Religious archaeologists in Israel claim they have found the stone where the Ark of the Covenant once sat.

The Bible bombshell was made by researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv University, who found a 3,100-year-old temple near the modern-day town of Beit Shemesh.

Biblical scholars believe that the Ark contained the Ten Commandments which Moses received on Mount Sinai.

They also claim that the Ark was on top of a large square table.

The stone was covered with animal dung, which archaeologists believe was a result of the Philistines.

Archaeologists claim the stone is remarkably similar to a mythical “large stone” described in the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament.

It was used to hold up the Ark after it arrived at Beth Shemesh when the Philistines returned it to the Israelis.

The relic was 28ft (8.5m) long on each side and perfectly square.

Excavations of the temple from the 12th century BC reveal it was later plundered and “intentionally desecrated” by the Philistines, who turned it into an animal pen.

The legendary Ark of the Covenant has been sought by archaeologists for centuries and was the subject of the fictional 1981 Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It is believed that the 3,100-year-old building is a temple because it was separated from most of the other neighbouring buildings, had stronger walls, and pointed east in the direction of the rising sun.

Experts claim that two large round stones with carved gutters found at the site may have been used for producing sacred wine for ceremonies.

Rituals may have been performed at the site, as indicated by the fact that animal bone, pottery and cups were also discovered there.

Professor Shlomo Bunimovitz, the archaeologist leading the dig, said: “There is a lot of evidence that it was indeed a temple.

“When you look at the structure and its content, it’s very clear that this is not a standard domestic space but something special.”

The holy site was plundered and destroyed, before being turned into an animal pen, Dr Zvi Lederman, another leading archaeologist on the project, said.

“To me, this is an act of hostility, an intentional desecration of a holy place.”

Beit Shemesh was a border town in pre-monarchic Israel and was often a flashpoint in conflicts between the Israelites and Philistines.

This isn’t the first time archaeologists have claimed to have found the ancient relic.

In September last year, Daily Star Online mapped the possible locations of the Ark of the Covenant.

The Shining – arguably the most famous horror film of all time – is finally getting a sequel, 39 years after the original was released in 1980.

Doctor Sleep, adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name which came out in 2013, picks up from where his first novel left off in 1977.

It stars Ewan McGregor as Dan Torrance, who in The Shining was a small child, struggling to get over the trauma of his youth.

In Stanley Kubrick’s masterful adaptation of King’s novel, Danny, played by child actor Danny Lloyd, is a small boy with the power to see into the past and discover the horrific past of the Overlook Hotel, where he and his parents – played by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall – are holed up for the winter while his dad finishes his writing.

Using his “shining”, Danny is able to see the brutal murders which took place at the hotel, and also predict his own father’s descent into bloodthirsty madness, as he tries to kill the pair.

But Kubrick’s film has since inspired a number of conspiracy theories about what the legendary director was really trying to say.

One of the wildest theories surrounding the film is that it was Stanley Kubrick’s apology for faking the moon landings.

Some conspiracists claim Kubrick was responsible for filming fake footage of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 space missions.

It was said that when his film 2001: A Space Odyssey was in post-production, Kubrick was approached by NASA and asked to “fake” the footage of US astronauts on the moon.

Much of the 1968 classic takes place on the surface of the moon, where astronauts discover a black monolith which holds the key to mankind’s evolution.

Conspiracists say Kubrick’s knowledge and understanding of front-projection techniques was used to make the moon landing footage more “believable”.

Years after The Shining came out, some point to the fact that Danny wears an Apollo 11 sweater throughout much of the film as evidence that the film is Kubrick’s apology for his role in the coverup.

Another popular theory is that The Shining is about the Holocaust.

Kubrick – who grew up in a Jewish household in New York – reportedly always wanted to make a film about the Nazi mass-extermination of European Jews during World War Two, but didn’t want to make an overt Holocaust film.

Many film critics have picked up on the multiple appearances of the number 42 in The Shining.

Danny wears a T-shirt with the number 42 on it at one stage, and Wendy, Jack’s wife, takes 42 swings at her husband with a baseball bat when he tries to kill her.

The number 42 has long been seen by some as referring to Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”, which was agreed upon in 1942.

Also, the typewriter which Jack is seen using is a German-made Adler Eagle machine, which according to Professor Geoffrey Cocks, author of The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust, is symbolic of the Nazi’s bureaucratic murder machine.

Another common idea is that the film is about the genocide of Native Americans.

Early in The Shining, we are told that the Overlook Hotel in the Coloradan Rockies was built on an ancient Indian burial ground, and throughout the film, there are nods to Native American imagery.

Cans of Calumet brand baking powder feature in an early scene. Calumet was a form of Native American peace pipe. There are also many pieces of Native American-style artworks and patterns around the hotel.

In the documentary Room 237, covering theories about The Shining, one expert explains how he believes the iconic scene where the hotel lift doors open, unleashing a tidal wave of blood, is a sign that the graveyard below the hotel is revealing the centuries of trauma and murder which created the United States.

At another stage, where Jack “goes back in time” to a party at the hotel, he describes to the barman about “The White Man’s Burden”. Most-commonly associated with Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem of the same name, it is seen as a racist phrase referring to the “responsibility” white people have to “civilise” the “backward” peoples of the world.

Doctor Sleep, the eagerly-awaited sequel to The Shining, sees Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, who in the original was a child.

Still haunted by what he saw at the Overlook Hotel, Dan has become an alcoholic to suppress his “Shining”, the psychic ability to telepathically communicate.

Stanley Kubrick’s classic has inspired a huge number of conspiracies, including that the film was the director’s apology for helping NASA fake the moon landings.

Many conspiracists claim the film – like many of Kubrick’s – was full of references to the Illuminati.

They point to visual references to Masonic symbols, such as the Eye of Providence and triangles, which feature highly in his films.

In The Shining, there are many shots of triangular chair backs, stepladders, roofs, mountains, and tapering corridors.

Conspiracists allege Kubrick was murdered by the Illuminati, in 1999, for exposing too much of the inner workings of the secretive group, but that it was made to look like a heart attack.

They point to his final film released several months after his death, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, for revealing how secret societies function.

In a piece by self-described “Illuminati Watcher” Isaac Weishaupt, he points to the figure in a bear costume which appears as a supernatural vision towards the end of the film as referring to Illuminati sex parties.

The bear figure appears to be performing a sex act on a man in a dinner jacket, and the scene appears to mirror the “deviant elite” parties in Eyes Wide Shut.

In The Shining’s final scene, Jack Nicholson’s character is seen as the hotel manager from the July 4th ball in 1921.

Isaac points to the fact Jack appears to be in so-called Baphomet stance, with his right arm pointing up and his left arm pointing down.

Baphomet, a goat-headed god-like figure that the medieval Knights Templar were accused of worshipping, is one of the most common occult symbols.

Isaac refers to Danny’s journey down the hallway to the notorious room 237, where many of the hotel’s horrors are hiding.

He links this to Kubrick’s alleged faking of the moon landings, as put forward by conspiracists, and the 237,000-mile journey between Earth and the Moon.

Isaac writes: “Room 237 is where the awful secrets are kept, similar to how Kubrick had to keep the Illuminati secrets from the masses.”

As well as secret societies, conspiracists have claimed that The Shining is a metaphor for the CIA‘s alleged secret Cold War mind control problem.

In one early scene featuring the creepy twin girls, a skiing poster on the wall prominently features the word Monarch.

This is taken by some as a supposed code name for the CIA behavioural engineering programme MKUltra, which used LSD, hypnotherapy and sleep deprivation to understand mind control.

According to the theory, the many continuity errors and geographical impossibilities throughout the film point to the fact that Jack and his family are hallucinating throughout their stay in the sinister Overlook Hotel.

Theorists claim Jack’s employment as winter caretaker at the hotel is a front so that the US government can test out mind control techniques on the family.