This is one of the most fascinating of ancient mysteries!

Just looking for some different viewpoints. I have the WHEN pretty well established, but exactly WHERE did it go after the Jewish priests entrusted with it(I can't exactly recall the name of the priesthood, Levites maybe?) removed it from the Temple to keep it away from King Manesseh and his heretical followers?

Solomon's Temple was built to house the Ark circa 900BC. It stayed in the Temple for roughly 300 years. I believe that by the time of the first Babylonian invasion, it had already disappeared because the Ark is NOT pictured in the Babylonian victory stone reliefs that commemorate the battle, which act like a catalogue of their war booty. Moreover, it was NOT among the treasures that the Babylonians put in the Temple of Marduk when they returned home. They had a habit of putting the captured religious relics of all the peoples that they had conquered and subjugated in the Marduk temple as a way to show them that THEIR God reigned supreme over all others. It was psychological warfare to keep the spirit of their newly acquired slaves broken. Had Nebudchenezzer captured such a glittering prize, the ultimate religious object of the Jewish people, he would unquestioningly have displayed it proudly.

When the armies of the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and freed their slaves, all peoples were welcomed to take their religious artifacts back home to their countries. The Ark was not among the objects the Jews brought home with them.

Manesseh was king circa 640BC. He established a polytheistic cult and banned the worship of Yahweh, bringing all sorts of horrid artifacts into the Temple of Solomon. The Levites removed the Ark so it would not rest in such a blasphemous place. I can only assume that they would eventually restored it to the Temple once the worship of Yahweh was reinstated, which it was. Why didn't they? What was the ultimate fate of the Ark? There is some evidence that it was taken to Egypt to wait out the reign of Manesseh, but after that the trail goes cold.

No one will know for sure until the advent of Moshiach (the name Jews use to refer to the Messiah) One belief is that it was taken away and hidden by the Jews prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD by the 10th Roman Legion..... Temple artifacts were looted by the Legionaires and these together with Jewish slaves were taken back to Rome.....rumored that the pure gold candalabrum weighing approximately 150 pounds that graced the inner chamber of the Temple was taken as well and now is secreted in the Vatican along with other Jewish artifacts & manucripts confiscated over the centuries.......one will know only at the end of days which the Jews believe will come after 6,000 years....it's now 5,751 according to their calculations so if you round off to the next whole number, it's 6,000 already so the Messiah could come any time and then we'll know......

Thanks for the reply, Soldier!

I had never heard the rumor of the gold candalabrum weighing that much, wow!

You make an excellent point about the Vatican and what its hidden archives contain. I would LOVE to be able to get inside and have a look around! All that HISTORY!!!

The Jews did hide much of their treasures beneath the Temple before the Romans destroyed it...gold and silver and religious artifacts...as well as precious scrolls. It is certainly a possibility that the Ark still lies hidden away in some undiscovered vault beneath the Temple. The knights who took possession of the Temple after the First Crusade may not have discovered everything during their decade of diggings beneath it.

The gold Menorah from the second Temple was brought to Rome by Titus in 70 AD - as stated previously rumor presists that this candalabrum might be among the hidden treasures in Vatican storerooms confiscated over the centuries from Jews and other "barbarian" people throughout the Middle East, Asia Minor and Europe where the Legions fought for over 600 years...one of the chief Rabbis of Israel, on their historic visit to the Vatican in 2004, inquired about the Menorah with no adequate response....an ndisputable fact is that the Catholic Church, as the inheritor of Rome, took possession of the Empire's booty as documented by the Arch of Titus in Rome....on this Arch is a base-relief showing Jewish slaves carrying the Menorah, (assumed to be one and the same) in a victory parade honoring Titus......

What do you think of the theory that the Menorah and all the other Temple treasures were taken by the Goths when they sacked and plundered Rome? Or were they already taken away by that point?

If the temple treasures aren't inside the Vatican, then they will never be found because they are probably buried somewhere.

I'm still convinced that the confiscated treasures looted & accumulated by the Legions over the centuries of Rome's military dominance were and still are in storerooms beneath the Vatican.....for so many political (and other) reasons, the Vitican cannot acknowledge that such treasures exist, so nothing can be subtantiated one way or the other until some time in the future.......

Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

The most important person as far as the Ark of the Covenant
was concerned was Moses, who had it built to contain the stones with the commandments carved on them, which he had brought down from the Mountain, and kept as a sacred relic in the tabernacle built for the purpose to keep the Ark in it through the crossing of the desert for 40 years.

There was nothing Moses wanted the most than to see "his" Ark in a sumptuous Temple built for it in the Holy Land. He wouldn't because he had to die before the People crossed the Jordan into the Holy Land.

Then, the Law, the most precious content of the Ark became a sysnonym with Moses himself, as Jesus himself was reminded of as he proposed the parable of the Richman and Lazarus, that if the relatives of the Richman in hell did not listen to Moses, i.e. the Law, even if one was raised from the dead, nothing would prevent them from ending themselves up in hell. (Luke 16:29-31)
Ben

Now, when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, the Ark of the Covenant was no longer in the Temple. What could be the most logical thought to come to mind? That the Prophet of the time, Jeremiah, must have had a vision that the end had arrived for the Temple, and that he should do the only right thing that was supposed to be done, which would be to return the Ark to Moses.

Between Jericho and Jordan there is a great mountain called Nebo, whose highest spot was the top of Pisgah, wherefrom, Moses was allowed to contemplate the Holy Land that he was not allowed to enter. There, on the Mountain Nebo at the top of Pisgah, Moses was to die and be buried. Whoever buried him must have kept the secret till death, because up to this day nobody knows the place of his sepucher. That's where Jeremiah took the Ark of the Covenant to. He must have had a vision about the place and buried the Ark where Moses was supposed to be. That's where Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant: In the hidden sepulcher of Moses. (Deut. 34:1-6)