Raiders of the Hidden Ark
The most complete account of the Parker expedition and those who went on it
In 1911 newspapers across the US (and the world) reported on an explosive story following riots and disorder in Jerusalem:
- ‘Have Englishmen Found the Ark of the Covenant?’ – New York Times 7th May 1911
- ‘The Parker expedition, Excitement in Jerusalem, Allegations against the Explorers’ – Sydney Morning Herald 6th May 1911
- ‘Englishmen Are Said To Have Looted the Sacred Mosque at Jerusalem’ – Chicago Tribune 4th May 1911
The Parker expedition had caused these headlines in their search for the Ark of the Covenant. The full story of the expedition which is told in full for the first time in English includes a deadly curse, bribery, betrayal, gun-running, riots, madness, bankruptcy and more. It sounds unbelievable; Downton Abbey meets Indiana Jones meets Dan Brown. But the Parker expedition is real and had a significant Australian element to it. Most of the funding was from a fortune made in Australia and two of the key members of the expedition were born in Australia. Rudyard Kipling on hearing an account from a participant wrote: ‘Talk of fiction! Fiction isn’t in it’.
Andrew Lawler, author of Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City said ‘The Parker expedition ranks as the weirdest of all archaeological excavations, yet the details of what took place in Jerusalem in the early 1900s have remained mysterious. Thanks to Graham Addison’s meticulous sleuthing, we now have a much clearer-and even more fascinating-glimpse into an expedition that rocked the world.”
The expedition started in 1908, when a Finnish scholar convinced a group of young Englishmen from wealthy and titled families he had uncovered secret cyphers in the Bible showing where the Ark was hidden. They were educated at Eton, had fought in elite units of the British military and socialised with European royalty and rich Americans. They headed for Jerusalem on a private yacht to dig for the Ark. With them were a Swiss psychic, a Finnish socialist poet, and a Swedish captain who had experienced the darkest heart of colonial madness in the Belgian Congo.
The Parker expedition unwittingly ‘scattered sparks in the religious tinder-heap’ that is Jerusalem. Its impact still has echoes today
The largest funder of the expedition was Clarence Wilson who was born near Melbourne. He was the son of Sir Samuel Wilson who is one of the richest men ever to live in Australia. Clarence brought other members of his family into the expedition, including his mother who was born in New South Wales and was the daughter of the man who discovered gold in Clunes and so sparked the Victorian Gold Rush. He also persuaded his older brother Gordon Wilson to join him on the expedition. He had foiled an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria and later married Winston Churchill’s aunt. The Australian connections were not limited to the Wilson family. Cyril Ward, the younger brother of the Earl of Dudley, who the Governor General of Australia was another member of the expedition.
The mystery surrounding the Ark of the Covenant’s location is one of the world’s greatest and most enduring. One of the Bible’s most sacred and powerful objects has not been seen for over 2,500 years. The missing Ark has inspired many quests and even a famous film.
Raiders of the Hidden Ark tells how the Parker expedition believed that they had solved the puzzle of where the Ark was hidden. The secret cyphers which the expedition was based on said it was hidden in tunnels just outside Jerusalem.
The cyphers also said that the Ark was protected in many ways to stop individuals accessing it. The Ark was protected by deadly radioactive radium and boobytraps. It was also protected by a deadly curse. This was not a curse like Tutenkhamen’s which was invented by a newspaper after the event. The Finnish biblical scholar Juvelius informed the expedition members that any person who attempted to disclose the secret chamber containing the Ark would be cursed ‘sixty and six fold’. Raiders of the Hidden Ark reveals for the first time the fate of those who went on the expedition.
It was often not a happy one. Within a few years, one was mad, three were dead, two were bankrupt, one divorced and another deported.
