Amedeo

-------------- HERE LIES THE ARK -------------
........................ A Detective Story ........................
USA Copyright 1996 by Amedeo Amendola. Slightly abridged.

P. 1

Where is the lost Ark of the Covenant?
Most of the detective work has already been done by
various people with different concerns. All I did
recently was to put 2 and 2 together and I ended up with
something like 3.90 ("4" would be
certainty.)

Almost any watcher of television documentaries can add 2
("The Shadow of the Templars" and "The Secret of the
Templars" narrated by investigator Henry Lincoln) and 2
("The Lost Ark" and "The Quest for the Ark" with
investigator Graham Hancock [also from England]) and make more
or less the same inferences I have made. All I will
do here is to present, from those videotapes, points I found
relevant for my conclusion, as well as points of my own,
which were necessary for my conclusion as to where the
Ark is.

The Templars were soldier-monks who
originated in France. [The idea of a monk who is a soldier
seems to be self-contradictory, but that is the type of
monks that emerged in France. In the days before the
"new" religion of Francis of Assisi, Christianity was
religion of Jesus of Nazareth KING of the Jews.]
They were known as
Knights of the Temple or Knights Templar after taking
residence near what was left of the Temple in
Jerusalem.

Jerusalem had been recently wrested (in 1099) from the
so-called Infidels by crusading Europeans under a special
French leadership, after a futile attempt (the First
Crusade) and a long siege. The leader, or at least the
theoretical leader, or the armed forces was Godfrey of
Bouillon, who is very much connected with the story of the
Templars, or vice-versa.

After the capture of
Jerusalem, Godfrey was made king of the city by
a special group of French electors. His royal
palace was by the Temple. In 1118 nine soldier-monks
came from France with the alleged purpose of
protecting pilgrims on the highways toward Jerusalem. They
were welcomed by the king and were given part of the
palace. Eventually the whole palace was given to them.
Obviously they must have been very important people, and
obviously they were too few, if they had to patrol the
highways!Those Templars searched through the rubble in the
basements called the Stables of Solomon, but apparently
they did not find what they were looking for. They
were on some kind of quest, but no Templar ever
revealed what they were looking for.

It seems that both
Godfrey and the nine Templars had sprung, so to speak,
from a secret society in France and at least he
knew why the Templars had been sent and what they were
looking for.

P. 2

The secret society in question is L'Ordre de Notre Dame de
Mont Sion (The Order of Our Lady of Mount Zion [the
mount in Jerusalem]). After Jerusalem was captured, the Crusaders built
an abbey (with a church) dedicated to Our Lady of
Mount Zion in the city, but of course the Order existed
before the City was captured. From these and other facts, I
surmise that the promotion of the second, or armed and
successful, crusade, the pre-planned kingship of Godfrey, and
the aims of the Templars are integral parts of one
idea or design which will soon become
apparent.

Some time after their arrival in Jerusalem, the Templars
wrote, reported back, to France that their work was
done (that is, their mission had been accomplished) and that
WHAT THEY HID AND SECURED was under their control --
that is, not under any civil or ecclesistical
authority. Obviously, the work of the Templars was not
thr protection of the pilgrims.
By the way, the Order of the Templars had no
allegiance to anyone but the Pope. The Order grew in number
and wealth and, living in both Jerusalem and in
France, they practically became an autonomous,
independent, society.

What was the mission of the
Templars? They never made it public. What was it that they
found, hid, and secured? There used to be a theory, more
or less relevant to this question, that the
Templars were the protectors of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail
was understood to be the cup which Jesus used in his
last supper. There is a whole mythology about the holy
grail, but recently "san greal" (saint graal, or holy
grail) has been re-interpreted as "sang real" (= royal
blood). I am sure this interpretation is correct; that
is, I am sure that the early French speakers
intentionally said and wrote "san greal" so as to hide was they
were referring to. (Secret messages and documents
typically involved play on words so that most readers would
not be able to decipher them.) Bear in mind the use of
language for secretive communication.

On the basis of
Gardner's book, "Bloodline of the Holy Grail," Mr. Lincoln
observes that the royal blood in question -- the blood in
a bloodline -- is the royal blood of Christ, who
was in the bloodline of king David. [Two of the Gospels
take pains to trace Jesus back to David, nominally through Mary, but actually through Joseph.
Eventually Jesus was crucified as the king of the Judaeans.]

The Order of Zion (short for the Order of Our Lady of Mount
Zion) and member soldier-monks in France before the
crusades may have indeed been protecting royal blood,
but if this was the case, then the question as to
what the Templar in Jerusalem hid and secured remains
unanswered. At any rate, how could Templars in France be
protectors of the royal blood in the line of David?

Apparently some French monks discovered some information or
documents which amount to the following: The three Marys
were at the crucifixion of Christ (on whose cross
there was an inscription in three languages: Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Judaeans). Mary Magdalen was presumed to
be the wife of Christ (as a "golden legend" tells, though
not according to the canonical or church-official
Scriptures). After the crucifixion, she ran away as she was
pregnant or already had a child. Supposedly, she reached a small Jewish
community in southern France. Today the town's name is
Rennes-le-Chateau. So, the bloodline continued in France. The
Merovingeans married descendants of the Magdalene family.
Thus a Merovingian king has the royal blood of
David. (Any descendant of David is, by right, the king of the
Jews and of Jerusalem. That is the theory, according
to the ancient and barbaric way of thinking about
royalty.) As a matter of fact, the Merovingians were
recognized even by the Pope as being royal by blood, rather
than appointment or anointing.

Now, it does not matter
whether there is any validity to the whole mythology of
bloodlines, or whether there is any truth in Christ being
married and having offsprings. What matters is that some
people believed all this and acted upon it.

P. 3

My historical view is that in a bright or dark moment in the
minds of some French monks, they realized that here we
have the legitimate king of Jerusalem, but the throne is
occupied by others. Let us procure the throne to Godfrey,
descendant of the Merovingians. Perhaps the situation
was more complex.

The preaching of the first crusade, however, was in different
terms: Let us liberate the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
and make it possible for pilgrims to reach it. (Of
course they knew that the Arabs who ruled Jerusalem were
very tolerant of Christians and Jews, some of whom
lived there, and that European pilgrims were welcome,
but the crusading enterprise had to have the appearence
of promoting worship freedom in order to enlist followers.)

In connection with the crusades, I should mention something which
turns out to be relevant to my quest of the Ark. The
Crusaders chose a Christian hymn as their marching song:
"Vexilla Regis" (composed by the Roman Fortunatus before
the year 600 and usually heard or read in the Good
Friday services of the Catholic church): "The banners of
the King advance; there shines the mystery of the
Cross... which proffers life through death..." This is a
hymn about Christ the King, which the crusaders
(cross-wearers) must have taken literally. The crusaders devoted
themselves to Our Lady and, once in Jerusalem, they built an
abbey to Our Lady of Zion, as I have already
said. Mary, of course, is the [nominal] royal link between David and
Christ, and she would hardly play any part in the spirit
of the crusades, IF the crusades were really intent on
liberating the Holy Sepulcher!

The official theme of liberation, on
the contrary, can be found in situations which were
not involved in the crusades. For example, when the
news of the conquest of Jerusalem reached Europe,
there were great celebrations. In Modena, Italy, a cathedral
had just been built and, after they news, the portals
were carved with this scene: There is a lady
(Guinevere) in a castle and knights headed by Arthur (whose
name, Artu`, was also carved) are moving to rescue her. This
Arthurian legend obviously is a symbolization of the
liberation of Jerusalem. (Incidentally, this portal was
carved prior to Monmouth's "History of the English
Kings" and before many invented Arturian legends in Europe.
It is one of the earliest artistic representation of an
Arthurian episode... Undoubtedly some legends had been
brought from Brittany into Italy by the Normans -- like
those who a little later, in 1066, occupied England.

Now, one main
investigative concern of Mr. Lincoln was the life, at the turn
of the 19th-20th century, of a French priest whose
name is Sauniere. When this priest was appointed to
the poor parish of Rennes-le-Chateau, he had to beg
for and borrow money for essential repairs of the
church. This church was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene.
When the altar was dismantled for repairs, certain
documents were found. Not too long thereafter, the priest
had repairs and constructions done as if he had found
a fortune. His own library building was named
Magdala. Did he find the treasure which the Templars were
always suspected of having? Even the king of France who, in the
course of history, ordered the slaughter of the
Templars, could not receive a hint about the treasure which
presumably they had found in Jerusalem. (Of course, everybody
equated treasure with gold or wealth.)

P. 4

The decoded message in one document reads, "The treasure
belongs to Dagobert II and to Zion," that is, to a
Merovingian king and to either Jerusalem or the
aforementioned Order of Zion.(Obviously the treasure cannot
consist of the bloodline which some Templars may have
protected. So, we should no longer be concerned with the
theory of the royal blood or the holy grail in connection with the
Templars.) One of the items on the document says, "solis
sacerdotibus," which means "only for priests;" but since Mr.
Lincoln had his mind on the TEMPLARS' treasure, he
interpreted this inscription to mean "for the initiates in
the Templar Order only." So, he was misled by this
unwarranted interpretation. As a matter of fact, the Latin
phrase refers to the fact that access to the holy of
holies in the Temple was reserved to the priests or
high priests only. Only the official priest was allowed to
gaze upon the Ark of the Covenant while offering some
sacrifice on the altar. So, I thought, "the treasure is for
the gaze of the priests only; the treasure IS the
Ark." (As for the two voideotapes of the investigations that
involved Mr. Lincon, the Ark does not enter at all into
the field of those investigations.) Hence I concluded that what
the Templars found, hid, and secured was nothing but
the ARK of the Covenant: The Ark now belongs to the
Merovingians and to the secret society called, in brief, the
Order of Zion.

Another and more cryptic document
mentions in French many things, including: Poussain [the painter];
the shepherdess [that is, a figure in a painting of his which is
usually called "Shepherds in Arcadia"]; "this horse of
God" [which I take to mean the battlefield horse on
which the Lord Sabbaoth rides, so to speak, namely the
Ark], and "681 pommes bleus" or 681 blue apples. Playing
with words, this could mean "ble," a word which refers
to dough (money) rather than the blue color. Thus
the phrase could mean "681 satchels of money" [which,
or part of which, made Sauniere rich overnight].
Actually, in the 17th century, another priest (that is
person who could read Latin) was somehow connected with
Poussain and got rich overnight. I venture to guess that
both priests discovered the gold and that some of those
681 satchels may still be around somewhere in Rennes-le-Chateau.

Thus my surmised treasure of the Templars consists
of the Ark and of gold.

P. 5

Meanwhile, in the other set of tapes, Mr. Hancock reports
that his investigations led him to a city in Ethiopia
where a Christian community (originally Jewish in
religion) believes to be in possession of the lost Ark of
the Covenant. (He provides innumerable historical and
other details which are beyond the scope of my
presentation.) This Ark (or a copy of it) is taken annually in an
outdoor procession. It is covered so that no one may gaze
upon it. In the (fortified) chapel where it is kept
hidden and secure, it may be gazed upon only by the
appointed priest. Next to the place where the Ark
is kept, there is the Church of St. Mary of Sion
[Zion]. Does that sound familiar? It may have been a copy
of the same church in Jerusalem, but the
investigators apparently did not make the connection. (I learned
elsewhere that the facade of this church is from the 16th century.)

What I found most impreesive next to these buildings,
in Azum or Axum, is a mighty building, below ground level,
carved out of rock. It looks as though it would take cannons
or bombs to destroy it today. And what I found most interesting is the
unmistakeable Templar sword carved on many spots of the
building. The templars, one has to know, had a distinctive design
for their swords and their crosses -- a very important fact.
Somehow, Mr. Hancock was not struck by this evidently
Templar fortress, as his mind was on the Ark.
What I suppose is that, following verbal leads (just as our
investigators followed verbal leads), the Templars went to
Ethiopia, where a Jewish community was supposed to have the
Ark. (The investigators tried to reconstruct the way
in which the Ark would have ended up in
Axum.) And I suppose that the Templars found, hid, and secured
the Ark, and even built a fortress to protect it. All this
must have happened toward the middle of the 12th century, before
1153, when the Cistercian Abbot, [St.] Bernard of
Clairveaux died. He is the one to whom the Templars had
reported that what they hid and secured was under their
own jurisdiction.

P. 6

When Jerusalem was recaptured by the "Saracens" in 1187,
partly though the rash decision of the Templars to go outside
the walls and fight, the Ethiopian Templars must have learned of
the fact and done what I would have done -- pack
everything and return to France. They may have left a
replica of the Ark in Axum, where it still is today.

My contention is that the Ark is in France. But where? That's
the question. Mr. Lincoln has superficially explored the
whole Templar country around Rennes-le-Chateau and
other Templar territories. The first document I
mentioned has mysterious points from where lines converge on
a point. Such "geometries" have been investigated
on the real terrain. Templar castles or villages of
hill-tops are disposed on a circular or polygonal
perimeter. Lines from them converge to a point, where
presumably the "treasure" is. The problem is that there are
two many geometries, even overlapping geometries, and
geometries even outside France, which means that they do do
serve as clues to the treasure. One geometry is
circular with five points (hence pentagonal), but the
investigators misinterpreted it as
a five-point star (as a pentagram), which they
connected with the ancient summoning of the devil (the
circle being the boundary line within which the summoner
shielded himself from the devil -- good strategy!) Such
misinterpretations simply led to dead-end streets.

It happens that Poussain's painting mentioned in the second
document is largely a realistic painting of an area. When
mapped, its hill-tops have lines which converge on the
shepherdess, who is standing by a tumulus or something
like a sarcophagus. In the real
territory there is a little rough mount or tumulus. Lincoln
photographed it and [on the videotape] he compared the real and
the painted territories, but apparently he never
thought of excavating (or he may have been forbidden to
excavate) the tumulus. Two years later, when he returned on
the scene, he found that the tumulus had been
practically dismantled, since, he explined, there are always
people on the trail of archeologists and explorers.

Mr. Lincoln's mind was on the striking similarity of the
painted and the real territory.
To demostrate, he used a
copy of the painting and correctly showed that the
lines from the hill-tops actually converged on one eye
of the sphepherdess (painted in profile). While he
was talking, I was looking at the painting and my eyes were directed
to a cowering shepherd was pointing a finger to a Latin
inscription on the sarcophagus. For no reason, I thought:
Let me read with her what the shepherd is pointing to: "Et in
arca......" I practically fell off my seat. The whole
inscription (which I was already familiar with), "Et in
Arcadia Sum" means "I [Death] am even in Arcadia," but
"arca" is the Latin for Ark and I read, "Even in the Ark
[or Ark-land] I am." My gosh, the shepherdess is the
personified treasure and she is saying that she in in the
Ark. Conclusion:The Ark is in that tumulus/sarcophagous,
and the gold treasure is inside it. I looked again at the
shepherdess and I said to myself: What a verbal deception!
Everybody has been calling her a shephedness while she is dressed in
sumptuous clothes, whereas the shepherds are dressed
as shepherds.

Does this mean that those who dismantled the tumulus
found the treasure? Not at all. I presume Sauniere is the
one who found the treasure (the Ark and gold) there at
the turn of the 19th-20th
century. He must have had some knowledge
about the Templars and the other priest who got rich. He knew Latin,
he did what I did, and he went
straight to collect. Of course, he did not put what was
left of the treasure back in the same place.

Where is the Ark now? Where is the treasure?

P. 7

One of the documents and one stone carving (which later on
Sauniere tried to scrape off) has the inscription, "reddis
regis/cellis arcis," which I construe as "in the cellar
of the citadel in the king's city
[Rennes-le-Chateau]." What is called The Castle (with
reconstructions or not) is still standing.
Possibly Sauniere found part of the treasure buried under
the lowest floor of the castle. Were one to excavate
it today, the most he would find is some empty
rotten wooden container. It seems that we are left
empty-handed.
When Sauniere rebuilt his church, he did not put back
the hollow base of the altar in which he had found
the documents. It is in the fine garden he created.
The garden, or rather, the little cemetery adjecent to
the church, has a Calvary, namely a big and
sturdy pedestal which is surmounted by a cross. In a
way, it is like Calvaries which people used to build
on mountain paths and crossroads. It is just one the
things Sauniere constructed. But we have to look a
bit more closely we find that around the upper border of the
square pedestal, there is an inscription in Latin which
says, "Christ Conquers/ Christ Reigns/ Christ rules
[all of these being phrases from a Medieval, probably
French, march-hymn about the royal Christ]/ Christ
Protects the AMOPS." These are the initials of the
"Ancient Mystical Order of the Priory of Sion [Zion]."

The Priory of Zion replaced the old Order of Our Lady
of Mount Zion after not only the loss of
Jerusalem for which the Templars were held responsible,
but also the repudiation of the Templars on the
part of the Order. (In France the autonomous and
wealthy Order of the Templars could no longer be
tolerated by a king of France, was accused of all kinds of
abominations, and was practically wiped out by the king.)

There is a French library document, which I find to be
at least partially fictitious. (I forego the analysis.) It gives
a list of famous Europeans who headed the Priory of
Zion. The last name was that of Cocteau (who did a
painting in St. Mary's of Zion in England). A living
descendant of the Merovingians, who was interviewed,
attests for the incredulous interviewer
that the Priory still exists. (Of course it does; it
is the Order of the Rosy Cross, or of the
Rosicrucians. A pink cross was a Merovingian birthmark.
Probably he or others in England still aspire to become
kings of Jerusalem.) As the pedestal reveals, then, Christ
protect the Priory of Zion.

On one side of the
pedestal, there is a vertical Latin inscription, "In cruce/vita"
(In the Cross -- Life). This does not mean much to
the casual reader, even if he knows Latin, but if he
knows the aforementioned hymn, "Vexilla regis," he
recognizes that this is a quotation from that marching hymn
of the crusaders. (It is one in a configuration of
clues.) A plaque between the two parts of this
inscription has been removed or lost -- probably it revealed
too much.

P. 8

Opposite to the side with "in cruce/vita," there is the
carving which I identified as the distinctive Templar cross.

My detective work is done. I have presented all the
necessary evidential clues, that is, fact which I take
to be evidential clues. The same facts are not
necessarily clues unto others.

By now, then, you have probably figured out where the Ark is.
Mr. Lincoln did not, because he mistranslated one inscription
along the border. He said, "May Christ protect the
AMOPS." But the Latin does NOT say, "Christus defendat,"
which would be an invocation to Christ;
it says, "Christus defendit," that is, he is
defending, protecting, the Order right now. (Linguistically
speaking, he took the Latin
verb as a subjunctive rather than an indicative --as affirming
or pointing to something.... and all the detective work in
this CASE is linguistic in nature.)

Since the treasure belong to AMOPS (which in name
replaces the Order of St. Mary of Zion), Christ is protecting the
treasure. The protecting Christ is the Cross above the
pedestal. The treasure is under the pedestal.
The inscription on the sarcophagous was telling where the Ark was; the
inscription on the pedestal is telling where the Ark is. It virtually says,
"Here lies the Ark" and possibly some gold as well.

As I said at the
beginning, the probability is 3.90 rather than 4 out of 4.
All one has to do is to dismantle the pedestal and
find out. The detective prediction is verifiable.
By the way, private excavations are still
forbidden in Rennes-le-Chateau, but I informed the French
Consul in New York [and later on, the French secretary of
Culture] that unless the government
investigates, the Calvary may end up being vandalized by
treasure seekers just as the tumulus/sarcophagous was.

I bet Sauniere is smiling... Possibly he himself removed
the plaque from the pedestal: it would have been too
revealing, if it bore the inscription R.I.P. (requiescat in
pace -- may it rest in piece). Somebody might have asked:
Who or what is buried there? As things are, the mystery of
Rennes-le-Chateau is kept intact and the town remains a
tourist attraction.

========================
I omitted my discussion on the relationship between the reason
for the quest of the Ark in connection with the crusade war
aiming at the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem to the
legitimate descendants of David through Christ and Mary. For
the Israelites, the Ark was "the horse of God," but the crusade
war was won without the Ark. Therefore, for the French planners,
the Ark must have meant, not the instrument of victory, but
the totem or the emblem of Davidic royalty. The new David in
Jerusalem must acquire the Ark. The Order that planned the
restoration of the kingdom with Merovingian Godfrey of Bouillon and,
therefore, the crusading war, lay in wait for the occupation of
Jerusalem before undertaking, through the Templars, the quest for
the Ark.

In the near future, I may post some more pages (posted already in a Rennes-le-Chateau Forum) which delve further
into the "mystery" of Sauniere or of Rennes-le-Chateau, the Crusade, the French Pope who inaugurated or authorized the
Crusade, the Pope-Bouillon connection, namely Mathilde of Canossa (whose county was nearly the whole of northern Italy), the roles which the Normans played after their conquest of nearly the whole of southern Italy, the cult of
the blood of Christ, and all such Medieval affairs. Needless to say, all the nobility ranks of the Europeans sprang from participations in the crusades, which accrued to the feudalistic hierachical orders of Europe.

Hex

Unfortunately, neither are they necessarily 'facts'. Though it is a nicely done story. No bites from publishers?

And why don't you talk about the grail in there?

RED DAVE

PLEASE!

All this is is stuff recycled from Holy Blood; Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code with the Ark substituted for the Grail. Same cast of characters: Sauniere, etc.

At least Larsguy47 is a bit original is his delusions.

RED DAVE

Sven

I stopped here.

This hurts. :banghead:

notapadawan

It is in an undisclosed U.S. Government wherehouse, where it was put in a crate after being taken from the Nazi's before WW2. I saw it on T.V. and later read the account of it. THose two facts should help decide whether I am telling the truth or not.

Sven

I vote for ~elsewhere. Does anyone second this?

Toto

Moving from BCH to E by popular demand, and for lack of any serious content.

Amedeo

Your loss, not mine, O children of wickedness!

RED DAVE

Cute of you to alter this post before the mods saw it.

RED DAVE

ravenscape

This thread is open on sufferance. If it has to be cleaned up again, it will be closed.

Raven
~E~ Moderator