https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)
Triumph
Titus and his soldiers celebrated victory upon their return to Rome by parading the Menorah and Table of the Bread of God’s Presence through the streets. Up until this parading, these items had only ever been seen by the High Priest of the Temple. This event was memorialized in the Arch of Titus.[50]
Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains during the triumph, among them Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala.[51][57] Simon bar Giora was executed by being thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor,[58] while John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment.[59][60]
somewhere the loot is being paraded.....................
Further thought:
1) Why wasn’t the arc of the covenant paraded by the Romans?
2) There was another time these items were revealed to the public. Anyone know when?
LOT of speculation and conjecture about that.
The church in Ethiopia claims to have the Ark, they keep it in a chapel where a guardian spends his entire life keeping watch over... something (the Ark or not). Before he dies he picks another man to be guardian.
It used to be that the Ark was brought out during festivals. Always covered, so that it could not be seen. There is a photograph from Fifties/Sixties that shows a black-covered object, about the size of a trunk, being hoisted aloft during a festival. Depending on who you believe, it's the only photograph known to exist of the Ark of the Covenant.
Somehow, the Ark escaped the Babylonians and ended up in Tanis, Egypt, where it was discovered by Indiana Jones before being swiped by a some Nazis and a French archaeologist named Belloq. Eventually, it ended up in an American government warehouse, after being examined by some top men ... *top* men.
Or so I'm told.