At one stage up to nine persons were working the site. An essential part of the excavation intruded on to an adjacent property. This land was foreign-owned and administered by a board presided over by a bishop.
At the particular time in question, Ron Wyatt was working at the site alone, when word came from the bishop:

The team had now been working for nearly two years. Between other commitments, they could come for only a few weeks at a time, several times a year.

Nevertheless, some wonderful finds had been made, and these they had reported in detail to the authorities. Some artifacts deemed of no significant value, they were permitted to keep.
But Ron was getting anxious.

One evening, the boys sat finishing their meal.  Danny spoke. "Well, we've explored the entire cliff-face. There's no sign of a cave or tunnel. What do we do now?"

But Ron was beginning to wonder if he was wasting his time. Had he misinterpreted what he was supposed to do? He had every confidence that God does answer our earnest prayers. He had experienced so many specific evidences to answered prayer, that now he prayed again in earnest. He asked to know what to do before starting this trip. Like most of us, Ron has never heard God speak audibly. He just prays about what he should do and then sometimes receives an "impression".

And this time, as he prayed, there came into his mind the assurance that he would find the Ark fo the Covenant on that trip. Ron believed with all his heart that this was a true promise from the One who could make such a promise and keep it.

However, things could not be worse. Danny and Ronny developed pneumonia-like symptoms and had to return home within days of each other. Ron himself was just as ill - but far more persistent (or stubborn). He kept working.

Each year the team comprised many locals, who hauled off tonnes of earth and debris. A condition of the team's being permitted to excavate was that they must completely restore the above ground area before they left.

One of the young locals who had proved very honest and trustworthy we shall call "Rafat", to protect his and his family's identity. Since this young man was small and slender, he was a perfect candidate for squeezing through the tight tunnels of the excavations.

Moments after crawling through the tiny opening, Rafat frantically came tumbling back.

He was trembling and shaking. In his eyes was sheer, complete and utter terror.  Yet Rafat said he had seen nothing! Whatever his experience, it was stark and real, since he left that chamber, and the entire cave system, never to return.

What was it that Rafat had sensed? Ron would never have given that chamber another look, had it not been for Rafat's terror. Now Ron was cautiously excited. He took his hammer and chisel to expand the hole.  Then he crawled through.

Only 18 inches' clearance - that's all he had. He lay on his stomach, inching forward with nothing but the flashlight in his hand.   With Rafat's reaction throbbing in his head, Ron purposely looked at his watch. It was 2.00 pm, Wednesday, January 6.

The beam of light shone forward over the huge pile of rocks. Something shiny caught his eye. He began moving the rocks one at a time. It was slow work. And just under the rocks were planks of dry-rotted wood; and beneath them some dry-rotted remains of animal skins. When he moved them, the skins turned to powder.

The animal skins were laid over a gold-veneered table with a raised moulding around its side. The moulding comprised an alternating pattern of a bell and a pomegranite.

His heart raced. He knew what he was seeing. This was an object from the first Temple! Solomon's Temple.

The space was so cramped here, he could not uncover the whole table. But he examined it closely for a long time. Eventually, Ron concluded that this was the Table of Shewbread described in the book of Leviticus - and made in 1446 BC.

With adrenalin racing through his veins and with mounting anticipation, Ron scanned the chamber to see what else he could see, which wasn't much. He shone his torch around over the stones and then up to the ceiling. Ahead, something caught his interest. It was a crack in the ceiling, with a black substance within the crack.

Crawling slowly and painfully over the rocks to the other end of the chamber, he saw a stone case extending through the rocks. It had a flat stone top which was cracked completely in two. The smaller section of the cover was moved aside, creating an opening into the stone case.

He could not look inside because the top was too close to the ceiling. Yet he knew what was inside. The cracked part of the lid where it was open, was directly below the crack in the ceiling. And the black substance had fallen from the crack into the case. He knew this, because some of it had splashed on to the lid.

It was at this time that the pieces quickly came together. Instantly it dawned on Ron what had happened here. That crack they had found outside in the elevated cross-hole (now many feet above him) - here was the end of that crack, right here in this ceiling. And the black substance was blood which had fallen through the crack and on to the stone case.

Now he KNEW the Ark was in the stone case. But the most overwheliming realisation was that Jesus Christ's blood had actually fallen on to the Mercy Seat.

It was now, with this instant realization of what had happened here, that Ron passed out.  It was 2.45 pm when he came to - a mere 45 minutes after entering the chamber.  But he had become the first modern witness to the most awesome event in history.

Now he knew why the team had needed to do those three years of excavation FIRST - before finding this chamber - three years of detours which they had at the very beginning found the correct, original entrance to the chamber, they would never have dug elsewhere and found the cut-out niches, nor the elevated cross-hole with the earthquake crack, nor the seal-stone of the tomb. They would have entered the Ark chamber and not recognized what had happened here

Yes, the promise that Ron would find the Ark of the Covenant on this trip, he now believed was honoured, even though he did not set eyes on it. In his frustration and complaining, Ron received another VERY strong "impression": "I only promised that you would FIND it. It will come out when the time is right."

The condition of the chamber, completely full to within 18 inches of the ceiling, made it impossible for Ron to do anything else. He could not forsee any possible way to bring anything out unless the original entrance through which the objects had been taken into the chamber was found.

Ron retraced his way back out of the small hole and back again through the tortouous series of tunnels. Then he sealed the passageway with a stone. Any body looking along the passageway would think it came to an abrupt end. However, Ron could easily remove the stone when he returned.

The archaeologist did not report his experience to anyone a that time. His mind was still whirring with all that had transpired. He needed time to think. His plan had been to find the Ark and bring it out, but now that appeared impossible.

Later, inserting a long pole through the opening at the top of the stone case, Ron would attempt to photograph the Ark with Polaroid camera, a 35 mm camera, and video. In every case, the photos were a white-out, a complete blur. So he concluded that he simply wasn't supposd to take any photographs.

As his wife, Mary Nell, puts it,

"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 'unsavoury character' he came in contact with over the years had SEEN evidence that this solid gold object REALLY existed. Remember how Noah's wife's grave was plundered."

Three of those involved in the Ark of the Covenant dig have been with me on other expeditions.

One of these is Bob Murrell. Bob has helped on the Ark of the Covenant dig three times. Although Bob has not always agreed with Ron's archaeological methodology (and has told Ron so), there is one thing about this project that Bob will not dispute. Bob is absolutely certain that this is the Ark of the Covenant. And little wonder! Bob has seen with his own eyes the wings of the cherubim over the box. "It's the real thing," insists Bob.

He made several more trips into the chamber. Eventually he reported to the authorities what he had found.

Perhaps not able to believe what Ron told them he had found, or perhaps recognising the problem that this could cause if made known, his superiors told him not to tell anyone about this discovery.

It was too late for that, since Ron had already told a few people, he confessed.

Realising that "what is done is done", they then ordered him not to reveal any more details than he already had revealed.

For this reason, we cannot be as specific in relation to what follows.

Some time later, Ron was able to present something from the excavation to the authorities, which convinced them that he had indeed found some items from the first temple.

The Israeli authorities then decided to test public reaction. (We shall relate that event in the next instalment of this series don't miss it!)

On one of his subsequent entries to the chamber, Ron Wyatt took in a "trinkle drill" used by orthopedic surgeions, as well as a colonoscope (used to look inside a human body). He wanted to be sure that the Ark of the Covenant really was inside that stone case.

To his dismay, the drill would not penetrate the hard stone of the case. So he had to resort to his star-tipped stone chisel and hammer. He hit the tip a little, then turned the bit, then hammered again and turned. He kept doing this until he had a hole about 5/8 inches wide in the stone case. Through this small hole he inserted the colonoscope. This had a powerful light source. He guided it down, rotating the lense until he saw what he recognised as the bottom of the crown-moulding around the top of the lid (Mercy Seat). Then he saw the flat golden side.

The colonoscope has limitations in allowing only the viewing of a small area at a time. Also the latitude of rotation was small, so Ron could not see a great deal. However, he saw enough to KNOW this was the Ark.

On a later expedition, another team member sat up by the elevated cross hole that had the earthquake crack. Ron, in the chamber, ran a metal tape measure up through the earthquake crack in the ceiling. It eventually came out at the cross-hole. The other man caught hold of it to show it had come through. They discovered that the crack extended through 20 feet (6 metres) of solid rock.

The chamber itself was 22 feet (7 metres) long by 12 feet (4 metres), on two sides. The other two sides followed the line of the cliff-face, narrowing the chamber in one corner. The chamber was about 8 feet (2 metres) high, with a flat ceiling.

The objects in the chamber that could be confidently identified were:

The men who brought these temple objects into the chamber had sealed up the original entrance to the chamber. Close to this sealed-up entrance, Ron found a total of 7 oil lamps they had left behind. The soot on the lamps and the rocks they sat upon showed clearly the direction of the breeze that followed them into the approach tunnel.

One of these lamps is very ornate. It displays Assyrian characteristics, which is consistent with the cultural influence in Judea at the time just prior to the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. This picture of this particular lamp was not taken with a camera because the design on the lamp doesnŐt show up well in a photo. This picture was made by placing the lamp on a copier.

This and other incidents led our team to seal the tunnel which led to the chamber. It would be impossible to get any large object out of the chamber through that passage, anyway.

Before permanently sealing the tunnel, Ron had re-entered the Ark chamber and opened the original entrance (behind where the 7 oil lamps were found), to see if he could trace the original passage behind it to its source. On the other side of the blocked entrance he found a large tunnel which extended in both directions. But each direction was completely blocked with large stones.

Which of these was the passage taken by the men, who, 2,500 years ago, put the objects in the chamber?

Some time later, sub-surface interface radar would detect a tunnellike void crossing from inside the Old City to the area of the Calvary escarpment at a depth of perhaps 20 feet under the road.

Subsequently, Ron found the entrance to a tunnel extending from an underground quarry underneath the Muslim section of the city. The quarry is known as "Zedekiah's Cave". After a few feet, entry was halted by big rocks and dirt. It appeared that somebody had tried to camouflage the fact that it was a plugged tunnel and make it look like natural earth and rocks.

READ ON The story continues