Here I am high above the Holiest City in all of Ethiopia, Axum, founded in the 1st century BC. The Ethiopians are mostly devout Christians, though there is a significant Moslem minority.

The silver dome you see behind me is the new Church St. Mary of Zion, built by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1968.  On its left, the large brick building is the old St. Mary's church, dating from the 16th Century. Between the two is the Treasury, though you can't see it very well, since it's not large.   Inside this unpretentious building, the Ethiopians claim to have the one and only Ark of the Covenant. Yes, the same one Indiana Jones supposedly found in his first movie.

According to tradition, the Queen of Sheba was Ethiopian and had a son by King Solomon named Menelik, who brought the Ark back to this country around 900 BC. The Ark did indeed disappear from Israel sometime after or during Solomon's reign, though no one is sure where it went or what happened to it. A recent book by a journalist named Graham Hancock called 'The Sign and the Seal' makes a pretty good circumstantial case for the Ark actually being here, believe it or not, though no one (not even yours truly) is allowed to see it.

I'll bet you thought I was making that stuff up about the Ark, huh? Well, check out THIS site: OneWorld Magazine - Ethiopia, The Lost Ark of the Covenant

Just for fairness' sake, here is a more conventional view:
Where has the lost Ark of the Covenant been?