Tudor Parfitt,
HarperCollins, £9.99
The lost ark of Solomon’s Temple is Judaism’s equivalent of the Holy Grail, one of the prizes most eagerly sought by archaeological trophy-hunters. Every few years a book appears claiming to have discovered the missing artefact, out of circulation for 2,500 years.
But Tudor Parfitt’s The Lost Ark of the Covenant, now available in paperback, is a cut above the rest. For one thing, it is by a reputable scholar, a professor of modern Jewish studies at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. For another, it’s a great read, an academic adventure story cum travelogue that takes in the Middle East, Africa and, bizzarely, Papua New Guinea.
It would spoil any reader’s pleasure to reveal Parfitt’s theory. One popular idea he knocks on the head is that the ark fetched up in an Orthodox church in Ethiopia.
