Real Life Indiana Jones Follows New Lost Ark Lead - Researcher Finds Compelling Clues In Africa

The “Ark of the Covenant”, well known to much of the public due to the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, may have been taken to Zimbabwe, claims Tudor Parfitt, a scholar trying to determine its fate. The Ark was a container used by the Israelites to hold the original Ten Commandments given to Moses by God. The Ark also possessed supernatural powers, and was carried into battle to defeat the enemies of Israel. The last known Biblical location of the Ark was in Solomon’s temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C..

During Professor Parfitt’s study of the Lemba, a tribe in South Africa that claims to be one of the lost tribes of Israel (see excerpt below), he learned of an oral tradition regarding an object known as the “ngoma lungundu”. According to Time.com, “The ngoma, according to the Lemba, was near-divine, used to store ritual objects, and borne on poles inserted into rings. It was too holy to touch the ground or to be touched by non-priests, and it emitted a “Fire of God” that killed enemies and, occasionally, Lemba. A Lemba elder told Parfitt, “[It] came from the temple in Jerusalem. We carried it down here through Africa."”

Parfitt eventually traced the story of the ngoma to the Harare Museum of Human Science in Zimbabwe, where he found an old drum with many of the same characteristics usually included in descriptions of the Ark, including carrying rings on its corners and a raised relief of crossed reeds. Although the drum has been carbon dated to about 1350 A.D., Parfitt is convinced that “"this is the Ark referred to in Lemba tradition” — Lemba legend has it that the original ngoma destroyed itself some 400 years ago and had to be rebuilt on its own “ruins” — “constructed by priests to replace the previous Ark. There can be little doubt that what I found is the last thing on earth in direct descent from the Ark of Moses."”