i think this might be it

Where is the Ark of the Covenant? Anywhere from Russia to Rochester, and from Croatia to Canada. No one really knows, although the answer is supposed to be found in the Torah, if you know where to look for it. Lots of theories abound, and almost all say its somewhere safe and sound, clean and pristine condition, Chrsities Auction block ready,  and not destroyed or damaged in the least.  But where? Has anyone posted a reward for it? Maybe its in a cave in Afghanistan or Iran, or buried in one of the poems of Isaac the Blind. Anything is impossible…

Jeremiah 3:16: And it shall come to pass… saith the LORD, they shall say no more: The ark of the covenant of the LORD; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they make mention of it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more.

Of course, underlying  all searches for the Ark is the great hope, mixed with more than a dash of fear and trepidation, that the Ark will still hold its charge of divine power and cosmic energy described in the Old Testament. Since Islam does not really believe in the Divinity of the Old Testament, all the more reason to give it back if they have, and depending on who has it, could it be worth a thousand prisoners, two thousand? Shimon Peres and Ehud Brak as a two-fer with Ehud Olmert tossed in as a throw-in? All serious kidding aside, what would be its implications in our modern hi-tech world, and what could it be expected to do besides being a tourist magnet perhaps enhancing the power of the Jerusalem Syndrome.  Can we expect an explosive resolution to this most fascinating of Temple related objects. The popular guesses are that it was hauled off to the Vatican  together with other Temple vessels, such as seen on the Arch of Titus, though there are no historical chronicles that attest to the Vatican laying its hands on the Ark. Though rumor has it they would if they could.

There seems to be a lot of tunnels under the Temple Mount….

( see link at end) …In the summer of 1983 Rabbi Yehuda Getz, the former Rabbi of the Western Wall, (he died in 1995) broke through the Western Wall deliberately excavating to the East (at “Cistern 30″) in their newly excavated underground tunnel which runs under the old city. This tunnel extends from the prayer area, Ha Kotel, North towards the Fortress Antonia. Getz hoped to eventually reach the foundation of the Second Temple. During this tunnelling, Rabbis Getz and Goren claim to have seen the Ark of the Covenant according to statements they later made to the press. However the Waqf guards on the Temple Mount discovered the underground activity and soon sent down some young men through cistern entrances above to “discourage” the work. A fist fight ensued and the episode concluded with the sealing of the wall with six feet of reinforced cement. The incident was especially tense as it was not certain at the time whether or nor the Jerusalem police had jurisdiction to intervene in the undergound excavation since the area was under the jurisdiction of Rabbi Getz.Read More:http://www.templemount.org/tempprep.html

…According to Rabbi Goren, a 1967 survey of the Temple Mount shows the exact location of the First and Second Temples as well as the site of the Ark of the Covenant….

…One of the main issues surrounding a Third Temple is the long lost Ark of the Covenant. What will be its place, if any, in the Third Temple? The last mention of the Ark is 2 Chronicles 35:3 where it is placed back into the Temple in the realm of King Josiah. There was no ark in the Second Temple. There is no concrete evidence today that the Ark still exists or that someone has it. Does the Ark exist? If it does will it appear before the Third Temple is consecrated?

Mos

thodox Jewish believers in Jerusalem who are working towards the building of the Third Temple believe that the Ark of the Covenant is safely hidden in a chamber under the Temple Mount. They feel certain God has preserved the Ark for 25 centuries and that it will be available when the Temple is restored. Read More:http://www.templemount.org/tempprep.html

( see link at end) …However, the redundant maps summarized below and throughout this site are significant. They strongly suggest an Ark Code that pinpoints where Jeremiah hid the Ark when he was forced into Egyptian exile (Jeremiah 43:7), near where local Bedouins say Moses split the sea at Lake Bardawil. …The first 5 books of the Bible (Torah) contain a redundant series of maps that point to a single location for the Ark of the Covenant. Key site names are encoded in such manner as to have the angles between Jerusalem, Egyptian towns or sites, and the suspect Ark site exactly correspond to actual course headings on real world maps….Ten maps have been found in Torah pointing to the Ark’s resting site at 31o9’ North, 33o4’ East on the Bardawil (El Zuqba) Peninsula of the Northern Sinai in Egypt. However, success in recovering the Ark will largely depend upon expedition financing and permits required from the Egyptian Government. The site is in an Egyptian military-restricted zone, generally open only to Bedouin natives. For a recent satellite photo of the site and the Egyptian military base located about 1.6 miles away,…Read More:http://www.arkcode.com/whats_new_15.html

ADDENDUM:

But according to Tudor Parfitt, a real-life scholar-adventurer, Raiders of the Lost Ark had it wrong, and the Ark is actually nowhere near Egypt. In fact, Parfitt claims he has traced it (or a replacement container for the original Ark), to a dusty bottom shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe.

As Indiana Jones’s creators understood, the Ark is one of the Bible’s holiest objects, and also one of its most maddening McGuffins. A wooden box, roughly 4 ft. x 2 ft. x 2.5 ft., perhaps gold-plated and carried on poles inserted into rings, it appears in the Good Book variously as the container for the Ten Commandments (Exodus 25:16: “and thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee”); the very locus of God’s earthly presence; and as a divine flamethrower that burns obstacles and also crisps some careless Israelites. It is too holy to be placed on the ground or touched by any but the elect. It circles Jericho behind the trumpets to bring the walls tumbling down. The Bible last places the Ark in Solomon’s temple, which Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC.Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1715337,00.html#ixzz21bPzSIlP
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Opinions vary regarding what exactly was placed inside the Ark: Some authorities maintain that the first set of tablets broken by Moses were inside the Ark, along with the second intact set, and the Torah Scroll which Moses wrote. Hence the name “the Ark of the Covenant” or “the Ark of the Testimony.” The shape of the two tablets was square, and they were placed on the bottom of the Ark. However, a different opinion states that the broken tablets were kept in a separate Ark, that the Torah Scroll had its own special place on a shelf alongside the Ark. (Source: Baba Batra 14). ..

…Tradition records that even as King Solomon built the First Temple, he already knew, through Divine inspiration, that eventually it would be destroyed. Thus Solomon, the wisest of all men, oversaw the construction of a vast system of labyrinths, mazes, chambers and corridors underneath the Temple Mount complex. He commanded that a special place be built in the bowels of the earth, where the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden in case of approaching danger. Midrashic tradition teaches that King Josiah of Israel, who lived about forty years before the destruction of the First Temple, commanded the Levites to hide the Ark, together with the original menorah and several other items*, in this secret hiding place which Solomon had prepared.

This location is recorded in our sources, and today, there are those who know exactly where this chamber is. And we know that the ark is still there, undisturbed, and waiting for the day when it will be revealed….Read More:http://www.templeinstitute.org/ark_of_the_covenant.htm
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(see link at end)…Since the burial phrase intersects Shlomo Goren, it could mean that no man knows where the Ark is located until Shlomo Goren, but he now knows. Or it could mean that he is one of many who still do not know. His partner, Rabbi Getz, passed away in 1995. Both rabbis are highly regarded. If they have indeed honored the Torah’s teaching, You shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another (Leviticus 19:11), then there is only one way to interpret this matrix. Rabbi Goren may believe that the Ark is under Temple Mount, but he does not know its actual whereabouts to this day.

I occasionally receive e-mails about claims that the Ark is indeed in Jerusalem, and it has been seen there. While it is possible that the Ark remains there, as we have seen, there is no credible evidence that this has been confirmed. Reality is that Israel had all of the Second Temple period to pull it out and put it back in the Temple. That was from 516 BCE to 70 CE, a total of 586 years. It never did so. Add to that how long Israel has had all of Jerusalem back this time (April 30, 2010), another 43 years, and the total time to pull it out has been 629 years! If Israel believes the Ark is on territory that it controls, it should use the Army to procure it. Put up or shut up. If it is not under Temple Mount, then other sites such as the one suggested by ELS maps should be investigated. The time has come for action. The Jewish deed to Israel is in the Torah. If Israel is unwilling to follow the Laws found there, it may find itself facing another period of exile. Read More:http://www.arkcode.com/custom3.html

…J. R. Church published THE ARK OF THE COVENANT – WE HAVE FOUND 17: Prophecy Publications, 1993, pp. 13-15. In it, he says the Ark is underground at the Vatican. From the 7th century, there is a record that allegedly shows Pope Vitalian (CE 657) had the Ark and the two stone tablets. Church met a Benedictine monk who claimed to have seen it in the vaults of the Vatican, thirty miles east of Rome. The tale goes that four stories down was the Ark, golden articles and old drapes from the tabernacle. But with no evidence that the Ark was in the Temple when Rome conquered Israel, and with the Knights Templar excavations discredited, there is no means apparent for the Vatican to have acquired the Ark. If they have it, why not produce it? (ibid.)