The argument you set out is not the best analysis.
Hancock's book sets out a very credible path by which the Ark moved from the Temple to Ethopia. There is considerable correspondence from the priests at the temple built at Elephantine Island to the captives in Babylon which has recently be discovered and translated. There is also surviving evidence in Ethopia on the islands in Lake Tana.
The copies do not purport to be copies of the Ark itself but rather of the tablets on which the law is engraved.
Another Al Capone treasury cache?
Where did I read that?