Tag: discovery

Set your record buttons for Jamie Theakston and Forbidden History!

Posted on by Tony McMahon
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Jamie Theakston and the Forbidden History team in my study

From mid-June, Jamie Theakston will be presenting the fourth series of Forbidden History on UKTV’s Yesterday Channel and on Discovery AHC in the autumn. The fourth programme in this series will be The Dark Truths of the Templars and yours truly will be appearing as a contributor.

Jamie and the team landed in my study a few months back and we discussed all things Templar for a couple of hours. It’s been in post-production ever since but excitingly is now ready to broadcast.

I haven’t seen the finished programme but issues we covered included:

  • How did an order of monastic knights pledged to vow of poverty become so hugely rich?
  • What could have been the real reasons for the formation of the Knights Templar in 1118?
  • The connections between the order’s founders and some very wealth and influential people
  • Why did the Templars base themselves on the Temple mount in Jerusalem and what were they doing there?
  • The salacious charges brought against the Knights Templar during their trial
  • Did the secular powers, kings and pope, manage to seize all their treasure or did they escape with some of it?
  • What do we make of persistent accusations that the Templars were influenced in their rites by pre-Christian and non-Christian ideas?

Do feed back to me what you think. There will be other TV appearances later in the year and I’ll keep you posted. Make sure all your Templar fans and friends are watching!

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Evidence of the Knights Templar fleeing the Holy Land with their loot?

Posted on by Tony McMahon
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Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority

The former Templar stronghold of Acre in modern Israel has been throwing up some interesting discoveries of late.

A team from Haifa University found the wreck of a long lost crusader ship in the bay with a horde of golden coins lying next to it on the seabed. The gold is dated with certainty to the latter half of the 13th century and that fits with the fall of Acre to the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt in 1291. It seems that Christian soldiers, faced with certain defeat, gathered up their wealth and tried to make a getaway.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports on the story HERE. There has always been a great deal of speculation as to what happened to the treasure amassed by the Templars in the Holy Land. This will fuel the suspicion that they spirited a good deal of it back to their preceptories in Europe – making them a target for resentment later on.

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Secret Templar tunnel in Acre – from my visit in 2012

Another team from Haifa University has made yet another incredible discovery outside the Ottoman walls of the city. They have found the headquarters of the Teutonic Order, another militarised monastic warrior elite force during the crusades.

After the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, Acre became the centre of crusader operations in the Holy Land. The Christian territories were much diminished by 1291 and looking back, it does seem that defeat was inevitable.

When it came though, the clock began ticking against the Knights Templar. Driven out of all their mainland fortresses in the Holy Land – what was their raison d’etre? How could they claim to have God on their side when defeat after defeat suggested otherwise? Within 20 years after the fall of Acre, the Templar order would be wiped out by the French monarchy and the papacy acting in concert.