The Sign and the Seal

by Graham Hancock

  52 Helen Adolf, ‘New Light on Oriental Sources for Wolfram’s Parzival’, op. cit., p. 307.

  53 For confirmation of the use of stone ‘white and beautiful like marble’ in the most precious tabots see C. F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford (eds), The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John, being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520 written by Father Francisco Alvarez, Cambridge, published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1961, vol. II, p. 543.

  54 Helen Adolf, ‘New Light on Oriental Sources for Wolfram’s Parzival’, op. cit., p. 309.

  55 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., for example p. 240. Another even more specific example of the Grail’s legislative function occurs on p. 406.

  56 Ibid., p. 246.

  57 Judges 20:27–8.

  58 1 Samuel 3:1–11.

  59 1 Chronicles 28. Note in particular verse 19.

  60 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 243.

  61 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1911, vol. III, pp. 128–9.

  62 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 232. Emphasis added.

  63 The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Funk & Wagnells, New York, 1925, vol. II, p. 107. See also Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978, reprinted by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 1985, p. 246. Haran states the scholarly view that ‘the Ark held not the two tables of the law but … a meteorite from Mount Sinai’.

  64 For a discussion see Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 148, footnote 28.

  65 Jennifer Westwood (ed.), The Atlas of Mysterious Places, Guild Publishing, London, 1987, p. 74.

  66 Ibid.

  67 For a lengthy and very scholarly discussion of these links see two papers by Julian Morgenstern: ‘The Book of the Covenant’, Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. V. 1928; and ‘The Ark, the Ephod and the Tent of Meeting’, Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. XVII, 1942–3; both reprinted by KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1968. In ‘The Book of the Covenant’, p. 118, Morgenstern writes: ‘The most natural assumption is that the Ark contained a betyl … This conception was, of course, common amongst the primitive Semites, and the evidence is ample that it was current in ancient Israel.’

  68 W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 1884, cited in Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 148.

  69 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 239.

  70 See, for example, Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., pp. 149 and 157.

  71 John Matthews, The Grail: Quest for the Eternal, op. cit., p. 17. Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz also suggest a similar derivation: The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 148.

  72 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., e.g. pp. 225, 240.

  73 Ibid., pp. 126–7.

  74 Tan. Terumah, XI; also, with slight variations, Yoma 39b. Cited in The Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. II, op. cit., p. 105.

  75 I Kings 8:12.

  76 Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem: The Sacred Land, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1973, vol. I, pp. 11–12.

  77 E.g., Exodus 40:20–38.

  78 Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, op. cit., p. 417.

  79 Ibid.

  80 Exodus 37:1–2.

  81 Exodus 37:6.

  82 Exodus 34:29–30. This is the Jerusalem Bible translation, direct from Hebrew, rather than through Greek in the case of the King James Authorized Version (The Jerusalem Bible, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968). The King James Version has the two verses as follows: ‘And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.’

  83 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 125.

  84 Ibid., p. 125.

  85 Ibid., p. 125.

  86 Ibid., pp. 125 and 401.

  87 Ibid., p. 239.

  88 Ibid., p. 389.

  89 1 Chronicles 15:2. Similarly see Deuteronomy 10:8.

  90 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, op. cit.

  91 Ibid., p. 98.

  92 Ibid., p. 79.

  93 Ibid., p. 95.

  94 In his translation, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge used a variety of different words and phrases to refer to the Ark of the Covenant – e.g. ‘Zion’, ‘Heavenly Zion’, ‘Tabernacle of His Law’, ‘Tabernacle of His Covenant’, ‘Tabernacle of the Law of God’. He makes clear at several points that these terms are all completely interchangeable and that they refer to exactly the same thing. For example, in his Introduction (p. xvii), he speaks of ‘the Tabernacle of the Law of God, i.e. the Ark of the Covenant’. Likewise, within the main body of the translation, there are several points, cross-referenced to biblical passages, at which this interchangeability of terms for the Ark (including ‘Zion’ and ‘Heavenly Zion’) is unequivocally spelled out – e.g. pp. 14–15 and 178. For purposes of clarity in my own text, and with apologies to Budge, I have adopted the policy of simplifying this confusing terminological spaghetti. In all my quotations from the Kebra Nagast the familiar epithets ‘Ark of the Covenant’, ‘Ark of His Covenant’, ‘Ark of God’, ‘Ark of the Lord’, and just plain ‘Ark’ will be used.

  95 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 169.

  96 Ibid. pp. 94–5.

  97 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 393.

  Chapter 4 A Map to Hidden Treasure

  1 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980, p. 22.

  2 Ibid., p. 17.

  3 Ibid., p. 22.

  4 See, for example, H. St John Philby, The Queen of Sheba, Quartet Books, London, 1981, pp. 58–60.

  5 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 30.

  6 Ibid., p. 27.

  7 Ibid., p. 24.

  8 Ibid., p. 34.

  9 Ibid., p. 39.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Ibid., p. 56.

  13 Ibid., p. 40.

  14 Ibid., p. 66.

  15 The complex tangle of relationships in Parzival requires some unravelling. On pp. 439–47 of the Penguin Classics edition, Professor A. T. Hatto provides a useful glossary of personal names. Feirefiz is described on p. 440 as ‘Parzival’s infidel half-brother; son of Gahmuret and his first wife Belacane’.

  16 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, The Queen of Sheba and her Only Son Menelik: being the ‘Book of the Glory of Kings’ (Kebra Nagast), Oxford University Press, 1932, p. 35.

  17 Ibid., p. 37.

  18 Ibid., p. 38.

  19 See Chapter 3, note 94 above.

  20 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 102. For a further example of the emphasis on skin colour in the Kebra Nagast set p. 156.

  21 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., Professor A. T. Hatto’s footnote to p. 40.

  22 A. N. Veselovskij, ‘On the Problem of the Origin of the Grail Legend’, Zurnal [Journal] of the [Russian] Ministry for the Enlightenment of the People, Moscow, February 1904, p. 452. See also Helen Adolf, ‘New Light on Oriental Sources for Wolfram’s Parzival and other Grail Romances’, Publications of the Modern Languages Association of America, vol. 62, March 1947, p. 310.

  23 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 46.

  24 Dr E. Littman (trans. and ed.), The Legend of the Queen of Sheba in the Tradition of Axum, Bibliotheca Abessinica (Studies Concerning the Languages, Literature and History of Abyssinia), vol. I, Princeton University Library, 1904, p. 9.

  25 See Chapter 3 above.

  26 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., pp. 406–7.

  27 Ibid., p. 408.

  28 See
, for example, C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (eds), The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John, being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520 written by Father Francisco Alvarez, Cambridge, published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1961.

  29 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 408.

  30 Linda B. Parshall, The Art of Narration in Wolfram’s ‘Parzival’ and Albrecht’s ‘Jüngerer Titurel’, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 1.

  31 Henry and Mary Garland, The Oxford Companion to German Literature, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 892.

  32 Dorothy Reich, A History of German Literature, Blackwood, Edinburgh and London, 1970, p. 95.

  33 Linda B. Parshall, The Art of Narration in Wolfram’s ‘Parsival’ and Albrecht’s ‘Jüngerer Titurel’, op. cit., p. 1.

  34 No English translation exists of Der Jüngerer Titurel. That it depicts the last resting place of the Holy Grail as being ‘the land of Prester John’ is, however, not in dispute. Readers who wish to follow the matter further, and who read German, are referred to K. A. Hahn, Titurel, Leipsig, 1842. See also Werner Wolf and Kurt Nyholm’s edited edition in several volumes in the Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters (DTM) series, originally published by the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Berlin, 1955–84.

  35 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parsival, op. cit., p. 408.

  36 Ibid., p. 408.

  37 Ibid., p. 373.

  38 Ibid., p. 377.

  39 See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th (1910) end, p. 304. See also Sergew Hable-Selassie, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270, Haile-Selassie I University, Addis Ababa, 1972, pp. 254–5.

  40 Ibid.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Ibid., p. 261.

  43 Ibid, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit., p. 305.

  44 Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit., p 305

  45 For a discussion see Irmgard Bidder, Lalibela: the Monolothic Churches of Ethiopia, M. DuMont, Cologne, p. 11.

  46 See Chapter 1 above for full details.

  47 Helen Adolf, ‘New Light on Oriental Sources’, op. cit., p. 306.

  48 E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia, London, 1928, p. 178.

  49 Extract from The Travels of Marco Polo, quoted in Henry Sah, A Voyage to Abyssinia Frank Cass and Co., London, 1967, Appendix V.

  50 Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit., p. 306.

  51 C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (eds), The Prester John of the Indies, op. cit., see p. 5.

  52 Ibid., e.g. p. 296.

  53 Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit., p. 306.

  54 Ibid., p. 306.

  55 Ibid., p. 306.

  56 Ibid., p. 304.

  57 Ibid., p. 306 (emphasis added).

  58 David Buxton, The Abyssinians, Thames & Hudson, London, 1970, p. 45.

  59 See Chapter 3 above.

  60 John Matthews, The Grail: Quest for the Eternal, Thames & Hudson, London, 1987, p. 69.

  61 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ope cit., p. 591.

  Chapter 5 White Knights, Dark Continent

  1 Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, Coventure, London, 1986, pp. 10–11. (Originally published by Walter Verlag, Olten, 1980, and in the USA by Sigo Press, Boston, 1970.)

  2 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980, p. 232. See also p. 213.

  3 Ibid., p. 410.

  4 Ibid., p. 233.

  5 Ibid., p. 214.

  6 See Jessie L. Weston’s translation of Parzival, David Nutt, London, 1894, ‘Excursus A: Wolfram’s Source’, pp. 191–2. See also Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 152.

  7 Ibid.

  8 See, for example, The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Hutchinson, London, 1988, p. 481.

  9 See in particular F. Kampers, Das Lichtland der Seelen und der Heilige Gral, Cologne, 1916, pp. 20–7. See also Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 152. That great authority on Parzival, Jessie Weston, concurs. See ‘Excursus A’ to her translation of Parzival, op. cit., particularly p. 191, last paragraph.

  10 Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., p. 152.

  11 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., for example pp. 228, 393 and 406.

  12 Ibid., p. 241.

  13 Ibid. Professor A. T. Hatto’s ‘Introduction to a Second Reading’, p. 438.

  14 Margaret Fitzgerald Richey, The Story of Parzival and the Graal, As Related by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Basil Blackwell & Mott, Oxford, 1935, p. 198.

  15 Ibid., p. 211. See also p. 198: ‘This identification with the Templars is very striking, and what else is told in connection in the text of Parzival agrees with the character of that Order.’

  16 Louis Charpentier, The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral, RILKO, London, 1983, p. 68.

  17 As, for example, in Gaetan Delaforge, The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius, Threshold Books, Vermont, 1987, p. 68.

  18 The principal source for discussion of Wolfram’s visit to the Holy Land is Karl Bertau, Deutsche Literatur im europäischen Mittelalter, C. H. Beck, Munich, 1974.

  19 1 Chronicles 28:2. The words are those of Solomon’s father, King David, who had hoped to build the Temple for the Ark, but who had been instructed by God to leave this task to Solomon.

  20 William of Tyre, A History of Deeds done Beyond the Sea (E. Babcock and A. C. Krey trans.), Octagon Books, New York, 1986, vol. I, pp. 524–5.

  21 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, 1910, p. 593.

  22 Edward Burman, The Templars: Knights of God, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1986, p. 21.

  23 John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, Century, London, 1990, p. 66. Originally published in the USA in 1989 by M. Evans.

  24 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, 15th edn, 1991, vol. III, p. 133. The city was sold to the King of France in 1286.

  25 Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 27. Saint Bernard’s mother, Aleth, was André de Montbard’s sister.

  26 Interestingly, it is thought possible that Saint Bernard himself provided the model for Sir Galahad, the hero of the Cistercian Queste del Saint Graal. See Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit. p. 30. See also Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, 15th edn, 1991, vol. V, pp. 79–80 and 408–9.

  27 John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit., p. 66.

  28 Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 21.

  29 Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, J. M. Dent, London, 1988, D. D. R. Owen’s Introduction, p. ix.

  30 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Penguin Books, London, 1987, vol. II, p. 157.

  31 Ibid. See also Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, 1910, p. 591. Then, as now, the Mosque of Omar, better known as the Dome of the Rock, stood over the site of Solomon’s Temple. See also F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 1345.

  32 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, op. cit., vol. II, p. 157.

  33 John G. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit., p. 66.

  34 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, op. cit., vol. II, p. 157

  35 Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple: The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem, Harper & Row, New York, 1985 and Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1985, p. 347.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem: The Sacred Land, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, vol. I, 1973, p. 11.

  38 See Professor Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, Jonathan Cape, London, 1988, Chapter 1, pp. 155–6, quoted in Chapter 1, p. 7 above.

  39 Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem, op. cit., p. 11.

  40 Ibid., pp. 123 and 324, note 136. See also N. A. Silberman, Digging for God and Country, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1982, p. 186. See also ‘The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch’ in H. F. D. Sparks (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 843 and 844.

  41 M
alcolm Barber, ‘The Origins of the Order of the Temple’, Studia Monastica, vol. XII, 1970, pp. 221–2.

  42 Jean Richard, Le Royaume Latin de Jerusalem, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1953, p. 105.

  43 Ibid.

  44 Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, op. cit., pp. 131 and 126.

  45 See the essay on relics in John James, Medieval France: A Guide to the Sacred Architecture of Medieval France, Harrap Columbus, London, 1987, pp. 36–40.

  46 Ibid., p. 39.

  47 Gaetan Delaforge, The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius, op. cit., p. 68.

  48 Ibid.

  49 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., p. 162.

  50 Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 23.

  51 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., pp. 162 and 1345.

  52 Ibid., p. 162.

  53 Ibid., pp. 162 and 1345. See also Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, 1910, p. 591.

  54 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., pp. 1345–6.

  55 For a discussion of the financial activities of the Templars see Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., pp. 74–97.

  56 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., p. 162: ‘In the disputed election which followed the death of Pope Honorious II in 1130 Bernard sided with Innocent II against the antipope, Anacletus, and was eventually successful in securing Innocent’s victory.’

  57 In the Papal Bull Omne Datum Optimum. See Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 41.

  58 S. Howarth, The Knights Templar, London, 1982, p. 194.