The Sign And the Seal

Mind, Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Sign And The Seal - A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant by Graham Hancock. 

Graham Hancock is a wonderful story-teller and I love his writing, especially on this fantastic adventure. 

He visited Ethiopia in 1983, a few years after the overthrow and assassination of the reigning ancestral monarch, Haile Salasse. The Red Terror had unleashed death squads which executed people and then claimed the cost of the bullets before the corpses were released to their relatives for burial! Haile Salassie claimed he was the 225th generation in an unbroken line of succession from the Queen of Sheba who visited Jerusalem and returned to Ethiopia bearing King Solomon's son, Menelik. Menelik visited his father and is said to have returned to his mother with the Ark of the Covenant which is guarded in the Church of St Mary of Zion in Axum. The original measurement defined in Exodus is 2.5 cubits x 1.5 cubits x 1.5 cubits (a cubit thought to be 18 inches). Many Ethiopians have similar religious practices to the ancient Jews, and celebrate their sabbath on Saturdays. In every church throughout Ethiopia, a replica of the Ark is positioned in the holy of holies. The Ark is said by the guardian to have raised massive stone blocks with the aid of celestial fire. 

Originally finding little to convince him of the authenticity of the Ethiopian Ark, the author was led by a series of coincidences that involved the Twelfth century Chartres Cathedral, dedicated to the mother of Jesus, and where Melchizedek holds a stone inside a cup, and where the Queen of Sheba and the Ark both feature. Taking the early Grail poetry, he discovered connections between the Grail and the Ark, and many of the magical abilities shared between them. Mary, the Mother of Jesus is referred to as both the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. 

It would appear that the Grail story originated with the Templars who were evidently seeking the Ark of the Covenant, which they named the ‘Holy Grail’. The Ark was the embodiment of the Jewish God and was recorded as assisting the Jews in their battles. The Templars needed assistance for them to gain Jerusalem for the Christians and the author describes their visit in the  thirteenth century to Ethiopia and the croix pattee insignia that they wore on their tunics and inscribed on the shields as being still available to see in King Kaleb’s old palace and in the caverns beneath it. When asked who produced these symbols, he was told they were made by angels! Stories of Prester John, a Christian king and priest, date back to 1145 which the author traces back to the Templars journey to Ethiopia. Is there a connection between Ethiopia’s Mountain of Forgiveness and the Mountain of Salvation of Wolfram’s Grail Castle/Temple? Did Menelik in the time of Manessah, follow the Nile south to steal the Ark for his home in Ethiopia, stopping at Elephantine Island and building a temple there of the same dimensions as Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem (60 x  20 cubits - 90’ x 30’) with a similar cedar wood roof? Are the ceremonies of the Ethiopian Jews so ancient as to be the oldest surviving Jewish culture in the world? Who was Moses and was his story a far older myth related to Thoth and even further back that the earliest Egyptian dynasties? Graham Hancock is a great story teller and his research is exciting, well verified and believable!

Review by Wendy Stokes https://Wendystokes.co.uk