Having lived for centuries in near solitude, connected to the rest of Christendom by only the frail thread of the Patriarch of Alexandria’s once-a-generation appointment of its Abuna (Archbishop), the Ethiopian Church has nurtured unique customs inspired by the Old Testament, including circumcision, animal sacrifice and, in some circles, observance of the Saturday Sabbath. Now, via Cronaca, I learn that Ethiopia should have been the setting for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indeed, in a sense, it witnessed an actual plundering of the Ark of the Covenant 136 years ago.
On April 10, 1868, a British punitive expedition defeated the Ethiopian Emperor Theodore II at the Battle of Magdala (or Magdela or Maqdala). The victors seized a vast quantity of loot, which was auctioned off for the benefit of troops. One of the most active buyers was a representative of the British Museum, who had been foresightedly sent to accompany the force. His purchases included ten “tabots”, replicas of the Ark of the Covenant that are essential to the consecration of Ethiopian houses of worship. A church’s tabot is carried in procession on the feast day of its patron saint and the Feast of Epiphany. At other times, it is kept shrouded and may be viewed only by priests. The original Ark allegedly resides in the Church of Our Lady of Zion in the former Ethiopian capital Axum. For fear of divine wrath, no outsiders are allowed to look upon it (quite consistent with Stephen Spielberg’s story line).
The descendants of the raiders of 1868 have grown more accommodating toward foreign beliefs. The Art Newspaper has this account of the modern fate of the plundered tabots:
British Museum (BM) director Neil MacGregor has decided that there is one small group of objects within his care that no one, not even he, should be allowed to see. These are tabots, which are regarded by Ethiopian Christians as representing the original Ark of the Covenant, the wooden chest which once housed the TenCommandments. . . .
The Art Newspaper can reveal that the BM’s tabots were moved earlier this year from its ethnography store in Hackney to their own special room in the basement of the museum’s main building. They were carried by a senior member of the Ethiopian church in Britain and were covered during the transportation. Once inside the special room, and alone, the priest placed the tabots, wrapped in cloth, on a shelf covered with conservation-quality purple velvet. No museum staff, not even curators or conservators, are permitted to enter the locked room.
It is, of course, somewhat pointless for a museum to hold objects that can never be seen by scholars, let alone by the general public. Delicate discussions are therefore underway for a long-term solution.
The BM has begun discussions which could lead to the loan of the tabots to the Ethiopian Orthodox church in London, possibly on a renewable five-year basis.
The tabots would then be housed securely in the London church, where they would remain out of view.
While I won’t condemn this instance of multiculturalism, it is only fair to observe that the British were able to steal the tabots only because they had previously been taken from church buildings by Emperor Theodore in the course of his campaign to subordinate the Abuna to his political authority. Had the little arks remained in their appointed places, they would never have left their native land.
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