The Location of the Ark of the Covenant

Interestingly, Revelation 11:19 mentions the ark as being in heaven: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.” This verse has led some to speculate that the ark was taken up to heaven to be preserved there. But the ark that John sees in his vision of heaven is probably not the same ark that Moses constructed. We know that the articles in the tabernacle were “copies of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 9:23) and that the sanctuary itself was but “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Hebrews 8:5). Revelation 11 deals with the sounding of the seventh trumpet, which ushers in a final round of judgments upon the earth. John’s glimpse of the ark is probably meant as a reminder that God has not forgotten His people, that He is present with them, and that true worship will soon be restored.
What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? | GotQuestions.org

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2 Maccabees 2:4-10, written around 100 BC, says that the prophet Jeremiah, "being warned by God" before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave on Mount Nebo, informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown "until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."[89] Mount Nebo is also described in the Bible (Deuteronomy 34) as the site from which Moses views the Promised Land. Mount Nebo is approximately 47 km (29 miles) slightly south of due east from Jerusalem, near the east bank of the Jordan River...

Edward Ullendorff, a former Professor of Ethiopian Studies at the University of London, said he "wasted a lot of time reading it.") In a 1992 interview, Ullendorff says that he personally examined the ark held within the church in Axum in 1941 while a British army officer. Describing the ark there, he says, "They have a wooden box, but it's empty. Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc."[95][96]

On 25 June 2009, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, said he would announce to the world the next day the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, which he said had been kept safe and secure in a church in Axum, Ethiopia.[97] The following day, on 26 June 2009, the patriarch announced that he would not unveil the Ark after all, but that instead he could attest to its current status.[98]

The Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the ngoma lungundu or "voice of God", eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.[99][100]
Ark of the Covenant - Wikipedia

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Most Lemba are members of Christian churches, with some Muslims in Zimbabwe. Edith Bruder wrote that "from a theological point of view, the Lemba’s customs and rituals reveal religious pluralism and interdependence of these various practices" and see membership of these religions "in cultural rather than religious terms. These apparently religious identities do not prevent them from declaring themselves Jews through religious practice and ethnic identification."[12] In 1992 Parfitt pointed to the strong cultural component in Lemba identification with Judaism.[13] In 2002 Parfitt wrote that “Those Lemba, who perceive themselves as ethnically Jewish, find no contradiction in regularly attending a Christian Church. By and large the Lemba who are most stridently ‘Jewish' are often those with the closest Christian attachments."[1]
Lemba people - Wikipedia

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