According to the Bible, the Ark was carried at the head of the Israelite army, where it radiated miraculous power. 

Moses and the Ten Commandment Tablets.

The Ark of the Covenant, as described in the Old Testament.

The two tail stars of the Big Dipper, now called Benetnash and Mizar, which to the ancient Israelites represented the guardian angels depicted on the lid of the Ark.

According to Old Testament Book of Exodus in the Bible, the ancient Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt around what can be dated to about 1300 BC, give or take a few decades. For some time they wandered in the wilderness to the east of Egypt until they came to a holy mountain called Mount Sinai or The Mountain of God where God physically appeared to them.

And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace... (Exodus 19:18)

God then called upon the Israelite leader Moses:

And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:20)

After God instructed Moses in the holy laws that were the to be the foundation of the Hebrew religion, he gave Moses two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments:

And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
(Exodus 31:18)

Cut from the rock on top of the mountain, these tablets not only contained God’s written commandments as to how the Israelites should live, they were able to manifest God’s awesome power. So powerful was this divine force said to be that a special container was made to hold the tablets according to God’s instructions.

And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold… And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony [the Ten Commandments] which I shall give thee. (Exodus 25:10-16)

Called the Ark of the Covenant, it is described as an ornate chest, approximately four feet long, two and a half feet wide and two and a half feet high, made of wood overlaid with gold. A decorated golden rim ran around the top, and on the sides of the Ark there were rings through which poles could be passed so that it could be carried. On the lid, facing each other, were two golden cherubim, or angels, with their wings outstretched. They were said to have been the two archangels Michael and Gabriel which according to Hebrew tradition guarded the gates of heaven and were represented in the sky by the two tail stars of the constellation Ursa Major, popularly known as the Big Dipper or the Plough.

With the stone tablets inside it, the Ark was said to be able to channel a holy force that could create storms, radiate divine fire, level city walls, smash chariots and destroy entire armies. Moreover, it could summon angels and even manifest the voice and presence of God.

According to the Bible, once the Israelites conquered what is now Israel, the Ark was kept in a great temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. Here it remained with other treasures until Jerusalem was invaded and the temple plundered by the Babylonians (from what is now Iraq) in 597 BC. From that time, the Ark and the tablets it contained disappeared from record. What happened to them is one of history’s must enduring mysteries.