While I was careful to preface Ethiopia through writers’ eyes with the following caveat:

 

“Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.”

The Theologians, Jorge Luis Borges

 

It rests that as soon as a book is launched into the world, be it from the flat topped amba of Mount Abora, a multitude of overlooked works immediately begin to form a perilously high tower of their own.

 

Here then, after the canon of Ethiopia through writers’ eyes,  the Apocrypha:

 

 

The Sign and the Seal, The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant

 

 

(in this extract Graham Hancock meets the monk entrusted with the custody of the Ark in Axum)

 

“And it was thus that it was brought to you, to this sacred city… And here it has remained ever since.”

“And are you telling me that this legend is literally true?”

“It is not a legend. It is history”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because I am the guardian. I know the nature of the object that has been placed in my care.”

We sat in silence for a few moments while I adjusted my mind to the calm and rational way in which the monk had told me these bizarre and impossible things. Then I asked him how and why he had been appointed to his position. He replied that it was a great honour that he should have been chosen, that he had been nominated with the last words of his predecessor, and that when he himself lay on his death–bed his turn would come to nominate his own successor.

 

“So if I come back next January will I have a chance of seeing the Ark?”

 

 

(Graham Hancock’s wild romp through Ethiopian history (legend?) will keep you turning the pages in baited expectation of the next conclusive evidence that the Ark is indeed safe kept in Ethiopia…   The book is perhaps best read with a pinch of amole salt here or there, but while you should keep in mind that some of Mr Hancock’s other titles are Fingerprints of the Gods and Supernatural, The Sign and the Seal marshals fact and research in a convincing and highly readable manner)

 

Purchase the book on Graham Hancock’s site.