ark of the covenant
christian
gold covered chest built at Sinai to carry the terms of the covenant with God
inside were the stone tablets, a jar of manna, and the rod of Aaron that budded
its lid, the mercy seat, held two facing cherubim with an empty space between them
where God was said to meet and speak, and the chest was lethal to touch
lost after the fall of the temple, though Ethiopian tradition holds that it rests
at the church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, the claim the Solomonic dynasty
of Haile Selassie I was founded on