Bava Batra 14: What's in the Aron Kodesh?

The Gemara continues to discuss how the words of Torah were recorded on the Torah scroll so that the Torah was preserved without the possibility of dividing it.  Today the rabbis confirm that Torah scrolls were usually attached at both ends to poles, rather than to a pole only at the beginning of the scroll.  This would make it unlikely that people would cut the scroll to preserve only a part of the writing.

The rabbis wonder about the ideal size of a Torah scroll.  Should it be the same length and width?  They question the size of the Arc of the Covenant, the Aron Kodesh, in which Moshe Rabbeinu stored the tablets.  The rabbis suggest a number of different dimensions; most prominently, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda suggest sizing and placement within the Arc. Although we learn that there is "nothing in the Arc except for the two tablets," the rabbis argue that "nothing...except" is a case of a restriction followed by a restriction.  This would suggest that nothing was in the Arc at all.  Except that some rabbis suggest that a restriction followed by a restriction is the hermeneutical principle of amplification.  This would mean that the Arc includes an additional Torah scroll.  

The remainder of our daf is a collection of rabbinical imaginings of what might have been included in the Arc.  Two tablets plus the destroyed tablets plus a Torah scroll?  Including the Writings and the Prophets or not?  How might the Prophets have been collected and stored - in groups of twos? or fours?  One of their concerns was about any one item getting lost.  Amazing, when all of these items were lost.