The Sign and the Seal by Hancock (1993, Paperback, Reprint)

If you like books that teach, entertain and make you think, this is a book for you. The Sign and the Seal is one man's journey to find answers to what
he considers to be the ultimate question - "Where is the ark of the
covenant today?". Not thin in size or content, the book is 600 pages (515 in
the story itself). I found myself repeatedly saying, I wish I could go to the places and see the things he was writting about while following a long, old trail of what happened to the ark after it left the temple. Hancock's writing style is very conversational - it is like he was sitting in the room with you and either talking to you or thinking out loud; so it is not a college professor's first choice for style. But that is one reason why it is enjoyable.
Topics it covers: Solomon's Temple, the Ark, life at during time, a wide region of Eygpt and the middle east, connections between regional and cultural beliefs, and the Knights Templar.
Good book, worth spending the time reading, at the end you will come away with thinking the phase "Enjoyable, worthwhile and not surprising ending."
Mike Moore
staff writer for On The Trail magazine
author (Heroes to Me, Rocky Mountain Album and Life in the Far West)
well over 110 articles published nationally

This book is awesome. Peorple can try criticizing this book however it makes it that much more essential reading. This is the third Graham Hancock Book I am reading as my first Graham Hancock book I read was his collaboration with Robert Bauvel, Talisman. I then read his work the Fingerprints of the Gods. I am in effect working backwords thru Graham Hancocks most famous works as well as being able to witness his evolution as a writer. You can easily see how his writing has become more and more refined however to read the Sign and the Seal you sense that you are there with Graham Hancock on the ground in a literal literary Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am not able to put the book down. In reading Grahams books I have gotten to know him as he has prodded me to grow and think, I have been deeply moved by his work. This book is the modern gold standard in the search for the Judaic Lost Ark of Covenant. You will easily and naturally benefit by reading The Sign and the Seal.