I wanted to add this to a thread that discussed this but I can't locate it... :sigh:
Quotea quote by Maimonides1. He'd penned in 1180:
'There was a stone in the Holy of Holies, at its western wall, upon which the ark rested. In front of it stood the jar of manna and the staff of Aaron. When Solomon built the Temple, knowing that it was destined to be destroyed, he built underneath, in deep and winding tunnels, a place in which to hide the Ark...'
QuoteIn any case, the Knights Templars who explored under the Sanctuary in the 12th century found little to change history. And neither after four decades have the Israeli archaeologists and Rabbis come up with any convincing evidence to suggest that the Ark of the Covenant is still hidden underneath the Temple Mount.
QuoteThe Ark of the Covenant (the 'Tabut fiha sakinah' in Arabic) is clearly mentioned in the Qur'an2, and Muhammadan traditions strongly suggest that the Ark is not hidden in Jerusalem.
QuoteWhen the Romans captured Jerusalem during the era of the Second Temple in 63 BCE, a curious General Pompey demanded to enter the Holy of Holies. His response to the priests was one of bewilderment. The room was empty, so why the fuss? The historian Josephus (37-100 CE) also records that in his time the Holy of Holies was empty,
QuoteBiblical authority concludes that the Ark disappeared shortly before 587 BCE at the hands of the prophet Jeremiah who, if the apocryphal book of Maccabees is to be believed, hid the Ark in a cave on Mount Nebo
Read the whole article. (http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/?p=322#_ftnref1)