The Sign and the Seal

by Graham Hancock

  Yohannes manfully plunged into this minefield of interpretation while we carried on walking up the steep hill. Much argument and debate followed before he finally commented: ‘I do not think they are very clear themselves. But they say that it is written … that it is all written in a book, kept here in the church, and that we should discuss the whole matter with their senior priest.’

  Stolen history

  Five minutes later we arrived at the church which, I was not entirely surprised to discover, was dedicated to Saint Mary of Zion. It was a plain and unpretentious wattle-and-daub building, whitewashed on the outside and surmounted by a simple cross. The view that it commanded from its position on the hilltop was, however, superb, giving us some idea of the extent of this large island. Behind us, from the direction we had come, the path wound back through fields dotted with the poor huts of peasant farmers. Ahead of us the land sloped steeply away to the lake’s edge through a forest of acacia trees and cactus.

  The senior priest, Abba Gebra Christos, now presented himself. A small wiry man, probably in his late sixties, he wore a thin grey beard and a threadbare two-piece suit, around the shoulders of which he had draped a length of white cotton cloth in traditional highland fashion. His manner was welcoming and genial enough but there was also a foxy and calculating look about him that seemed to forebode imminent financial transactions.

  I nervously fingered the greasy wad of birr that I had stuffed into my pocket before leaving Addis and resolved to pay only for high-quality information. Then, making as little song and dance as possible, I switched on my tape-recorder and asked my first question: did he know the story of how Menelik had abducted the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem?

  Yes, Yohannes translated, of course he did.

  And did he know what had happened next?

  Menelik, the priest replied, had brought the Ark to Ethiopia where it remained to this day.

  ‘Is he sure’, I asked ‘that this was the original Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments inscribed on the Tablets of Stone by the finger of God?’

  Yohannes put the question and Abba Gebra Christos replied gravely: ‘Yes. I am sure.’

  ‘OK. Good. Now tell me … was this same original Ark ever brought here to Lake Zwai – to Debra Zion?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the priest, ‘at the time of Gudit the Ark was brought here from Axum.’

  ‘But why was it brought here?’ I asked. ‘I mean, why here? Why such a long way? Surely there must have been hundreds of secret places where it could have been hidden in Tigray?’

  ‘Listen … This Gudit … she was a devil. She burned many churches in Tigray. And in other regions of Ethiopia. It was a time of great fighting, great danger. Our forefathers were very much afraid that she would capture the Ark. So they brought it out of Axum and they carried it to Zwai where they knew that it would be safe. They travelled only by night, hiding by day in forests and in caves. They were very much afraid, I tell you! But in this way they evaded her soldiers and they brought the Ark to Zwai and to this island.’

  ‘Do you know how long it remained here?’

  With no hesitation at all Abba Gebra Christos replied: ‘After seventy-two years it was returned back to Axum.’

  Now, I thought, was the right time to pop the sixty-four thousand dollar question: ‘Has there been any other occasion’, I asked tentatively, ‘when the Ark has been brought here again for safekeeping? Perhaps recently?’

  Again there was no hesitation: ‘Never.’

  ‘So as far as you know it is still in Axum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even now – with all the fighting going on in Tigray?’

  He shrugged: ‘I believe so. But that is only my opinion. To find out truly you must ask those in Axum.’

  Another thought now occurred to me: ‘When we were walking up here,’ I said, ‘some of the monks told us that you have an ancient book in which is written the history of how the Ark came to Debra Zion in Gudit’s time. Is that correct? Do you have such a book?’

  As Yohannes translated this question, the wizened features of Abba Gebra Christos formed themselves into the expression of one who has just tasted something unexpectedly sour. He responded readily enough, however: ‘Yes, there is a book.’

  ‘Can we see it?’

  A momentary hesitation, then: ‘Yes … But the part concerning the Ark is no longer there.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t follow. What do you mean exactly?’

  ‘About twenty years ago a certain man came and cut some pages from the book and took those pages away with him. They were the pages in which the story of the Ark was told.’

  ‘This man. Was he a foreigner? Or was he an Ethiopian?’

  ‘Well, he was an Ethiopian. But since that time we have not been able to track him down.’

  As I considered the implications of this last answer I could not help but reflect on the bizarre and convoluted nature of the enterprise that I was now involved in. Was the matter of the unknown man who had cut an unknown number of pages from an unknown book something that should concern me? Or was it an irrelevance? Was I picking up the traces of someone else’s quest for the Ark of the Covenant? Or was I dealing simply with a local manuscript hunter who twenty years ago had made a fast buck on the antiquities market with the sale of a few illuminated folios?

  I suspected that I might never know. Pursuing the Ark through Ethiopia was turning out to be far more daunting and difficult than I had ever imagined. Indeed it was something like pursuing a ghost through a maze. Avenues that seemed promising and open from one perspective turned out, on closer examination, to be impassable dead ends; by contrast apparent dead ends had more than once transformed themselves into paths to understanding.

  I sighed, refocussed my mind on the immediate issue, and told Abba Gebra Christos that even if the most important pages were missing, I would still very much like to see the book that he had mentioned. Perhaps he would allow us to photograph it?

  This suggestion produced a flurry of nervous objections. No, the old priest said, he could not possibly let us do that. Photographs were out of the question unless specific written permission were given by the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis Ababa. Did we by any chance have such permission?

  No, we did not.

  Then, regretfully, we could not photograph the book. We could, however, see it if that was what we wanted.

  I indicated that we would be grateful even for that small mercy. Abba Gebra Christos nodded sagely, led us inside his church and walked over to a cupboard near the back of the humble building. A tremendous pantomime ensued as he searched in all his pockets for the necessary key – which, after some moments, he confessed that he could not find.

  A young deacon was then summoned and sent off somewhere. Ten minutes later, panting and out of breath, the boy returned clutching a bundle of at least twenty keys. One after another these were tried in the lock and eventually – to my considerable surprise – the door was opened. The cupboard, however, was almost bare and the one book that it contained proved to be an early twentieth-century work donated to the church by Princess Zauditu, the daughter of Emperor Menelik II.

  At this point Abba Gebra Christos suddenly remembered an important fact: the manuscript we wanted to see was not in the church after all. A few weeks ago he himself had taken it to the repository, which was in a separate building some distance away. If we would like to accompany him he would show it to us there.

  I looked at my watch, decided there was just enough time before we had to leave the island, and gave my assent to this plan. A lengthy hike followed and we eventually arrived at a rather decrepit stone-built two-storey house. The priest ushered us grandly into a dank and musty rear room, around the walls of which were arranged dozens of wooden chests and garishly painted tin trunks. After a moment of indecision he advanced towards one of these trunks and threw back its lid revealing a pile of books within. He lifted out the t
opmost of these – a weighty tome with pages made of cured sheepskin – and passed it over to me.

  Richard Pankhurst and Yohannes crowded round as I opened the volume. They immediately confirmed that it was written in Ge’ez. Moreover it was undoubtedly very old: ‘From the style of the illuminations, and from the binding, I would guess thirteenth century,’ volunteered Richard. ‘It’s certainly not later than the fourteenth century. There’s no doubt that it’s an early work. Probably very valuable.’

  Eagerly we began to turn the pages. At no point, however, was there any indication that anything had been removed. As far as we could tell the manuscript was intact. We pointed this out to Abba Gebra Christos, who had been standing silently watching us, and asked him whether he was absolutely certain that this was the book he had talked to us about.

  As it turned out, it was not. Apologetically the old priest then rummaged in a number of other boxes around the room, passing us a series of ancient manuscripts.

  ‘It’s quite amazing,’ Richard commented at one point. ‘So many old books. A real treasure trove. And they’re just lying here in complete disarray. They could get damp. They could get stolen. Anything could happen to them. I wish we could move the whole lot of them to the Institute.’

  The last volume we looked at was a wood-bound and beautifully illuminated copy of the Ethiopian Book of Saints. It too was intact. When we had finished going through it Richard nudged me in the ribs: ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we’re not getting anywhere here.’

  I nodded: ‘I think you’re right. And it’s really late. We’d better go or we’ll end up having to cross the whole lake in the dark.’

  Before leaving, however, I asked Yohannes to make a final attempt to get some sense out of the priest. Was the book that told the story of the Ark really here or not?

  Certainly it was here, Abba Gebra Christos insisted. Of course it was here. The only problem was that he was no longer certain in which box he had placed it. If we would care to wait – just a little longer – he was sure that he could locate it …

  This was an offer that I felt safe in declining. It seemed to me that the old man was being deliberately evasive – and if that were the case then presumably it meant that he was hiding something. But what? Not, I thought, the Ark itself. Perhaps not even the notorious book. But something, definitely.

  Puzzled and a little piqued I led the way back to the motorboat. We said our farewells. Then, with at least an hour of sunlight still left in the sky, we headed out onto the still waters of Lake Zwai.

  I wrote in my notebook:

  I don’t believe there is any purpose in spending further time investigating Debra Zion. After interviewing the monks and the senior priest I feel quite certain that the importance of the island lies solely in the strength of its ancient traditions concerning the Ark of the Covenant. Broadly speaking these traditions seem to confirm what Belai Gedai told me in one of our telephone conversations – namely that the Ark was brought to Debra Zion in the tenth century to keep it safe from Gudit, that it stayed here for about seventy years, and that it was then returned to Axum.

  The fact that the mother-tongue of all the islanders is Tigrigna rather than Amharic is strong ‘social’ evidence in support of the oral history I was given – because the only logical explanation for such an ethnographic peculiarity is that there was indeed a movement of population from the Axum area to Debra Zion in the distant past. Something as momentous as the need to bring the Ark to safety could certainly account for a migration of this sort. Moreover, if the relic did stay here for as long a period as seventy years before being taken back to Axum, then it’s quite easy to see why some of the descendants of the original migrants would have wanted to stay on the island, which would have been the only home they knew. It’s also to be expected that they would have maintained a folk memory of the glorious events in which their forefathers were involved.

  That folk memory is what I’ve spent most of the afternoon listening to. In the process some intriguing local mysteries surfaced. At no point, however, did I get any sense at all that the Ark might actually be here now. On the contrary, I feel confident in saying that it isn’t here – and, furthermore, that it hasn’t been here for the best part of a thousand years.

  Since the same goes for the islands of Lake Tana as well it’s becoming transparently obvious that Axum is still the most probable place for the relic to be. In other words, like it or not, I’m going to have to go to Axum. The best time to do that would be in January during Timkat, which is the one occasion when I might be able to get close to the Ark without having to gain access to the sanctuary chapel. And Timkat 1770 was when Bruce was there – presumably for the same reason.

  I closed my notebook and looked up at Richard and Yohannes. ‘Do you think there’s any possibility,’ I asked, ‘that the government will have captured Axum by January? I’d really like to get there in time to attend the next Timkat.’

  Yohannes said nothing. Richard made a face: ‘A nice idea. But you might as well plan to fly to the moon.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was just a thought.’

  It was after dark when we finally moored the motorboat at the Ministry of Fisheries jetty, and almost 10 p.m. by the time we reached the sprawling outskirts of Addis Ababa. We instructed our driver to head for Yohannes’s office in the centre of town where we had parked our cars that morning (there were still two hours left before curfew and our plan was to grab a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant). As we climbed down out of the Landcruiser, however, we heard a prolonged burst of automatic rifle fire which seemed to come from an apartment block just across the road. Seconds later there were two short answering bursts from a different weapon. Then a profound silence fell.

  ‘What on earth was that all about?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably nothing serious,’ Richard offered. ‘There have been a few isolated incidents since the attempted coup … shootings here and there. But nothing major.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Yohannes gravely, ‘I think that it would be wise for us to abandon dinner. Let us all go to our homes.’

  An ethnographic fingerprint

  Back at the Hilton I slept soundly and awoke before seven the next morning – Friday 24 November. I then took a turn in the pool, had breakfast and telephoned the office of Shimelis Mazengia. The Politburo member had asked Richard and me to report back to him after completing our trips to Lake Tana and Lake Zwai. His secretary now told me that she had been expecting my call and gave us an appointment for three o’clock that same afternoon.

  Satisfied with this arrangement, and determined to bring up the question of Timkat and Axum despite Richard’s pessimism, I left the hotel and drove round to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.

  My research on Wednesday the 22nd had established the plausibility of the Nile/Takazze route mentioned in the Kebra Nagast and also by the priest on Tana Kirkos.17 What I wanted to do now was to test out a hypothesis that had subsequently taken rough shape in my mind. It seemed to me that if Menelik and the first-born sons of the elders of Israel had indeed brought the Ark to Tana Kirkos by following the Takazze river, then this would have had implications for the distribution of the Jewish faith in Ethiopia. If there was some truth to the legend, I reasoned, then the traditional epicentre of the Falasha population should lie between the Takazze and Lake Tana – since it would have been in precisely this area that Menelik would first have begun to convert the local population to Judaism. If the legends were false, however, then I might expect to find that the bulk of the Falashas lived elsewhere – most likely much further north and close to the Red Sea (since academic orthodoxy had it that their forefathers had been converted by Jewish immigrants from the Yemen).

  I turned first to James Bruce, whose early work on the Falashas had already impressed me so much. In Volume III of his Travels I knew that the Scottish author had devoted a chapter to what might loosely be termed the ‘social geography’ of eighteenth-century Ethiopia. Though I did not
remember the contents of this chapter very clearly I hoped that it would have something to say about the location of the principal Falasha settlements at that time.

  I was not disappointed. Bruce’s survey began in the north of Ethiopia – at the Red Sea port of Massawa – and worked inland from there. Several ethnic groups were covered but no mention was made of the Falashas in either Eritrea or Tigray. ‘After passing the Takazze’, however, the country stretching to the south and west as far as Lake Tana was described as being:

  in great part possessed by Jews, and there [the] king and queen of that nation and, as they say, of the house of Judah, maintain still their ancient sovereignty and religion from very early times.18

  Writing in the nineteenth century (about eighty years after Bruce) the German missionary Martin Flad had recorded a similar distribution of population, noting that the Falashas lived in a total of fourteen provinces – all of which lay ‘west of the Takazze’.19

  The modern sources that I next reviewed painted the same picture. The vast majority of Ethiopia’s Jews inhabited the territory to the west and south of the Takazze river: this was their traditional homeland and their occupation of it was ancient beyond memory.20 One particularly detailed and authoritative study included a map in which the entire area of Falasha settlement was shaded – a long but relatively narrow strip extending south-west from the Takazze through the Simien mountains and the city of Gondar and then going on, without any interruption, to encompass the whole of Lake Tana.21

  It would have been difficult to find more telling support for my hypothesis that this – with the unique impetus provided by the presence of the Ark on Tana Kirkos – had been precisely the area in which the conversion of native Abyssinians to Old Testament Judaism had been concentrated. On the basis of my own research (see Chapter 6) I had anyway begun to doubt the merits of the academic theory which held that the Jewish faith had first been imported into the far north of Ethiopia from the Yemen at some point after AD 70. Hitherto my dissatisfaction with such notions had stemmed mainly from their failure to explain the extremely archaic nature of Falasha beliefs and rituals (again, see Chapter 6). Now the ethnographic evidence made the case against the ‘Yemeni connection’ look even stronger: on the map, the area in which the Falashas lived stood out like a tell-tale fingerprint confirming that the religion of Solomon could only have entered Ethiopia from the west – through Egypt and the Sudan along the ancient and well-travelled trade routes provided by the Nile and Takazze rivers.22