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"And thou shalt make a menorah of pure gold, of beaten work shall the menorah be made: shaft and branches, bowls, its knops and its flowers shall be of the same." This menorah or candle-stick (candelabrum) was one of the principle ritual objects of the Holy Tabernacle (Exodus 25:31). Moshe (Moses) had great difficulty in making it and, according to the sages, a candelabrum of fire that descended from the heavens, was the pattern which Moshe imitated. This seven-branched candelabrum was first lit in the desert tabernacle of Moshe. Later, it was transferred to the temple at Shiloh, after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua.

Legends abound concerning the fate of the menorah. Some say that the Prophet Jeremiah took the temple vessels with him to the desert, where an angel hid them on top of a high mountain. The Maccabees, who purified the Temple after defeating the Greeks, could not find the gold menorah and they prepared a temporary iron one which they covered in white paint. It was the menorah about which the famous story of Hanukkah is told, of the oil, which was supposed to suffice for only one day, and miraculously lasted for eight days. Later, they built a new golden menorah. Following the destruction of the Temple, all of its holy vessels were looted and taken to Rome.

The Romans held a triumphal procession in which they carried the booty from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem through the streets of Rome. Among the items were the golden altar and the menorah. The Emperor Vespasian ordered that these be guarded especially carefully. The procession was subsequently immortalised on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

We have no knowledge as to what happened to the menorah afterwards. It disappeared, and all subsequent rumours are mere speculation. One such theory is that the Vandals under Gizerik removed many treasures from Rome when they captured the city in the year 455 C.E., and that among them was the menorah. According to this theory, when their kingdom was destroyed in turn, and Carthage was conquered by Belisarius, commander of the Byzantine army under the Emperor Justinian, the menorah was taken to Constantinople and kept in the emperor's palace.

A sixth-century Byzantine historian in Constantinople wrote that a Jewish sage warned Justinian that the Jewish sacred vessels would bring calamity upon him if not returned to Jerusalem, and if he were to continue keeping the menorah, his fate would be the same as that of Rome and the Vandals. According to the legend, Justinian took this advice, and a large cathedral was built at his command in Jerusalem to which he ordered the return of all the Jewish sacred vessels. The cathedral was destroyed in an earthquake in the eighth century and there is no consensus as to its exact location. Modern research suggests that it might have been located near the Dung Gate. Maybe the monks concealed the menorah there, if indeed it had made its way to Jerusalem.

This is, of course pure speculation. It may well be that the menorah was actually melted down in Rome because of its weight in gold. Some say it was lost with the Vandal ship that brought it to Carthage, because of the weight in gold on the vessel. Others say it was still in Constantinople up to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and that it then disappeared. Some claim that it was dropped into the Tiber River in Rome by the defeated Romans, or brought to Abyssinia by Romans fleeing the city, and lost there. Yet, another theory is that the treasure was taken as booty by the Persians in 614 C.E., when they conquered the Land of Israel.

According to a later theory, the treasures were kept in the monastery in Jerusalem's Valley of the Cross. In 796, the monks in this monastery were butchered by the Moslem conquerors. There was no trace of the treasure. If that theory can be believed, then maybe the menorah and the other holy vessels are still buried in the soil of Jerusalem.