FINAL WARNING: The Shining Star
searched various locations in Jordan for the Ark, based on the clues in
2 Maccabees, and believed the location to be on Mount Pisgah, the
highest peak on the Mount Nebo range. He claimed to have found an
inscription on the sealed entrance of a tunnel which said: “Herein lies
the golden Ark of the Covenant.” In 1981, while following Futterer’s
map of Mount Pisgah, a gully was discovered by Tom Crotser, an
American explorer, which led to a 4’ X 7’ tunnel that plunged 600 feet
into the ground, ending at a wall, which when broken down, revealed a
10’ X 12’ crypt which held a rectangular chest 62” long, 37” high and
37” wide, wrapped in a blue cloth, which he believed to be the Ark.
Beside it was another bundle, which he thought contained the carrying
poles, the cherubim which had been mounted on the top, and the legs.
The cave is located near the Church of the Franciscan Fathers of Terra
Santa, and is under a building which contains the remains of an old
Byzantine church. He didn’t disturb the find, thus he doesn’t know for
sure what he saw. He reported it to the media, and he claimed that God
told him to send the photographs he took to London banker David
Rothschild, who some people have claimed is a direct descendant of
Jesus, and has been chosen to build the third Temple. Rothschild
refused to accept the pictures, and they were returned to Crotser.
Noted archaeologist Siegfried Horn visited his home in Winfield,
Kansas to see the pictures. Only two had any images at all– one is
fuzzy, but does show a chamber with a yellow box in the center. His
opinion was that it was “not an ancient artifact but of modern
fabrication... ”In January, 1979, archaeologist Ronald Wyatt, while sightseeing near
the Damascus Gate, felt that the location of Jeremiah’s Grotto was
near an ancient stone quarry on the northern extension of Mt. Moriah,
that is sometimes referred to as the ‘Calvary Escarpment’ (because it
contains the skull face configuration that has been connected to the
Golgotha). He believed that during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem
from 587-586 BC, when the city was surrounded, it would have been
impossible to remove the Ark, so it had to be there. With the
permission of the landowner, and a permit from Israeli officials, he
excavated the area. On January 6, 1982, he entered a chamber that
contained the Ark, and other artifacts from the first Temple, which had
been hidden there by Jeremiah. The 22-foot long cave is actually
located directly beneath the area where Christ was crucified.
According to Wyatt’s research, when Jesus was crucified, his blood