The Parker Expedition
A Poet in Palestine
In 1909, a group of adventurers known as the Parker Expedition arrived in Jerusalem, on a quest to find the Lost Ark. The expedition was guided by a mystical poet named Valter Juvelius, who claimed to have deciphered a secret code in the prophet Ezekiel’s writings that revealed the Lost Ark’s hiding place. Following Juvelius’ maps and directions, the expedition spent the next two years excavating Jerusalem’s ancient, underground water system.
In the Well of Souls
Weary of Juvelius’ insistence that the Lost Ark had been hidden in Jerusalem’s underground water system, the leader of the expedition, Montagu Parker, decided to begin searching on the controversial Temple Mount instead. For several nights in the spring of 1911, Parker and his team snuck into the Well of Souls beneath the Muslim Dome of the Rock and began secretly digging. Disregarding warnings against desecrating this holy site, Parker’s team began exploring beneath the Well of Souls, but found nothing of importance.
Raiders on the Run
Late one night, an Arab guard heard a noise and discovered Parker and his men digging in the Well of Souls. While Parker and his men fled for safety, the guard alerted the local authorities. After rumors spread of the expedition’s defilement of the Well of Souls, street riots broke out in Jerusalem. Realizing that his life was in danger, Parker escaped with his men and boarded a steamer bound for his home in England.
The End of an Era
Louis-Hugue Vincent, a priest-archaeologist with the Catholic “French School of Archaeology” in Jerusalem, had risked his life trying to help the Parker Expedition with its excavations beneath the ancient streets of Jerusalem. Now, watching Parker and his men returning to their homes in England, Father Vincent worried that the Well of Souls scandal would damage the French School’s reputation. He never dreamed that one of his colleagues would soon make a shocking discovery suggesting that Juvelius had been right about the Lost Ark’s hiding place.