In Christian archaeology, it is represented in three scenes from the Old Testament in the 5th-century mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome; it is carried on the shoulders by four Levites, as in the Joshua Roll of the Vatican Library.
Entirely characteristic is its mosaic representation in the eastern apse of the church of Germigny-des-Prés (Loiret) in France, built by Bishop Theodulf of Orléans (d. 821); there, according to the text of Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9, it is surmounted by two gilded cherubim and protected by two large winged angels; from the star-studded sky the divine hand extends; the inscription accompanying the scene invites one to behold the holy oracle and to contemplate the splendor of God’s ark.
BIBL.: For the Joshua Roll: P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Il rotolo di Giosuè, codice Vaticano palatino greco 431, reproduced in phototype and photochromography by the Vatican Library, Milan 1906. For Rome: Wilpert, Mosaihen, III (plates 22, 23, 25). For Germigny-des-Prés: H. E. Del Medico, La mosaique de l'abside orientale à Germigny-des-Pres, in Fondation E. Piot, 39 (1943), pp. 81-102 and plate VIII.