Whatever became of the Ark of the Covenant?

The Ark of the Covenant is one of the most enigmatic entities of all time. It contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, some manna, and Aaron’s staff that had budded. Encased in gold-plated acacia wood, it was topped by two golden cherubim, angels associated with God’s presence. In ancient Israel, this ark was a force to be reckoned with: it cleared the River Jordan, sent the walls of Jericho tumbling down, and killed the false Canaanite god. Even touching it risked instant death. But in 587 BC, after the Babylonian sacking of Jerusalem, the ark went missing. 

Scripture says little about its fate, other than that it would not be rebuilt, according to Jeremiah 3:16. (2 Maccabees <http://www.drbo.org/chapter/46002.htm>  also says that Jeremiah hid the ark in a cave, but this anecdote is quoted from another source. For more on the interpretation of this passage, see the Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01721a.htm>  and the Haydock Bible Commentary <http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id1421.html> .)

Dozens of theories have been spun as to what happened to it, ranging from claims that it was hidden under Golgotha by the Jews, pilfered by an Egyptian pharaoh, somehow ended up in possession of the African Lemba tribe, or was simply destroyed by the Babylonians.

One of the most intriguing claims is made by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which says that Menelik, the supposed son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, spirited the ark away to Ethiopia where it has been ever since and remains sequestered to this day in a small shed-shaped shrine in the northern city of Aksum, where only one Orthodox monk is allowed to set eyes upon it.

In Ethiopian Orthodoxy, the ark is no oddity or historical artifact—it’s at the center of their faith. In fact,no church in Ethiopia is a valid house of worship unless it has a replica of the ark within it. The Ethiopian claim is indeed extraordinary, but so is the survival of Ethiopian Orthodoxy in the heart of Africa during the millennium between the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD and the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the 1500s. Many Ethiopians credit the ark with sustaining their faith over the centuries.

http://catholicexchange.com/six-great-mysteries-of-the-bible/