Every year, the 2200 members of the Swedish Humanities Federation receive a newly written publication in Swedish humanities research. For 2020, a book by Jan Retsö, Professor of Arabic, is planned, "From Sinai to Ethiopia - the legend of the Israeli Ark of the Covenant". The Ark of the Covenant is first mentioned in the Old Testament Book of Exodus (Exodus 25:10-16). It contains the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments of God, and the Ark contains supernatural powers that give the Israelites success in battles with other tribes. The Ark of the Covenant disappears from biblical history relatively early on, but lives on in Jewish and Christian legends. In popular culture, it has played a central role in the first Indiana Jones movie. Information is now circulating that the Ark is preserved in the Zion Cathedral in Axum, Ethiopia. Retsö's book provides an account and critical review of the stories about the Ark, up to the present day. The book's (tentatively) 20 chapters are grouped into three sections: The Ark in the Old Testament; The Ark in Post-Biblical Early Jewish and Christian Tradition; The Ark Tradition in the Red Sea Countries. The reader is not only introduced to the stories about the Ark, but above all follows how science - research in the history of religion, archaeology and text-philologically oriented orientalism - has related to these stories since the end of the 18th century. In this way, the book also provides a historical perspective in today's discussion of factual resistance and the responsibility of research.