Babylon Nights
Secrets Unveiled
In 1913, a young French-Syrian woman and her husband inherited a set of stone tablets inscribed with the writings of the prophet Ezekiel and a legend about the hiding of the Lost Ark. Seemingly copied from a mystical book entitled The Valley of the King, this legend described the hiding of the Lost Ark and King Solomon’s treasures at six locations in ancient Babylon and Israel.
Words of a Prophet
When her husband died, Madame Durand decided to donate the stone tablets to a museum or religious group interested in the treasure story purportedly written by the prophet Ezekiel. She began showing the tablets to scholars, amid rumors that they had been taken from Ezekiel’s Tomb near Babylon.
A Secret Rendezvous
In 1947, following the collapse of French rule over Syria, Durand made plans to move to France. On the same day that the United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states, she met secretly with a senior Jewish leader and arranged to donate the tablets to the new State of Israel.
A Daring Rescue
As war and expulsions raged throughout the Near East, David Hacohen was charged by Israel’s leader, David Ben Gurion, with rescuing the so-called Ezekiel Tablets. The tablets were smuggled into Israel and donated to a museum in Jerusalem, which sadly allowed the two tablets inscribed with the treasure legend to disappear into the black market.