Ark of the Covenant

"'Thou shall not covet; thou shall not steal'? (Laughs) Who could live by those laws?"

- Autolycus, "The Royal Couple of Thieves" The Ark of the Covenant was a biblical artefact, which was said to contain a "great weapon." Although never referred to as the "Ark of the Covenant" in, it is most definately said item, as Autolycus reads out two of the ten commandments from a stone tablet, which the bible says were contained inside the Ark. It is only referred to on-screen as "The Chest."

It was owned by a group of people (heavily implied to be the Israelites), who had helped Xena when she was wounded in battle once. When a thief, Malthus, stole it from them in order to put it up for auction, Xena enlisted the help of Autolycus (who posed as the deadly Sinteres, who was later killed by Xena) to retrieve it. They eventually succeeded, over-coming the power of the Ark itself when the weapon was released by Arkel, a buyer in the auction.