Bad dates

The hot sun beat down on the vast landscape of dunes. Jumping out of the bus, we scrambled up a hill and through a shallow valley, passing colossal inscribed stone blocks scattered across the sands. The valley opened, and we beheld the remains of one of Egypt's forgotten cities.






We had arrived at Tanis, fabled resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Tanis, known as Djanet to the ancients before the Greeks arrived and corrupted everything, sits on a large hill made of ancient cities built on top of each other (called a Tell), across from the modern Arab city of San el-Hagar in the northern Delta region. In ancient times, Tanis became a flourishing port city after the Nile changed its course and the Egyptians had to move their former riverside capital, Pi-Ramesses, elsewhere. It's desert today, since the Nile moved yet again. The demands of this epic move meant that due to the scarcity of stone building materials for temples and tombs, they had to dismantle the temples in their city and move the stone to a more hospitable place. A huge project, no doubt, likely involving hundreds of slaves with foreign Near Eastern ancestors...but that's just my guess.



As I carefully plodded through the uneven sands, I wondered if I'd fall through the roof of some undiscovered tomb onto a bed of snakes. I couldn't help but remember Belloq's quote from Raiders of the Lost Ark: "You will now become a permanent addition to this archaeological site. Who knows, in a thousand years maybe even you may be worth something!"

Considering only about 10% of the site has been excavated, I'd say there's a fair chance of finding the Ark here. Maybe it was in this box.



I would've tried to open it, but our police escort and a guard were watching my every move from a hundred feet away, and Egyptian jails suck, to put it lightly.