Ark of the Covenant: Interesting Twist!

Story from Haaretz.com:
Published 15:36 30.05.10
Latest update 15:36 30.05.10
Scholar's Ark of the Covenant claims spark African storm
Tudor Parfitt claims 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic is a copy of the sacred object made by one of Israel's lost tribes that may have wound up in Southern Africa.
By The Associated Press

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. (Image source).

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.

Having long disappeared from public view since its discovery in the 1940s, the artifact is now on display at the Harare Museum of Human Sciences. It is about 45 inches by 24 inches in diameter and 27 inches tall with a pattern of shallow engraving on the outside that could have held gold threads. Scorch marks on the base inside were possibly left by primitive gun powder.

Parfitt, a professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies, says he first heard of the vessel during his two-decade search for Jewish tribes lost in Africa.

At the center of that research is a southern African ethnic group variously called Lemba, Remba or waLemba. Parfitt says 52 percent of them carry a Y chromosome known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH) - unique to ancient priestly Jewish communities and raising the possibility they are descended from Aaron, Moses' brother. Other groups in Zimbabwe have no CMH.

The waLemba are also set apart from other tribes by such Jewish customs as observing a weekly Sabbath, practicing circumcision, shunning pork and slaughtering animals by methods similar to Jewish kosher rules.

Parfitt acknowledges that theories counter to his are "wholly plausible," and the museum is careful not to take sides. The materials accompanying the exhibit that opened this year outline both the theories behind the relic.

One says the original Ark of the Covenant may have been destroyed when the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem in 586 B.C., that several copies likely were made and that one was taken to Ethiopia by Prince Menelik, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Another could have found its way to ancient Zimbabwe, says the exhibit.

The other posits that it is a purely African relic, and that according to legend, was made by waLemba craftsmen for royal elders to give them magical powers.

In the Zimbabwean Shona language, the artifact is called "Ngoma Lungundu," the "drum that thunders," while the waLemba call it "the voice of God."  Parfitt says that according to oral tradition, the waLemba could have been among peoples who left Judea in biblical times and migrated through Yemen to east Africa, Ethiopia and beyond, bringing the ark with them.

Eminent Zimbabwean historian Rob Burrett disputes Parfitt's theories.

"He is on the wrong track. Wooden drums - ceremonial drums and war drums with great powers similar to those attributed to the ark — are an integral part of African culture," Burrett said.  The genetic test "doesn't prove anything," he said, noting that early European explorers of the east African coast found a strong presence of Arab and Jewish traders moving into the African interior. "These people were certainly not celibate and would have created mixed-blood communities along the way," Burrett said.

African traditionalists believe the Ngoma is a royal drum so powerful that it imploded and was rebuilt on the original wooden base 700 years ago. Indeed, a splinter from the top of the artifact has been carbon-dated to about 1300, making it probably the oldest surviving wooden object in southern Africa.

Only carbon-dating of the entire object, including its scorched base, would resolve the debate, but Zimbabwe authorities are reluctant to let that happen. In a nation striving to eradicate tribalism, a result favoring Parfitt's claims might stir tribal divisions by implying the waLembas' origins are not truly African.

"Everyone has placed this object in a context of their own," conceded Giles Mutsekwa, co-minister of home affairs, the body in charge of archives and antiquities.

One context that arouses anger in Zimbabwe is race. During the colonial era, Europeans defended white-supremacist ideas by arguing - wrongly - that Africans could not have built advanced civilizations such as the massive citadel of stone houses called Great Zimbabwe. Harald von Sicard, the Swedish-German missionary who discovered the Ngoma, theorized in the same vein — that the artifact couldn't have been crafted by Africans. Burrett describes von Sicard as "an old-fashioned, Old Testament" preacher whose views bordered on racism.

Parfitt says he spent weeks living in a waLemba community looking for clues about the ark and getting nowhere. He says he was about to give up when he met a retired train driver in a bar in the southern city of Bulawayo. The man said he recalled hauling a boxcar of artifacts 440 kilometers (275 miles) from Bulawayo to the capital, Harare, for safekeeping during the country's war of independence.

Parfitt searched the Harare museum in 2007, and there it was - in a dusty storeroom littered with mouse droppings. But after he published his findings a year later, controversy flared.

"Some people thought it was all a sinister plot and I was interfering. There was open hostility," he said.

Tempers erupted at a February meeting on the topic at the main Zimbabwe university, with one Zimbabwean academic, historian and former education minister Aenias Chigwedere, storming out of the discussion, denouncing the presence of the British scholar.

Ken Mufuka, a professor of history from Zimbabwe who teaches at Lander University in South Carolina, called Parfitt a "publicity-monger" and "a charlatan" in a newsletter published in Harare.

Burrett, who is also an associate researcher at the Bulawayo museum, said the furor is rooted in the nation's more recent political history.

"There is a fear of undermining the post-independence myth that we are one people, not divided by tribe or origin," he said. "It's as though we are in denial of having a multicultural society."

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Here is an article on the subject from a few years ago:  article from Time Magazine, published on February 21, 2008.

The Lemba - Black Jews in Zimbabwe

The Lemba are in the news.  This article gives a good overview of their story - fascinating!  I looked for an image (a drawing or photograph) of the ngoma lungundu but did not find one.

From BBC News
Monday, 8 March 2010
Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'
By Steve Vickers
BBC News, Harare

The Lemba people of Zimbabwe and South Africa may look like their compatriots, but they follow a very different set of customs and traditions.

They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.

Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.

It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which have confirmed their Semitic origin.

These tests back up the group's belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.

And they also have a prized religious artefact that they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry - a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning "the drum that thunders".

The object went on display recently at a Harare museum to much fanfare, and instilled pride in many of the Lemba.

"For me it's the starting point," says religious singer Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave.

"Very few people knew about us and this is the time to come out. I'm very proud to realise that we have a rich culture and I'm proud to be a Lemba.

"We have been a very secretive people, because we believe we are a special people."

Religion vs culture
The Lemba have many customs and regulations that tally with Jewish tradition.

They wear skull caps, practise circumcision, which is not a tradition for most Zimbabweans, avoid eating pork and food with animal blood, and have 12 tribes.

They slaughter animals in the same way as Jewish people, and they put the Jewish Star of David on their tombstones.

Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba, known as the Buba, were even discovered to have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line.

"This was amazing," said Prof Tudor Parfitt, from the University of London.

"It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba.

"They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started."

Prof Parfitt is a world-renowned expert, having spent 20 years researching the Lemba, and living with them for six months.

The Lemba have a sacred prayer language which is a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, pointing to their roots in Israel and Yemen.

Despite their ties to Judaism, many of the Lemba in Zimbabwe are Christians, while some are Muslims.

"Christianity is my religion, and Judaism is my culture," explains Perez Hamandishe, a pastor and member of parliament from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Despite their centuries-old traditions, some younger Lemba are taking a more liberal view.

"In the old days you didn't marry a non-Lemba, but these days we interact with others," says Alex Makotore, son of the late Chief Mposi from the Lemba "headquarters" in Mberengwa.

"I feel special in my heart but not in front of others such that I'm separated from them. Culture is dynamic."

Crowds
The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.

The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.

"Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science," he says.

Carbon dating shows the ngoma to be nearly 700 years old - pretty ancient, if not as old as Bible stories would suggest.

But Prof Parfitt says this is because the ngoma was used in battles, and would explode and be rebuilt.

The ngoma now on display was a replica, he says, possibly built from the remains of the original.

"So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Prof Parfitt says. [Well, that's just silly. If it was really Jehovah God's Ark of the Covenant, even if it blew up during battles would J.G. not miraculously restore it back to its former glory after the battle was over? What kind of God would not do such a miracle?]

Large crowds came to see the unveiling of the ngoma and to attend lectures on the identity of the Lemba.

For David Maramwidze, an elder in his village, the discovery of the ngoma has been a defining moment.

"Hearing from those professors in Harare and seeing the ngoma makes it clear that we are a great people and I'm very proud," he says.

"I heard about it all my life and it was hard for me to believe, because I had no idea of what it really is.

"I'm still seeing the picture of the ngoma in my mind and it will never come out from my brain. Now we want it to be given back to the Lemba people."