Tudor Parfitt has spent years chasing a theory that a lost tribe of Jews wound up in southern Africa. But his latest leap has landed him in a minefield.
His theory is the remains of a 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic, which he tracked down in a Zimbabwe museum storeroom in 2007, could be a replica of the Ark of the Covenant that carried the Ten Commandments.
According to African legend, white lions of God and a two-headed snake guarded the “drum that thunders” in a cave in southwestern Zimbabwe’s sacred Dumbwe mountains. Parfitt has sparked fierce reactions from some Zimbabwean scholars, who suspect a plot to superimpose foreign origins on what is a product of African culture.
Having long disappeared from public view since its discovery in the 1940s, the artefact is now on display at the Harare Museum of Human Sciences. It is about 1.14m by 61cm in diameter and 68.5cm tall with a pattern of shallow engraving on the outside that could have held gold threads. Scorch marks on the base inside were possibly left by primitive gun powder.
Parfitt, a professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of London’s prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies, says he first heard of the vessel during his two-decade search for Jewish tribes lost in Africa.
At the centre of that research is a southern African ethnic group variously called Lemba, Remba or waLemba. Parfitt says 52 per cent of them carry a Y chromosome known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH) – unique to ancient priestly Jewish communities and raising the possibility they are descended from Aaron, Moses’ brother. Other groups in Zimbabwe have no CMH.
The waLemba are also set apart from other tribes by such Jewish customs as observing a weekly Sabbath, practising circumcision, shunning pork and slaughtering animals by methods similar to Jewish kosher rules.
Both theories behind the relic are offered at the museum. One says the original Ark of the Covenant may have been destroyed when Babylonians invaded Jerusalem in 586 BC, that several copies likely were made and that one was taken to Ethiopia by Prince Menelik, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Another could have found its way to ancient Zimbabwe.
The other posits it is a purely African relic, and was made by waLemba craftsmen for royal elders to give them magical powers.
The artefact is called “Ngoma Lungundu,” the “drum that thunders,” while the waLemba call it “the voice of God”.
Zimbabwean historian Rob Burrett disputes Parfitt’s theories.
“He is on the wrong track. Wooden drums – ceremonial drums and war drums with great powers similar to those attributed to the ark – are an integral part of African culture,” Burrett said.
The genetic test “doesn’t prove anything”, he said, noting that early European explorers of the east African coast found a strong presence of Arab and Jewish traders moving into the African interior.
Burrett added: “There is a fear of undermining the post-independence myth that we are one people, not divided by tribe or origin. It’s as though we are in denial of having a multicultural society.”
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