Lost Relics of the Knights Templar

I recently started watching the TV series 'Lost Relics of the Knights Templar', which is showing on Blaze. It concerns items that were said to have been unearthed in Tomar, Portual by treasure hunters in the 1960s. These were sold to various buyers, and subsequently tracked down and reassembled by wealthy collectors Hamilton White and Carl Cookson, (who aside from these Templar items boast a marvellous and eclectic hoard of stuff, from gold bars to sports cars.)

Supposedly the people who unearthed the hoard in Tomar were looking for Roman gold and didn't really grasp the significance of what they had found. That seems rather odd, for though though there was a Roman settlement on the site of Tomar, the place is better known for its medieval, Templar history. The city was re-founded by the Master of the Templars in Portugal, Gualdim Pais, who now has a statue in the main square. Tomar became the regional headquarters of the Knights Templar, who had a fortress there complete with an impressive circular chapel. The city also boasts the church of Santa Maria Do Olival, where prominent templars were buried. When the Order of the Temple was suppressed, in the early fourteenth-century, by papal edict, a new military-religious order, called the Knights of Christ, arose to take their place. The Knights of Christ received all the Templar's lands and properties in Portugal, and Tomar became their HQ. Several other new orders in the Iberian Peninsula were beneficiaries of the Templar's confiscated assets, whereas elsewhere ex-Templar estates were mostly transferred to their long-standing rivals the Knights Hospitaller. It's not inconceivable that certain valuable items could have been hidden in the meantime. 

One must be cautious, of course. There are a lot of fake artworks and antiques out there, and a lot of clever forgers. It has been said that as many as half of the antiquities on the market may be fakes. (It is a similar story to the cult of religious relics in medieval times, with demand for these prestigious rarities out-stripping supply.)

One of the supposed 'Templar treasures' can't have come from the Tomar haul, if such there was. The 'Himmler Helmet' is a medieval (apparently) great helm, which has been augmented, with the emblem of the Ahnenerbe, on a brass plate attached to its brow, purporting to show that the helmet was around in Nazi Germany. This helmet is said to have been in a collection of medieval arms and armour of formerly kept by the SS at their HQ at Wewelsberg Castle.

Perhaps the most impressive 'Templar relic' that we are shown is a large chalice made of obsidian, a volcanic glass which is one of the hardest substances in nature. This is decorated with crosses of a type used by the Templars. The chalice was taken to be examined by Jonathan Tokeley Parry, former British Army officer, smuggler and apparently antiques expert and restorer. (He gained notoriety a few years back after receiving a criminal conviction for whisking authentic antiquities out of Egypt disguised as cheap tourist tat.) 'John T' reported that the obsidian of the cup could only be worked by scratching or tapping it with corundum, a harder stone. No metal tool would dent it, and therefore he estimated that it would have taken up to four years to make. He also found calcium deposits on the piece indicating that it had spent some time with water dripping on it, possibly in a cave. He identified the glue used in a mend as probably dating from the 1960s, when the chalice was discovered by the 'Portuguese Lovejoys', and he seemed to have few doubts about the chalice having authentic Templar origins. Later in the programme, he was shown a carving, on a stone, also in the collection of White and Cookson, of two monks venerating a chalice. This is said to be of twelfth-century Portuguese origin. He seemed to think this was not something that could have been shown outside without provoking a riot, and it was generally spoken of as evidence of some secretive 'grail-worshipping cult'. I wouldn't agree with that analysis. The liturgical chalice and holy wafer signified the Host, the body and blood of Christ, and would not have been particularly unorthodox objects of veneration. (The monks in the carving appeared to be Benedictions, as traces of brown paint remain on their habits.)

Another dubious claim, made in the programme, repeated by Tim Wallace Murphy, is that Obsidian was known as 'dragon stone', and that a winged dragon or serpent is one of the symbols of sacred knowledge. I'm not sure where this idea comes from. The narrator also refers to raw obsidian as 'dragon glass', (A fictional, obsidian-like substance called 'dragonglass' appears in the work of George RR Martin, in his 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, but that is the only thing I can find. No reference to 'dragonglass', according to Google Ngram Viewer, predates the mid 1990s when these fantasy novels were written.)

Tim Wallace Murphy is one of those who present the Templars as Gnostic initiates. He sees them as members of an esoteric tradition in opposition to a repressive Catholic Church. In the imagination of such people, a perfectly common cross design, cut into a cup, becomes a symbol of secret knowledge that the religious authorities sought to supress. I'm not sure how such opinions can be justified.

Another item in the collection is a sword embellished with inlaid crosses, which somehow came to be associated with a Templar Grand Master, namely Guillaume de Beaujeu, who fell in 1291 at the Siege of Acre. The sword looks correct for the period, design wise, and suitably time-worn, but beyond that there is not much more that can be said. Apparently it was recorded that de Beaujeu's sword was saved after the disaster at Acre, which effectively marked the end of the Crusader presence in the Holy land, but what happened to it subsequently is unknown. 

Other featured 'Templar' items include a metal reliquary-type box, and a stone cup with four bearded faces carved around it. Neither of these initially struck me as particularly likely candidates for being authentic Templar objects. One thing I noticed is that the reliquary had a scene of a figure fighting a dragon, and the man is holding an oval shield. A templar-era object ought to show a kite-shaped or triangular shield, I would think. The box is believed by Hamilton White to be post-Templar, but in a style that harps back. He associates it with Henry the Navigator (d. 1460), the Portuguese Prince who was master of the Order of Christ. The collectors' hypothesis seems to be that these treasures from Tomar were not buried by the Templars, but by the successor Order, which itself came under scrutiny from the Inquisition in later centuries, and felt the need to distance itself from its Templar legacy. Hence the burying of Templar-related artefacts.

The vessel with the heads on it, identified as heads of John the Baptist, was supported as an authentic piece by John Tokeley Parry, who noted marks on it left by plant roots which apparently would have taken some time to develop while it was buried underground. (The plant roots gave off moisture which caused crystals in the stone to grow in affected areas). Similar evidence was found on a marble chalice which is also part of the collection, (similar in design to the obsidian one, although smaller.) It's hypothesised that these two stone vessels were buried in a wooden box which subsequently disintegrated. The stone chalice differs from the obsidian one in having four letters carved in the spaces between the four crosses, namely 'I H S V'. This would likely stand for 'In Hoc Signo Vinces', i.e. 'by this sign conquer', a reference to the vision of the Emperor Constantine, who was told to put a Christian sign on his soldiers' shields before the battle of Milvian Bridge. ('IHS' is also a common abbreviation of Jesus, and the 'V' could be for for Vincit. Hence it could also signify 'Jesus is victorious'). 

It is all very interesting, but I would not put it beyond the capability of a master forger to replicate signs of age, and thereby to falsify history, so would I remain cautious concerning the artefacts in question.