The Tablets of the Ten Commandments, also known as the Tablets of the Law or the Decalogue, represent one of the most significant physical artifacts in the Abrahamic traditions. These two stone slabs contain the foundational moral and religious laws given by God to the Israelites. Their existence is central to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scripture, symbolizing the covenant between a people and their deity. Despite their profound spiritual and historical importance, the current location of the original Tablets remains one of history’s enduring mysteries, fueling centuries of speculation and searches.
The Biblical Narrative of the Tablets
The scriptural account details the creation and storage of the Tablets. Moses first received a set of stone tablets inscribed by the “finger of God” on Mount Sinai, as recorded in the Book of Exodus. When Moses descended the mountain and witnessed the Israelites worshiping a golden calf, he shattered the first set of tablets in a fit of rage.
Following this event, Moses was instructed to carve a second set of blank stone tablets, upon which the commandments were then rewritten. This replacement set was placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred, gold-plated wooden chest. The Ark served as the container and protector of the Tablets, traveling with the Israelites before eventually being housed in a permanent structure.
King Solomon later built the First Temple in Jerusalem, completing it around the 10th century BCE. The Tablets, within the Ark, were placed in the Temple’s innermost sanctum, known as the Holy of Holies. This location marked the final known resting place of the Tablets before their eventual disappearance.
Disappearance and Major Traditional Accounts
The disappearance of the Tablets is directly connected to the destruction of King Solomon’s First Temple by the Babylonian Empire. In 586 BCE, the Babylonian army, led by Nebuchadnezzar II, besieged and conquered Jerusalem, destroying the Temple and exiling the Jewish population. The Tablets were not present when the Second Temple was later constructed, meaning they vanished sometime during or immediately before the Babylonian invasion.
One primary religious tradition holds that the Tablets, still inside the Ark, were hidden by righteous priests before the Babylonians could reach them. This theory suggests an orchestrated effort to conceal the holiest artifacts from capture and desecration. Rabbinic literature, including the Talmud and the Tosefta, suggests the Ark and its contents were stored away by King Josiah, possibly in a subterranean chamber beneath the Temple Mount.
A separate tradition found in the Second Book of Maccabees states that the prophet Jeremiah took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense and concealed them in a cave on Mount Nebo. Conversely, a less optimistic theory posits that the Tablets were taken as spoils of war and transported to Babylon, where they were either destroyed or lost to history. However, ancient Babylonian inventories of the Temple’s looted items do not specifically list the Ark or the Tablets, lending support to the hiding theories.
Current Claims Regarding the Ark’s Location
Because the Tablets were housed within the Ark of the Covenant, the search for the Tablets is effectively a search for their container. The most prominent and widely discussed modern claim regarding the Ark’s location comes from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
According to their tradition, the Ark was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Church asserts that the Ark has resided for centuries in the Chapel of the Tablet, a small sanctuary next to the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, Ethiopia.
The claimed location is guarded by a single, dedicated monk who is forbidden from leaving the chapel grounds until death. Despite the fervor of this belief and the significant cultural importance placed upon it, the area is strictly off-limits to external investigators. This means the claim remains unverified by archaeologists or historians.
Other theories speculate on the Ark’s final resting place. Some suggest it may still be hidden deep within the complex network of tunnels beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, potentially where King Josiah concealed it. Another theory proposes that the Ark was transported down the Nile River to the highlands of ancient Kush—modern-day Ethiopia—before the Babylonian siege. All of these claims rely heavily on tradition and circumstantial evidence, lacking the definitive physical proof required to solve the mystery.