have

tremendous power.

But with so many replicas,

where is the real Ark?

In Axum, a town 20 miles

from the Eritrean border,

is the Cathedral

of Our Lady Mary of Zion.

The cathedral is part

of a complex of buildings

that represent the holiest place

on Earth

for Ethiopian

Orthodox Christians.

It’s the equivalent

of the Roman Catholic Vatican.

The new cathedral building

was constructed in the 1950s

by the Emperor Haile Selassie.

It’s adjacent to the old church

built in the 1500s

on a site that had been in use

since the 4th century.

So, in between two buildings,

there’s another smaller one,

and the small one is the one

that’s really important,

and it’s known as

the Chapel of the Tablet.

And here is where

the Ethiopians believe

that the Ark of the Covenant

is kept.

The Chapel

of the Tablet was built in 1965

because, according to legend,

of a divine heat

that was emanating from the Ark

that was so hot,

it actually cracked the stones

of the old church

that sat next door.

So, the Chapel of the Tablet

is a more fortified home

for the safekeeping

for the Ark of the Covenant.

It’s one of the most

heavily secured chapels

that you would ever come across.

There is only one person

who can actually enter

into that building,

and he’s known

as the Guardian Monk.

The Guardian Monk

serves for life.

He needs to be a virgin,

he takes an oath of celibacy.

And he spends his entire life

in service to

the Ark of the Covenant,

making prayers and offering up

incense before it.

He’s not allowed to stray

more than 10 feet

from the building

in which the Ark sits.

He’s essentially bound to it,

a life in service

to this holy relic.

Before a Guardian Monk dies,

he appoints his own successor.

It’s a cycle that has continued

unbroken for generations.

Of course, some are suspicious

that all of the secrecy

that surrounds the site

means precisely

that the Ark isn’t there.

It could be that this Ark

is simply another replica.

But on the rare occasions

when these Guardian Monks

are interviewed, they state

with absolute certainty

that this is

the Ark of the Covenant.

They believe it, as do

tens of millions of followers

of Ethiopian Orthodoxy

worldwide.

I think it’s safe to say

that there is something

very precious in this chapel.

Whether that is actually

the Ark of the Covenant

is ultimately impossible to say.

But there may be

an opportunity to find out soon.

A new Chapel of the Tablet

is currently being built

behind the present one.

It’s slightly larger,

it has thicker walls.

It will also have an ornate

silver dome on the top.

As soon as this new chapel

is completed,

whatever object

is inside the current chapel

will have to be brought out.

Undoubtedly, they’ll do it

as quickly as possible

under as much secrecy

as possible.

If it’s the Ark of the Covenant,

maybe we’ll finally

get a glimpse of it,

and with it, some answers.

For centuries,

researchers try and fail

to track the Ark

of the Covenant.

But in the 1880s,

a British group

takes a different approach,

leading to a shocking new theory

that places the Ark

somewhere no one expected.

Starting around 1872,

some people who call themselves

the British Israelites

begin organizing,

first in England,

then in other parts

of the British Empire,

and eventually

also in the United States.

They believe

that they were descended

from the ancient Israelites,

the same people who built

the Ark,

lived in Jerusalem,

and were exiled

after the Babylonian

destruction.

Led by three

British nationalists,

the group begins researching

a possible connection

between the ancient Israelites

and the British Anglo-Saxons.

I think it’s a self-serving

effort.

"If we can prove our ethnic

or social group

"is descended from

God’s chosen people,

then that makes us

that much more superior."

But sure enough, they believe

they found a connection.

The oldest records and texts

about the Israelites

settling in the Promised Land

said that they were divided

into 12 different tribes.

The number 12 may or may not

be historically accurate,

but we do know that

by the time that the Romans

had occupied that territory,

after the Jewish w*r,

around the year 70,

the Roman-Jewish

historian Josephus

says at that point,

only two tribes still remained.

The other 10 are in dispersion.

According to

the British Israelites,

these 10 lost tribes of Israel

migrated to Europe.

According to this theory,

they called themselves

Isaac’s Sons,

and from "Isaac’s Sons,"

we derive the word "Saxons."

We know that Saxons

definitely settled

in the British Isles

in around the mid-5th century.

Saxon presence there

is not disputed.

In fact, we owe a large chunk

of the English language

to the Saxons.

But did they come

all the way from Jerusalem,

and did they bring with them

the Ark of the Covenant?

If that’s true,

well, where is it?

Because they believe

that the lost tribes

ended up in Britain,

the British Israelites

start combing through

history books

and mythological materials

looking for clues.

And they find a book of ancient

Irish history, mythology.

It’s called

the "Lebor Gabala Erenn."

To them, this book

is the missing link

that connects them to the Ark.

The "Lebor Gabala Erenn"

describes a Far East princess

named Tea Tephi

who comes to Ireland

and marries King Erimon.

Traveling with

Princess Tea Tephi

are an old white-haired man

and his servant

whose name is Brach.

The British Israelites

believe that this old man

was Jeremiah accompanied by

his servant Baruch,

his scribe

who wrote down his story.

In the Book of Second Maccabees,

it says that

the Prophet Jeremiah

escaped the Babylonian

destruction of Jerusalem,

and took with him

the Ark of the Covenant

and a couple of other

temple vessels.

The British Israelites believe

that Prophet Jeremiah

brought the Ark of the Covenant

with Tea Tephi to Ireland.

The British Israelites

search the Bible for clues

to Tea Tephi’s identity.

When they destroy Jerusalem,

the Babylonians

capture King Zedekiah

and m*rder his sons.

But according to

the Book of Jeremiah,

his daughter is spared.

This daughter,

who’s named Tamar,

the British Israelites

believe is actually Tea.

So, as the theory goes,

this entourage of people

is the same group

who arrive with all

the stuff together in Ireland,

but they have brought

the Ark of the Covenant.

Tamar/Tea marries,

becomes a queen of Ireland,

and when she dies, she’s buried

along with the Ark

in an ancient sacred center

that was her kingdom,

now known as the Hill of Tara.

The Hill of Tara

is one of Ireland’s

most precious

national monuments.

It’s a place

that rivals Stonehenge

as one of many important

Neolithic sites

in the British Empire.

It’s the legendary seat

of the ancient Irish monarchs,

a place that humans have

associated with great power

for thousands of years.

Archaeologists at Tara

have found large

earthen structures,

ceremonial stone monuments,

and hundreds of ancient burials.

Tea, Tamar, Tara

some people think that the site

is named for the queen

who brought the Ark there.

Once the British Israelites

develop their theory,

they want to excavate the site,

convinced that they’re going

to find the Ark there.

In 1899, British Israelite

archaeologist Walton Adams

and Charles Groom

come to the site of Tara.

The group convinces the owner

of the land,

Gustavus Briscoe, to let them

begin digging for the Ark.

So, they get to work,

and they’re excavating

for months and months,

and nobody’s really

paying attention to them.

But eventually

some Irish nationalists

catch wind of what’s going on,

and they are furious.

The British Israelites

only care about one thing

the Ark

and they’re not very careful

about how they do

their business.

So, they’re causing

untold destruction

to a major cultural icon.

Nearby landowner,

Sir John Dillon,

keeps a detailed account

of the excavation.

Sir John Dillon

sees them taking out bones,

Roman coins, and they’re just

discarding it like it’s rubbish.

And he’s mortified

by what they’re doing.

If this is allowed to continue,

they are going to succeed

in laying waste

to probably Ireland’s

most significant sacred site.

By January of 1901,

a full-scale media campaign

is launched

to try and halt the digging.

National heroes like the writers

George Moore and W.B. Yeats

join in the chorus to save Tara,

and eventually they succeed.

These British Israelites

abandon their quest for the Ark,

and the site is now owned

by the Irish government,

which is never going to let them

search for the Ark again.

It’s an incredible story.

They’re combining the Bible

with Irish mythology

to place the Ark

of the Covenant,

one of the most powerful

objects in the world,

in one of the most

powerful places in the world.

But without any kind of proof,

it’s just that a story.

Over the years,

theories have placed

the powerful Ark of the Covenant

everywhere from Ethiopia

to Ireland.

But historians remain skeptical

that it could have traveled

so far from Jerusalem.

If the Ark existed

and survives, it’s probably

somewhere in the Middle East.

With the Babylonians closing in

around the destruction

of the temple,

the Jews would not

have had very much time.

And so, the best thing to do

would just to have been

to hide it.

It’s not like they can take it

on a long voyage.

They would have probably had

to carry it on foot.

It probably didn’t travel

very far.

So, you’re definitely left

with a limited radius

in which to look.

Could they even have

gotten the Ark out of Jerusalem?

Some theorists note that

before the Babylonians

actually laid siege to the city,

they actually surrounded it

for a couple of years,

and it would have been

impossible

to have smuggled

anything in or out.

But in 2007, a new discovery

challenges that thinking.

A team of archaeologists,

Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron,

discovered what they call

an escape hatch,

a tunnel running

from the Temple Mount

all the way down

outside of the city.

The tunnel has walls

that are up to 10 feet tall.

That’s plenty of space

for a group of priests

to have smuggled out

considerable numbers of objects,

including

the Ark of the Covenant.

This tunnel leads

under the city walls

to the Kidron Valley.

So now, we have

a possible escape route

for the Ark of the Covenant.

The discovery of this tunnel

connects a lot

of the biblical dots

of the story of the Ark.

The Book of Second Maccabees

suggests that Jeremiah,

the prophet,

takes the Ark of the Covenant

and the temple treasures

out of the city.

So, here’s the big question.

If this tunnel

is the Ark’s escape path

leading to the Kidron River,

where does it go from there?

According to

Ark hunter Jim Barfield,

there’s only one

possible answer.

The Kidron River heads east,

and then it branches off

into the Qumran River,

which leads past

an ancient settlement

also called Qumran.

Qumran is famous

because that’s where

the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

I’ve been studying Qumran

for 25 years,

and I believe that

it’s the resting place

of the Ark of the Covenant

as well.

The discovery of the

Dead Sea Scrolls here in 1947

stunned both the scientific

and religious communities.

This is one of the biggest

archaeological finds in history.

981 manuscripts,

some over 2,500 years old,

found buried and sealed

inside 11 caves.

It’s hard to overstate

their importance.

Here, we find the oldest

surviving manuscripts

of many parts

of the Hebrew Bible.

There’s a bunch

of other writings

in there as well that give us

all kinds of important

historical information.

So, as an archaeological find,

the Dead Sea Scrolls are huge.

Most of the scrolls

are papyrus or parchment,

and most of them contain

stories and scriptures.

But one of them,

discovered in 1952,

is made of copper.

It dates back

to the first century.

The Copper Scroll

is not a bible story.

On that copper,

they have hammered instructions

to find treasures from

the Temple of Solomon,

which I believe includes

the Ark of the Covenant.

The Copper Scroll

lists 64 places

where various items are hidden,

including hordes

of gold and silver.

But the text is vague

and difficult to decipher,

possibly to prevent outsiders

from discovering the location

of these sites.

The text gives a number

of directions to landmarks

that only locals

would likely have known.

Like, "It’s in the salt pit

under the steps,"

or, "in the cave

of the old washer’s chamber

on the third terrace."

Barfield was a fire investigator

for 23 years.

After dedicating his life

to solving mysteries,

he turns his attention

to this one.

And I made it my mission

to decode the Copper Scroll

and find

the Ark of the Covenant.

And now, I believe I’m on

the verge of a breakthrough.

So, there’s a compelling

trail of evidence

that leads Barfield to Qumran

in search of the Ark.

There’s a tunnel

leading out of Jerusalem

straight to a waterway.

They’ve done excavations

all along this path,

and they’ve found coins,

pottery,

evidence that ancient Jews

were in that area.

The waterway leads to Qumran,

which is known

as a place of safekeeping

full of caves, in which

were found

hundreds of priceless artifacts,

including the Copper Scroll,

a treasure map written

in Hebrew, found in Qumran.

It doesn’t explicitly say

in the Copper Scroll

that the location for all these

hidden treasures is Qumran.

But it makes sense that

you might wanna look there.

In 2007 I was ready

to visit Qumran.

I had my own replica

of the Copper Scroll.

I had satellite maps

and all the information

that I could gather

from the biblical text.

But when I got there,

I had no idea

what I might encounter.

Was I wrong about all this?

Was it a wild goose chase?

There’s only one way

to find out.

In 2007, investigator

Jim Barfield’s search

for the famed

Ark of the Covenant

brings him to the ancient

Jewish settlement

of Qumran, Israel.

Qumran was destroyed

by the Romans, very similar

to what happened in Jerusalem.

But unlike Jerusalem,

the Romans didn’t take

all the treasures.

Nearly 2,000 years later,

the Dead Sea Scrolls remained,

waiting to be discovered.

And I believe still hiding

at Qumran

are the temple treasures

of King Solomon

and the Ark of the Covenant.

Barfield narrows his search

based on instructions

in the Copper Scroll.

Location one

on the Copper Scroll

describes 17 talents

of silver service vessels.

That’s around 1,200 pounds,

or $340,000 of pure silver.

But of course, it’s priceless

as an archaeological find.

This Copper Scroll said

it’s at the steps heading east,

40 cubits long.

That’s about 65 feet.

In Qumran,

Barfield is only able to find

one location with steps

heading east.

When I get there,

I measured the steps,

and they are exactly

40 cubits long.

And I am absolutely convinced

that those service vessels

are buried at that location.

Remember, this is Barfield’s

first visit out there.

He’s not part of any dig.

He’s just really trying

to line things up.

Next, Barfield turns

his attention

to finding location number two.

A second location

on the Copper Scroll

says "in the dry cistern",

"at the great ruined courtyard

of the peristyle,

"in the soft sea floor

is hidden polished gold.

In front of the uppermost

opening are 900 talents."

That’s an incredible 33 tons

of polished gold.

So now, Barfield

is looking for a cistern

and a courtyard,

but he’s still not sure

that the Copper Scroll

is referring to places

in and around Qumran.

He believes, though,

that the sites

keep lining up for him.

And when I found the location

of the cistern,

it was easy to determine

because there was

a great courtyard there

that matched the description

of the Copper Scroll.

Barfield is excited,

and he believes that he’s found

33 tons of polished gold

in this location.

Unfortunately,

Barfield lacks permission

to dig, so he can’t verify

the gold is here.

But he’s looking

for a much more valuable prize.

Locations one and two

are lining up.

But my ultimate goal is to find

location number three,

which could hold

the temple treasures

of King Solomon

and the Ark of the Covenant.

The Copper Scroll

describes this location

as being at the north end

of the Hill of Kohlit.

Whatever the ancient Jews

used to refer to

as the Hill of Kohlit,

it’s been lost

to the sands of time.

I realized that the hill

couldn’t be within Qumran

because there’s no hills within

the ruins of Qumran.

But there are several nearby.

Barfield studies

satellite imagery

to identify

a potential candidate

for the Hill of Kohlit.

Not only does Barfield

find a hill that seems to match,

when he gets there,

there appears to be a cave

that’s sealed shut.

To him, it doesn’t look

like a natural rock formation.

He believes the cave’s location

may also be a clue.

When I looked at this location

on my map,

locations three, two, and one

were in a perfectly

straight line.

It was as if

whoever wrote this document

was leading me to this

specific location.

Barfield is eager to prove

this cave is hiding something.

I decided that I would

take a sample of this stone

and send it off to a lab

in Skokie, Illinois,

where we had it examined.

And they find that it

is manmade mortar

in a common mixture and formula

from that timeframe.

Why would somebody seal

a random hill with concrete?

So, James Barfield

takes all of this evidence

and requests the permission

of Israeli authorities

to conduct a dig.

They don’t go that far,

but they do allow him

to return in 2014

with a parliamentary delegate

named Moshe Feiglin.

This time, he’s able to bring in

more advanced equipment.

What we decided to do was buy

an industrial metal detector.

Before I went back,

we took that metal detector,

and I buried 30 pounds of silver

in my front yard

to get a baseline, to make sure

that what we were seeing,

we could judge it

against whatever

we might find at Qumran.

Back in Qumran, we scanned

the courtyard of the peristyle,

and as we got close,

we just clipped the edge

where the 33 tons of gold

were buried,

and the readings

just went off the charts.

And when we get

to location number three,

the metal detector

confirms my suspicions

that this is the mother lode.

According to Barfield’s results,

the metal detector finds

five times the amount of metal

in location number three

than the 33 tons of gold

posited for location number two.

I’ve already proven that

something is down there.

Now, we’ve gotta dig it up

and see what it is.

The Copper Scroll,

the biblical text, the map,

the mortar,

the metal detector readings

all of these leave me

with no doubt,

in this sealed cave

are the greatest treasures

of Israel.

When they finally give us

permission to do the excavation,

we’re gonna be face to face

with the Ark of the Covenant.

Jim Barfield is currently

lobbying the Israeli Congress

for permission to excavate

at Qumran.

If he’s successful,

there’s a chance

that the search for

the Ark of the Covenant

may one day be over.

I’m Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History’s Greatest Mysteries."