The Chamber with the Ark of the Covenant

Ron returned to the chamber on several occasions- one time he took a "Trinkle Drill" used by Orthopedic surgeons and a colonoscope used to look into the human body. He wanted to be sure the Ark was in that stone case. He tried to drill a small hole with the "Trinkle Drill" but it wouldn't penetrate the stone. So he took his star-tipped stone chisel and hammer to accomplish the job. He would hammer the tip a little, then turn the bit, hammer then turn, over and over until he had an approximately 5/8" hole into the stone case.

The "colonoscope" is an optical device with a powerful light source which allows doctors to peer into the human body, and Ron had borrowed one from one of the doctors at the hospital he worked at. Inserting the colonoscope through the tiny hole, he guided it downward, rotating the lens until he saw what he recognized as the bottom of the crown-molding around the top of the Mercy Seat and then he saw the flat golden side. Since the colonoscope doesn't allow viewing of a large area, and since he had little means to guide it other than a small latitude of rotation, he couldn't see a great deal. But he saw enough to KNOW it was the Ark. 

On one trip, he had one of his helpers sit by the elevated cross-hole with the earthquake crack while he ran a metal tape measure through the crack in the ceiling of the chamber. It extended through to the cross-hole and when his helper grabbed it to show that it had come through, Ron noted that the crack extended through 20 feet of solid rock. 

During his several visits to the chamber, he tried to thoroughly explore the contents. He measured the chamber and found it to be 22 feet long by 12 feet on 2 sides, while the other 2 sides followed the line of the cliff-face, forming a chamber that narrowed down in one corner.

The objects he saw in that chamber that he feels confident in identifying are:

the Ark of the Covenant in the Stone case;

the Table of Shewbread;

the Golden Altar of Incense that was in front of the veil;

the Golden Censer;

the 7-branched Candlestick holder, (which didn't have candles but had tiny, bowlike golden oil lamps which are built into the tips of the candlestick);

a very large sword;

an Ephod;

a Miter with an ivory pomegranate on the tip;

a brass shekel weight; numerous oil lamps;

and a brass ring which appeared to be for hanging a curtain or something similar.



 

The Tables of Stone are still within the Ark, under the Mercy Seat. On the back of the Ark is a small open cubicle which still contains the "Book of the Law" and is presumably the one Moses, himself, wrote. To the best of his knowledge, the Book of Genesis is not there- only Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. The thing that amazed Ron was that these Scrolls, written on animal skins, are in perfect condition today. 

Just inside the chamber, by and near the original entrance which was now sealed up, he found a total of 7 oil lamps that Ron believes had to have been left behind by those who brought the items into the chamber. The soot on the lamps and the rocks they sat upon clearly showed the direction of the breeze that followed them into the tunnel.

One of the lamps is very ornate and displays Assyrian characteristics, which is consistent with the cultural influence of Judea at the time just prior to the Babylonian captivity. The picture (below) of this particular oil lamp was not taken with a camera because the design on the lamp doesn't show up well in a photo. This picture was made by placing the lamp on a copier and it revealed a little of the design, which we find very interesting.

The center depicts a goat or a ram standing upon it's hind legs, eating from a grape vine. This scene is very similar to the statue found in a grave in the Sumerian city of Ur. The suggestion has been made that this may represent the ram caught in the thicket at the very moment that Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac, which served as the substitute sacrifice, sparing Isaac's life- a "shadow" of the coming Messiah.

It is an interesting thought to consider the possibility of a relationship between the design on the lamp and the story of the "ram in the thicket" that was the substitute sacrifice- because the lamp was left in a chamber INSIDE Mt. Moriah where Abraham had brought Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice; and this same Mt. Moriah was where the Messiah died, the "substitute" sacrifice for fallen mankind. But this is just interesting conjecture on my part. 

After his last visit to the chamber through the hole he had chiselled, he permanently sealed the tunnel through which they first entered. Ron has learned many lessons over the years, and some he had to learn the hard way. One lesson he learned this way was that he had to be very careful whom he shared his information with.

During the course of their work there, they had numerous experiences with people which could have been disastrous without "Divine Intervention". For example, one famous evangelist stumbled upon the hole into the excavation one day and Ron invited him to come down into the cave. Believing the man to be honest, Ron told him what they were searching for and big promises were made of assistance. To make a long story short, a team of individuals from this evangelist's group later returned to the site, telling the authorities they were with the Wyatt expedition and that Ron would arrive in a few days (which wasn't true).

They went down into the cave system and began to dig. The cave walls where they were digging suddenly collapsed and they just narrowly avoided being buried alive in the debris. They immediately packed up and returned home. No real harm was done except that Ron and the boys had to re-excavate the entire area of the collapse.

This and other similar incidents led Ron to seal the passage. With the honeycomb of tunnels, it would be almost impossible for anyone to find the correct passage, and this one now looked- even up close- as if it was a natural stone wall.

Ron had done all that he could do using that passageway, anyhow. It would be impossible to get any large object out of the chamber through that original passage.

All his attempts to photograph anything in the chamber resulted in photos or slides that looked like a complete blur, so he concluded that he simply wasn't supposed to take any photographs. (He later understood why- at that time, he was much freer with sharing his information and this could have caused a lot of serious problems if some of the "unsavory characters" he came in contact with over the years had SEEN evidence that this solid gold object REALLY existed.)

The next order of business would be to find the main entrance into the chamber- the passage through which the items were originally taken.

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