Possible Tabernacle Unearthed at Ancient Shiloh: Archaeologists Link Stone Structure to Ark of the Covenant

On a sun-baked slope in the hill country of Ephraim, where the tribes of Israel once gathered, archaeologists have uncovered what may be one of the most sacred sites in biblical history: the resting place of the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary that, according to Scripture, once housed the Ark of the Covenant.

The excavation, led by Dr. Scott Stripling at the Tel Shiloh archaeological site, has revealed a massive Iron Age structure whose dimensions, orientation, and internal layout closely mirror the specifications laid out in Exodus 26. “We’ve uncovered a monumental building from the Iron I period that matches the biblical dimensions of the Tabernacle,” Stripling said. “The structure is oriented east-west and divided in a 2:1 ratio, just as described in scripture.”

The east-west orientation and division into two distinct areas—possibly representing the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies—point toward a ritual function consistent with the Tabernacle. According to the biblical account, the Ark, a gold-covered chest containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, was kept in the innermost chamber. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place… so that he may not die,’” reads Leviticus 16:2—a warning that underscored the deadly sanctity of the Ark and its surroundings.

The Jerusalem Post writes that Shiloh served as the first major religious center of Israel after the Exodus. According to the First Book of Samuel, the high priest Eli presided over the Tabernacle there. During a war with the Philistines, the Israelites carried the Ark from Shiloh to the battlefield, lost the battle, and the Ark was captured. When a messenger relayed the news to the 98-year-old, nearly blind Eli, he fell from his seat at the city gate, broke his neck, and died after judging Israel for forty years.Stripling said the gate area exposed during the recent season might be the very spot where Eli’s fatal collapse occurred.

The fate of the Ark remained one of antiquity’s enduring mysteries. The last biblical references to it disappeared before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Leviticus 16:2 warned that even the high priest could enter the inner sanctuary only under strict conditions, and Second Samuel recorded deadly consequences for those who touched or looked inside the Ark.

The archaeological case rests not only on architecture but also on an extraordinary volume of sacrificial remains. More than 100,000 animal bones—predominantly sheep, goats, and cattle—have been recovered at the site. Of particular interest is the overwhelming presence of right-side bones, a pattern that correlates with Leviticus 7, which designates the right side of the sacrifice for the priests. “This isn’t a coincidence,” Stripling told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The evidence of sacrificial rituals here is overwhelming, and it matches the biblical account to a degree that’s hard to ignore.”

The bone deposits were found alongside pottery fragments dating to the same period the Bible describes the Tabernacle as being active—roughly 400 years before King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem.

Shiloh, once Israel’s religious capital and the dwelling place of the Tabernacle after the Exodus from Egypt, features prominently in the Hebrew Bible. It was here that Eli the high priest ministered, and where, according to 1 Samuel 4, Israel lost the Ark to the Philistines. The moment of loss was so catastrophic that upon hearing the news, Eli—then 98 and nearly blind—fell backward, broke his neck, and died. Stripling’s team believes they may have located the very gate described in that passage, lending a physical anchor to a story long confined to sacred text.

Though the Ark’s final fate remains shrouded in mystery—vanishing from the historical record after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC—the Shiloh discovery breathes new life into its ancient story. As scholars and believers alike sift through the implications, one thing is clear: the stones of Shiloh are speaking again, and what they say may reshape our understanding of Israel’s earliest worship and the long-lost Ark it once revered.