MORE ON TUDOR PARFITT'S ARK OF THE COVENANT, including a picture:

The man who says he has the lost Ark
07/03/2008 (Jewish Chronicle)
By Simon Rocker
In the Bible, it could be seen only by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. Anyone who lay an unauthorised finger upon it would instantly drop dead. It was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it vapourised its Nazi captors.

Now a British academic believes he has unravelled the mystery behind one of antiquity’s most sought-after objects — the lost Ark of King Solomon’s Temple.

Tudor Parfitt, professor of Hebrew at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, has located an object he believes could be the successor to the original Ark.

[...]

And so on. (Background here.) But I haven't seen this before:

But Professor Parfitt believes that the biblical Ark was not quite what it appears. It was a drum-like object which doubled as a primitive cannon, releasing a kind of early, perhaps saltpetre-based explosive. “The Ark did blast things,” he said. “It was a kind of weapon, it is obvious from the text.”

There is no basis for this in the biblical texts about the Ark. I remain unconvinced.