As 1981 came to an end, Ron Wyatt and the boys returned to Jerusalem.  Even though it is cold there in the winter, the cave system was always a very comfortable and constant temperature, both in summer as well as winter.   The work, however, was beginning to take a toll on all three of them. They all began to develop a fever and slight chills and pneumonia-like symptoms.

On December 24th Ron had to send his son Ronny back to the US because he was so ill.  Danny had to follow on December 31.

Ron was sick too; but continued to work, for as he prayed, in his mind came the promise that he would find the Ark of the Covenant at that time.

January 1, 1982

Alone, without the boys, Ron needed some help.  Ron had met one young local man named "James".  whom he had discovered was very honest and trustworthy.  He began to use him in the actual excavation when Ronny and Danny weren't available.

Ron and the boys had explored most of the tunnels over the last year, but Ron's plan this trip was to leave no possibility unexplored.  He and "James" crawled through the vast system of tunnels, now much larger and extensive because of the passages they had opened up and the walls they had chiseled through.

Ron would decide where to go next and he and "James" would follow that tunnel. If and when they found a small opening, Ron would enlarge it enough for "James" to crawl through, and he would carefully check it out and report to Ron everything that he saw.

They followed one particularly difficult passageway which took them through a "chimney" which extended straight up and a tight tunnel which was so small that Ron had to exhale in order to squeeze through.  He had to stop to take a breath and when he inhaled, the tunnel was so tight he couldn't fill his lungs completely.

"A Tight Tunnel"

Enlarging the tiny hole enough to see in, Ron could see, with the aid of his flashlight, a cave chamber completely full of rocks, (all larger than "fist" size), with about 18 inches of clearance between the rocks and the ceiling.

The chamber did not look promising at first but leaving nothing unexplored,  Ron enlarged it enough for "James" to crawl through.

Almost as soon as "James" crawled through the tiny opening, he frantically came tumbling back out, shaking and shouting "What's in there? What's in there? I'm not going back in there!!"  Ron saw in his eyes sheer, complete and utter terror; yet James said he had seen nothing!

Whatever he experienced was real, for he left not only that chamber, but the entire cave system, never to return.

"James'" reaction sparked a hesitant excitement in Ron - he would have never given that chamber another look if not for "James'" terror.

Now alone in this vast cave system, he took his hammer and chisel and enlarged the hole, crawling through.  With only about 18 inches clearance, he had to lie on his stomach with nothing but his flashlight in his hand for light.

January 6, 1982 - 2 PM

Shining his flashlight down through the massive pile of large rocks, his eye caught a glimpse of something shiny.  He began slowly removing the rocks one at a time and discovered some dry-rotted wooden timbers just beneath the rocks, and then some also dry-rotted remains of animals skins that turned to powder when he moved them. The animals skins were covering a gold veneered table with a raised molding around the side which consisted of an alternating pattern of a bell and a pomegranate. It only took him a moment to realize that at the least this was an object from the first temple! But he was in such a confined space, he couldn't uncover the entire table. He later concluded, after closer examination, that this was the Table of Shewbread.

With great anticipation, he looked around to see what else he could see, which wasn't much. He shined his flashlight around the open area and then up to the ceiling. There, he saw something that caught his eye - it was a crack in the ceiling with a black substance within the crack.

Crawling slowly and painfully over the rocks to the rear of the chamber, he saw a stone case extending through the rocks. It had a flat stone top which was cracked completely in two and the smaller section was moved aside, creating an opening into the stone case. But the top was too near the ceiling for him to look inside. Yet he knew what was inside.

The crack in the ceiling was directly above the cracked part of the lid, where it was open, and the black substance had fallen from the crack into the case because some of it had splashed onto the lid.

It was at this time, as Ron recalls, as the instant realization of what had happened here dawned on him, that he passed out. When he realized that the crack in the ceiling was the end of the crack he had found in the elevated cross-hole many feet above him, and the black substance was blood which had fallen through the crack and into the stone case.

Ron then knew that the Ark of the Covenant was in the stone case:  But the most overwhelming realization was that Christ's Blood had actually fallen onto the Mercy Seat.

Ron Wyatt became the first witness to the literal fulfillment of the "type" represented by all the sacrifices made by God's people since Adam and Eve, and later specifically directed by God, Himself, in the laws of the sacrificial system.

When Ron came to it was 2:45 PM.

The condition of the chamber, completely full within 18 inches of the ceiling, made it impossible for Ron to do anything else. He could not foresee any possible way of bringing anything out unless the entrance to the chamber through which the objects were originally taken in was found.

He climbed out the small hole, back through the tortuous series of tunnels and sealed the passageway with a stone. To anyone looking through the tunnel, it would appear that it came to an abrupt end. However, the rock could and would be easily removed by Ron when he returned.

Ron did not report his experience to anyone at that time.  He had expected to find the Ark and bring it out, but that now seemed impossible.

He made several more trips into the chamber, and eventually reported to the authorities what he had found.

LATER...
Ron returned to the chamber.   Using a star tipped drill he made a 5/8 inch hole in the stone case.  Ron had brought with him a colonoscope (a medical device with a powerful light source used to look into the human body).  Inserting the colonoscope into the hole he could see the crown-molding around the top of the Mercy Seat and the flat golden side.

As the colonoscope doesn't allow viewing of a large area, and since he had little means to guide it other than a small latitude of rotation, he couldn't see a great deal. But he saw enough to know for sure that it was the Ark of the Covenant.

LATER...
During his several visits to the chamber, Ron tried to thoroughly explore the contents. He measured the chamber and found it to be 22 feet long by 12 feet on 2 sides, while the other 2 sides followed the line of the cliff-face, forming a chamber that narrowed down in one corner.

The objects he saw in that chamber that he feels confident in identifying are: the Ark of the Covenant in the Stone case; the Table of Shewbread; the Golden Altar of Incense that was in front of the veil; the Golden Censer; the seven-branched Candlestick holder, (which didn't have candles but had tiny, bowl-like golden oil lamps which are built into the tips of the candlestick); a very large sword; an Ephod; a Miter with an ivory pomegranate on the tip; a brass shekel weight; numerous oil lamps; and a brass ring which appeared to be for hanging a curtain or something similar.

There are more objects, but these are all Ron could positively identify. All of these objects were covered by the dry-rotted dark-colored animal skins, then dry-rotten wooden timbers on top of the skins, and finally the large rocks piled over everything.

On the back of the Ark is a small open cubicle which still contains the "Book of the Law" and is presumably the one Moses, himself, wrote.  Ron found the Scrolls, written on animal skins, to be in perfect condition.

The Original Passage Used
to Carry the Ark into the Cave

He observed that the tunnel appeared to be a natural tunnel that had been enlarged as he saw chisel marks.  It was completely blocked with large stones in both directions.

The problem now to be solved was determining the path taken by those who put the items in the chamber.

To resolve this question, Ron began by using simple reason. The items had been in the temple - that was their point of origin.  They were now in this chamber, many feet below ground level.  A great number of tunnels have been found under the temple mount and the city, but none that he knew of were heading in this direction.  Was the entrance into the tunnel within the city or was it somewhere across the street in front of the northern wall?   Ron had an idea as to where to begin his search.

"Zedekiah's Cave"

In the winter of 1854, Dr. Barclay, a physician and missionary, went for a walk in Jerusalem.  He was walking to the site of the traditional "Jeremiah's Grotto" which is along the same Calvary escarpment.  As he walked past the Damascus Gate, suddenly his dog, running ahead of him, vanished.  As he searched for his dog who didn't respond as he usually did to his owner's whistles, he heard a muffled barking coming from the direction of the city wall.  When he approached the wall, he noticed a deep hole and when he peered inside, he heard his dog's familiar bark.  And this is how "Zedekiah's Cave" was discovered (or rediscovered).

This vast cavern is located underneath the Muslim section of the city, extending 750 feet into "Mt. Moriah", beginning at the trench or dry moat separating the northern and southern portion.

It is 325 feet wide at the maximum point and the average height is almost 50 feet. It was clearly a stone quarry, but at what point it was in use, we really do not know.  There are those who believe its stone was used in the first temple, and that may be true.  But its existence was not a well known fact and most likely it was always kept completely sealed for fear of any enemies trying to tunnel into the city.  Little is known for sure about the giant quarry, but one point everyone agreed on was the fact that there was no entrance into the city from the quarry.

Viewing the diagram of its layout, the dark areas are pillars of solid rock left in place to support the ceiling, like the pillars left in a coal mine.  As the miners work their way back out of the mine after depleting it of all its coal, they remove these pillars of coal and the mine usually caves in.

These were obviously left in place to prevent the cavern from collapsing since part of the northern city is above it. 

As Ron examined the quarry carefully, he noticed one thing that did not make sense.  He tried to put himself in the "shoes" of the ancient stonecutters as he surveyed this massive quarry.

Seeing how deep into the side of the mountain the quarry extended, he thought about how much work it would have been to bring all that stone out of the quarry, carry it through one of the northern gates and into the city. It would have been easier to quarry it out of the quarry across the street than to haul it out of that cavern.  To Ron, the solution was obvious - to cut a hole through the ceiling of the quarry and simply haul the rocks up into the city.  The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became to him - yet, no one had ever found an entrance into the quarry from the city. 

Ron began to examine the rock pillars; and sure enough, he found one that wasn't a stone pillar at all.  It was a giant mound of earth and debris, piled up, he believed, to the ceiling and through the hole in the ceiling.  On the surface it would look like normal ground.  But unable to examine the section above ground, he didn't know if the rock had been cut in a manner that would allow the cut-out section to fit back over the hole like a "man-hole cover" or if it was only the piled up earth that filled the hole.  But he was convinced that the hole is there.

A Babylonian Cherub had been found carved into the wall of one of the passageways.  Ron believed that this Cherub was placed there to mark the entrance to the passageway that was used by Jeremiah to take the Ark of the Covenant outside the city walls by way of the underground cave system.  

The "Cherub" from the cave wall

Blood on the Mercy Seat

On January 6, 1982 Ron Wyatt claimed to have located the chamber containing the Ark of the Covenant.   He had earlier discovered what he believed to be a crucifixion site directly above that chamber.   Ron determined that during the earthquake, at the time of the crucifixion, "the rocks were rent" and that a crack was formed connecting the site of the crucifixion and the chamber containing the Ark of the Covenant.

Ron has stated that, at the time of the crucifixion, the blood of Christ "went down through that crack: onto the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant that God had arranged to be hidden in that chamber hundreds of years before Christ died."

"Squarish Hole" & "Crack""

Blood samples were taken from the Ark of the Covenant dig and microscopic analysis has been performed.  There has been much talk of non-existent reports relating to the genetic material found in the blood.  There is, however, solid evidence to suggest that the sample taken by Ron Wyatt is indeed blood.  Wyatt Archaeological Research is now prepared to provide that evidence.

In order to understand the evidence which we will present, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the discovery of living blood particles which are too small to be seen using normal light microscopy.  

These blood particles have been found by scientists to be as they state "indestructible."  Dried blood when re-hydrated is found to contain these living particles.