In 2007 the skeletal remains of Australopithecus africanus, better known as “Lucy,” spent a full calendar year in a special exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) on a planned four-museum tour of the United States. Lucy's remains, dated to 3.2 million years BP based on radiometric dating of adjacent volcanic deposits, were discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974 in the Olduvai Gorge region of East Africa, formerly Abyssinia, now Ethiopia. Johanson has exhaustively documented Lucy (1981, 1996), who remains one of the most important hominid finds of the twentieth century, bringing recognition to an African nation that is otherwise a minor player on the global landscape. But while the actual HMNS display of Lucy required only a modest display area, the Ethiopian presentation was many times larger with a long approach before one could view Lucy. The focus was an elaborate narrative developed in maps, posters, photographs, and other display items featuring an astonishing claim concerning a surprising holding in an Ethiopian church: the original biblical Ark of the Covenant. Their claim to possess this artifact is their claim to a unique status in Christendom by virtue of owning a sacred object that disappeared from the biblical record almost 3000 years ago.

According to biblical stories, the Ark of the Covenant was a richly decorated container for the stone tablets received by Moses at Mount Sinai. After Yahweh recited the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20), he proceeded to deliver a series of general laws. Following this Yahweh spoke, specifying details of the Ark the Israelites should build, the Tabernacle to house it, its altar, and the details of religious ritual Yahweh expects (Exod. 25–31). The Ark should be two and a half cubits in length, one and a half cubits in breadth, and one and a half cubits high (45ʺ × 27ʺ × 27ʺ), made of acacia wood and overlaid inside and outside with gold. It should have gold rings on each side that can receive acacia-carrying poles.

The Ark was supposedly taken with the migrant Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai and carried into Palestine where it survived the Conquest under Joshua and the uncertainties of the era of the Judges. It was eventually installed in the Temple of Solomon, presumably in the tenth century BCE.