About 500 miles north of Addis Ababa, in the province of Tigray, is the dusty overgrown village of Aksum. And at the end of its only paved street, inside an arid compound, is St Mary of Zion church, a Byzantine-looking domed edifice built by Emperor Haile Selassie in the 1960s.

A man, seated under sequined claret umbrellas on the steps outside, address-es the multitude. He wears a pale yellow crown and is flanked by priests carrying outsized, ornate gold crosses and dressed in gorgeous robes, in stark contrast to the tattered pilgrims who listen intently in the shade of lilac trees.

“It’s the bishop from Addis,” whispers Haile, the local museum’s archeologist, who also doubles as tour guide. “Today is St Mary Day and you’re lucky to see him.”

I hadn’t come to see him, however – I was here to see what is reputedly housed nearby, in a small, unpretentious granite building. Surrounded by an impenetrable fence, the building has a flaking, green-tiled cupola crowned by a cross and burgundy drapes hanging over the tantalisingly open front door, where white-robed novices hover.

“You don’t really believe it’s there?” I ask Haile sceptically.

“Of course!” he retorts indignantly, convinced, like all Ethiopians, that what is stored in that carefully guarded sanctuary is the Ark of the Covenant, the container for the Tables of the Law, which God allegedly gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.

“No chance of getting in, I suppose?” I inquire, knowing full well that only the guardian inside (an elderly and especially holy monk) is allowed to set eyes on it.

“Not unless you want to burst into flames,” he says, referring to the Old Testament fate of those who approached it too closely.

The Kebra Negast, the national 14th-century epic, confirms Aksum’s claim to the Ark. This maintains not only that the Queen of Sheba was Ethiopian, but also that in 1000BC she visited Israel’s King Solomon. He immediately wanted to make love to the enchanting virginal queen, but assured her he would take nothing from her so long as she took nothing from him.

Nonetheless, after eating his specially prepared spicy banquet, that night she drank a glass of water that the crafty king had placed by her bedside. Solomon demanded his side of the deal and Sheba returned home bearing his child, the future King Menelik.

Still, she had her revenge; 20 years later, Menelik visited his father in Jerusalem, before making off with the Ark and establishing the dynasty that reigned for 3,000 years until Haile Selassie’s overthrow in 1974.

On the other side of the road is Aksum’s remarkable Northern Stelae Field, containing 120 stone obelisks erected in northeast Africa millenniums ago. The stelae were used by local rulers as tombstones-cum-billboards to proclaim their power. Sculpted from a single piece of granite, complete with windows and doors, some resembled mini-skyscrapers.

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