The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant By Graham Hancock

The book has all the hallmarks of Graham Hancock's meticulous research. He makes assumptions as usual with which I do not always agree. Also I wonder at the location and handling of the Ark as the biblical record restricts handling to 'authorised' people. However it is an interesting read English Yet another of Hancock's books I bought with optimistic excitement. But as usual it's just page after page after page of boring nothing. How he fills over 500 pages with so little content is quite remarkable. I bought this book because of my interest in the Ark, but all this book does is go on and on and on about how the Jews must have travelled to Ethiopia in the distant past.

A huge let down. Very interesting read on the history of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba's line up to the point of Emperor Haile Selassie I. It's a detail account of where temples are located and what they look like. It makes reference the various books in the bible such as Arabham, Romans, Exodus, Moses and Enoch.

It tells the journey of the Art of Covenant which contain the Tablet of the ten commandments, given to Moses on Mount Sinai and how it was stolen from King Solomon's first temple in Israel by people who accompanied Menenlik on his you Journey back to Ethiopia. There are replicas the Ark of Covenant all over the world. ecclesiology An entertaining read, Graham Hancock has been privileged to have had access to much of Ethiopia and thus created an Indiana Jones adventure.
The Ark being housed in Axum is a bit like Marmite, you either believe, or you don't.
The book was very long, so you get a lot for your money, it was also very heavy, he could have written a book half the size, and not lost the plot.
I believe that the Ark is in Axum, most people don't, the wonder is that none have stormed the town to win the Ark by force, so maybe it isn't, and there you have a précis of the book. but it was still a good read. English

I first read The Sign and the Seal back in the early 90's and was just blown away. As an Orthodox Christian I knew roughly what Graham Hancock was talking about, but it was't until I read his book that my general understanding about the Journey of the Ark of the Covenant was clarified and a much bigger and clearer story of it's journey was established. Mr. Hancock presents a facts based evidence driven account of how the Ark of the Covenant went from Jerusalem, to Egypt and finally down to Ethiopia, and is currently revered and protected by the Holy Ethiopian Orthodox Church. I strongly recommend The Sign and the Seal for all who are interested in this story of of the Ark's journey, and the Providential Hard of God in protecting His Ark and placing it in the hands of Humble and Faithful servants down in Ethiopia. The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant This is a good book. The author did a lot of research. I did find some problems. This book is TOO big. A lot to read. Yet, what he wrote moves and grabs your interest. A somewhat well written book. Except, the time frame of Moses. Like many other people, this book places Moses in the 1200 B.C. time frame. SORRY. I've read a lot and did a lot of watching. MOSES was born the mid to late 1500's B.C. The Exodus happened around 1450 B.C. So, certain things just don't connect. Then, he talks about certain Egyptian gods. He didn't do enough reading up on these Egyptian gods. Sorry. Graham Hancock has been raked over the coals by the scientific community so many times that unless one actually reads his books and the manner in which he presents his arguments, it's easy to write him off. Unlike most people that challenge the scientific community who actually do deserve that treatment, Graham Hancock has always stood out as different from the crackpots, and this is why even if I don't always agree with him, I go through his books as though I were drinking the last Pepsi in the desert.

In his search for the Ark of the Covenant, Hancock immersed himself into every scrap of material referencing the Ark, folk memories of it, and the attempts of others to find it. He risked life and limb in his travels, speaking to anyone and everyone that might know something of the mysterious object's fate. One would be hard pressed to find someone that had researched the subject thoroughly. It is easy to dismiss some of the threads of speculation, but impossible to dismiss them all.

Whether you put this book down convinced that he has solved the mystery or not, it is an interesting and informative look into Ethiopian history, the volatile politics of religion, and the Ark of the Covenant itself. The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant I really liked this book, since I learned a ton of stuff. It is like a historical treasure hunt. There is a lot to say, but one thing that really stands out to me for modern implications is his commentary about what happened to the Templars. In fact, I sent this next paragraph to my friend after reading it:

My Comment (to be read after the article wont allow links, but do an internet search for Modern Physics and the Shamir.htm and check the link on chabad dot org, then read the paragraph below):

How was the Shamir utilized if it was alpha radiation? Meaning, the builders could not just hold it, right? Seems like they would have needed to construct a holder of lead or something. Because if you held it directly in order to cut stone, it would go right through your fingersright?

I have heard that the Knights Templar had the Shamir when they built the stone churches at Lalibela, Ethiopia in 1185 1209. See pages 155, 369 370 of Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock. Since the Scottish Freemasons and Portuguese Order of Christ inherited anything left of the Templars (ibid, page 167), I suggest that one of these two groups (or both) may even today possess the Shamir. Maybe they are waiting for the appointed time to share this with the true builders of the Third Temple (T3).

Also, check out Temple by Robert Cornuke for compelling reasons to suspect that T3 will not be on the Temple Mount, but in the City of Davidwhere he believes T1 and T2 actually stood. This has stunning implications. Graham Hancock My second reading: 2017.

I first read this in 1994, and I thought it was grand. That it made a good case too. Since then, however, author Graham Hancock has sort of one off the deep end. So, with my second reading, what would I find?

I find Hancock's travelogues interesting. I find his analysis of sculpture at Chartres, his exegesis of the grail literature, and his reading of history reasonable, supportable, and interesting. I don't think he makes any logical leap too far. Is it a far fetched theory? Sure. (But this is a book about an object most people would today consider a myth. Hancock himself thinks it's a magic box made with some unknown civilization's technology by Moses.)

Spoiler. The theory is: (a) the Ark was spirited out of the Temple in the reign of evil Manasseh; (b) righteous priests took it to Elephantine Island in the Nile in Egypt, where a number of Jews were already living; (c) Josiah reorganizes Judaism and cleanses the Temple, asking the priests to return the Ark, but Jeremiah hints that it is gone; (d) in the 400s BC, the native Egyptians expelled the Jews from Elephantine, so the Ark was moved southward to the Lake Tana region of Ethiopia, where some Jews may already have migrated; (e) these Jews were the ancestors of the Falasha (black Jews) of Ethiopia, and later would influence the Judaic character of Ethiopian Christianity; (f) eventually, after some movements, the Ark ended up in Axum under Christian protection; (g) Knights Templar in Jerusalem, looking perhaps for the Ark, made contact with Ethiopian Christians, and traveled there to help the Christians fight Muslim invaders; (h) the Templars left Templar crosses across parts of Ethiopia, and left clues to the location of the Ark in the Grail literature of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Chrétien de Troyes.

That, in some twists and turns, is the book. It makes good sense. The late Stuart Munro Hay in i>The Quest for the Ark of the Covenant/i> take some issue with Hancock's research and conclusions, but he does not offer a point by point demolition of Hancock's book. Like Munro Hay, others in the scholarly community call it drivel, but Hancock does make some points that need consideration. For instance, the Templarâ€"Ethiopia connection, the Grailâ€"Ark connection, the Jerusalemâ€"Elephantineâ€"Falasha connection deserve attention. I think, in most places, Hancock makes a good case.

Some caveats. If you believe in the literal truth of the Bible, Hancock does not. He thinks the Ark is a magic box done with ancient technological trickery. (He doesn't come out and say it, but perhaps radioactive trickery.) You see the birth in this book of Hancock's later works. Hancock posits that Moses, as architect of the Ark (not God), was the inheritor of some advanced ancient wisdom from a lost civilization. Here he places it some place equidistant from Egypt and Mesopotamia and in the distant past. Later, beginning with i>Fingerprints of the Gods/i>, he conjures up some Atlantis like fallen civilization (first in Antarctica, and later elsewhere).

A great page turner for a non fiction book, and well worth the cheap price you can probably find copies for. ecclesiology

A compelling brew of mystery, crime, and science revealing the details behind the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant.

The Lost Ark of the Covenant is one of the great historical mysteries of all time. To believers, the Ark is the legendary vessel holding the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Bible contains hundreds of references to the Arks power to level mountains, destroy armies, and lay waste to cities. The Ark itself, however, mysteriously disappears from recorded history sometime after the building of the Temple of Solomon.

After ten years of searching through the dusty archives of Europe and the Middle East, as well as braving the real life dangers of a bloody civil war in Ethiopia, Graham Hancock has succeeded where scores of others have failed. This intrepid journalist tracked down the true story behind the myths and legends revealing where the Ark is today, how it got there, and why it remains hidden.

Part fascinating scholarship and part entertaining adventure yarn, tying together some of the most intriguing tales of all time from the Knights Templar and Prester John to Parsival and the Holy Grail this book will appeal to anyone fascinated by the revelation of hidden truths, the discovery of secret mysteries. The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant