Worth approximately $5.7 billion today, this made the whole venture much more than a spiritual or archaeological quest - it also appealed to the greed that is in all of us if we dig deep enough. Parker gave estimates that the Ark, accompanied by along with the wealth of gold and silver platters, bowls and other treasures related in the Old Testament, would be worth $200 million on the open art market, which at that time would have had few scruples in dealing in such historical objects. Ogden Armour and the duchess of Marlborough, who gave Parker the equivalent of $2.4 million in today’s money for the expenses the men would need.
He used his natural charm to attract a slew of supporters, including Chicago meatpacking king J. Parker was intrigued, signing on to serve as the leader of the quest for the Ark and even setting up a syndicate to sell 60,000 one-pound shares to investors - who he no doubt believed would profit handsomely - if the treasures of Solomon were indeed found.
Nothing that Juvelius left behind shows any such thing, of course, but he insisted that the treasure was located in a tunnel under Jerusalem.īy some stroke of luck, the Finnish scholar obtained an introduction to Captain Montagu (Monty) Brownlow Parker, the heir to an earldom. Incredibly, the saga began with a Finnish scholar, Valter Juvelius, who had published his doctoral thesis a “New Chronology of the Jews,” hinted that he had come upon a secret code that showed the way toward where the Ark had been buried. Credit: Unknown/Public Domain Finnish scholar and poet teams up with aristocrat, assorted amateur archaeologists to find Ark, treasure Valter Juvelius and Monagu Parker in one of the tunnels they excavated from 1909-1911. But it wasn’t just the great religious treasure of the Ark that they were after - it was also the treasures that had been gathered by King Solomon 3,000 years ago that many believe were later hidden.īefore too long, the men had opened such a can of worms that it took Indiana Jones-like escape skills just for them to be able to leave the Holy Land in one piece.Īnd sadly, the anger and mistrust engendered by their thoughtless ransacking of the Temple Mount has echoed down to this day, with periodic skirmishes taking place there periodically even now when tempers flare between Jews and Palestinians. This crew of adventurers arrived in Jerusalem in 1909, at a time when it was still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
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