The “Real” Raiders of the Lost Ark

Abstract Chapter 5 tackles the subject of Ark explorers, those people who have launched expeditions to find the Ark of the Covenant. Most of these expeditions are what should be called “pseudoarchaeology,” as they were not based on scholarly evidence but spurious reasoning, psychic informants, and beliefs in the Lost Tribes of Israel. The chapter opens with a discussion of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, its early explorers, and the complexities of the city’s politics. It discusses two expeditions to find the Ark beneath the Temple Mount, the Parker Expedition of the early twentieth century and the investigations of Rabbi Getz in the 1980s, as well as investigations in other places in the Middle East, such as Mount Nebo in Jordan, and even more extraordinary claims that it was taken to Ireland or Japan. The chapter also provides an aside on how the Ark is understood in Islamic traditions.