Archaeological Discoveries
The Ark of the Covenant — Curse, Quest, and the Most Explosive Artifact on Earth
Rabbi Avigdor Eskin glanced at his wrist watch as Alitalia Flight 801 began its descent — just twenty-three minutes to landing, and he could be in Jerusalem by five. He looked down at the photograph of the Prime Minister, closed his eyes, and rehearsed the plan. He would need ten men to stand outside the house of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and pronounce the words of a death sentence — the pulsa denura, the ancient "lashes of fire" curse, so deadly it could never be written down, requiring ten learned rabbis to agree it was justified and three days of fasting before it was cast at midnight, by candlelight. Days later, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin died violently. Eskin was later reported to have declared, "Our prayer has worked," before fleeing to his native Russia to avoid arrest.
The secular Israeli government of the time was already walking a tightrope — pursuing a delicate peace process with hostile Arab neighbours on one hand, while contending with Jewish religious extremists demanding access to the sacred Temple Mount on the other. Rabin's assassination was blamed on this same religious extremism. And as if that were not volatile enough, the authorities would soon have to contend with a third, explosive factor: the alleged discovery of the Ark of the Covenant.
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