Fabled lost ark or African treasure? Relic stirs passions
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Tudor Parfitt has spent years chasing a theory that a lost tribe of Jews wound up in southern Africa. But his latest leap has landed him in a minefield.
The subject at hand is this British scholar's contention that the remains of a 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic which he tracked down in a Zimbabwe museum storeroom in 2007 could be a replica of the Ark of the Covenant that carried the Ten Commandments.
According to African legend, white lions of God and a two-headed snake guarded the "drum that thunders" in a cave in southwestern Zimbabwe's sacred Dumbwe mountains. Parfitt's theory has sparked fierce reactions from some Zimbabwean scholars, who suspect a plot to superimpose foreign origins on what is purely a product of African culture.
