This blog follows the previous ten chapters of a book entitled 'And did those Feet' that provides evidence of the discovery of the Isle of Avalon. The ‘Vaus d’Avaron’ or the vales of Avalon of the Grail stories is where King Arthur, the Holy Grail and the body of Joseph of Arimathea are secreted. This sacred Island is clearly indicated in the Prophecy of Melkin in a geometrical puzzle that Melkin composed after the death of King Arthur. This Island indicated, once the prophecy is decoded, is Burgh Island off the south coast of England. Start at the beginning of this extensive treasure hunt and read the evidence which leads into this blog at:

Melkin, who wrote the oldest document that was relayed in John of Glastonbury's Cronica left a riddle to be solved in the form of a prophecy that would lead to the uncovering of the body of Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus on the Island of Avalon. Melkin says that Joseph's sepulchre lies on a Bifurcated line. Once the Latin is decoded it states that inside a Sphere (Avebury Stone circle), if we bifurcate a line (obviously the Michael line) 104 miles away we will find an Island and the angle of Bifurcation is 13 Degrees. This leads exactly to Burgh Island in Devon. This is the same Island of Avalon on which King Arthur went in the hope of healing his wounds after the Battle of Camlann. Try it on Google earth with nautical miles (the only way the ancients knew how to subdivide the Globe) and see that from the 'Cove stone' within Avebury, to the Entrance of the tomb is precisely 104 nautical miles. This Island is the Same island that Diodorus gives a description of that was described by Pytheas as dealing in Tin ingots. Guess what Joseph of Arimathea was a tin merchant. Also if any doubt still exists Father William Good, a Jesuit priest in the 1600's said that Joseph of Arimathea was 'Carefully Hidden' in Montacute. The Line Melkin has sent us to find which Locates Avalon goes right through St. Michael's hill montacute.

Chapter 11

Unravelling the Medieval Latin of Melkin’s prophecy.

The reader must now be aware of the impact that Melkin has played in British history, so let us now turn our attention to what it was that he intended to convey to us specifically in his English prophecy. Melkin has surely set out to manifest the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea's entombment, leaving specific and precise instructions within that prophecy. For the last 600 years researchers have tried to interpret, disentangle or make sense of this riddle from the obtuse Latin phraseology. They have tried to translate it into something coherent so that the phrases link together and provide meaning to the reader. There is no doubt that Melkin wanted us to understand this riddle, the clues in it are extraordinarily accurate.

The Latin is archaic and grammatically incorrect, so, not only is it necessary to establish the geometry that lies beneath the riddle and the meaning of individual words on different planes, but we need to try and unravel Melkin’s intended purpose, while also attempting to understand the mind of the man who wrote it.

Melkin’s puzzle is literary genius conveying information on different levels and one can only speculate as to what his thoughts were as he constructed this riddle. This man was presented with a conundrum: how to perpetuate the knowledge of a tomb and what it contained without destroying the very vehicle of the Chrisrian religion that he would have to entrust this secret puzzle to.

Let us briefly recap and fast forward the current situation so that the following elucidation of Melkin’s words will be fully understood. Melkin's puzzle relates to the finding of a tomb which will reveal evidence of a different account of what transpired immediately after the crucifixion from the gospel account. The Grail account confirms the evidence found in the English prophecy waiting to be uncovered in the fuure as Melkin was the source of the Glastonbury and French traditions.

The unknown location Ictis, where tin was exported from, had a vault within the Island where ingots were stored, because Diodorus relates Pytheas' eyewitness account that cartloads of ingots were taken to the Island. Ictis acted as a market place up until the Roman era, but few understood the relevance of the word 'Emporium' and thought tin was actually mined on the island. It was in fact only stored there to Facilitate a central pick up point for the Phoenician traders.

Herodotus before Pytheas' voyage was at a loss as to where the 'Kassiterides' were. These were assumed to be the tin isles until Pytheas describes 'the island' and named it 'Fish Island' which led to the confusion over Ictis. It was from the word 'Icthus' named after the huge pilchard shoals found at Burgh Island. Joseph of Arimathea was the Fisher King.
Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy tin Merchant in this era. He was said in the Grail stories to have arrived on the Island of Sarras and from Melkin's prophecy, to be buried on the Island of Avalon. Joseph was buried with ‘duo fassula’ containing the blood and sweat of Jesus which was thought to be the Grail. These 'containers' (the word derived from a fallacious translation) were then confused with a singular receptacle that was sometimes known as the 'Grail Ark'.
Melkin's 'linea bifurcata' eventually gets translated as 'folded linen' by modern commentators which confuses the issue even more.....especially when Melkin's 'duo fassula' turns out to be the burial shroud of Jesus, better known as the Shroud of Turin.
Joseph is said to have brought with him what has since become known as the ‘Holy Grail’ to Britain, but this is in fact the body of Jesus in a tin lined casquet of Cedar oil. This then becomes known in the Grail stories as the 'Grail Ark'. Since the advent of the Romances, the ‘duo fassula’ and the Grail have become one and the same.

Many commentators have assumed that Joseph was buried near the Old Church, in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey and for many years the institution at Glastonbury Abbey has proactively encouraged such a position. John of Glastonbury (accused of being the inventor of the prophecy) at least at this early stage knew the 'linea bifurcata' was understood to be part of a geometrical instruction... that when understood, would lead to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. It is only the modern commentators such as Carley and Lagorio who have been unable to make sense of Melkin's prophecy and have thus pronounced it as a fake. It is not. Melkin wrote his prophecy as a riddle to be unlocked and the pertinent directional information once decoded within the riddle leads precisely to Melkin's island of Avalon.
It seems, that Melkin has required us to solve a riddle for which he may have intended us to keep searching at Glastonbury until now. This we can never be sure of....... because if this was the case, how could he be sure that Joseph would be found eventually. How could he have guessed that the Monks at Glastonbury would transmute 'Glastonbury Tor' into the Island of Avalon thus misleading any future Grail questor? The most obvious answer is that prpoganda was produced in William of Malmesbury's later versions of his Gest Regnum and other writings that actively, but not obstensively, show the introduction of Material that concur with certain points mentioned in Melkin's prophecy. This interpolation is clearly recognisable and can be seen to be carried out in the hope that the gradual translocation of Avalon from Devon might be made to appear to relate to the Tor in Glastonbury. Due to Williams reputation as a credible and reliable historian, these later interpolations were assumed to have been written by him. They had one aim... to bring the burial place of Joseph on Avalon into the confines of the Glastonbury Abbey. The 'Bifurcated line' became established as supposedly reflecting some purposful directional or geometrical indicator from which the body and Sepulchre might be located. The body has never been found because it is on Burgh Island in Devon. However the Monk's ploy worked and every commentator exept one has been looking in the wrong place. http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2440/1/The_early_history_of_Glastonbury_Abbey.pdf

Did Melkin's confidence lay in the fact that he was cognisant that the Grail was a ‘Grade or Stage’ in ‘Time’ that would inevitably come as part of a divine plan? The skeptic will (if he hasn't already) start to think that the connections are becoming unrelated.
However it was Melkin who wrote the ‘Book of the Grail’ which contained this Hebraic occult knowledge that the Romance writers could not comprehend and thus allegorised. The French trobadours and Grail writers building and elaborating on the substance of Melkin's Grail book, using metaphor and imagination.
It seems that Melkin's prophecy, which cannot be traced back earlier than John of Glastonbury's ‘Cronica’ is based upon what Melkin actually had seen at the Tomb site of Joseph of Arimathea at the burial of King Arthur. Here Melkin found a (manuscript) body of information concerning Devon and Cornwall (Belerion). This historical sequence of events concerned Jesus, who as a single person, has changed the world as part of a divine plan set in ‘Biblical Time’.
This historical source information (Joseph's arrival at Avalon.... and the arcane occult manuscripts derived from the Jerusalem temple) was partly used by the French Grail writers, who were not aware of Jesus’s body in Avalon. As Melkin was never explicit on this point the troubadours knew something to do with him was brought from the Holy land to England. Hence we have allusions right through Grail literature to the shroud, a body in a sweet smelling tomb and a coffin who no one knows who lies therin.
In the true prophetic tradition, Melkin prognosticates on what will take place and when...at the opening of Joseph's tomb, indicating that if not wholly, then in part, he was divinely inspired.

The Neolithic and Medieval renovated Ley system within which Joseph is buried has been accurately planned out and surveyed. For the skeptic this association with Ley lines seems tentative, but Melkin not only starts with the 'Linea bifurcata' which bifurcates inside his 'spherula' which is Avebury, but then poceeds to send us through Montacute. Don't forget Melkin lived long before any Michaeline association. Judging by its nature much like Glastonbury Tor and Burrow Mump, Montacute would also appear (apart from the St. Michael connection) to be part of this ancient system. We can deduce that the clue and its association with Joseph's burial place (acting as a confirmational marker) for the ley that is 104 nautical miles long and leads to Avalon........must have been given by Melkin. He is the only person who we know of who is aware of where the location of the island and it was him who left the other instructions.
Melkin has knowledge of the Ley system and the distances and angles within it. It appears that Melkin, is the source for all original Arthurian information that has come down to us today. Since Melkin’s prophecy was written, Avalon, where Arthur and Joseph are buried has been shrouded in mystery, but Melkin is responsible for renaming Ictis or Sarras as Avalon. Avalon connects Arthur and Joseph, both reputed to be buried there and Melkin’s genealogy recorded in John’s Cronica, connects them in a bloodline. Joseph is a blood relative of Jesus who is inextricably linked to the Grail, while the Grail, (as the modern world understands its substance), is buried with Joseph and Arthur in Avalon and this entire tradition has stemmed directly from Melkin.

How is it that a Monk knows so much, as to understand the essence of the Grail back in the sixth century and know that Jesus is buried in Avalon and also have insight into occult knowledge concerning God’s divine plan and a grasp of Biblical Time? Were Jesus’s remains witnessed by Melkin at the burial of King Arthur? The answer has to be yes, since he gives such an apt description of the Shroud later to be known as the Shroud of Turin.

So let us look at this small fragment of his understanding that has miraculously steered events and come down to us. As we further our enquiry, we will see that it is very probable that the Grail book is about to surface as the book of the Law did, when the Jews returned from captivity and this whole story will be understood.

John of Glastonbury fortuitously has preserved this prophecy:

Hec scriptura inuenitur in libro melkini, qui fuit ante merlinum,

This scripture is found in the book of Melkini, who had been before Merlinum,

Insula auallonis auida funere paganorum, pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium sperulis propheciae vaticinantibus decorata, & in futurum ornata erit altissimum laudantibus. Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus, cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit. Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum; Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratori, cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim. Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta. Cum reperietur ejus sarcofagum, integrum illibatum in futuris videbitur, & erit apertum toto orbi terrarium. Ex tunc aqua, nec ros coeli insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata.

Hucusque melkinus.

‘The Isle of Avalon, greedy for the death of pagans, more than all others in the world, for their entombment, decorated beyond all others by portentous spheres of prophecy, and in the future, adorned shall it be, by them that praise the most high. Abbadare, mighty in judgement, noblest of pagans, has fallen asleep there with 104,000 others (or 104 knights), among these, Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual sleep in a marble tomb, and he lies on a two forked line, next to the southern angle of an oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and in the place of the 13 spheres.
For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two white and silver vessels, filled with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus and when his sarcophagus is uncovered, it will be seen whole and undisturbed, and will be opened to the whole world.
Thenceforth those who dwell in that noble isle, will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven. For a long while before the day of judgment (ludioialem) in Josaphat, open shall these things be and declared to the living’, thus far Melkin.

There are many variations on how this can be translated, but this seems to be an alternative generally accepted gist, that makes some sense also;

The Isle of Avalon, with greed for the death of pagans, before all in the world, for the entombment of them all. Decorated beyond others by the chanting spheres of prophecy and for all time to come, adorned shall it be by them that praise the Most High.
Abbadare mighty in saphat, noblest of pagans, has fallen on sleep with 104 other knights
Among these Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual sleep in a marble tomb and he lies on two forked line next to the southern angle of an oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and where the aforesaid 13 spheres rest. For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two vessels white and silver, filled with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus. When his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be seen whole and untouched, And will be opened to the whole world. Thenceforth those who dwell in that noble Isle will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven for a long time before the day of judgment in Josaphat and open shall these things be and declared to the living.

Rendered below is probably a more accurate translation (Melkin’s intended meaning), with reference to an abridgment of Ainsworth's English and Latin dictionary, by Robert Ainsworth, Thomas Morell and John Carey and the 'Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis' by Domino Du Cange.

The first part of the prophecy we shall cover as a whole so the sense is not lost before we dissect each phrase. This first half of the prophecy is the instructional part, where pertinent facts are relayed as to the confirmation of the tombs location and entrance. The second half of the prophecy is assuredly divinely inspired as it speaks in ‘Time’ with biblical metaphorical language and will be elucidated in the following commentary when we disentangle the various layers of meaning.

Island of Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world for their entombment there, it is before the circle of portentous prophesy (Avebury) and in the future will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest. The father’s pearl, (Jesus) mighty in judgement (or virtuous through new wine), the noblest of pagans, sleeps 104 miles from it (Avebury), by whom he received interment by the sea from Joseph named from Arimathea, and has taken his eternal rest there, and he lies on a line that is two forked between that and a meridian, in an angle on a coastal Tor, in a crater, that was already prepared and above is where one prays which one can go at the extremity of the verge, high up in Ictis is the place they abide to the south at thirteen degrees.

Showing the bifurcated line or 'two forked' where it splits in Avebury runs through Montacute at an angle of 13 degrees for 104 nautical miles.

Firstly let the pedant, the academic,the skeptic be reminded that this is a riddle to be solved. It is definitely not a late 13th century fraud supposed to aid in the attraction of pilgrims to Glastonbury. It truly would be genius or an amazing coincidence that its instructions signal an island in the west that we have established as the island of Ictis.
Any commentator on this passage will find it impossible to transliterate, simply because Melkin is concealing information sub textually, word clues rendering the passage as a whole incapable of fluid translation. The puns and double meanings are carefully thought out, but obtuse by deflection. The only way to understand the difficulty he must have had, conveying his message in layers of meaning and grasp what he has achieved, is to evaluate his choice of words. What follows is some of the hidden sub text in meanings he was trying to convey. It is almost as if he was appealing through the layers to different ways of understanding. The task of elucidating becomes less muddled if we take each word separately or if inseparable from another, using the combination.

Adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns seem to be intermingled without respect to tense, conjugation, case or declension and one may be lacking other scribal clues such as capitals or punctuation which are now missing. There is evidence also within the text that words are split, which leads one to consider that these splits, may be interchangeable with other root words and thus a cipher could be disentangled if an original copy was extant.

Figure showing the line that Melkin indicates we would find the island where Joseph is buried 104 nautical miles from Avebury. Nautical miles for Melkin is an immutable measurement derived from division of the four quadrants of a globe in 360 degrees.

Melkin formulates his prophecy in a combination of blurred Latin incorporating Teutonic and low Latin, purposely entangled double entendres, sometimes leaving little to be comprehended from the text that has survived. If one adds to this muddle any scribal changes made at Glastonbury, we are left with a collection of meaningless ‘word strings’, in effect rendering Melkin’s intended riddle as mute through the ages as it has remained....... and brings into question the validity of his existence. He was known as a geometer, but until now we have had no proof of his existence; the geometry given by his puzzle gives credence to those who attested that he was a geometer and to his very existence.

The most powerful thing about this prophecy, now we have decoded it, is the latent truth that it holds, by pointing to an island and a tidal island in the sea as described in Grail literature. Its ability to have survived down through the centuries while muted, to convey its intended message....... a message of mystery and expectation that has entered the psyche of the British people. This message and what it uncovers may possibly be responsible for changing the outward expression of religion throughout the world...... if what the it pertains to uncover is allowed to be opened.

Insula Aualonis avida funere paganorum:

· island of Avalon, where both Arthur and Joseph are said to be buried, coveting (guarding preciously) pagans in death. Either named because the Island stands at the exit of the river Avon or is named after Aveton the village at the tidal extent of the river subsequently known as Aveton Gifford after the Norman Conquest. However Percival’s cousin in the Perlesvaus was son of an Alain d'Escavalon or Elinant of Escavalon, but since Melkin is responsible for the source of all original Grail material, this name still comes back to him.

· Avide; an adverb or avidus, an adjective-Greedy, Hungry or Covetous. The sense that Melkin portrays by use of this word is essentially, ‘not relinquishing’, nor ‘releasing’ (until the appointed time); The Island as a custodial guardian.

· Funere; from funero, funera, etc, giving funeral, to bury or of a dead body.

· Paganorum; from paganus, a man of the country or peasant. ‘pagan’ in classical Latin "villager, rustic, civilian, but in the medieval religious sense not Christian-of the old religion i.e Jews. The word Pagan has many connotations and could mean, not of Britain.
Overall a very difficult sentence to cobble together, possibly rendering the sense of a pagan island, rather than the bodies of pagans buried there. The pagan island scenario would concur in conjunction with Ley Lines, and would indicate that Melkin was aware of the existence of the Ley Line system and the island's inter-relation with Avebury, Montacute and the Lyonesse line.
This word string also could give a sense of pagan island that is guardian over those buried, and the ‘pre ceteris’ refers to their pre-eminence in all the world. Alternatively it could be referring to the island, coveting the bodies in plain view (before) the rest of the world. Island of Avalon – hungering after (looking after, happy to be taking care of), being covetous of the buried occupants that are not from this island of Britain, before the entire world, (until the world is ready).
As the reader will understand shortly, Melkin’s use of the word ‘sperulatis or sperulis’, twice in this prophecy, is rendered with two completely different meanings, even though Melkin ostensibly refers back to its first meaning as being the same as its second use, by employing the word ‘supradictis’ (aforesaid). So it is with the word ‘paganorum’ in the sense that it is used here as possibly being a pagan island (part of the old religion), yet the second use of the word after Abbadare, has a completely different sense.
Remember that Melkin is directing our thoughts toward an Island in the true sense of the word (unlike Glastonbury) and this island is by a river (the river Avon) and tidal as described in the Perlesvaus. Presumably this was the rivers name when Melkin was alive, but the etymology of Avon is ‘river’, thus the explanation of so many ‘River Avons’ in Britain.

Figure Showing the river Avon at the heads as it exits by Avalon in the hazardous tidal waters that surround the island as described in the Perlesvaus

pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium:

· pre ceteris; gives the sense, before others or before the rest,

· in orbe ; in the globe, planet or world, giving the sense of pre-eminence.

· ad sepulturam ; from sepultura, giving a burial site or sepulchre.

· eorum ; of them, or their.

· omnium ; of all.

The sentence has generally been translated as: ‘at the burial of them all will be decorated (from decorata), beyond the others in the world’, which of course makes difficult reading. The most likely sentence would be, ‘ their burial site is honoured above all others in the world’, as one is honoured in receipt of a decoration. This in fact, is confirming what later directions indicate, that the sepulchre is on the island and is accounted above all others (places) in the world or there is no greater tomb (of importance). Melkin refers to the sepulchre twice in conjunction with the word ‘orbe or orbi terrarum’ (around the world), thus indicating, what we expect to be a global event, having global ramifications on the tombs unveiling.

sperulis prophecie uaticinantibus decorate:

Sperulis: Firstly let us look at the etymology of the word ‘pearl’. The Arabic language called it a ‘dar’, a term which was then translated by the Greeks as "Pinna's stone", thus identifying its origin from the Mediterranean pearl mollusks. The pearl is also referred to as "pirula" or "perula" in Latin texts, probably because of its spherical (sphaerula, pronounced "sperula") or pear-like shape. Also ‘perla’ is formed from ‘perula’ for ‘sperula’ the diminutive of sphaera. A more probable origin is that the word is formed from the Latin pirum as suggested by Diez in allusion to the pear shaped form of the pearl. Du Cange in volume five says that the extremity of the nose was called ‘pirula nasi’ from its resemblance to the form of a pearl. But ‘pirus’ which surely was not unknown by Melkin was used to denote a “boundary stone made in a pyramidal shape”. Du Cange says also, this seems to have been the origin of the singular expression ‘pirula nasi’ as being something at the extremity and probably Melkin’s allusion to Avalon acting as a marker in our Pyramidal shape.
From Du Cange ‘sperula’ is given as; ‘parva rotunditas volubilis, sicut solet, in sphæræ modum,’-- round compass, of a small volume, as is usually the manner of a sphere. The word is used twice, once as ‘sperulis’ as in this instance and once as ‘sperulatis’ secondarily, both of them having different meanings. The meaning here though is in direct reference to Avebury stone circle.

· Prophecie; that which is foretold in the future by a prophet.

· Vaticinantibus; giving prediction, soothsaying, prophecy or portent from vaticinari from ‘vates’ meaning a prophet + 'canere' to foretell. However this could be Melkin’s way of saying what is located in this sepulchre will be against the Vatican i.e. anti-Vatican. It should not be forgotten that Jesus knew exactly what his mission entailed and the suffering (proved by the Shroud) that he was about to endure and was not about to be dissuaded from it by Peter, and said to him "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." The Roman Church is built upon Peter and in no way is Peter at fault, but Jesus knew that the Popes would usurp his legacy for this world and not the heaven that Jesus spoke of.
The Grail keepers would certainly be able to boast precedence(primacy) before Papal pretensions...... passing from Josephes to Brons and could be considered another line of succession or Branch other than the self-proclaiming imposter of Jesus’ inheritance.
The Roman Pontiff the first Bishop of Christendom deriving his claim by hypothesis from St. Peter, who only by Roman self-profession was ‘episcopus primus et Pontifex primordialis’. Melkin knew of what lay in this tomb and therefore was aware of the inaccuracies peddled by the Roman Church. Melkin understood the Divine plan and of the true meaning of Jesus’ reference to the Temple being rebuilt upon the third day (or within three days) and hence the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus three times being equitable with the three Grades to enlightenment. These three days are the grades of the Grail, but we will come to this when we investigate ‘Time’ in a later chapter.
Are the words of Jesus ‘And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it,’ similar to the promise given to David...... from which the Church and Gentiles inherited.
The Davidic line ended and others inherited. Are Christendom and Islam, along with the Jewish faith of the present day.... to become like the Davidic line as the precursor of a global spiritual inheritance. These spiritual inheritors of all the global Abrahamic religions are related by the prophets as Jews ( not in the modern sense but from all religions) set forth in a Divine Plan by the God of Israel? What is certain is that, without the Roman church most of the Globe would not be aware of the God of Israel. However Melkin knows that at the unveiling of the tomb, it would be the end of the Vatican.

· Decorate from ‘decorates’ translating as, set forth or adorned. This could be aslo read as 'before' if one split the word to 'de coram' i.e lays before or faces.

This sentence is generally translated as ‘soothsaying spheres of prophecy or portentous circles of prophecy’. It is essential to remember that Melkin is actually directing us on this quest from a starting place that is a stone circle namely Avebury. His description of the circles or spheres having been ‘set forth or adorned’, might indicate that Melkin is referring directly to a stone circle. Stone circles were important to the ancients who were preoccupied with discerning the future. Melkin refers to stone circles as if they have a connection with man’s ability to predict or as if it is the circles themselves that have some impact on leading us to the tomb of Joseph through Ley lines.
The irony of disentangling Melkin’s prophecy through our initial investigation into the ‘Perpetual Choirs’ and scribing circles on the landscape, gives rise to even more perplexity. Could Melkin’s sense be that, Avebury adorning the British landscape, from which Ley line's interconnect or thread through the tomb of Joseph, have some attribute or function in the foretelling of its discovery.
The reader should not be too sceptical here as the two words following ‘sperulatis’ both impart a sense of future knowledge presently unknown. We must not dismiss the fact that Melkin has knowledge of the St. Michael Ley line; so is he imparting to us through this statement that these stone circles have some effect on, or direct our thoughts for the future collective benefit.
No one today has an idea of the stone circles proper function, but recognising that Melkin probably understood the use of stone circles (as he certainly knows about the St.Michael ley line); is he implying some sort of telepathic system ordering the thoughts of the collective? Melkin knew of the existence of the St. Michael Ley line, yet we have only recently rediscovered it. We should not ignore the use of two words which essentially mean ‘looking into the future’. So are the stone circles physical attributes on the landscape for channelling thought from individual communities or interlinking them in some way as their prevalence and conformity of shape seems to indicate relative functionality? However, ‘sperulis prophecie vaticinantibus’ may be indicating Melkin's understand of Avebury as a predictor rather than a calendar marking annual events. Is his meaning the circle that predicts future events that are encoded into its alignment geometry that will coincide with future astronomical alignments in time. Can any reader see any astronomical alignment with the 104 mile 'Joseph line' that leads to Avalon.

et in futurum ornate erit altissimum laudantibus:

· in futurum; although being an obvious reference to the future, it is also a reference to ‘Biblical Time’ and is reiterated as a reference to the same time as ‘ex tunc’ in the penultimate sentence of the prophecy, which is indicating the thousand years of time from the discovery of Joseph's tomb being commensurate with the day of Jehosaphat. This is a sure indication that Melkin has understood ‘Biblical Time’ i.e. time, Times and Half of that time (or the Times Halved). We shall explain this concept in a later chapter as it appears in Daniel 7:12 , 12:7 and Revelation 12:14

· Ornate; adorned, arrayed, crowned with or decreed, in reference to the island of Avalon.

· altissimum laudantibus, rendering praise to the most high. The sentence giving the impression that when Joseph's tomb is discovered, the Island of Avalon will be arrayed by the mass of new converts, giving praise to God. This sense does concur with the final part of the prophecy that indicates that Joseph's sepulchre will be opened to the whole world, giving an impression that the island will become a pilgrimage and a new religious re-awakening will occur globally on the discovery of Jesus’s body. There will be a new cognitive view of the world order and an elevated understanding amongst 'spiritual Jews' that the living and the dead are bound by a Divine plan. Those pilgrims visiting the Island of Avalon, giving praise to the most high. This could also be a reference to Britain rather than Avalon specifically as the last sentence of the prophecy infers.

Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus:

·  Abbadare, has given rise to much speculation about the word’s provenance and meaning, but it would seem to be a reference to Jesus, meaning “The father's pearl”, (Abba- father, Dar- pearl from the Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew).  As is intonated in the Grail romances, added to Joseph's connection with the importation of the Holy Grail, this reference would seem to indicate the presence also of Jesus's body within the island of Avalon. Joseph leaves Jerusalem, and arrives at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, which is carried inside an ark or box. This refers metaphorically to Jesus, specifically with reference to a pearl being formed by the flesh just as it is grown in an oysters shell. It is formed in our body and its beautiful and precious substance remains long after the flesh that made it, has died. This is a profound reference to the spirit being a precious object born by an organic body, yet remaining long after the flesh has died. Not a metal, nor a gem but ‘a pearl of great price’….a spiritual soul created through God’s divine plan as in Mathew 13:46.  As the reader will be aware the word ‘Abbadare’ would have been used by Melkin to avoid direct reference to Jesus's body to avoid adverse reaction from fundamentalist sensibilities.  The Holy Grail, having a direct connection with Jesus, but in direct reference to his body at times but in the Glastonbury tradition the Grail being misunderstood for the Turin Shroud as the Duo Fassula. The references to the Grail in the romances being of a different order involving a spiritual quest, the likes of which cannot be found by searching or by hastening its occurrence in a lifetime. The Holy Grail is a derivative of the Latin ‘gradus’ meaning by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish from a transliteration by Helinand. This dish was brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal in the Chrétien de Troyes poem. Essentially the pearl of great price is Jesus through whom by the will of his Father spiritual enlightenment is attained, hence ‘the Father’s pearl’

· Potens; powerful, mighty, of great virtue.

· Saphat; by most commentators is translated as ‘judgement’ derived from its reference to Jehosaphat in the last sentence of the prophecy rendering, ‘Mighty in judgement’ from Jehosaphat’s meaning as ‘judgement day’ or God’s judgement. Shaphat in Hebrew translating as judge or judgement . Melkin could possibly be giving us a double entendre in ‘Sapa’, translating as ’New wine’. ’potens in saphat’ could then give the sense of “virtuous through new wine”, deriving its sense from having been made perfect through the Holy Spirit. The most obvious translation is from ‘potens’ meaning also ‘pre-eminent’ or as Du Cange has it, ‘having pre-eminence’ rendering ‘having pre-eminence in the new wine’ which of course would be a precise description of Jesus as the pre-cursor to the New wine as in Mark 2:22; ‘no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined’. No, Jesus pours new wine into new wineskins and thus the passage through the 'Grades' that is intonated in the romances. (Also in Mathew 9:17 & Luke 5:37). Most attempts at translation have rendered this word string as, ’Abbadare, mighty in judgement, most noble of the pagans’.
One possible sense would be, if we can assume that Melkin is aware of the Zerah connection (otherwise Sarras would not have been named after Zarah) and his reference to ‘paganorum’ is the old religion or even Jewish; ‘Jesus preeminent in the new wine, the noblest of the Jews’.
The most poignant transliteration of ‘potentem in Saphat’ should be understood as ‘he who’s might is in spiritual awakening’ which we shall see in connection with Jehosaphat. Without getting too ingenuous it could even be the result of a Glastonbury scribal change from Sarras rendering ‘Jesus the mighty of Zerah’, but this will only make sense once we understand that Joseph may well have been British.

cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit:

· cum centum et quatuor; translating as ‘with one hundred and four’.

· Milibus; confusing most translators into thinking its meaning is derived from ‘Mille’, a thousand; but Melkin’s real intention is ‘mille passuum' which gives a thousand paces which equals one mile or ‘miles’ even though he is referring to Nautical miles. The reader will remember the unit of nautical miles is used so that a unit of measurement correlates to a sixtieth of a degree; this same unit having been employed by the ancients. The nautical knot only came into use in 1630 AD, but the ancients had sub divided the globe into degrees of a circle reckoned on the 90 degrees of the four quadrants, as was evident by Pytheas’s calculations in Latitude. Melkin was aware (being attested a geometer and astrologer and now vindicated as one) of this unit and probably named it after the Roman or statutory unit. The term was not commonly used, but the ancient Roman mile was 1,000 double paces, one-step with each foot, for about 4,860 feet, and there were many local variants….. a modern statute mile measuring about 400 feet longer. Complementing Melkin's complexity of though a 'Bustum' can also be translated as a grave, tomb or sepulchre as in Ainsworth so is this a ploy at subliminally transmitting 'mille' and 'bus'. A bit far fetched but no more so than many modern commentators ingenuos traductions.

Most translations have used the word ‘Knight’s’ from the Latin word ‘Militus’ with the assumption that it refers to ‘the others’ that are said to be buried in Avalon. Other translators have opted for implanting the word “saints”, assuming a scribal error for 104. Some commentators, while not replacing the number, have assumed that a mistake has been made and that Melkin is referring to the 144 thousand saints in the Book of Revelation 7:4,14:1 & 14:3. This misrepresentation has been highlighted by later interpolators as in the case of Capgraves ‘Nova Legenda Angliae’, which renders the sense of Melkin’s words to ‘milia dormientium accepit’ which has 104,000 sleeping with him…. while some translators have simply added the word ‘Saints’.
In place of the common translation error rendering '104 thousand', Melkin is telling us that it is 104 nautical miles from Avebury to the Island of Avalon. This measurement is precisely 104 miles from a point, just right of centre within the Avebury circle, to the ‘Huer’s hut’ on Burgh Island as seen in figure 25. The 'Joseph line' drawn from Avebury to the resting place of Joseph is confirmed by Father William Good, as it passes directly over St. Michael’s Montacute.

Figure 24 Showing the Joseph line tangentially touching St. Michael’s hill Montacute. The Joseph line forming the acute angle of 13° at Avebury, between the St. Michael line and Mons Acutus (Montacute).

· domiicionem ibi accepit; conveying the sense ‘took his sleep there or received his rest there’. This sentence is usually translated as ‘Abbadare’, powerful in judgement, the most noble of the pagans took his sleep there with 104,000’. Obviously Melkin deliberately sets out his sentence to obfuscate, inserting the word ‘cum’ meaning ‘with’, so that ‘Abbadare’ is appearing to be taking his rest with 104,000 others, especially when the first words of the next sentence are ‘inter quos’ which translates as ‘among whom’. The real information which Melkin is trying to convey here is that Joseph and Jesus are taking their rest there; 104 miles from the circle of prophecy, which is Avebury as seen in figure 25.

Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum:

· Inter quos; The usual translation of the sentence is: 'among these Joseph of Arimathea received eternal slumber in a marble tomb'. In the previous word string Melkin used ‘domiicionem ibi accepit’ and here he is using ‘cepit sompnum perpetuum’ immediately afterwards. Aware of Melkin’s cleverness and the fact that he is confounding normal thought processes, it would appear, as if he is clearly speaking of two different people. ‘Jesus received his rest there’ and ‘Joseph named from Arimathea took his perpetual sleep there’. The word ‘Inter’ by most commentators is translated as ’among’ but Melkin has his derivative from 'interrare’ "put in the earth, bury” or ‘interramentum’.

‘Inter quos’ most researchers have as ‘among whom’ but here Melkin is using a play on words and his meaning is ‘Interred’ or ‘Interred with whom’ also inferring two people. The implication of this is; that it now establishes 'Abbadare' as another separate subject in the tomb and the translation infers 'Abbadare', ’interred with whom is Joseph, named from Arimathea taking his eternal slumber by the sea'.

· marmore ‘Marmor’ translates as a marble stone or as ’the sea’; its derivative being the similarity of small wave motion in a calm water, giving the expression ‘a marbled sea’ and is also found in Ainsworth’s dictionary. It was said that King Arthur, when he was fictitiously found, was ‘not in a marble tomb’. This point was made to distinguish it from Joseph’s tomb; again showing the weight Melkin's prophecy had in determining Glastonbury as Avalon by making reference to the prophecy. By remarking on this detail (even in the negative) the monks essentially establish their find of Arthur's body as ‘the other important body’ to be buried within the Glastonbury grounds.
Bale has definitely taken the understanding as Joseph being buried in a Marble tomb when he renders the phrase as 'somnum sub marmore coepit'. However 'Joseph de marmore' could be a reference to Melkin's understanding of Joseph of the sea as in 'sea trader'.

· cepit sompnum perpetuum: The repetition of ‘dormicionem’ as referring to Abbadare, then immediately followed by ‘sopnum perpetuum’, referring directly to Joseph of Arimathea, does clearly indicate that Abbadare and Joseph are two different entities, especially since the mighty in Judgement is referring to Jesus. This example of Melkin’s direct obfuscation gives us an idea into the mind-set of the man. He has set out to misdirect his readers with this pun on ‘inter’ while sub textually informing us that Jesus has received his rest there. This he has done by not offending Christian sensibilities during the intervening years until the present, while at the same time in the same sentence, preparing his readers for the appointed time.
It is strange to contemplate that Joseph has buried Jesus twice in a ‘hewn tomb’ that is owned by Joseph himself. Once with a ‘fasciola’ as related by the Gospel accounts and the second time with a ‘doubled fasciola’…… which of course fits with the description of the Shroud of Turin which as we shall see shortly, suddenly appeared on the world stage, just after the Templars had visited the Isle of Avalon. As we have uncovered already, Melkin wrote the book of the Grail. Some of the early original source material for Melkin’s book of the Grail was obviously Joseph. Joseph brought the Grail to Britain and so affirms that he was responsible for depositing Jesus’ relics in Avalon, before being buried there himself by the first Grail keepers.

Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratorii:

· Et iacet in linea, this is the sentence most frequently quoted in reference to Melkin’s prophecy, the usual translation being, ‘and he lies on a two forked line next to the southern corner of the oratory’. Et iacet in linea; renders ‘and he (or they) lie(s) in a line’. As all commentators have previously suspected correctly until recently, the line thus referred to is an indicator to where the tomb is located and the root cause of all misdirection has been the word ‘oratorii’ linked with ‘adorandam virginem’ that helped augment the perception of Glastonbury being synonymous with Avalon. No-one really paying attention to the distance between the tor that defined Glastonbury as Avalon and the distance to his burial site within the abbey grounds. Nowadays Glastonbury is Avalon and the line 'linea bifurcata' that supposedly gave directions from the oratory, has now become a folded linen cloth that Joseph is buried in. It is fantastic that certain modern commentators have forgotten the 'Linea bifurcata' is no longer accounted as anything to do with a directional instruction.

· Bifurcata; to bifurcate literally means ‘to divide into two branches or where a line forks’. Melkin becomes remarkably un-obtuse when he gets to his specific instructions about the bifurcated line. All translators agreed until recently that ‘he lies on a bifurcated line’ but Melkin obviously felt confident that this information would be hard to unlock. With the modern sceptics understanding of ley lines....he was certainly correct.
Without a St. Michael ley line and a point at which the two lines cross inside Avebury, the information given quite clearly, would be irrelevant. Melkin also could be assured that Joseph would not be associated with Neolithic stone circles or Ley lines.
Some commentators have used the most imaginative ways of trying to understand the meaning of 'bifurcata'. The most far fetched is derived from a meaning of 'in linea' as linen and 'bifurcata' as folded to give a folded linen cloth. If we get simplistic and accept Glastonbury as Avalon so we are no longer looking for directions to Avalon.....It is easy to understand how many have understood that Joseph is just described as 'lying in linen'. This could be understandable if all the previous efforts of the Glastonbury institution had not been bent on establishing their locale as Avalon. No early commentator has even posited Joseph lying in linen because they knew 'where' Joseph lay i.e in Avalon..... was the crux of Melkins prophecy and they needed to establish a link with their Oratory.
However we are looking for instructions that lead to Joseph's tomb. Both the 104 and the 13..... the other pertinent points in the instructions both confirm by accuracy that they are indicating the Island of Avalon, the subject of the puzzle. However some like William of Worcester who measured and described the abbey church around 1478 at Glastonbury have understood that 'in lineabifurcata' is part of a geometrical and measurable instruction.
'and opposite the second window(of the lady chapel) on the south side thare are in the cemetary two stone crosses hallowed, where the bones of King Arthur were buried, where 'in line bifurcata' lies Joseph of Arimathea'.
The only problem is that all previous investigators have assumed that Avalon is Glastonbury. However, it is still quite ridiculous to associate the abbey three quaters of a mile away from the church on Glastonbury Tor (the supposed Island of Avalon) and the assumption of correlation that Joseph is buried in the Abbey grounds. If Joseph were buried anywhere near Glastonbury, he is on the tor (which we have been led to believe is Avalon)....... but one cannot have him three quaters of a mile away near a church which may or may not have been built by him.

· Juxta; translates as nearby, next to, close to, bordering upon or beside.

· meridianum angulum; A ‘meridian’ is half of a great circle that passes through the centre of the earth at the North and South poles; as if half a vertical plane on the globe, giving constant longitude. It could also be described as an imaginary line of half of a great circle route from pole to pole. Melkin is clearly trying to show the reader that the Joseph line is ‘Imaginary’ or conceptual much like a true meridian line only becomes real when plotted. It is interesting to note that Capgrave, Leland and Hardyng say that Melkin was an astrologer but it is John Bale that tells us that Melkin, wrote the book called ‘De Arturii mensa rotunda’ while at the same time informing us that he was a geometer also and the display of geometric precision should confirm to the skeptic Melkin's prowess as a geometer.
It would seem then, that the mention by Bale of these two topics (the book, then the observation about geometry) would indicate Bale saw either Grail table geometry or landscape geometry in the book he was referring to. It seems probable that at some stage this book, copy or fragment, existed at Glastonbury. The information about Montacute as a geometrical marker for the 'Joseph line' could only have reached Father Good by two sources; Henry of Blois as already discussed or out of this possible geometrical source that Bale refers to. It is however, strange that after the puzzle has been decoded and very accurate geometry is evidently displayed, how researchers can still hold Melkin's prophecy as a fictitious twelvth or thirteenth century invention.

Melkin was well aware of what a ‘meridian’ was. Most probably though the reference is giving the clue to look for a line that is similar to those found on a Map. Although lines of longitude (the truest definition of a Meridian) were not easy to calculate on a map at this stage and were largely responsible for their distortion, it clearly shows Melkin’s great grasp of technical issues such as these, through his precise surveying data.
‘Meridianus’, in Ainsworth, is described as ‘pertaining to noon or noontide’, referring to the Sun’s change in longitude at its daily zenith. Ainsworth also has another translation which gives ‘Southern Meridional’ which would only be an accurate description if viewed from the northern hemisphere, so it is technically not a definitive translation. This somewhat oblique definition would be derived from the declination of the sun to the horizon viewed and defined by observers north of the equator which (with tables) defines Latitude. However, it is from this translation that most commentators have derived ‘Southern angle’ from Melkin's text. It is also worth noting that ‘meridianum anglum’ could be translated as an ‘English Meridian’; surely a pun not unobserved by Melkin. It could be that Melkin is referring to the angle created at Burgh Island between the Lyonesse line and the Joseph line that runs from Burgh Island to Avebury as shown in figure 25 if the ‘Southern’ is part of his meaning. More likely he is referring to the angle at 13 degrees to the St. Michael Ley line.

Essentially the word ‘meridianum’ is conveying the sense to us, of an imaginary line and this was surely Melkin’s intent. It could however be a word that he used to substitute for another descriptive word, known in his day, which would convey a sense of a Ley Line. The recent nomenclature of ‘Ley or Ley line’ must have had an earlier appellation before the knowledge of the system was lost and it is apparent that Melkin knew of its existence.

Again this brings us back to the question; was Melkin aware of the functions of the Ley line system, or did he just construct the riddle from geometric information given in another text that he sourced…… that may have been old Judaic, from Zerah’s descendants. This presents a confusing set of circumstances where a Megalithic site is referenced by a Monk who lived anywhere from the fifth to the eighth century AD, that draws on arcane material; who writes a Grail book about the steps or grades to the temple, thereby manifesting his understanding of a divine plan. Not only does he have knowledge of historical fact relating to Jesus and Joseph, four to seven Hundred years after they were buried in Avalon, but also is aware that Avalon exists within a network of Leys, part of which was built before Zerah’s offspring came to England and was built by early Megalithic Man. Did Melkin really have an angel deliver this information as Helinand says; if so, was it Michael the Archangel?

We arrive back at the same circuitous dilemma of whether Melkin was the actual surveyor and the reader will only be able to make his own judgement at the penultimate sentence of the prophecy, where Melkin is giving directions within the local vicinity of the island. From this it becomes clear that he visited the Island upon which probably stood a small monastic building (rumoured to have existed by locals) built before the St. Michael Chapel referred to by Camden (circa 1610). By 1680 there is no mention of a chapel and by 1752 it was recorded as a ruin and brings us back to the point that it appears to have been purposely dismantled. This leads to another puzzle; who did the dissembling of the St. Michael churches and who tried their hardest to hide Father Good’s message from Rome by eradicating Maihews reference? Is this group, society or order still actively suppressing through the ages? The most intriguing puzzle (second only to Melkin and his riddle) is the Megalithic usage of sites and Ley’s and the surveying of such a construct being conveyed to Melkin. Was this knowledge through Neolithic Zerah conveyed down to Joseph then passed on to Melkin over a period spanning two thousand years or even longer? If the Saxons had not invaded Britain would this information about Ley lines and stone circles be widely known today. Melkin left Britain with the book of the Grail for France, but if he knew of the existence of a line (not forgetting at this time there were no St. Michael churches on it), then how did he percieve it, what was its function in Neolithic times and why has some record of it not been passed down through the ages and why have we had to wait until John Michell points out its existence? How was it that the Templars knew of its existence prior to the building of the St.Michael Churches?

· Oratori; from ‘oratorium’ in late Latin meaning a small or private chapel of prayer which would fit the description of the wattle church or the later wooden clad building in Glastonbury. The question of whether Melkin’s prophecy has had scribal changes will seem to be an unanswerable question. Melkin has most emphatically set us a riddle but did he write the word ‘oratori’, or was this a later interpolation. The reason we should ask such a question is because, if he wanted to keep our attentions at Glastonbury why did he write about the Isle of Avalon and how could he be assured in the seventh century that the Monks would eventually change Glastonbury into Avalon. Although his manuscripts were read by several chroniclers at Glastonbury, we do not know if he was a Glastonbury acolyte and therefore would have wished to concentrate the gaze of the quester toward the grounds of Glastonbury, but it seems logically highly unlikely. However when dealing with Melkin logic is the last attribute to use, to peel back the layers on every level of understanding.

It would seem that following the word ‘oratori’ with ‘cratibus’, which all commentators have translated as ‘wattled’, (as in the construction of the first church)…… is too much of a coincidence, for it not to have been part of Melkin’s original text however if we start on this investigation we will be none the wiser because Glastonbury has made subtle changes i.e the dedication of the old church to 'Our Lady' to conform to Melkin's 'virginem adorandam' and concur with certain aspects of the Grail literatures depiction of the Grail chapel.
‘Cratibus’ fits descriptive clues in the local vicinity of Burgh Island and so does ‘ora tor’. It is as if Melkin would have us blindfolded and pointed in the wrong direction and begs the question; just how difficult should a riddle be, to be solvable? However Melkin’s original text could have read ‘orari’ from Orarius –giving ‘sea shore’ and an addition of the letters ‘t’ and ‘o’ to the middle of the word by a Glastonbury scribe would have rendered the word ‘oratori’. This is a possibility having already seen the interpolations and fabrications that Glastonbury perpetrated, to locate Joseph's burial place within the Abbey grounds. The best solution would be that the Latin word ‘ora’ and ‘tor’ from ‘torus’ were split. ‘Ora’ translates as ‘the border or coast of a country; particularly the sea coast or maritime district’, while the Latin word ‘oralis’ translates as ‘mouth, entrance or mouth of the River’. The word ‘tor’ from the Latin ‘torus’ meaning ‘a knoll or high mound of earth’, or from Old English torr; a ‘tor’ being ‘a high rock, lofty hill or tower’, possibly from Celtic, or Old Welsh, meaning a hill or a craggy outcrop of rock on the summit of a hill. If Melkin set out to combine these words which gives the real sense of where Joseph's body lay i.e. ‘a Tor by the coast’; then the word string ‘oratorii cratibus preparatis’ has rendered the sense of a ‘hill at the mouth of the river’ or ‘Tor by the sea’ which has been pre-readied (this could either refer to the tomb which used to be the tin depository or the island within the ley line network. If Melkin’s intention was to give us the sense of a tower (dedicated to the Virgin Mary) by the sea, this would admit to a previous building (maybe part of a monastic building) before the other St. Michael chapel was constructed that existed prior to 1307. The previous building is alluded to in the Perleasvaus as where the latin book of the Grail became the source for the High History of the Grail. L'auteur du Haut Livre du Graal affirme même que son texte est copié d'un manuscrit latin qui a été trouvé en l’Isle d’Avalon en une sainte meson de religion qui siét au chief des Mares Aventurex, la oli rois Artuz e la roïne gisent.

'The author of the High Book of the Grail even claims that his text is copied from a Latin manuscript which was found in the Isle of Avalon in a house of holy religion which sits at the head of hazardous tides where King Arthur and Queen Guenievre lie'.

If we accept the holy house is a monastery which we will show existed in the last chapter and we take 'Mares' as meaning 'marée' which translates as tide or tidal waters then take 'Aventurex' as aventuré which in old French has the same meaning as hasardé, hasardeux, we surely are looking at Burgh Island surrounded by tidal waters as the Island of Avalon that used to have a monastery on it. The word 'Mares' could of course refer to the sea in old french as 'le Mar' equated with 'le Mer' and the sense could just be the Island in the adventurous seas.

We shall return to this in the last chapter where it is clear that St.Michael’s mount in Cornwall has been confused with Burgh Island in a Norman charter by Edward the Confessor. We will also show that the High History of the Grail portrays Burgh island in Devon as Avalon in many of its descriptions.

‘Oratorii cratibus preparatis’ does lead the inquirer to conclude it relates to the wattled oratory in Glastonbury yet the ‘prepared’ in that sense has little relevance. As an ‘oratori’ is a religious hymn and an oratorium is a place of prayer, there appears an obvious association with choir, thus an association with the Perpetual Choirs, of which, as we have seen Glastonbury is undisputed. The translations that have written ‘chanting spheres of prophecy’, when ‘vaticinantibus’ has little to do with chanting; is realistically just a case of the mind associating ‘oratori’ (religious hymn) with church (wattled) where monks chant; giving rise to an association with ‘Perpetual Choirs’ singing an ‘oratori’.
However it was this association of spheres, chanting and perpetual choirs that initiated our geometric structure. The association of a geometric design, namely a sphere, coupled with religious hymns that would be sung in an oratory, has led many researchers to associate the Glastonbury choir with ‘Perpetual Choirs’ of the Triads. This all combining and adding credibility as to Joseph’s burial site being within the grounds of the Abbey and subsequently enforced by geometric information supplied on the bronze plaque……. The pupose of which was to trick the enquirer by the measurements displayed thereon...... into thinking it had some association with the bifurcated line of Melkin's prophecy. This plaque as we have covered was purportedly to save for posterity’s sake, directions to where the Choir of “Yeald Chirche” was once located, before it succumbed to fire. These directions were made to seem relevant to the shapes that were inscribed on the floor in lead that were now lost, that Malmesbury had indicated some mystery lay within the design. This again as we have seen, was a gambit by Monkish acolytes to establish a proximity to a holy relic that had never existed on the site, but we must not forget it was William of Malmesbury who first mentions the business of wattle but was this later interpolation? What is the relationship of this man’s ‘ut ferunt’ in reference to Joseph on the one hand, then Joseph’s wattled church being described by him on the other. The corruptions of association fostered by Glastonbury that we have seen so much of in the intervening years, between when Melkin wrote have been made to link up with the obvious associations made from Melkin’s prophecy regarding ‘cratibus’ and Joseph. ‘Oratori cratibus preparatis’ would seem to be best translated as ‘a tor on the coast with a prepared crater’.

Cratibus preparatis,

· Cratibus: ‘crates’ from which we derive the modern word ‘crate’ (originally from a wicker basket for transporting) gives the Latin form ‘cratibus’, which translates as ‘a bundle of rods wattled together’ literally, wicker-work or hurdle, wattled or interwoven. ‘Cratibus’ as an adjective, literally means wicker, but ‘cratitius’ translated means wattle and daubed’. It would translate as ‘Wicker,’ as in woven strands of straight poles giving ‘hurdle’. It could be a play on words from ‘Crater’, a cup or bowl, goblet … a platter for meat, with an obvious association to the Grail stories and the Grail's association with Joseph, both rumoured to be buried in the Isle of Avalon. ‘Cratis’ gives us a ‘grill’ as in rods or wood interwoven. The monks of Glastonbury could have been trying to perpetuate an association with ‘wattle’ just to tie in with Melkin’s prophecy or indeed this was the construction method and a small scribal change establishing a direct link to Glastonbury. Because of the words proximity to ‘Supradictis’ it would look as if Melkin could on one plane, be using the word in the sense of Crater which of course is a major feature on the Island. The author is unable to elaborate further as this gives direct instruction as to the tunnel entrance.

Part of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey

· Preparatis from ‘parate’, set purpose, by design, giving ‘pre parate’ predesigned or Paratum ‘a thing made ready’. The literal interpretation on one level could refer to the power that has been interwoven and prepared ‘aforetime’ from on high (by God).This could have been Melkin’s understanding of the old Neolithic networks supernatural power in as much as we are still ignorant today of its effect but this seems far-fetched. Yet at least he knew of the existence of Ley lines and may have had complete or partial understanding of their function. Melkin could also be using the term ‘Crater’ to describe a cave or cavern that was pre prepared that refers to the Ictis Vault. In the Glastonbury scenario the ‘preparatis’ is hard to rationalise but assuredly the cave was pre-readied because without the cave, the functionality of Ictis and its description as an an Emporium would be redundant and the Island would not be specifically pointed to as the place where the tin was taken to by the cart load.
Now we know that Melkin’s puzzle works on many planes and if we use the word ‘potenter’ as meaning ‘effectually or Judiciously’ from the next line in conjunction with 'cratibus preparatis' and 'super potentem adorandam uirginem', we could contrive the meaning ‘The Tor by the sea with a pre-prepared crater over which effectually is the Adorable Virgin’. This again is tentative. There is a long standing tradition on the Island that a monastery once existed, so when Melkin wrote his riddle, did he know of a previous building dedicated to the Virgin Mary, situated over the subterranean vault before the dedication of a chapel to St. Michael after 1307 AD. Certainly parts of the Perlesvaus indicate this. One could even get the sense of ’a crate containing a preparation’ from ‘praeparatio’ and from ‘crateris’ a receptacle or trough with a preparation, referring to the embalming fluid contained within. This will become clear when we investigate the cedar embalming fluid surrounding Jesus’ body .There is however on another level, a completely different meaning that can be extricated specifically relevant to the tunnels entrance. This seems to be the real clue to the tombs entrance with specific localised instructions assuming in Melkin's day there was a monastery on Burgh Island which becomes clear in a later chapter.

super potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis:

· super, rendering above, upward or on high,

· potentem, translates as mighty, powerful or being able ,having power or being capable, but it also has the sense of potential i.e reaching or attaining

· adorandam , meaning adorable or venerable. ‘ad’ by itself translating as; on, at, to or towards is directional. If we look at splitting the word into ad orandam we could be looking at the word orandam, giving ‘to pray to’ or be pleaded with, and also means to pray, as in this example ‘ad orandum vero et communicandum’ …..which translates as ‘in truthful prayer and communication’. Is Melkin sending us toward where one prays ? ‘Ora’ as we have seen translates as ‘by the sea coast’, but also has another sense giving ‘extremity, brim or edge’, so with ‘virge’ is this Melkin’s meaning ‘extremity of the verge’ because already the 'Marmore' has told us that the island is by the sea.

The ‘Vera historia de morte Arthuri’, provides a tradition for the burial of Arthur and most of these traditions have an echo of truth. Here Arthur's body is taken to be buried in a certain chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary,(Adorable Virgin) but since the entrance is too narrow to get the body into, it is temporarily left outside while a storm comes and fog obscures everything. When the fog clears the body has disappeared and in its place there is a sealed tomb. ‘Some say that this is where the body resides; others claim that it was mysteriously carried off to an unknown destination during the storm’. The reference here is of a coastal location where storms and fog occur where we know the entrance to be on an Island....... with a sealed entrance that might once have had a monastery or chapel dedicated to the virgin Mary situated upon it. Is this Melkins meaning of ‘adorandam virginem’

· Virginem derived from ‘Virga’ giving virginalis with an obvious reference to the Virgin Mary. ‘adorandam virginem’ means “The adorable virgin or maiden”. This sentence essentially is intonating precise local instructions to the entrance of the vault, giving its relation in the local vicinity to the crater and where an old church used to be situated. Diodorus Siculus who leads us to Ictis in the preceding chapters, bears witness that: “Opposite to the coast of Celtic Gaul there is an island in the ocean, (Britain) not smaller than Sicily, lying to the north… tradition says that Latona was born there and for this reason, the inhabitants venerate Apollo (the Sun God) more than any other god. They are, in a manor, his priests (Druids), for they daily celebrate him with continual song (Perpetual Choirs) and pay him abundant honours… In this island, there is a magnificent grove of Apollo (St Michael Ley line), and a remarkable temple of the spherical form (Avebury), adorned with many consecrated gifts” (Ley lines).

Latona had to give birth to Apollo and Artemis the twins of Zeus on an Island not accounted as land and not attached to the sea floor; Procopius’s ‘Otherworld’ which existed in Britain.

However, it would seem as if Melkin is giving direct instructions as to where the entrance to the sepulchre is. If we split ‘adorandam’ into ‘ad orandam’ it renders ‘in prayer’ if we use the root ‘oran’ it gives again the coast or brim or extremity or edge as before. ‘Vergere’ gives slope or incline which is a multi-levelled instruction. The English word ‘verge’ has the same derivative root of virga which gives virgin or verga. If we attempt this word string ‘super potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis’ as a whole whilst splitting ‘supradictis’ into ‘supra ad ictis’, we get the sense ’upwards one is able at the edge of the verge up high in Ictis’.

supradictis : Normally translates as ‘aforementioned’. Melkin is clever here with the word ‘supradictis’ to make it look like he is relating to the ‘sperulatis’, as if ‘supradictis’ is referring to the ‘aforementioned sperulis’ in the early part of the prophecy. ‘supradictis’ translates as ‘spoken of, said before, mentioned above or aforesaid’, as most translators have it, and could even be word play on supra-dictis and could be rendered as “foretold from above”. As the reader will be aware, Melkin is not only naming the fabled island of Ictis, the very same island the prophecy is about; but ‘supra-ad-ictis’; informing us that Joseph and Jesus are ‘high up in Ictis’. ‘Supra’ rendering- above, aloft or on high. This may be an indicator of Melkin’s confidence at having entangled the enquirer sufficiently, or could even be a creeping anxiety that the intended purport of his message may never reach posterity with all its subtlety. However he was cognisant of the fact that Ictis is synonymous with Avalon and is responsible for changing the name as well as obscuring the location of both.

We will investigate further in relation to Leonardo Da Vinci’s connection to this Island and the subliminal messages he has left for posterity and the way that words and paintings are used to allude to concealed meanings. The most striking revelation about this obvious reference to Ictis is...... how does Melkin know it was called Ictis? Had Melkin indeed read the Greek and Roman accounts of Ictis and deduced himself, that the place is synonymous with Joseph’s burial place or was the history explained in a manuscript that expressly gave an account of Joseph’s connection with Ictis. The latter seems most probable as even in Melkin’s era Ictis’ whereabouts was lost to classical chroniclers. Even if Melkin did witness Arthur’s burial and saw Jesus’s remains, there would have to be some form of writing explaining why this Island was chosen by Joseph and related the islands historical name, five or six hundred years after Joseph’s burial. It is this body of writing that would appear to be part of the source for Melkin’s Book of the Grail and for this reason the Perlesvaus' authority stems from someone called Joseph who many assume to be just the narrator. This is not the case, but arises from the fact that Melkin in the Grail book is actually stating that the authority for the story of the holy relics reaching Britain, stems from Joseph himself. The reason we can assume this is that The High History which is a copy of the Perlesvaus written by Henry Blois says that the origins for all the Grail material came from the Island of Avalon which Melkin came across when Arthur was buried there, using this source and filling in the story up to Arthur .

It seems reasonable to assume that the Templars who built the St. Michael church design, returned Melkin's updated account i.e the Book of the Grail to the sarcophagus; otherwise this book would have come to light.
Most commentators have assumed that the reference in the High history of the Grail to the book emanating from the Island of Avalon indicates the writer of the perlesvaus or the High History transcribed it from there. Henry of Blois who derives his knowledge from the French material founded on Melkin's Grail book was informed that the Grail material was from a religious house on an Island by Melkin, but he had no idea where Avalon was. It is the opinion of the author that Melkin’s Book of the Grail was deposited in the sepulchre when the Turin Shroud was removed and shortly thereafter made public. The treasure and the Ark were also deposited at the same time which we will cover shortly.

However, now we get precise instructions as to the entrance of the old tin vault if we take the meaning of ‘cratibus praeparatis’ having a dual meaning in that it applies to the external crater dug by the original operators of Ictis so that they could get their cart to the tunnel entrance leading to the storage vault: ‘cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis’…… meaning 'in a prepared crater at reaching the verge toward where one prays up high in Ictis'.

Showing the Cove stone within Avebury stone circle where the bifurcation or fork occurs between the St. Michael Ley line and the Joseph line at 13 degrees.

sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim:

· sperulatis: Most translators have rendered this word string ‘where the aforesaid 13 spheres rest’ but with the word ‘sperulatis’, Melkin has set out to baffle the reader. If the enquirer is unable to resolve this last clause of the directional part of the riddle, one is not going to obtain the direction of 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line through Montacute to Burgh Island along the Joseph line. Melkin plays on the original use of the word ‘sperulis’, from which we derived sphere, which at the beginning of the prophecy related to the stone circle of Avebury. Melkin then refers back to ‘sperulis’ by using the word “aforementioned”(the normal meaning of 'supradictis') trying to convince the reader that the two words ‘sperulis’ and ‘sperulatis’ have one and the same meaning. However his use of the word for the second time has not the same sense as in circle or sphere, but rather in its composition, being comprised of degrees. Melkin surely meant ‘sperulatis’ as a diminutive form and of the symbol for degrees i.e. 13°……. the symbol being a small circle °. By the association with a sphere or circle being comprised of degrees and the fact we are dealing with geometric instructions, it is possible Melkin imagined that one would associate the word with its composition or definition and derive from it the enumerated angle. It might appear that Melkin has used a play on words assuming that the reader would know that ‘speraulus’ means ‘to be looked for’.

· The word locum is rendered as ‘where’ by most commentators but this same word also translates as ‘tomb or sepulchre’ in Ainsworth. Locum generally understood by translators as locus, refers to a place such as the location or place being discussed.

· The word habitantibus rendering to ‘dwell’ or ‘abide’, seems very out of place in this sentence and it would be no surprise if ‘habit’ and ‘antibus’ were split to give the sense of ‘dwelling opposite’ at 13 degrees or some such contortion...... just as we toyed with ‘Vatican Antibus’. We could arrive at ‘antiboreus’ which translates as ‘looking towards the north’ or from ‘anticus’ translating as the fore part or southward. It is only because habitantibus is unusual, especially in this section of the directional part of the prophecy, that it would seem that the word needs to be split; so we could have the ‘locum’ as a sepulchre abiding in the fore part or southward of the 13 degrees, or those that dwell in the tomb are looking toward the north to the 13 degree angle. The reader can see how accurate Melkin has been by carrying out a simple trigonometric example by drawing a line at right angles down from the point at which the Ley lines cross each side of Glastonbury tor and this gives the precise angle of 12.838568 degrees, which is only 9 ‘seconds’ out and considering the fact that Melkin is trying to conceal that he is referring to degrees, can be accounted as a rounded up 13 degrees.

Figure 24a Showing the exemplified three sides of the right angle triangle giving 12.84 degrees

· Tredecim: translating as thirteen. Sperulatis may give the translation ‘degree’ by its relationship with a sphere. A sphere is made up of 360°, so Melkin is giving a visual pun of the small circle that is the degree symbol because ‘Sperulatis’ is the diminutive form of Sperula. This is a novel yet apt description that the word conveys as long as the sense is understood, i.e. a tiny sphere or circle as the symbol used for degrees. However the angle of 13° between the Joseph and St. Michael Ley Line is so precise that it could have no other meaning, but the 13 degrees as shown in figure 25. Without Google Earth this investigation into Melkin’s directions would be difficult in the extreme, but it is oddly quaint that a crop circle nestles comfortably in the opposite angle to that indicating the 13 degrees just to the right of the Avebury circle as shown in figure 25.

Figure 25 Showing the 13° formed between the St. Michael Ley line and the Joseph line that ‘Bifurcate’ at Avebury.

Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta:

· Habet enim secum, literally translates as ‘for he has with him’, ‘secus’ giving ‘nigh to’ or ‘with’. This sentence usually translates as ‘Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus two vessels, white and silver, filled with the blood and sweat of the Prophet Jesus’. Melkin in this second-half of the prophecy seems to get less obtuse, but his use of words indicates he is still supplying occult information. One assumes these days that the ‘duo fassula’ is synonymous with the Holy Grail, as indicated on the heraldic shield of Glastonbury. But what was rendered as a singular ‘graal’ originally in the Grail stories was corrupted into two beer jug like vessels on the Glastonbury Arms.

· Ioseph in sarcophago: in the sarcophagus or sepulchre or tomb, Joseph..... has with him.

· Duo Fassula: two ‘fassula’…… before the Grail stories were written, must have confused the monks when the singular Grail appeared around 1150AD. At least this might have prevented a falsified find of Joseph’s remains, being totally unable to produce something so sacred as the blood and sweat of their Lord. It is not clear if there is an exact translation of ‘fassula’ because it is a direct obfuscation. Commentators have assumed that the Grail is a receptacle and it would seem that even Helinand is trying to rationalise three threads; 1) two vessels that he must have heard about. 2) The degrees, steps or grades that the word Graal suggested with his Latin derivatives. 3) The processional taking place in the Grail story while sitting at meat. Thus he came up with the etymology of a platter as a serving dish for meat.

In the Glastonbury case, we are led to believe that it holds two liquids, blood and sweat. So from the Latin ‘vas’, a vase, commentators have assumed ‘vassula. This sounds like ‘vascula’ which, as the reader will know is a vessel and therefore would seem the obvious deduction. As Melkin has proved to be accurate up to this point in the information that he is providing us, probably from a much older text, it would seem that the duality of the Grail as an object within the sarcophagus is more likely than the singularity of the Grail in the romances as the sense of Graal. In the Romances as we have covered, it has been largely misunderstood. As we have discussed, Melkin was the consolidator of that tradition in the Book of the Grail and, as a religious rite will have referred to it in the singular. This will be elucidated later, when we will see that the Graal from Gradatim are the degrees or stages of spiritual enlightenment in ‘Biblical Time’, rather than the physical object or receptacles containing the blood and sweat. A ‘fasciola’ however, is a bandage and a ‘fasceola’ is a swaddling cloth or a cloth swathe.

· alba translates as the word ‘Pearl’ in Latin but also has its translation as the word ‘white’ by most translators. In fact it directly refers to a ‘white cloth’. This of course would confirm the assumption of the white grave cloth otherwise known as the Turin Shroud of which there was mention in all four Gospels.

· argentea from ‘argenteus’ meaning ‘of silver’ also translating as ‘clear or bright’ but usually to do with silver, a mass of bullion, coin or money. It also has another meaning of plated(as in silver plated) or ‘overlaid’. ‘Argentatus’ giving silvered, over plated or again ‘overlaid’. Is this the heart of Melkin’s message that really shows who it is that Joseph brought to England and the proof?

· cruore from ‘Cruor’, translating as blood from a wound or gore. ‘Cruentatus’ giving made bloody or died with blood. The Glastonbury cruets as vessels or as Father Good referred to them as golden ampullae, are purely derived from word association from that Latin word for blood, ‘cruore’ then led to ‘cruet’ and from blood to vessel. Many researchers have chosen to translate as ‘two cruets’, leaving out ‘fassula’ as the vessel and converting the blood supposedly contained in the vessel into the vessel itself, holding the blood. Thus we have the vessel holding the blood turning into a vessel that sounds like what the vessel is purported to contain.

· Sudore, ‘sudor’ giving sweat, labour, travail or pains. Melkin has given us here the answer to this problem of the ‘duo fassula’ in that ‘fascla’ a swathe or breast cloth and ‘fasciola’ swathing cloth, is meant as a ‘doubled’ white cloth covered in sweat and blood from Jesus, (overlaid, from ‘argentea’, as one would overlay an image with silver i.e. following the outline of the image) . If Geoffrey de Charney who was the first to exhibit the Turin Shroud, had removed it from the tomb it would explain its sudden appearance in the 1350’s.

Perimpleta; has always provided the word for ‘full’, in the context of ‘filled with the blood and sweat’ by nearly every commentator on the prophecy. Perimpleta is not a word in its own right that has meaning, but this is common with Melkin. It can be made up from ‘per – impleta’, coming from the verb 'impleo' which means 'I fill up/satiate'. The 'per-' on the front is a common latin prefix for emphasis i.e. 'completely full/satiated'.
'pleta' comes from 'pleo' which simply means 'I fill'. In the form 'pleta' it is acting as an adjective meaning 'filled'. This is obviously Melkin’s misdirectional intention.

However there is no evidence of the word existing as written here, so one can conclude it must be part of the riddle to be solved. 'peri' is a Greek word meaning 'around' and is usual as a prefix meaning "about, enclosing," as in the word ‘perimeter’ …….. a "line or outline around a figure or surface”. ‘Pleta’, literally giving, ‘I plait’ in English, meaning to fold or as the definition gives, "to bend cloth back over itself”. This seems to show that Melkin has a message to convey that Jesus is in an ‘enclosed fold’ or ‘enclosed in a fold’. It appears to confirm and describe the Turin Shroud as the article that Melkin is describing; that is the white cloth that covered Jesus while he was in Joseph’s tomb in Jerusalem (if he ever was). The different accounts regarding the cloth after the tomb was found empty, can largely be regarded as padding for the justification of a first-hand account,(all Gospel accounts differ) and each individual account given by the Gospel writers adding credibility to their personal explanation of the resurrection. There is no doubt that Melkin is letting the world know that a ‘doubled grave cloth, covered with blood (from wounds) and sweat from the prophet Jesus…..and it was Jesus who was enclosed in this folded cloth just as it is shown by the image on the Turin Shroud. The explanation of how the outline was formed and when the shroud left the sepulcher will be elucidated shortly.

· The prophete Jhesu is a poignant appellation, many researchers linking this expression with an eastern origin, as the Koran refers to Jesus in this way. Melkin as we shall see is fully aware that not only did the Prophets predict Jesus’s coming forth but also that he was the fulfilment on one level of understanding, of what they had predicted and thus, was one of their Genre and part of the Divine plan. We now have Melkin’s intended meaning of; ‘Joseph has with him in the tomb a doubled white folded cloth that was laid over the prophet Jesus and outlined by his sweat and blood’. Melkin again by naming Jesus in this way…… is making us believe this is just a reference to him and not that we are Talking about the Turin shroud and his body.

Cum reperietur eius sarchofagum integrum illibatum, in futuris videbitur et erit apertum toto orbi terranum:

· Cum reperietur eius sarchofagu; translates as ‘with the discovery of his sarcophagus’ .

· Integrum; from ‘integrates’ translating as ‘entire or whole’. This is in reference to the body of Jesus being preserved by cedar oil in the Grail Ark.

· Illibatum; giving ‘untouched, pure or undefiled’, from libatum ‘defiled’ as in ‘virginitas libata’

· in futuris videbitur; translating As ‘in the future, it will be seen’.

· et erit apertum toto orbi terranum; gives ‘and will be opened to all, around the world’.

The translations of this sentence appear for the most part as; ‘once his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be seen whole and untouched and then open to the whole world’ or similarly, ‘with the discovery of his tomb, which will be whole and undefiled, from thenceforth it will be viewed and open to the entire world’. As in the beginning part of the prophecy, where Melkin speaks of the future referring to a period when Joseph's body is uncovered, as a time when pilgrims would give praise to God at the island…… so is this sentence referring to that same point in the future. This does infer a religious change at the discovery of the tomb and Melkin twice, in this short prophecy, mentions the ‘whole world’ or ‘all around the world’, indicating that it will be a change in the religious system with global ramifications. ‘Open to the whole world’; indicating, not a Christian world, but an all-inclusive world of Muslims and Jews of the Abrahamic traditions, but also including all faiths that are understanding the proofs of Divine intervention by prediction, convinced by that which is revealed, upon the opening of the tomb.

Melkin starts the sentence with ‘cum’ and with its various forms of translation, by inference, is indicating a point in time i.e. ‘with the unveiling of the sarcophagus’. This is the commencement of a 1000 year period spoken of in Revelation 26:6 ‘Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years’. Melkin’s understanding of ‘Time’ is what most qualifies him as a prophet and why such great importance should be attached to this prophecy because he is speaking in ‘The Times’ i.e. from the birth of Jesus to the uncovering of the tomb and speaking about the commencement of a new age, the 1000 years which are to follow . A fuller explanation of ‘time, times and half of time’ will come shortly.

Ex tunc nec aqua nec ros celi insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere.

Ex tunc; ‘from thenceforth’. This whole sentence is most commonly translated as, ‘from then on, those who dwell in that noble island will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven’. Melkin starts the sentence ‘ex tunc’ or literally ‘from that time’, indicating again the expectation of change at the point of time when the tomb is unveiled. What Melkin understands is that religion in general with its multitudinous dead practices across the world (starting in Britain) will now accept the God of Israel as the only truth, in amongst the myriad of other gods by which men contrive their ‘modus operandi’

nec aqua nec ros celi; this is again confirming God-given blessings from that time forward. Rain and dew are metaphorical for spiritual blessings sent from heaven and from thenceforth, never failing those who are converted in that island. However, Melkin is imparting occult information here on one level, in that, he is using the word ‘nekros’ from the Greek, which gives us ‘dead, dead body, corpse’ or ‘nekrosis’ "a becoming dead, state of death.Now the reader may find this next bitincomprehensible but it is based upon the correct interpretation of the prophets and this is Melkin’s reference to the ‘spiritually dead’. It shows that he is fully aware of the ‘degrees’ of spiritual progress of Man set within the finite parameters of ‘Biblical Time’. This expression ‘Spiritually dead’ is encapsulated throughout the prophets as those who come out of ‘spiritual Egypt’ and do not obey the Law engraved within them i.e. the denial of the testimony of Jesus. Those that do this are accounted ‘spiritually dead’ but those that accept his testimony are accounted as alive-or living. This is overcoming the first death spoken of in Revelation. However those that accept the testimony of Jesus by ‘coming out of Egypt’ yet afterward with the pressures of life, and the innate qualities of corruptness that are the lot of the human condition……they fall away into ‘non-compliance with conscience’ or disobedience to that engraved upon their heart. These then undergo and experience the analagous ‘Fall of Jerusalem’. This is referred to throughout the prophets and of course is followed by the seven years of compliance (known spiritually as ‘the captivity’), a period to put away sin and of purification and acknowledgement that there is a God (The whole point of the divine plan to self-realisation or Gnosis). After the acknowledgement and compliance, spiritual peace is found,(the goal of the Divine plan) and this is the overcoming of the second death also mentioned in Revelation. Failure to comply in the ‘spiritual captivity’ period, results in the second death i.e. spiritual death (non peace). The three periods or degrees of Gnosis; firstly the coming out of Egypt, secondly the return from the Captivity (in the Spiritual sense) and thirdly the heavenly state of spiritual peace, are synonymous with the three days that Jesus speaks of, when he refers to the rebuilding of the Temple. This is how this ‘Shir ha Ma'a lot’ fits in as the Grades or steps toward the Temple. These three days are also synonymous as, the three periods of time i.e. Time, the Times and Half Time. ‘And when he cometh, he shall smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are for death to death; and such as are for captivity to captivity; and such as are for the sword to the sword’. Jeremiah 43:10.

What Melkin is referring to here are those persons that in the seven years of captivity after the fall of spiritual Jerusalem, who do not acknowledge that there is a God; from that time forward there will be no more water from heaven. ‘Seven times will pass by for you, until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.’ Daniel 4:32. Daniel 4:25.

The evidences for Melkin’s double meaning here rely on elucidation in a later chapter as a digression here is not opportune and the explanation involves the issue of ‘Biblical Time’.

It is here however that it becomes evident that one scribal change has been made for reasons to accord or marry with the word ‘insula’ the first word of the prophecy and the Island of Avalon we have been trying to locate. This scribal alteration was most probably innocently changed before or by John of Glastonbury when transcribing Melkin’s prophecy. Melkin wrote originally the word ‘insalem’ as a pun because with this word the purport of his occult meaning is passed to the initiated but also the mundane sense is conveyed. Melkin’s original would have read; ‘Ex tunc nec aqua nec ros celi insalem nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. If one were to split ’insalem’ as intended by Melkin to, ‘in salem’, then the sentence reads ‘from that time there is no water for the dead but those that live in (heavenly) peace, will not lack drink’. This is the peace of which comes to those who have come out of Egypt initially and then subsequently purified themselves during the seven year Captivity after the spiritual fall of Jerusalem. ‘In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people. Isaiah 11:11.

insulam nobilissimam; ostensibly translating as ‘noble Island’ in the one sense as Melkin intended but as we have seen, this originally would have been written as the non existant Latin word ‘insalem’, which when split gives ‘in peace’ the very objective of Gnosis and the understanding behind the essence of the Grail. ‘Mental rest’ in the landscape of the mind, which allegorically has its similitude in the Holy land, is the key to the understanding of the vast body of knowledge incorporated in the prophets. A difficult concept to grasp, but the ‘rest and peace’, that the prophets speak of is spiritual and not historical.

However like so many words in Melkin’s prophecy, the outward word suggests a mis-spelt meaning, yet when uncovered, the occult sense is revealed just as in Usher’s version giving Judioialem instead of the modern corrected or assumed form of ‘Judicialem’ to conform with Saphat. ‘Judioialem’ was probably a corruption or conscious scribal correction and almost certainly the original word that Melkin would have written was ‘Judiosalem’. The reason that this assumption can be posited is because it is a certainty that Melkin understood the message of the Biblical prophets. This can be assumed by his understanding of Biblical time which can only be gleaned from the prophets of Israel.

habitantibus poterit deficere

· habitantibus from a root of ‘habitatio’ , ‘habitator’ , ‘habitatus’ or ‘habito’ giving ‘to dwell, live in, or abide. Melkin’s choice of words is exact and precise to convey the sense of a spiritual place where one lives at peace, much as today the modern expression of describing someone as being ‘in a good place’ in reference to their state of mind or mental wellbeing. This concept of a spiritual location is vital to the understanding of the prophets, as what was essentially a landscape in historical time (set in Biblical time) becomes by mental transformation…….. as Melkin comprehends, a mental landscape of peace within which one can potentially live. This essentially is the Kingdom of Heaven that is referred to by Jesus as an earthly attainable state…… the likes of which he proclaimed to be at hand or attainable. Unfortunately the opposite state being equally attainable. The subject requires an elucidation that is grounded in the prophets and the subject analysis is too broad to be dealt with within these pages excepting the subject of Biblical Time……. which we will cover only to show that Melkin was certain that what he prophesied would take place at a set point, in that time.

· Poterit; from a root describing ‘drink or drinking’ which again has biblical connotations. Drinking is synonymous with acceptance of the divine plan or God’s word and of what is revealed by the prophets of Israel. The real sense of spiritual drinking can by association be equated with the satiation of spiritual thirst as in Jeremiah 49:12 ‘This is what the LORD says: "If those who do not deserve to drink the cup; must drink it, why should you go unpunished? ... You must drink this cup of judgment!’. Or again in Obadiah 4:16 ‘Just as you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been!’ Here again in Mark 10:38 ‘Can you drink the cup? But Jesus said to them, "You don't know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink from.

· Deficere from ‘deficio’ meaning, to leave or fail one’ giving the word ‘lack’ as most translators have it.

Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata: Most translations of this passage differ only slightly; ‘for a long time before the day of judgement in Josaphat, these things will be openly declared to the living’.

· Per multum tempus ante; translates as ‘a long time before’ and relates as we have already seen to the 1000 year period from the time the tomb is unveiled before the day of Judgement i.e from the time that Joseph’s and Jesus’ tomb is unveiled. This is the last period of the seven day period of 7,000 years that constitute the framework of ‘Biblical Time’.

· diem Judicialem. ‘diem Judicialem’ which is purely conforming to the notion of its connection to judgement day may have undergone a scribal change. This has been due to its connection with Jehosaphat which the Abrahamic faiths believe refers to judgement day. Melkin again can only be understood with a grasp of the Prophets prophesying in time, as biblical spans of time are often misunderstood being dependant upon how the prophet is referencing the subject, this determining the unit time measure expressed.
Melkin here most probably wrote ‘Judiosalem’ which obviously is word play on Jerusalem as well as being a subliminal joining of Judah (Judeo) and Salem which has been changed to judicialem because of its connection with Judgement day. Exactly what Melkin intented is most likely to have been ‘Judeosalem’ ‘The day of Judah’s peace’ or ‘peace of the Jews’ referring to the spiritual peace of those coming out of spiritual Babylon which takes place on the day of Jehosaphat, as long as the thousand year period is understood as a day being the seventh day of the one week of Biblical time. Melkin is using the word ‘Salem’ from which Jerusalem is derived from Urušalimum , ‘Foundation of Shalem’; Salem coming from the word shalem, shalom, shalim or salam meaning peace; the city of Jerusalem which dates back to the early bronze age, where Abraham and Melchizedek met. ‘Judah’s peace’ is the goal of the Divine plan if one accepts that a ‘Jew’ is a spiritual Jew i.e. a person having come out of Egypt primarily and then subsequently returned from the Babylonian captivity, (Babylon the Great in the spiritual sense) and then found peace through adherence to the Law and acknowledgement of the existence of God. This view of the prophets being not only historical, seems newly contrived, but is the essential perception although not intellectually or theologically comprehended, that unites and is perceived by the Abrahamic faiths

· in iosaphat: Melkin has steered the reader into assuming a place, by prefixing ’Josaphat’ with ‘in’, when he is quite aware of Jehosaphat’s meaning as a period of biblical time (which is the 1000 years of ‘The Times’ halved) and accounted as a degree of spiritual awakening being the third day of the three time periods, time times, and halftime as these were referred to by Jesus as days. The reader will remember that ‘saphat’ was rendered as judgement in the earlier part of the prophecy. ‘Judiosalem’, became Judioalem and was then changed to ‘Judicialem’ because of its association with Jehosaphat being commonly associated with the last Judgement. The rendering of ‘Saphat’ as ‘judgement’ in the previous passage is incorrect, when ‘potens in Saphat’, should be understood as ‘he who’s might is in spiritual awakening’ in direct reference to spiritual Jews.

The Valley of Josaphat or Valley of Jehoshaphat is mentioned in only one passage of the Bible, in Joel 3.2 : "I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations". It is from this passage that Christians derive Jehosaphat as the ‘last judgement’, which is exactly what Melkin is alluding to. Due to its attachment to a valley, theologians have assumed it has a geographical location, but like ‘mountain’ in biblical texts; it rarely, especially in prophetical literature, has the sense of geographical location. When the reader of prophetical literature becomes aware of the concept of a historical location( i.e the Holy land and its tribes) set in ‘Biblical Time’ that has become a blueprint for a spiritual landscape, this transliterable approach to the comprehension of the Prophets words becomes clearer. The prophets speak of the nations and their attributes dualistically applying to real time historical prophecy but also understandable within an individual mental landscape. Josaphat incidentally is the name given to the forth king of Judah. The essence of Jehosaphat’s meaning is captured with the passage in Matthew. 25, and bears witness that the voice of Jesus can be heard by everyone that spiritually came out of Egypt i.e. heard the Law; but then subsequently most of those who were initially blessed with this miraculous correcting toward gnosis, chose to ignore their conscience, eventually being sent to captivity in Spiritual Babylon at the destruction of Spiritual Jerusalem. This does sound oversimplified and contrived but we will come to this when discussing ‘Biblical time’ but the point is that Jesus did not only come for the Gentiles but all the children of Israel. Evidence of the Divine plan can be witnessed in Mathew 25 showing the relationship of choice with deed which as we have stated, takes place within the seven year period which is the defining time of purification through compliance or as it is Biblically known ‘the troublous times’ : ³¹ When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: ³² And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: ³³ And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: ³⁵ For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: ³⁶ Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me’. ³⁷ Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, ‘when did we see you hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? ³⁸ When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? ³⁹ Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?’ ⁴⁰ And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’. ⁴¹ Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not . ⁴⁴ Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? ⁴⁵ Then shall he answer them, saying, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me’. ⁴⁶ And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata; usually translated as ’openly shall these things be declared to the living’ but another interpretation could be that ‘these things will be openly accepted or made apparent by those having reached spiritual awareness’. ‘Viventibus’, the living or alive, has the same connotation as in prophetical literature, as those not spiritually dead. Throughout the prophets this notion is held that man can be alive, not in the sense that humans are either dead or alive but spiritually alive, as opposed to those in whom their conscience no longer councils to do good but instead, acts conversely as a ‘fearful looking for of judgement’. It is from this understanding that we might grasp God not being a ‘respector of persons’ but only of those who are spiritually alive.

Melkin specifically points to a period in time and this point in time is the uncovering of Jesus’ body. The reason for this is obvious in the proofs it will provide for the future, not only of the veracity of his prophecy but substantiating the words of the Prophets of Israel……… these confirmations and the realisation of a Divine plan will cause a paradigm shift in consciousness. Jesus and the Archangel Michael mentioned in Revelation and Daniel seem to be both part of the raising of Human consciousness and are accounted as witnesses to the Divine Plan.

Figure 25a Edward Burne Jones’s Tapestry of ‘The Failure of Sir Gawaine & Sir Uwaine at the Ruined Chapel’ showing St. Michael the Archangel as the one entering into the Grail chamber to ask the fabled Question; Who does the Grail serve?

Although the Angel connected with the Grail is often named as Gabriel, this is a later interpolation as we do not find the name Gabriel in the early French verses, only that an of an angel on whose forehead was written ‘Je sui apieles forche del très haut signour’, ‘I am called the strength of the Most High God’; and as related in Revelation the leader of God’s heavenly host. It is common to all the Abrahamic faiths that Michael is the one to unite the nations, but is also seen as the second witness in Biblical time as Daniel speaks of his arrival at the end time of what he instructed as being encapsulated within the parameters of Biblical time.

It would seem by the Templars dedication of all the St. Michael churches within our design that this angel was either named in the book of the Grail or assumed from prophetical prediction as connected with the Grail.

In Fragments of the Prince Melchizedek document found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Melchizedek and the Archangel Michael are one and the same and there is undoubtedly an understanding of Michael being inextricably linked to the Grail, since all these churches that have led us to this Island of Avallon, have been named after him specifically. It is through the Archangel that the Dragon is killed .The Archangel being inextricably linked to accounts in Revelation and the Prophets, showing Biblical inter-relation with the spiritual quest of the Grail romances……… all integrally linked to Jesus the Archetypal son of the God of Israel. It is ‘HE’ who spoke through the Prophets, who mankind calls God, whose plan it is, to elevate the Consciousness of Man, and this is also allegorically replicated as the ascension of the steps by degrees to the Temple.

It is God that carries out his Divine Plan in Time, but the Archangel Michael who seems to have lived throughout time is inescapably linked to all aspects of our investigation. His name is linked with the Island, with the Grail………… and as the protector of God’s people as seen here in the The Apocolypse of Paul or Visio Pauli

Hear What Michael says! I am he who stands in the sight of God every hour. As the lord lives, in whose sight I stand, I do not stop one day or night praying incessantly for the human race, and I indeed pray for those who are on the Earth, but they do not cease committing iniquity and fornications; and they do not do any good while they are placed on earth and you have consumed in vanity the time in which you ought to have repented.

Figure 25b Showing the St. Michael Ley line...... the Joseph line relative to the Island of Ictis which Joseph visited as a tin merchant. This shows the ingot wreck sites proximity to the the Island of Avalon.

Chapter 12

The connection between the Pyramid on the British landscape and the Grail stories.

We will now return to the geometrical pyramidal shape that has been central to our investigation so far. In southern England, Neolithic man had much the same aim as the Pyramid builders in Egypt. When we

consider the amount of man-hours employed to build just one feature such as Silbury Hill, this design or device made up of nodal points and Ley lines, like the purpose of the pyramids, must have been thought by their constructors to carry out a specific function. The Egyptian pyramids seem, to have been built ostensibly as funerary monuments and current opinion for their existence varies widely. One can assert that there was a gradual technological advancement in the construction methods of pyramids, because of past failures, collapses and mistakes on angles during construction, culminating in projects such as the six and a half million tons of limestone being used in making up the Cheops Pyramid.

Figure 26 Showing Silbury Hill, where archaeologists calculate that the hill was built about 2,500 BC and that it took 18 million man-hours, or 500 men working for 15 years.

The modern theory, without any other viable explanation, is that the pyramids were built purely for the satisfaction of the Pharaoh. This theory is based upon man’s supposed urge attested to in Genesis 11:4. ‘Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach up to heaven; and let us make a name’. If they were used for funerary monuments in Egypt, why was it that in Mexico they were used for human sacrifice and yet the Mayans used their pyramid structures for both purposes? Why were the Mayans and the Aztecs building structures the same shape as the ancient Egyptians were building 3000 years earlier? The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan has exactly the same base area as the great pyramid of Cheops yet uses only two and a half million tons of rock due to its lesser angle and step construction, yet this too is astrologically aligned like Cheops, so one must ask, how are these similar constructions related? Why are the bases of the two pyramids so similar? How did the Egyptians achieve such accuracy with the ratio of height to circumference in the Great pyramid, which represents the squaring of the circle 1/ 2

π

? Did the Aztecs and Mayans lack the technological know-how, not having had the previous construction trials?

Basically, the Egyptians built pyramids according to simple gradients of 3:1 and 4:1, the 3:1 gradient giving 43.5 degrees and the 4:1 giving the 51°.52’. The latter is very close to the pyramid on the British landscape. This is very nearly the same height ratio between the two 18 and 26 foot pyramids that existed at Glastonbury. The Egyptians could have used a simple method of measuring long horizontal distances by counting the revolutions of a cylinder with the same unit as diameter. Creating the British pyramid in this fashion would have been a real achievement. Just how is it possible to roll a cylinder across the landscape and how did Melkin know with such precision that it is 104 nautical miles from Avebury to Burgh Island and how did he know of an angle of 13° between two invisible lines?

Across the millennia a similar shape has re-occurred in the shape of the pyramid, so what do they have in common, and why are they constructed?

The pyramid displays certain mathematical truths.

These constructions are astrologically aligned.

Huge amounts of Labour have been spent in their construction.

The essence of a pyramid reflects, for its builders the harmonies of mathematics which surround mankind daily within a four dimensional understanding. This is represented by its four sides rising from Mother Earth under the daily influence of the planets, being reflected by the alignments in its construction. The community of builders in a specific locale is representative as a microcosm of mankind’s empirical quest that rises and aspires to the analogous ‘pyramidion’ of full consciousness through the spirit, which started with Adam 6,000 years ago.

From the earliest dawn, when man's aspirations were thwarted in building the tower of Babel, so that he ‘might be as high as God’……… there has been left on his psyche (collective spiritual understanding), an indelible residue of this experience. Even if this story is allegorical, in essence it portrays a ‘truth in conceptual understanding’ that without man’s acceptance of God, no structure will be achieved and the construct of the pyramid is subliminally representative of that growth to full consciousness.

It is this sub-conscious imprint underlying in the psyche of the various communities that has attempted by means of construction, to satiate this desire or subliminal potential. It would seem that for this reason we have been left these various earthworks today. The likeness of huge spiritual endeavours, are built to honour their King or Pharaoh, yet to enshrine their mortality.

The pyramid builders likened their construction to the life of a man and mankind, influenced by the heavens while on earth (bound by time in four dimensions), yet urged by the indelible imprint to leave behind him a replica of his spiritual endeavour. The Pharaoh in death left behind him physical evidence in structure of this innate struggle that the Pharaoh’s had against what was a pre-set plan of God. These pyramid forms became subliminally representative of the overall spiritual endeavour of mankind. The modern mind cannot grasp the fact that at God’s intervention in Adam’s awareness, disobedience occurred in mankind in not wanting to hear God’s voice and this is borne out in Biblical stories of the Pharaoh’s lack of obedience. This form of disobedience came more from lack of awareness as a receptor until of course the Mosaic Law was established. It is this initial spark of Consciousness, implanted in Mankind that has seen his meteoric rise over the last six thousand years.

The pyramidal structure is an icon or testimony to man's four dimensional interrelatedness with the rest of the universe, that bears witness to his empirical upward growth and progression to the high point of his achievement. Each man's life is insignificant, yet part of the empirical structure of humankind's eventual spiritual achievement. As we shall cover shortly the Empires in this empirical pyramidal structure and their leaders such as Pharaoh, Darius and Alexander the Great feature in Man’s progression as witnessed in the Biblical prophets. It becomes clearer that these Empires and their leaders act as icons and are part of this construct of Time……… and as such are referenced by the prophets.

It is for this reason, that in the biblical scriptures, we hear subliminal references to this pyramid structure, in ‘the stone that the builders rejected’, referring to the pyramidion that rests upon the empirical structure and Jesus as a simile for the pyramidion, the ‘head of the cornerstone’. Those who don't accept Jesus as part of a definitive Divine Plan, are the builders who reject that there is a God. The Pyramid builders form, on one level of understanding, is representative of an individual’s work toward Gnosis in Biblical Time. On another level of understanding the pyramidal structure is a representation in form of Man's full development in consciousness and this consciousness, being based on form and structure (empirically built). This development is being built empirically over time by God according to a plan in this world, in a pre-set time structure and this work has only one aim, the elevation of Consciousness. It stands to reason that if there was no plan or structure, how could there be prophecy? Prophecy, by its very nature is the proof of structure, predicting in time the verifiable outcome of that planned structure in a different time, the understanding only being cognisant of these proofs through spiritual elevation.

Alternatively one could posit that prophecy is guesswork and reliant upon interpretation, but if this is the case, why is it that the three Abrahamic religions, are all based and believe in the biblical prophets? Presently not understanding yet perceiving the truths of the Prophets. How is it possible that such contrary bodies of dogma that have been contrived by the Abrahamic faiths or religions all agree or sub-consciously recognise the profound revelations and truths contained within the words of the prophets of Israel? Moreover is it not more astounding that ‘Mohamed’ based his own truths on the prophets of Israel and the enmity between Islam and the Jewish and Christian faiths is based upon one or others better understanding of how to interpret the prophets. All the Abrahamic faiths believe in the prophets because they recognised the truth of what they said on an unconscious level, but did not have confirmation of the truth of what they prophesied because all three believe these scriptures truths only apply and relate to the time in history in which they refer. This is because they did not understand the nature of time. Yet it is these very proofs that are about to be unveiled and as Melkin foresaw, at a specific point in time.

The prophets not only spoke historically, of God’s plan concerning the Jews and Jerusalem but across time to all of mankind. Again we will delay this topic as we have already diverged too far from our present enquiry on the pyramidal structure.

Nearly all depictions of cross sections of the great Pyramid of Cheops today are drawn from a perspective of the artist standing on the eastern side of the pyramid. Taking note of the similarity of position of the St. Michael Ley Line and the Joseph line which are now part of the British pyramid construct, and which exit the pyramid on the right hand side one can see that there is a similarity to the air shafts on the Great Pyramid. If we place an overlay of a technical drawing of the Great Pyramid of Cheops on top of our pyramid, we can then see if there are any similarities.

It seems pertinent that this British Pyramid being in the West should be viewed from a Western perspective. One can observe from the overlay of the Great Pyramid, (viewed from the West), on top of our constructed Pyramid upon the British landscape, some astonishing similarities between them in figure 27. However, there are some limitations to this overlay and in attempting a similar exercise, we should be aware that it is impossible to bend a pane of glass around a spherical object. There is some distortion at the corners of the overlay in that, they appear upturned against a curved earth.

Figure 27 Showing the Great pyramid of Cheops overlaid on the British landscape with the alignment to Cheops from the air shaft.

The reader will notice that in figure 27, those which are commonly referred to as the airshafts to the king and Queen's Chambers within the overlaid pyramid of Cheops, exactly align to the points on which the St. Michael Ley Line and the Joseph Line exit the pyramid on the right hand side. This could of course be coincidence, so let us extend southwards the air shafts, from what has now become the left-hand side of the flipped pyramid image.

Another remarkable coincidence seems to occur, which shows the airshaft from the Kings chamber running straight through Avebury and landing precisely on the top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, 1,950 miles away (figure 28). This would seem more than just a coincidence, when one considers the fact that we have just overlaid the drawing of the Great Pyramid onto a pyramidal shape originally started by Megalithic man. If we consider that this may have been architecturally designed and finished by British Neolithic man this seems farfetched. But these people may in turn have been descendants of Judah coming from Egypt. Don’t forget it was Melkin who informed us that Scotland was named after Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter.

This design, embodying physical features on the British landscape, appears to have existed since the Neolithic age but in the early fourteen hundreds, it becomes apparent that another rebuilding or renovation of the design took place with the appearance of the St. Michael churches. The accuracy of this design seems to correlate with other ancient man-made features on the globe.

It should be noted that, if the angle of the line had been off by 1° over the distance of 1,950 miles; this line drawn within the top air shaft, running through the centre of Avebury across Europe into Africa, would have passed 35 miles distant from the Great Pyramid. It, in fact runs exactly to the centre of where the pyramidion of the Great pyramid would have been.

It is also interesting to note at this point, the relationship between Avebury and the Great pyramid of Cheops.

Figure 28 Showing the Great circle route from Avebury to the Great pyramid of Cheops at Latitude 30°.

Geographically, the line drawn between Avebury and the Great Pyramid, constitutes the ‘Great circle route’ between the two points, and at these points, subtends at an angle with the horizontal line of latitude. At Avebury, the Great circle route creates an angle of 30° with the horizontal latitude line at 51° north. At Cheops however, conversely, an angle of 51° is created with the horizontal latitude line at 30° north as seen in figure 28. Another extraordinary coincidence is the fact that the base angles of the pyramid on the British landscape of 51°. 25, are precisely the latitude of the centre of Avebury which is 51° 25’N.

If one was to carry out the same procedure with the lower air passage that connects with the Queen's chamber on the left of the pyramid and to follow its progress across the English Channel into France, one would find that it falls exactly on the Old Temple site of the Knights Templar in Paris, just north of Notre Dame Cathedral, right in the heart of the ancient city of Paris.

Notre Dame Cathedral, as well as Chartres Cathedral were built by the same guild of Masons who possessed the arcane and occult knowledge that was embodied and became infused into the Templar organisation. This occult architectural knowledge was handed down through the centuries. The Templars in effect, pooled arcane and scientific knowledge which existed across Europe from the aristocratic estates and places of learning including of course material trophies from foreign lands. It was the Templars, or the residue of the disbanded organisation, as we shall discover shortly, who were responsible for the construction of all the St. Michael churches that have acted as markers on the British pyramidal design. The other coincidence is that, if we look for more alignments involving the Archangel’s name, it appears to coincide with the overlaid Cheops pyramid. At the bottom left-hand corner of figure 29, the upper red line running parallel to the passage leading to the underground chamber beneath the pyramid of Cheops runs, directly to the hermitage island of Skellig Michael from Michael’s Rock, now called Burgh Island. Skellig Michael translates from Irish as ‘Michael’s Rock’ and from there, we can see another alignment that runs also from Skellig Michael through St. Michael's Mount in Marazion and onto Mont St. Michel in France, but we shall return to investigate these alignments further on.

Figure 29 Showing the St. Michael alignments from Skellig Michael through St. Michael’s mount to Mont St. Michel.

If we have a close look at figure 29 we can also see that St. Michael’s Rock (Island of Sarras) is in the passage to the underground chamber

Figure 30 Showing the airshaft alignments and the underground passage to the Island of Sarras.

It is also a coincidence that the ‘Joseph line’ runs directly through Dragon Hill where the Uffington horse is found. Dragon hill is the supposed site of where St. George killed the Dragon while the Archangel Michael performed the same deed in the Book of Revelation.

Herodotus records a legend which refers to an island in the vaults of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which is said to be surrounded by water brought from the Nile by underground canals. It is known today that there never were any such canals, but it is another remarkable coincidence that, in our overlay, the legendary island of Ictis (Burgh Island, fig 30) is located in the subterranean passage that leads to the vault beneath the pyramid.

This quiet little island known as Burgh Island today, has featured at different points in history with different names but is best known as the Island of Avalon where we now know that Joseph of Arimathea’s and Jesus’s bodies were laid to rest.

Could the island of Ictis also be the island of Sarras that features in the Grail stories? The Lancelot-Grail places Sarras in association with Egypt. Is this pyramid over Great Britain built upon that same island of Sarras at the very point that the underground passage passes through the island? Sarras is a mystical island to which the Holy Grail is transported in some of the Grail romances. In the Lancelot-Grail cycle, Joseph of Arimathea and his group visit the island on their way to Britain. As a first port of call, why would they not be using the same island as Joseph of Arimathea used as a tin merchant? The Romance story goes that, while there Joseph's son Josephes, is invested as a bishop and shown the mysteries of the Grail by Christ himself. The group wins many converts, and moves on to Britain where they establish a great line of kings.

As we have covered, allegory plays a big part in the Grail romances, the Lancelot Grail story making reference, from the ancient Grail book written by Melkin to the line of kings as being kings of Sarras. This island in the Grail stories most probably deriving its name by long association with the Zarah line not forgetting it was Sarragosa in Spain where Zerah’s youngest was last documented. This seems to agree with Melkin's genealogy of a royal hereditary lineage involving Joseph and possibly as we shall see Jesus. The Egyptian connection to Sarras however can be understood to be arrived at from two possible interpretations. One for the misunderstanding of ‘Spiritual Egypt’ as expressed by the meaning of the Grail, or the other from the Island of Sarras allegorically existing within the confines of the base of the British pyramid.

The British connection of Sarras with Egypt would only have been made if the earliest Grail authors (the original translator/s from Latin to a French version) had seen, Melkin’s Book of the Grail, that supplied the congruity to each of the Grail stories. This is the book from which, each of early French Grail writers allegorised the substance. The connection between Sarras could be from a direct link to Zerah from information derived from the original Grail book while the association with Egypt could only be a muddled interpretation of passing ‘out of Egypt’ as part of the ‘degrees’ to spiritual enlightenment.

Mr W. D. Nash a commentator on the" Seynt Graal," states that the story is not of British origin, as it relates to the Graal. From the Seynt Graal text we can recognise little of Melkin’s understanding of what the Graal as a religious rite, originally meant to him. Mr Nash confirms the date 717 AD as given by Helinand, as the time when the story was ‘first revealed to a certain hermit’. He then goes on to say that ‘an astonishing assertion is elsewhere made (referring to Helinands text) that the Latin book, the true original, was written by no mortal hand’. He then continues ‘I forbear to quote the blasphemy further but we may acquit Walter Map, I hope, of daring to originate such a lie himself’.

So it would seem that because Walter Map (an early Grail writer) confirms this date……… there indeed was discussion about whether he was the inventor of this story. There are few other Grail romance commentators who believe this extract from Helinand to be from such an early date but the fact that a hermit (monk) wrote it in Latin, first witnessed in 707AD, about events that transpired in England, but appearing in France, would seem to concur with Melkin being the Author and the book travelling abroad.

It is possible that ‘Lancelot’ is an allegorical name, given personality from the same material. As we saw, Camelot became a city from an allegory of a Jewish practise that is part precognition of the quest of the Graal. So too might Jesus be referred to as, ‘the one hidden from the east’, in ‘l’unceloc, from ‘celare’, meaning ‘to hide or conceal’, or from ‘cella’ as an underground room in which he rests and this might even be the cause of the lake appearing in grail literature as in Lancelot du Lac instead of l’oc meaning ‘from the occident’.

After they achieve the Grail the knights Galahad, Percival, and Bors return the Grail to Sarras aboard Solomon's ship. As Joseph of Arimathea was known to be Jewish, probably from Jerusalem, and especially if he came from the Davidic line, why would he not be using, what came to be recorded locally as, Solomon’s ship in allegory. The Grail stories are all allegorically interlaced with historical events and truths, where Joseph’s offspring are interchangeable with Joseph, and events occur in an anachronistic manner.

The Welsh term for Avalon is Affalach, but it is also the name of the Celtic Goddess and Modron’s father, who was said to rule an otherworldly island. William of Malmesbury puts Modron’s father’s residence at Avalon. It is no coincidence that his name sounds like Evalach, king of Sarras, since the islands of Avalon and Sarras are one and the same. Once the connection has been made between the island we associate with Joseph of Arimathea as a tin merchant going to Ictis, the interchange of names in the Grail stories becomes less confusing.

Now it becomes a little clearer why Joseph of Arimathea found king Affalach, king of Britain's Otherworld, in Egypt, if the British Pyramid became the Kings temporal Castle. In the Grail romances, the Fisher King came from Corbenic. The Grail king, known as the fisher king, (Jesus being the fisher of men and king of the Jews) or Roi pesheor lay with dolourous wounds in his Grail castle corbenic. The references in the Grail stories to the corner stone, Eygypt and Babylon as we will cover are scriptural allegories which will become apparent as we progress.

The stone which the builders rejected (the head of the corner stone) is in effect Jesus being synonymous with the pyramidion, from where it is missing on our landscape pyramid 3.2 miles below Whitelow cairn, that point on the overlay pyramid where it would sit and cross the axis, we find the radius scribing through the Island of Sarras where the body of Jesus is located as seen in figure 18. The Fisher King's dolorous wound is most probably a metaphorical reference to Jesus’ spear wounds, or perhaps a misconstrued reference to Arthur, after he was taken to the Isle of Avalon to recover from his wounds following his final battle in Cornwall.

It would not be by coincidence that, if one was to change one letter from, ‘Roi pescheor’, the Fisher King becomes the king of the sinners as ‘Roi Peshor’. The allegory is so powerfully mixed in, that the Grail castle is somehow in Egypt, yet at the same time found in the island of Sarras which exists on another plane and is never found by looking for it. It should be remembered that the main hall of the castle where the Grail manifests itself is square, this seemingly correlating with the base of the pyramid passing through Burgh Island but only in one plane.

Again it might appear coincidental, that this metaphor in language of ‘fire in the midst’ or pyr-amides in the Grail castle seems to correlate with the objective in the construction of the main Pyramid at Giza, which was to send that Pharaoh into the afterlife. .

The Fisher King's Castle, being called “Corbenic” translates perfectly without any change in pronunciation in the French to cors-benit meaning “sacred corner” and the pyramidal structure being the ultimate corner stone.

A ‘pyramidion’ is the uppermost piece or capstone of an Egyptian pyramid. They were called benbenet in the Ancient Egyptian language, which associated the pyramid as a whole with the sacred ‘Benben Stone’, in Egypt's old kingdom. The Benben stone in the pyramid texts was the original mountain that rose out from the primordial waters Nu and on which the God Atum settled. Does this hark back to the beginnings of self-awareness, Man’s past and potential being, subconsciously reflected in the form, creating the need to form or construct. Atum himself occasionally is referred to as the actual mound in these texts; so is the mound rising out of primordial waters, the dawning of the structure of consciousness which would also correlate with the story of mankind’s spiritual elevation as God’s work as related in the Bible?

The Benben stone was a sacred stone in the Solar Temple of Heliopolis in ancient Egypt. It was the precursor of Capstones and Obelisks. To an Egyptian mind the Benben stone sat on top of all pyramidal structures in Egypt. The Phoenix was also known as the Bennu bird which lives on the Benben stone. Jesus the resurrected one, like a Phoenix is also referred to as the “head of the corner”, thus synonymous with the capstone of the cornerstone. Did this Pyramidion ever exist atop the great Pyramid or was it the example and primordial stone that the builders rejected?

The pyramid is metaphorical of the upward empirical growth of each soul in every lifetime, the ultimate goal of which would be illuminated atop, by a Golden Pyramidion. To put it another way, the pyramid is indicative of spiritual growth in the four dimensional world, the point of which is the empirical construct beneath, holding aloft the head of the cornerstone, i.e. spiritual attainment. To follow this through metaphorically, the Phoenix is the bird which burns by fire and is afterwards resurrected. Pyr-amides being another way of saying fire in the midst; fire being substituted or transliterated biblically as judgment, the bird being a metaphor for the spirit; which finally renders the consolidated subliminal message; “the spirit is resurrected by God’s judgement in the structure of the Divine plan”.

On a subjective level, the ancient Egyptians objective in making these pyramids was to purify their Pharaoh’s souls by fire in the afterlife. (The spirit if it is not killed or ’deadened’ during life while in the flesh, fuses with the soul during our lifetime, thus carrying the soul “alive” into the afterlife. It is theologically posited that those who have not kept their spirit alive during their lifetime; will have their soul permeate down to Sheol, to await rebirth in the flesh. This cycle continues until flesh and soul are fused during a lifetime (Gnosis), to gain entrance to what we can only assume as heaven.

The gospel writers bear witness through the words of Jesus and most religions attest also that this ‘Heaven’ exists on different planes.

The pyramidal structure being emblematic of the four dimensional world, empirically constructed and understood, as synonymous with a personal lifetime or likewise as the overall travail to Gnosis of Mankind. The sole aim, metaphorically speaking, is to be capped with a Pyramidion, the ‘all seeing eye’, or knowledge of God's creation (self-awareness), becoming the completed construct spiritually; the essence of life itself and the objective of our sojourn in ‘Time’.

So returning to the other pyramids in question, why is it marked on an ancient pyramid in Glastonbury specifically the names of Brent Knoll and Montacute? From Burgh Island (St. Michael’s rock) one line defines the Joseph line through Montacute to Avebury. However from the same island on the base of our pyramid…… we can draw a line through Glastonbury to Harnhill as it crosses the St. Michael ley line seen in figure 21a. The other line from the other island of St. Michael’s Mount also on the Lyonesse line through Brent Knoll, defines a point where they intersect on our pyramid’s axis again at Harnhill. It is from this same point from which we drew a circle tangential to all sides of the pyramid at Harnhill, if we were to increase the radius to the plateau where the pyramidion supposedly stood on Cheops, that same circumference comes right back through Burgh Island as seen in figure 18. It would be coincidence except, the line derived from Avebury through Montacute, (the other named place on the pyramid at Glastonbury), is where Father Good also sent us to find the Joseph line and this leads us precisely to the ‘Huers hut’ on Burgh Island, exactly 104 nautical miles from Avebury as Melkin directed.

Figure 31 Showing Avebury stone Circle within which the St. Michael and the Joseph line Bifurcate according with Melkin’s prophecy.

CHAPTER 13

How Leonardo da Vinci says he will show us the same Island we have been looking for.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 and died on May 2^nd, 1519. He was widely regarded as a genius and was responsible for much of the progress made in what is known as the Renaissance period. He was primarily a painter, but also a mathematician, a sculptor, an architect, a musician, an inventor, a geologist and a botanist. Much is known about his early life, but we are mainly concerned with his later life, when he worked for the King of France, and his relationship with the fabled island of Avalon.

He spent most of his final years in France in a home that had been given to him by King Francis I. Prior to his leaving Milan in 1499, he was commissioned to paint the ‘Virgin of the rocks’ for the ‘Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception’, but the second battle of Italy forced him to move, at a time when he lost his long-time patron Sforza. In 1501, Fra.Pietro, (an art agent) informed Isabella d’Este that Leonardo was painting the Madonna of the Yarnwinder for Florimond Robertet, secretary of King Louis XII. As we will see, both these originals seem to have been misplaced, but there are four paintings that exist toda that will interest us in our discovery of Avalon. There are two of each subject, the Virgin and the Rocks and the Maddona of the Yarnwinder, which experts say are by the hand of Leonardo. We will show that both sets are giving hints which indicate that Leonardo knew all about the Island of Avalon and are late copies of original paintings by the same name.

Figure 32 Showing the Buccleuch version of The Madonna of the Yarnwinder. The baby Jesus is pointing to Avalon and Leonardo is subliminally indicating that the Island is in a bay but more importantly Leonardo has portrayed it with the same profile.

In October 1515 Francis I recaptured Milan. Leonardo moved back to Milan and then to Florence. Around 1516, he was working in the Vatican in Rome with Raphael and Michelangelo. In the same year Leonardo was present at a meeting between Pope Leo the 10th and Francis I, after which he entered the service of the French King. He took up his residence in the manor house Clos Luce, close to the king’s residence at Chateaux d’Amboise. Here he would have met French courtiers, who were in awe of his genius, which was now renowned throughout the Renaissance world. Here he would have heard about the ‘Matiere de Bretagne’ which was made well known in aristocratic circles since the days of Eleanor and the Crusades.

Earlier in 1506, Leonardo took on another pupil, Count Francisco Melzi the son of a Lombard aristocrat, who by all accounts was known to have been his favourite student and rumoured by some to have been his homosexual partner. Francisco Melzi travelled to France with Leonardo, and remained with him until the latter's death.

Leonardo spent the last part of his life with his good friend and apprentice Count Francesco Melzi while receiving a sizeable pension from the King. Melzi participated in the four paintings we will investigate in the last three years of Leonardo's life. Upon Leonardo's death, Melzi, Leonardo’s confidant, inherited the artistic and scientific works, manuscripts, and collections of Leonardo. He also dutifully administered his estate after his death while Salai, Leonardo’s other great friend received his vineyards and some paintings.

It has been posited that Leonardo at some time was the leader of a secret group called the Priory of Sion. In recent books such as The Da Vinci Code, it was brought to the attention of the mainstream public that the Priory's main mission was to reveal at some later date the secret of Mary Magdalene and her marriage to Jesus or some such revealing news. The Holy Blood, Holy Grail written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln in the early 1980's was the beginning of a long trail of similar theories. ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’ gives a list of Grand masters and a date for Leonardo's time as ‘Nautonier’ in the secret ‘Priory of Sion’. These were from documents deposited in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The documents showed evidence supporting the existence of the Priory supposedly deposited by Pierre Plantard, and have since proved to be an elaborate hoax. The list purported to show Leonardo with an illustrious array of luminaries such as Botticelli and Isaac Newton, Grand Masters also as part of the hoax. However, with the evidence we have uncovered regarding the deception carried out at Glastonbury, let us not for the moment discount the likelihood of Leonardo being entrusted with knowledge pertaining to Joseph of Arimathea, the Magdalene, or the whereabouts of Jesus's body, all of these having storylines that seem to a large extent to emanate from France. Most of these also flying in the face of Catholic dogma are all stories likely to have been repressed, running contrary to the Catholic account of events surrounding Jesus.

Most of the painting commissions that Leonardo undertook were either from a religious institution or they contained material of a religious nature. It is plain to see in most of Leonardo's later work what could be construed as total irreverence toward the Roman Church, and towards the version of historical events that it promoted. The Roman Church had created an infallible man, the Pope, as part of its own self-promotion and its own version of events to claim a lineage through St. Peter. Meanwhile Great Britain had its own version of events which, if proven, would shake the Holy Roman Empire to its core.

Let us assume for a moment that while at the French court, Leonardo was made privy to some such version or even an early non romanticised French version of the Grail Book. By the time the sixteen hundreds arrived the Grail stories were widely known and had been propagated throughout Europe and in them might be subliminal information regarding who might be in the tomb that noone knows who occupies it and the mention of scented cedar oil and the oft mentioned shroud or cloth in the Perleasvaus. Don't forget Leonardo was the master of transferring information in a subliminal way.

Had Leonardo become enlightened by information from this source at some stage because it would certainly go some way to explain the irreligious iconography portrayed in his paintings for his Catholic patrons.

If King Louis had come into possession of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s book while married to her, then the chances are that Philip would now possess the copy. Philip and Leonardo became close friends in the last years of Leonardo’s life. In fact in the circles that Leonardo mixed, this knowledge could have come from various sources. If Leonardo learnt of these ancient traditions of the Magdalene's presence in France and of Joseph of Arimathea's arrival on the British coast, let us assume that Leonardo as a pilgrimage or out of curiosity would have wished to behold such a sacred Isle as heralded throughout the Grail stories that existed in England in the 'Vaus d'Avaron'. After having voyaged on such a pilgrimage and with a sense of some urgency in old age, was it a case of Leonardo wishing to convey to posterity, the secret whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea's burial location by including its geographical features into four paintings?

There are two ‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’ pictures, both have the same subject which are the Madonna with the baby Jesus, but the two of them have completely different backgrounds. The two ‘Virgin and the rock’s’ paintings however, have the same subject and background for both. The central two subjects, are known to have been done as previous studies that were worked on by Leonardo for the two compositions which are not known today. There was an original ‘Virgin and the rocks’ painting and also an original ‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’, but instead the four extant paintings today are reproductions of the original studies, but with pertinent information pointing to Avalon contained within their new background compositions.

Although Leonardo in 1480 had received payment for his commission for the ‘Virgin and the rocks’, it had not been completed, while the two side panels for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in the church of San Francesco Maggiore in Milan had been completed by the Predis Brothers. This, later on, circa 1506, led to lengthy negotiations over its completion and final payment. This appears to have happened, as a sum was paid to him in 1507. There are accounts of the clients being unhappy with the subject or treatment of the paintings but this is surely here say based upon the two surviving versions. It would seem that the Confraternity received a first version that is now unknown today or by some accounts this painting had never been started and was probably finished during the period that Leonardo was with Count Melzi at Clos Luce. No one can really understand how there are two versions of the same painting.

Is it a coincidence that there were two ‘Virgin and the rocks’ paintings, while the only other example of this duplication of composition verified to be of Leonardo’s brush, is of the ‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’. It is these four compositions that shall comprise the subject of our investigation.

The sketches or study for the ‘Virgin and the rock’s’ composition, were in Leonardo's notebooks for a time prior to its delivery and this can be evidenced by his agreement to finalize the original after the lengthy dispute. It would seem as if his cartoon was complete and his studies finished, and thus his acquiescence to agree to complete the painting within a two year period.

The painting was originally to be done in conjunction with the De Predis brothers and was to fill a large complex altarpiece, already constructed. There is conjecture however that the painting which they received has not come to light as yet in the modern era. For the Confraternity, Leonardo had discussed and chosen to paint an apocryphal picture of the infancy of Christ, when the infant John the Baptist, in the care of an angel, met the Holy family on the road to Egypt.

Figure 33 Shows the London version of the ‘Virgin and the rocks’

The ‘Virgin and the rocks’ painting seems an odd choice of subject and subject matter to duplicate. Most experts today believe that the ‘Virgin and the rocks’ relates to the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt. It would be fairly obvious even to the Italian clergy that the geology of the rocks in the painting has little resemblance to any structures in Egypt or the Holy land and there is no evidence of a story in which the Virgin Mary finds herself in the cave by the sea.

Let us assume that the subject of this apocryphal picture might have been proposed earlier by Leonardo to his patrons, but the final content of the two pictures extant today were based upon what he and Melzi had seen on a trip across the English channel which included a few irreverent additions from the original. Even the Italian clergy would have immediately seen the sexual innuendo of the background featured central to the painting if it had been in the original. The subliminal message here is male penetration of the womb with two offspring.

The Virgin and the rocks is almost certainly a depiction of Mary Magdalene's arrival on the British coast and we shall leave aside the subject of the two children for the moment only noting that the angel depicted is probably not Gabriel or Uriel but Michael. Suffice it to say that the visually older face of the child on the right could be construed as the later appearing St. Michael in human form rather than angelic as the hand from the Angel links them.

After Leonardo’s death it is probable, that Melzi sold one of the paintings and upon hearing that such a scandalous and irreverent replica was painted by the same artist as their original commission, The Confraternity set out to buy the other one. One of the later copies, stayed with the king of France and is now known as the Louvre version and Gavin Hamilton ended up with what is now known as the London version in 1785.

Leonardo's penchant for visual puns is blatantly apparent in these four later paintings. Vasari, who wrote biographies of several artists of the period, comments on Leonardo and says that his “cast of mind was so heretical that he did not adhere to any religion”. It is understood that he retracted this comment because throughout Leonardo's paintings there is in fact evidence that he is a believer, but it is blatantly evident in his later work that he had no respect for religion or for the clergy, even though they had been his patrons. It was perhaps with his superior knowledge and genius that he relied upon his patron’s ignorance, and filled his paintings with apocryphal iconography.

There is no doubt that his depicted tangible geographical features are found at or near Burgh Island, at Thurlestone rock and the outcrop of rock on the point of Bantham beach. On one level they are masquerading as vaginal penetration. On the other they are depicting the surrounding features of a specific locality. It would be quite ridiculous that the Confraternity would accept a painting where the Virgin Mary was depicted as flat-chested and sitting in a dank cavern, surrounded by phallic rocks and womb images with a twenty year old face on the baby St. John when all of Leonardo’s other children are positively cherubic. The Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception upon hearing of this other version of their own commissioned masterpiece after Leonardo’s death, would have made efforts to purchase the London version sold onto Gavin Hamilton. This would have muted any denigration of their own original and was probably sold cheaply to them by Melzi or his son.

One can see the similarity of the central rock feature in both versions of the painting, replicated by the large outcrop of slate that is just behind the cave found in the Mermaid pool on Burgh Island.

Figure 34 Showing the same vertical rock formation and fallen rocks as seen in both versions of the ‘Virgin and the rocks’ paintings.

The Mermaid pool is part of the Burgh Island hotel from where both paintings derive their location and setting and has exactly the same geographical features. The fallen slate and the fauna in figure 34 are coincidentally very similar to that which is depicted in both versions. The whole, when combined with the features of the cave and Thurlestone rock and the local directions given by Melkin to the entrance of the tunnel should leave no doubt that Leonardo visited the Island of Avalon. Leonardo’s aspect depicted many of the local features, some as far away as Thurlestone and conglomerated them all into one scene with the additions of his own artistic license and iconography.

Figure 35 The only known photo of the cave in 1925 depicted to the left of both the London and Paris versions of the ‘Virgin and the rocks’, situated in the Mermaid pool.

In broad strokes the supposition is that, Leonardo and Count Melzi, took a voyage by boat across the channel to what was then known as St. Milburga (Michael’s Rock), now the modern day Burgh Island, on which stood St. Michael's Chapel built 200 years before hand and erected as a guardian protector and marker, over the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and the relics of Jesus.

Although the first mention of the chapel was in 1381, it would almost certainly have been constructed at the same time, as the flurry of other St. Michael churches. In a survey of the Parish of Bigbury in 1752 there is only a brief mention of a ruined chapel on ‘St. Michael de la Burr island’. The chapel was said to be of semi-circular form, five paces long and four broad with a small window at the East end and one at the South side.

Apart from Melkin’s testimony and the Grail stories, in none of the earliest references to Christianity’s arrival in Britain, is Joseph of Arimathea mentioned. The first literary connection of Joseph of Arimathea with Britain is in the ninth century ‘Life of Mary Magdalene’ attributed to Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz; and the earliest authentic copy of the Maurus text is housed in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. Rabanus states that Joseph of Arimathea was sent to Britain by Philip, and then informs us of who travelled with him as far as France; "the two Bethany sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, St. Eutropius, St. Salome, St. Cleon, St. Saturnius, St. Mary Magdalene, Marcella (the maid of the Bethany sisters), St. Maximin, St. Martial, and St. Trophimus or Restitutus." Rabanus Maurus continues with their voyage to Britain:

‘Leaving the shores of Asia and favoured by an east wind, they went round about, down through the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Europe and Africa, leaving the city of Rome and all the land on the right. Then happily turning their course to the right, they came near to the city of Marseilles, in the Viennoise province of the Gauls, where the river Rhône is received into the sea. There, having called upon God, the great King of all the world, they parted; each company going to the province where the Holy Spirit directed them; presently preaching everywhere’.

We now have an account from around 800AD concurring with the information supplied by the Grail writers that Joseph had gone to Britain. The Book of the Grail had obviously arrived in Europe by this time but it is possible that the information about Mary Magdalene was being ignored for reasons to do with her relationship mentioned in the original Latin book or purely because the account of her movements after she disembarked at the landing point in France are recorded by French tradition and Melkin in his Grail book mentions her no further. As many have posited before, was the marriage where Jesus turned water into wine in Cana, really a record of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdeleine? Why is there enmity between her and Jesus’ disciples and is it because Jesus was married to a women that came from Great British stock known as ‘Mag d’elaine’? Mary's city, Magdala, is mentioned only once in scripture, in Matthew 15:39 and is not proven to have existed as a place in the Holy land or anywhere else and is only posited as existing on the edge of the sea of galilee because of Luke’s account 23:49 as "women who had followed him from Galilee" standing at a distance or from Luke 23:55 where he describes the witnesses merely as "the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee".

According to Luke 8:2 and Mark 16:9, Jesus cleansed Mary Magdalene of "seven demons". This may be a misinterpretation and will be better understood when we cover the seven year Sabbath of Biblical time in a later chapter. If the marriage in Cana was at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry Mary Magdalene does not feature until the time of the crucifixion and resurrection when she comes to the fore in the gospels as someone close to Jesus. Uniquely among the followers of Jesus, she is mentioned by name as a witness to Jesus' crucifixion, his burial, and the discovery of his tomb being empty. Mark 15:40, Matthew 27:56 and John 19:25 mention Mary Magdalene as a witness to the crucifixion, along with various other women. Mark 15:47 and Matthew 27:61 both name only two witnesses who saw where Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary", who in Mark is "the mother of James" Jesus’s mother. John 19:39-42 does not mention Mary as a witness to Joseph's burial of Jesus but instead mentions Nicodemus. However, John 20:1 then names Mary Magdalene in describing who discovered the tomb to be empty. Mark 16:1 says, Mary was accompanied by Salome and Mary the mother of James. Luke 24:10 says the group who found the empty tomb consisted of "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them". We can be sure with this level of presence and concern over Jesus body by the Magdalene she would have known of the whereabouts of Jesus’ body. When the body was removed (if it ever was) from the temporary grave site mentioned in the Gospels, Mary was going to know where his body was, especially if she were his wife. As we shall uncover shortly, Mary was certainly aware that his body had been swaddled in the cloth that surrounded his body (the Turin Shroud) and that he had been placed in the Grail Ark. It is surely her that would have sprinkled flowers on his body and would have accompanied it on its Journey, but Rabanus is ignorant of what traveled with this company as only the privileged few actually knew that Jesus’ body had been transported to Sarras.

In the Greek translation Jesus is mentioned as the son of a τέκτονος. However in the Hebrew text of Mark 6:3 Jesus is not posited as a carpenter nor son of a carpenter. He is mentioned as the son of a craftsman. A craftsman can either be of wood metal
or stone. The verse in Mark 6:3, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon" is actually written in Hebrew: בן החרש הלא אמו שמה מרים ואחיו יעקב ויוסי ושמעון ויהודה
The Hebrew word ‘בן החרש’ actually meaning "son of the craftsman" so Mark 6:3 should be rendered in English as "Is it not him, son of the craftsman?. Is not his mother's name Mary and his brother's Jacob, Yosef, Simon and Yehuda?". Now here we have Gospel writers and later Roman apologists trying desperately to square a father called Joseph with a Virgin birth to concur with the prophets that would validate Jesus’ Messiahship. Is it mere coincidence that Joseph the elusive father has the same name as Joseph of Arimathea. If Joseph of Arimathea was in fact the metal craftsman who had returned to Jerusalem with his son who had brought along his girlfriend and who was shortly to be married, many of the loud silences and discrepancies, concerning the Holy Familiy’s marital circumstances starts to make sense especially Jesus’s brother being called Joseph, the Josaphes of Grail legend fame.

‘Elaine of Corbenic’ however is identified as "The Grail Maiden" or "Grail Bearer" and is a character in the early Grail romances. She is the daughter of King Pelles, the Fisher King and the mother of Sir Galahad by Sir Lancelot. She first appears in The Lancelot Vulgate Cycle but fully emerges as a character in Malory's later ‘Le Morte d'Arthur’. Her first significant action is showing the Holy Grail to Sir Lancelot. Elaine's father, King Pelles better known as the king of Sarras knew that Sir Lancelot would sire a son with Elaine, and that the child would be Sir Galahad, known as "the most noblest knight in the world". Moreover, King Pelles foretells that Galahad will "achieve the Holy Grail". Are we seeing here echoes of what Melkin related as the joining of Judah from the Pharez Davidic line to the Zerah line through the King of Sarras’ daughter.

Leonardo has depicted Mary Magdalene arriving on the British coast as some of the legends have it, probably after landing in Marseille, and then travelling North through Carcassonne and Renne le Chateau, to arrive at a destination which Joseph of Arimathea had visited many times previously or possibly even owned. Certainly if Jesus had spent his formative years in Britain, he would have had ample time to form a friendship with Mary and thus the deafening silence of the Gospel writers which has given rise to their rumoured close relationship. She would want to accompany Jesus to his final resting place in her own country but to avoid the Bay of Biscay’s notorious weather, travelled the overland route, which is the most popular tradition, especially held by the French. If she was indeed Jesus’ wife there would be every reason to follow the Casket or Ark that contained the body of Jesus to England to an Island originally owned by her Father.

Leonardo has purposely placed Mary Magdalene geographically, as arriving at Burgh Island, with two children, being greeted and under the watchful eye of St. Michael the Archangel which suggests that Leonardo is appraised of the St. Michael connection. One the differences between the Paris and London versions is that in the Paris version the Angel is pointing at the Grail now we have understood that one aspect of the Grail is Jesus. Coincidentally this is mentioned in the Perlesvaus:And on the right hand he seeth an angel, passing fair, that pointed with his finger to the chapel where was the Holy Graal.

Incidentally, the rocks onto which the Phoenician captain led the Roman ship, related by Strabo at the mouth of the Erm estuary, are still called “Mary's rocks” today. The rocks depicted in the background of his Virgin and the rocks paintings are actually those viewed through a now blocked up cave on the island. This cave (fig 35) bears a remarkable resemblance, to the almost identical cave depicted to the left of Leonardo's two paintings. When viewed in the sunlight it was commonly known to give off a greenish blue hue caused by the Devon slate, which coincidentally is the greenish hue also depicted in the London version. Until recently the rocks that are completely uncovered at low tide, less than 100 yards away were also called Mary's rocks. Modern charts mark them now as Murray’s rocks.

It was during this brief period but unrecorded in biographical works of his life, that Leonardo and Melzi undertook the overnight sail by boat to Burgh Island while history records that he was in Clos Luce in France. It seems as if it is a case of Leonardo having heard and understood the ramifications of that which was subliminally transmitted in the Grail stories....... was intent on discovering where the Island of Avalon really was and replicating its position in two of his paintings.

The Priory of Sion lists Leonardo as Grand Master of this secret society in 1510. This list could be a partial representation of another such secretive society or sect or even a continuation of Templar or masonic connections, but it does not discount the evidence that Leonardo seemingly had to have visited Burgh Island and the Aveton Gifford estuary, in order to have been able to paint such a likeness of it for posterity in the two extant Yarnwinder paintings known to have been painted by his hand.

By making two separate depictions of the same location, it is safe to assume that, he was doubling the chance that they would survive for posterity, therefore the location of the Holy Grail and tomb of Joseph of Arimathea would not be lost to posterity. The proofs of Jesus’ crucifixion that were left in Britain would be found, but when this was to occur, Leonardo would trust to ‘fortune’.

Since the crusades in the 11th century, the Templars had become a very powerful institution throughout France. It is rumoured that much of their wealth was derived from the temple in Jerusalem and then brought back to France, but realistically it was derived from the aristocracy joining their ranks from across Europe. Due to their immense wealth, they amassed arcane and occult knowledge from older institutions which already pre-existed in France, some of it being derived from the Grail book that had traversed the channel from Britain. Secret societies like the institutions of the religio-military orders of the Hospitalliers, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights, which originated in the crusades, gave rise to other societies such as the Freemasons which might have maintained their core illuminate, (the custodians of arcane knowledge), even more in the shadows, as the societies evolved. It has never been quite understood how the hierarchical structure of the Templars operated, but it would seem as regarding their end and the death of Jack de Molay, that the organizational structure still continued after the death of the Grand Master.

As Ictis evolved into what is probably the primordial bank or first safe vault, by its proximity and ideal trading location to the tin industry upon Dartmoor....... so too was that tradition of banking later to evolve as a Templar institution. It was known that any reputable person with a letter of recommendation from one outpost of the Templar Empire, could rely on it being honoured as a guarantee of his credit worthiness in any other country where they were established. Such was the power of the Templar organisation that, on October 13 1307 the French king, in conjunction with the Papal See, set out to destroy that institution.

Leonardo being entrusted with important knowledge from a source which was either the French court or possibly a residual cell of illuminate from the Templars, put his faith in ‘Lady Fortune’(as will become apparent) and on his return to France painted ‘The Virgin and the rocks’ and the ‘ The Madonna of the Yarnwinder’, two of each version with small differences and in fact one of the Virgin and the Rock’s Paintings remained unfinished. He used panels which were half started with other work on them in his studio as soon as he returned to Clos Luce. These were destined for other works already started in his workshop, but these were the panels he would use to act as a geographical hint on the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea's resting place for future generations. Unlike the English version of events concerning Joseph, Arthur and the island of Avalon.... Leonardo may have indeed been aware of a more French tradition involving the arrival of the Magdalene at that same island which is why he chose his subject.

It is not a leap too far, to assume (since Leonardo was trying to convey to us through his paintings) that there was known to him a specific location, where Jesus's relics were considering all the subliminal information concerning the Shroud and the Tomb that was related in the Grail literature...but we will cover that shortly. It is also no coincidence that the tomb mentioned as containing an unknown occupant...... also was on the island of Avalon which was the final resting place of Joseph of Arimathea.

Melkin's prophecy lets us know that Jesus was in the same location with Joseph and since Melkin buried Arthur and named this place Avalon, it is quite possible that Leonardo was following a French Magdalene tradition that names the same island. It is more probable however, Leonardo being the master of the subliminal message.... understood exactly what the Grail stories were imlying and what the Grail really was.

This in any case, would certainly be a good enough reason for Leonardo to return to his studio and produce the four paintings one after the other to preserve Avalon’s location. Leonardo may however, have chosen the Magdalene as a subject because of the prevalent stories in France that were entirely separate from the Grail stories. The Joseph material that came from France had little association with the Magdalene but as we have seen by the account given by Rabanus, the tradition associating her travel with Joseph existed, but was largely not romanticised by the Grail writers unless Elaine is understood as Mary Magdalene or the Widow Lady or the Queen of Maidens etc. It is not stated categorically that Mary accompanied the Grail to England, but when one starts to read between the lines of the Perlesvaus (as we shall deal with later) we can see that Mary arrived at Avalon with the Grail.

For posterity’s sake, Leonardo took it upon himself to paint pictures with certain geographical features that would indicate the islands whereabouts or the subject’s connection to it. It is quite feasible to assume that he did not want this knowledge to be lost, being unaware of Melkin’s strictly English prophecy and believing that he was the sole person, (enabled by his talent), to perpetuate this important knowledge. His skill in painting the four pictures was to replace any verbal transference of the secret information.

When Leonardo returned from Burgh island, having only recently painted the ‘Virgin and the rocks’ painting for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, it would have been no great effort to reproduce two other identical paintings, but with different geological and geographical backgrounds. The clues now hidden in the paintings for posterity would be visible in two separate paintings that would confirm the location. The geology of the painting (one of Leonardo's special fields of interest) can be found to have many features that strike a remarkable resemblance to features found on Burgh Island. By portraying what is supposed to be the Virgin Mary amongst these rocks with the Archangel Gabriel, the baby St. John and Jesus; Leonardo is showing his complete contempt of religion and irreverence for his original patron and his belief in the story of Mary Magdalene travelling through France and arriving on the British coast, incorporating his newly understood belief that Jesus’s actual remains are buried in Burgh island. These two other paintings were to act as a snub to the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception after a lengthy dispute. This dispute was only resolved in 1508 but as to when the Confraternity actually bought the London version is not recorded. It is highly probable that the original supplied to the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception between 1508 and 1516 was then sold to Ludovico Sforza Leonardo’s old-time patron.

The feature shown in figure 36 is the retaining wall that now forms part of the Mermaid pool on Burgh Island. The internal part of where the cave was is also bricked in and is now flooded with sea water as shown in figure 37.

Figure 36 Showing the bricked up wall of the cave from the seaward side. The cave is shown in both versions of the Virgin and the rocks.

Figure 37 Showing the cave from the Mermaid pool now acting as a water retainer for the tidal pool.

Figure 37 shows the cave which was bricked up in 1939 to form a dam to contain the mermaid pool which looked out towards what was then known as Mary's rock. The rock is very prominent at low tide just off Burgh Island and would have been the only small craft navigational hazard in the days of Ictis. The cave was said to be filled in for safety reasons but by coincidence, now helps retain water in the Mermaid Pool. This was constructed as a seawater swimming pool for the Burgh Island hotel. The bridge formed naturally by the rock over the top of the cave still exists and is similar to that bridge like formation to the right of both Virgin and the rocks paintings.

FIG 38 The cave before deep construction of Mermaid pool circa 1930

The other strange feature in Leonardo’s Virgin and the rocks painting is a dolmen like rock that almost becomes the main feature of the painting and which exists on the other side of the bay at Bantham. If one was to go to the next beach along the coast and look through a natural feature called Thurlestone Rock (through this stone or ‘Holestone’), at the dolmen like standing Stone which is a natural feature at the foot of the cliffs at Bantham, one would find that it lines up with the entrance to the harbour. The same harbour, which as we have discovered, was busy trading tin ingots but more importantly, was the same entrance that the Templar treasure ships used.

Figure 39 Showing Burgh Island to the left with the ‘Great white palace’ above the tidal causeway, but also looking through Thurlestone rock at the large rock off Bantham, forming the same image as in the Virgin and the rocks.

Figure 40 Showing the ‘Virgin and the rocks’ Paris version.

Showing the tidal waters at the heads where the river Avaon exits just beneath Folly hill and one can see the Vertical columb on the headland that features in the photo looking through Thurlestone rock

Figure 39 shows the intention of Leonardo to portray association between three things subliminally i.e Vaginal penetration, Mary Magdalene and geological features close to Burgh Island, in one caption. The two Yarnwinder pictures however are actually geographically indicating the location of the island of Avalon, while the Virgin and the rocks paintings act more as an indicator of the exact whereabouts and location of the entrance to the vault on the island. Is the Archangel Michael, pointing to his island in the Paris version, while Jesus is pointing ‘up high in Ictis,’ as Melkin directed us earlier through the word ‘supradictis’, to the location of the vault. If Leonardo did see some of Melkin’s geometry from the Grail book, the three circles as halos in the London ‘Virgin and the rocks’ painting could be hinting at the same three circles needed to locate the island of Avalon in our geometric construction of the pyramid. The first circle found from the perpetual choirs defining the top of the pyramid, the second circle defining the size of the pyramid, and the third circle’s circumference being defined by the plateau of the Cheops Pyramid, and passing right through Burgh island. We will look at this possibility of Leonardo being aware of geometry in the Yarnwinder pictures shortly, but these circles and John the Baptists staff are said to be later additions by modern Leonardo experts.

Leonardo da Vinci is best remembered as the painter of the Mona Lisa recorded as being painted circa 1506. But he's almost equally famous for his astounding array of multiple talents: he scribbled many of his thoughts and inventions into his various notebooks, which have now become known as ‘Codex’ with various names, stored or displayed in different institutions or private collections across the globe. He made detailed drawings of human anatomy, machine inventions and animals, which are still highly regarded today.

Leonardo is sometimes considered as not being fully sane by critics because, in his notebooks are entries in mirror reverse script, a trick which probably kept many of his observations from being discovered until years after his death. Another penchant he had was to create small pictures which conveyed words, phrases and even sentences, known as ‘rebuses’. These rebuses, a series of visual puns, were more than just a whim for Leonardo and he looked on them as a means of conveying or encapsulating an exact phrase by graphics. All of his pictographs, including the ‘winged cat’ and his series of pictograms with the black Yarnwinder, are found on just one double sided page, kept in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.

For the moment though, let us focus our enquiry on the other two paintings that Leonardo left behind, with a view to ‘showing’ to posterity the whereabouts of the relics of Jesus.

Figure 40a Showing the Lansdowne version of the Yarnwinder with the Aveton Gifford tidal road and bridge on the river Avon leading downstream to Avalon.

There are two paintings of the ‘Madonna and the Yarnwinder’ which are widely accredited to Leonardo, the Lansdowne and the Buccleuch version. Two versions of the same subject associated with Leonardo and student are said to be the only extant copies of the original subject. The artist was documented as working on a small picture of this subject in 1501, after his return to Milan from Florence, for the French Secretary of State, Florimond Robertet, who is said to have taken possession of his picture in Blois in 1507.

The theme of the painting, which is likely to have been agreed upon by Robertet and Leonardo, the same main subject as the original, focuses on the mother’s love for her child, showing her, lovingly adoring her son. The gravity of both of the paintings with near identical subjects is based upon future contemplation of the crucifixion of Jesus. The baby Jesus is completely preoccupied with a black yarn-winder which, by virtue of its similarity to a crucifix, is largely regarded as an icon of his death. Most art experts today concur, that both of the Madonna’s in the paintings were done in part, by the hand of Leonardo, with input from one or more students. The results of recent critical examination indicate that the overall design of the work is likely to be the work of Leonardo, as are some areas of the composition, such as the finely modelled head of the baby Jesus and the deftly painted geological features in the foreground. The rocks in the background are a representative depiction of the Burgh Island rocks in the Buccleuch version, as seen in figure 32.

In old age, Leonardo chose these two subjects of which he had previously made a study, as the main feature of four paintings designed to perpetuate the whereabouts of a location. It seems that much like Melkin, Leonardo intrinsically understood that in its appointed time, Joseph’s tomb would be unveiled and the clues left behind by him would be enough for its discovery. These four works, the two Virgin and the rocks and the two Yarnwinder pictures are from the same painting style era, in which Leonardo painted his Mona Lisa, and show the shadowy quality which encompassed much of his later work from France known as "sfumato" or Leonardo's smoke. This technique, perfected only much later on in Leonardo's life, suggests that all four of these paintings were worked on while living at Close Luce, while it is likely that the original for the Confraternity may also have been completed there or sometime just prior.

Figure 40b Showing the similarity of perspective and rock formation as seen in the Buccleuch version.

Leonardo da Vinci was a man not unlike Melkin in his mind-set; a definite believer, as Melkin was, but as is evident of both, slightly irreligious. However, it would seem that they both took pleasure in inventing, composing and toying with riddles, Melkin’s riddle though, being of an entirely different composite structure, but with the same purport as a rebus. There are many examples of Leonardo's rebuses on the double-sided sheet at Windsor but especially, there is an elaborate one that includes an image of a black Yarnwinder.

Over time, Leonardo's interest in vision and perception increasingly became fused with his literary inquiries and recreations. His essential enquiry was a search for the different forms of conveying ideas. From the very beginning of his artistic career he was aware that subliminal messages and ideas could be transferred to the consciousness of mankind by many means. He explored many avenues of this type of communication, probably in an effort to recall thoughts that he had; instead of remembering the thought pattern precisely at the time it went through his mind. He experimented with thought pictures much as a savant would view and recall information from his memory in this fashion. One such rebus, on the upper left hand side of a page in his Codex at Windsor Castle in the Royal collection, Leonardo drew a series of thumbnail sketches, together with descriptions, that portray, from right to left; a pear tree “pare”, a saddle “sella”, a lady with a sail “fortuna”, a personification of lady fortune; two notes on a musical stave “mi” and “fa”, (as in the ‘Sound of Music’); a fern “felce”, the letters ‘T’ ‘A’ and ‘L’ ; a face “vise”, and most importantly a black Yarnwinder “aspo nero”.

When read fluidly together, Leonardo's picture forming words, elaborate into the phrase in Italian, “Pero se la fortuna mi fa felice tal vise asponero,” which literally reads; ‘However, if fortune makes me happy, I will show such a facet’. An odd choice of terminology to experiment with in picture form and not a phrase one would choose to practice memory recall. At the end of the sentence the two words 'aspo’ and ‘nero' flow together to sound the phrase 'asponero' meaning “I will show” but also link the phrase to the word ‘Yarnwinder’. Just what is it that Leonardo wishes to show us by his Yarnwinder? Why is it that the two Yarnwinder pictures definitively attributed to Leonardo portray an Island in one and a serpentine river with a road running alongside with a bridge in the other? These are the same set of features as found in Aveton Gifford, as the river flows to Avalon.

Figure 41 Showing the tidal road and bridge as seen in the Lansdowne Version.

The bridge as shown in figure 41 was finished in 1440 about 70 years before Leonardo’s arrival and has the same profile as in the Lansdowne version of the Yarnwinder. The arches that are not visible are now on dry land, with the river running away in the background and the tidal road is following the river as in the painting. As one has already observed with Melkin’s subtle artistry in constructing his riddle, so too Leonardo da Vinci was equally ingenious.

Figure 42 Showing the bridge, and tidal road running alongside the river as can be seen in figure 47a

It once transpired that Carlo Vecce when posed the question, 'what was the strangest intellectual experiment of Leonardo's life’; replied ‘the compilation of his rebuses or series of pictographs.' It was really Leonardo's foray into subliminal communication and its various forms. The big question is, why and what was Leonardo’s intent by experimenting with such a strange phrase, if it was not intonating that he wanted to show or manifest something through his Yarnwinder pictures. Leonardo da Vinci has left evidence in his notebook through this rebus, that we can deduce he was looking at ways of conveying hidden messages subliminally cached in his painting of the Yarnwinder. He was actually toying with the thought that was going on in his head and the message which he was trying to convey. The transliterations of his thought would be;”by whatever means it might be discovered, I will rely on fate to show its whereabouts in the picture of the Yarnwinder”, or perhaps, “however it may happen through fortune I will show its face.” The subtlety of inference which Leonardo is conveying is the Yarnwinder, not forgetting that an ‘aspo nero’ is a black Yarnwinder and when said without the correct syntax, the sound of 'asponero' said all at once, gives the meaning, “I will show” or make manifest.

Leonardo’s rebus art was certainly not new to the 16^th century art scene but many patrons loved the puns and hidden meanings but others thought it was of a dull nature aimed at the dim-witted. Outwardly this form of communication does seem unnecessary when there are more formalised methods. Leonardo’s form of esotericism as we shall see, has his own message imprinted within these paintings.

An explanation however, of some form of pun to a patron for instance, while he and Leonardo stood side-by-side admiring a new work, might not prove to be the real and genuine explanation that Leonardo might proffer. Any such double meaning that a patron might have stated would have been met with Leonardo’s approval and agreement at the patrons viewing and this would have been especially applicable to the two Yarnwinder versions in which Leonardo had already imprinted his hidden agenda within the paintings.

The secretary of state to Louis the 16th, Robertet, had commissioned this work of the original which was to become known as the “Madonna and the Yarnwinder”. Robertet would have accepted any explanation that Leonardo might have given him as to the iconography of the painting. Whatever explanation Leonardo gave and what constituted the background of the original, no one will know, unless it is rediscovered. Fra Pietro da Novellara, Isabella d'Este's art agent in Florence once remarked when he saw the original Yarnwinder for the first time in 1501, that the Virgin, in fulfilling her maternal duties, 'was intending to spin some yarn' and that the ‘child appeared desirous of the cruciform object, and was unwilling to yield it to his mother’. The black Yarnwinder which the Christ Child holds, is commonly understood by admirers as both a symbol of the Virgin's domesticity and Jesus’s prior knowledge as a child, of the pending crucifixion and it is probable that some such banal explanation was given originally at Robertet’s viewing.

It seems that the reference in 1501 was to his original composition that is now lost or was more probably in reference to a preliminary cartoon. There are a few other old compositions of this painting, at least five old versions are in private collections, two of them in the United States but it is the ‘Buccleuch’ version and the ‘Landsdowne Madonna’ which were painted by Leonardo and Melzi after their visit to Burgh Island on the British coast, that concern us most in our further investigation. They were certainly painted in tandem as the joint geographical detail shown in figure 44a would be coincidence in the extreme in the fact that together they geographically portray the Island of Avalon, the very mystery we are told to look for in the Yarnwinder paintings by Leonardo himself.

The Buccleuch version has the Virgin’s middle finger pointing to the fact that Jesus is not circumcised. This same poignant feature, originally present in the Lansdowne, was recently shown up by infrared reflectology (as seen in figure 43), but at the transfer from panel to canvas the feature of the finger and the genitals has been completely erased. The most famous of the other copies, painted with a garden background accentuates the the pointing finger to uncircumcised genitals and this particular esoteric feature may have been in the original. Apart from the exaggerated finger, strangely both the Buccluech and the Lansdowne versions depicts a group of three or four people in front of an arched structure which can be seen plainly in the infrared reflectogram mosaic. The fact that both of these versions have this similar image that has been painted over in both versions indicates that Leonardo had other intentions for these paintings which were obviously being constructed at the same time in the studio. Logically he would not make the same under drawing twice, to then paint over it. The only reason that the two paintings of the Lansdowne and the Buccleuch have these same features is that they were being painted in tandem as replicas until Leonardo changed his mind and decided to portray a single location splitting the geographical details between the two versions. However, some critics have posited that one of the other older versions that are extant might be Robertet’s original but this seems unlikely due to the proportional irregularities and lack of skill, as witnessed in the Buccleuch or Lansdowne versions. It seems more likely the original is still to come to light or has been destroyed. The fact that so much is made in the older versions of this overly enlarged forefinger pointing to a physical feature that would definitively distinguish every Jew from the uncircumcised nations seems poignant.

One would think that since the Lansdowne and Buccleuch has this group of people (albeit painted over) and this feature is found in other versions; it would indicate that this feature was probably in the original for Robertet. Since this same feature is painted over in both versions they were obviously destined to be replicas and were being reproduced at the same time. Leonardo’s ‘Avalon’ joint geographical depictions are painted over pre-started works and shows that the background which only works in tandem in figure 44b was the desired goal in leaving a clue for posterity.

Figure 43 showing by infrared reflectography, the finger that has been left out of the final version of the Lansdowne painting as seen in figure 44

Figure 44 Showing the disappearance of the middle finger that is shown exaggeratedly in the Buccleuch version and even more so in the private version (oil on canvas) with the garden scene as below.

Figure 44a Showing the uncircumcised Jesus with the finger pointing to that fact. Oil on Canvas, thought to be by a Leonardo pupil that would have seen the original.

However ,the earliest reproduction found of the Lansdowne painting is the one for the New Gallery Exhibition, London in 1893/94. It shows how the painting looked before it underwent the transfer from panel to canvas around 1910 and the fingers on the Madonna’s left hand as she grasps her Child seem to be there but they were eradicated after its transfer from a panel to canvas support. In between 1911 and the New York World’s Fair 1939 Jesus’ genitals were removed altogether as seen in figure 44 and the Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculptures from 1300-1800 compiled by George Henry McCall. There were other changes made to the Lansdowne in this transition but it is the fact that in many versions of the Yarnwinder this exaggerated finger pointing at Jesus’s gentials seem to be a poingnant feature.

These picture puzzles, largely misunderstood, could outwardly mean whatever anyone saw in them, but it seems Leonardo was intentionally communicating to posterity, thus his reference, “I will show a facet of it”. A man's character is often discovered by looking into his face and the visage often portrays that which one would like to remain undisclosed. Leonardo was hinting by reference to a face or facet that he intended to show through the Yarnwinder paintings, his subliminal message. Like a pun, Leonardo’s picture puzzles relied upon the choice of words that have more than one meaning.

Under a rebus image on the same double page in Windsor, is Leonardo’s drawing of a cat with wings; he wrote 'pia gatta vola' which means ‘pious eat flies’ which, when said quickly, sounds like 'piang a tavola' or, in English, 'painted on panel'. It is thought that many geniuses like savants are juvenile in their humour, thus it is not difficult to imagine Leonardo taking great pleasure in asking some religious patron, if he would like his painting on panel, while at the same time having a quiet chuckle at his ignorance, all the while, verbalising his thoughts openly in words, but not his intended feelings. Interestingly both ‘Virgin and the rocks’ paintings by Leonardo and both versions of the Yarnwinder were originally executed on panel.

Exactly what information did Leonardo leave in his paintings for us to identify Joseph of Arimathea's and Jesus’ final place of rest and why did Leonardo choose the symbol of a Yarnwinder? Was he spinning us a yarn or telling us a story or using the Yarnwinder stem as a substitute for the hidden directions of Melkin? Did he really know that one day we would find his rebus with the Yarnwinder mentioned in it? Did he split the geographical information containing the island's whereabouts into two separate paintings maintaining the same principle subject, one indicating the Island of Avalon and the other the river Avon leading to it, so that the area would not be instantaneously recognised?

Figure 44b Showing the merged paintings of the Lansdowne and Buccleuch versions exactly replicating the perspective of their geographical locations i.e the relational distance of the river Avon and Bantham to Burgh Island. This has been ‘roughly Photoshopped’ to show the small corrections necessary to locate Avalon.

Figure 44c1 Showing the similar perspective and relational proportions of the two merged backgrounds as shown by Google Earth. Note the rotational shift of the Yarnwinder Stem that subliminally indicates the Joseph line as shown here as it crosses the landscape to Avalon, 104 nautical miles from Avebury.

In 2003 the Buccleuch version was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfriesshire home of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. While the thieves climbed out of the window they assured two passing tourists that they were the police and this was a practice theft! The painting was recovered again in 2007. This little panel is similar to one described in a letter dated 14 April 1501 from Fra Pietro da Novellara, mentioned previously, head of the Carmelite order in Florence, to Isabella d’Este, who was an art collector. The picture to which he alluded that Leonardo was working on was specifically stated to be a little picture.

In fact Fra Pietro mentioned that the workbasket featured in Leonardo's original had Jesus with one foot on it and this is not evident under recent scientific examination nor when highlighted in any pentimenti which adds credence that neither of the present examples are the original. The Madonna is also described as ‘seated as if she would disentangle the yarn from the spindles on the Yarnwinder’ and this is obviously not evident in any known extant examples yet there is a prepared spindle of spun yarn in the Edinburgh version. However if one looks very closely in the Lansdowne version there are very fine crimson threads and these threads are portrayed as thin red strands. What looks to be of the same fine brush in the same colour is no accident as there appears to be writing on the vertical face of the rock. Unlike the purposeful threads that lie on the horizontal rock there are what appears to be these same crimson strands clinging to a vertical rock face.

Figure 44c Showing the word 'Avalonis' written with jumbled letters in true Leonardo code, just as a random generated spam blocker twists the alphabet to ensure human rather than robotic recognition on our computers.

It is not even certain whether this particular painting referred to in the letter was ever actually delivered to Robertet at all, or if perhaps he received the version with the garden or landscape scene now in a collection in New York. This could well be ‘ the small picture by his hand that has recently arrived here’ (in Blois) recorded in correspondence from the Florentine Ambassador to the French court. Some experts believe that Salai owned one of our two Yarnwinder versions as upon his death it was necessary to divide his estate between his two sisters and a painting mentioned in a list compiled by a notaire as ’Madonna with child’ was probably the ‘Madonna Litta’ said to have been painted around 1910.

Figure 44e Madonna Litta

The similarities found in the underdrawings of the Lansdowne and Buccluech versions both have a group of people that is also portrayed in the Edinburgh version. This tends to indicate that the Edinburgh version which is plainly not by Leonardo is copying a group attentive on a baby that existed in an original by Leonardo. The reason for thinking this is that Leonardo was in the process of replicating this group feature in the two extant known leonardo’s which were destined to be replicas that were being painted in tandem in his workshop before he left for Avalon. Both have the arch structure also in the underdrawing that has been painted over. The features of the finger and the group of people lead one to conclude that these follow a prototype pattern. The Lansdowne and the Buccleuch were destined to resemble this format as production replicas before a change of mind.

Figure44f Showing the Arch feature and the group of people in the infrared reflectogram to the left of the Buccleuch version where also Leonardo had also attempted the arched bridge. All were painted over to leave a remarkable resemblance of the cliffs at Bantham.

Figure 44g Showing the reflectogram image of the arch in the Lansdowne version under a portico structure.

Background design features were painted over after the trip with a new intent, but the bridge in the Buccleuch version also seen in the under drawing was also painted over. It would seem that the Buccleuch was (after the change of mind) originally to portray the island and the bridge in one painting before Leonardo decided to split the backgrounds. This is evident as the group feature and the Arch feature found in the Reflectogram of both the Lansdowne and the Buccleuch versions were completely ignored, but the bridge in the Buccleuch version (which also got painted over), could not have worked with the group of people. This must have been a trial design after the visit to Avalon, so is evident as an initial attempt to convey the Avalonian features in one Painting. Our two Avalon Yarnwinders are of a later date than that which they were originally destined to replicate. One must conclude they were already works in progress as copies (or partial replicas) of his original, as the Edinburgh version has features that were mentioned to exist in the original which that artist (the painter of the Edinburgh version) must have seen.

Figure 45 Showing the perspective of the Buccleuch version of the Island of Avalon on the left of the painting.

Figure 45a by swinging the camera without moving position one gets the perspective on the left handside of the painting.

The Buccleuch version depicts Burgh Island as if in a compressed Bigbury Bay, with obvious artistic licence and change in depth perspective. However the Landsdowne version’s portrayal is painted from a perspective from the top of the local village church tower in Aveton Gifford and gives a background Serpentine river running out to sea. Although this is a strange background for Leonardo, it is no coincidence that the river is depicted flowing toward the ‘mountains of God’, considering Leonardo and Melzi knew who lay in the Island at the head of the river. The bridge, which was built at the top of the tidal and navigable extent of that river where the village is situated, may have been visible from the church tower, which was about a third higher then, than it is now. It is now shorter, after it was bombed in the Second World War.

Alongside the river runs the tidal road as portrayed in the Lansdowne version, where, since 1000 BC, tin had been transported from high up on Ugborough and Harford moors, on the southern edge of Dartmoor and was then carried by cart along this road to the ancient emporium Isle of Ictis.

Figure 46 Showing the view of the river Avon with the crenulations of the shortened church tower in the foreground; the Joseph Ley line runs over the hill in the background of the photo along the river to Burgh Island.

In the Royal collection at Windsor there is a brilliant red chalk drawing of the Madonna's head, portrayed in the Yarnwinder pictures. This was part of the study of the original of these two paintings probably executed many years before. It is one of the most comprehensive examples of a previous study, except more famously his study of horses for the ‘Battle of Anghiari’ composition. Apart from the Virgin and Child, which is central to both Yarnwinder pictures, the backgrounds in both vary drastically. But is it merely coincidence that the Virgin's hand in all four paintings is arrestingly held back as if waiting for the right time. The Landsdowne version is very brilliant blue in colour with what seems to be a winding river of life leading to the ‘mountains of God’, while the Buccleuch version is dark in the foreground with the green Island of Avalon situated just off the tidal causeway described originally by Pytheas. In fact it is strange given these four paintings connections because it is as if they were paired up. The Lansdowne blue Yarnwinder and the blue London version of the Virgin and the rocks, while the other pair are green.

The rock formation that the Madonna and child are seated on in both Yarnwinder paintings, are clearly seen as geologically incongruous against, the rocks shown in the background, as seen on the beach at Bigbury. This depiction adds to the supposition that the rock, on which the Madonna sits, is a duplicated study for both versions and was designed for the original version. We know that Leonardo was a geologist and the rocks are plainly a mismatch and such an incongruity he would not normally portray.

Leonardo made studies of many children who appear in his paintings. They are all nude and under two years old and mostly depicted as Cherubic. The Landsdowne child holds a Yarnwinder one degree from vertical, while the Buccleuch version is 2° from vertical. A rotation of 2° from the base of the Yarnwinder in the Buccleuch version would have the child Jesus pointing directly at the island of Avalon. As we know that Camden had remarked on the St. Michael chapel being present in his day we can only assume that Leonardo considered it was too recognisable to reproduce. It is noteworthy here that many other painters from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, use straight-line staffs that, having undergone a rotation, point out certain poignant features in the subtext of the painting and the Yarnwinder stem poigniantly replicates the Ley line with slight rotation.

The spindles are affixed to the Yarnwinder stem at differing angles in both versions. If one was to draw a line parallel to the top edge of each spindle in the Lansdowne version. They meet at a point creating an angle of 26.5°.

Figure 47a Showing an angle of 26.5°, the angle created between the spindles on the Lansdowne version.

This is the same as the angle between the Lyonesse line shown in figure 23 and the Ley line that runs between St. Michael’s Mount, Marazion, through St. Michael’s Brent Knoll to St. Michael’s church at Harnhill, which defines the centre of the circle inside the pyramid.

In the Buccleuch version however, drawing the same two lines parallel to the top of each spindle creates an angle of 21.5°. This again is the angle created from the baseline of the pyramid (Lyonesse line) where the St. Michael Ley line cuts it.

Figure 47b Showing the angle of 21.5° created by the spindles of the Buccleuch version of the Yarnwinder, the same angle as between the St. Michael’s Ley line and the Lyonesse line as shown in figure 23.

Did Leonardo know the basic geometry of the Templar design or is this all coincidence? It does seem strange that the two islands which the baseline of the pyramid run through, form the Lyonesse line which both have St. Michael churches on them. From this line we have marker churches dedicated to St. Michael from which we form Ley lines that create two angles that matches the only two remaining Yarnwinder pictures by which Leonardo said he would show us something. Then we have two lines running through two points from these two St. Michael islands, both points named on the lost pyramid at Glastonbury as seen in figure 23. The fact that they then converge on a St. Michael church that defines a center point on which, if a radius is drawn to that same base line; it then creates the circumference of a circle that is tangential to all three sides of the pyramid. This would seem to be by design and not chance and yet Leonardo is also giving us the angle from the base of our pyramid to the St.Michael Ley line.

Figure 47c Showing another early version of the Yarnwinder La Vierge au fuseau (Virgin with the Yarnwinder) which gives 34 degrees between the spindles, the exact angle between the Joseph line and the Lyonesse line1.e the line Melkin sent us to find that leads up from Montacute through to Avebury.

All this business with the angles is probably just co-incidence but the reccurence of similarities to our investigation so far involving this Island seem to keep popping up.

The main composition of our two Yarnwinder’s, art critics have established is definitely Leonardo's work, but the background landscapes, not being typical in any of Leonardo's other compositions, have been ascribed to another hand, most probably, as we have proposed previously, that of Melzi. Melzi was born in Milan, about 1490 and died in 1568. History relates little about his character except that he was a friend of Leonardo, while Vasari states that he was ‘a Milanese nobleman, an exceedingly handsome young man’.

Scientific examination has revealed landscape features and figures beneath the paint layers of the Lansdowne and Buccleuch versions that are no longer visible in the finished product which indicates that these particular panels were destined to portray another painting. The chance of having two yarnwinder paintings thought by experts to be by the brush of Leonardo that both have 'arch' underdrawings seem to indicate they were being prepared in tandem. After all you would not make the same experimental underdrawings in both paintings and then completely paint over them if they were done at different times. The fact that these two yarnwinders then with similar underdrawings then merge to point out the Island of Avalon is a freaky co-incidence (if it is one). It looks as if, after Leonardo’s and Melzi’s voyage the two paintings (partially started) were used instead to portray for posterity Joseph’s and Jesus’ whereabouts, (especially when merged). This tends to confirm the proposition that Leonardo, having made previous studies of the Madonna and child for Robertet, painted both of those himself on these newly appointed panels (that were already going to portray similar backgrounds as a copy of an original) and left Melzi to depict the backgrounds that together point to Avalon. Leonardo knew after his studies of the transference of subliminal information that one day these paintings would unlock his secret.

In June 2005, infra-red reflectogram imaging revealed on the London Version of the Virgin and the rocks a previous design beneath the visible one. This is believed to portray a woman kneeling, possibly holding a child with one hand with the other hand outstretched. Some researchers believe that the artist's original intention was to paint an adoration of the infant Jesus. But it becomes increasingly obvious that there was some urgency just to portray what they had seen and were probably using panels from half started projects. After all why commence a painting for Robertet or the Confraternity with a used panel if one was contracted so far in advance and ones intentions were clear.

In the Buccleuch version, Leonardo shows the island that they had both viewed from the perspective of Bantham, incorporating also a perspective from Bigbury on Sea at low tide with artistic licence showing the tide hiding the causeway. After all there cannot be many Islands with this profile so close to the mainland which are in a painting by a famous artist and in which he intends to show something. It becomes even more of a coincidence that the clue of a Yarnwinder in his rebus then reveals an island in a painting by that name and this same island has been sought by various people throughout history. But not only this, its compliment sister painting anchors its geographical location when viewed as a merged picture, using the central feature to both to align the two paintings.

Melzi was attested to be an accomplished miniature painter and some works have been accredited to him, but none definitively. Leonardo may have started the central feature of the composition earlier and determined at a later date to include the geographical variations after his voyage to the British coast.

In the Royal collection at Windsor, Leonardo wrote that he began the two Madonna pictures in 1478, but these would have been preparatory studies most probably for the intended two originals. Leonardo having carried out these preliminary preparatory studies, would have facilitated both the Landsdowne and the Buccleuch versions, to be finished much later in France.

Figure47d Showing the view down the Avon river as it appears in the Lansdowne version of the Yarnwinder with the tidal road on the right following the river toward Ictis.

Infrared reflectology or reflectograms show similar features found in both versions allowing one to see the substrates of the painting. The Landsdowne version shows a building structure that once stood on the left of the painting with an additional arch within an arched doorway with a group of three people in front of the structure. The side view of part of a donkey can be seen to the right of the upper part of the Yarnwinder. The fingers around the Yarnwinder have been moved, as have Jesus’s arms; the left leg was once closer to a kneeling position and the right leg was originally more outstretched.
The Yarnwinder was originally positioned with the upper spindle turned more toward the viewer while the lower strut was once much further up the winder. Did Leonardo toy with the idea of revealing the ‘Joseph line’ which would have been a greater angle from the Lyonesse line?

There were also spindles already wound with twine on the rock which were painted over and not included in the final product. He left the entire shaft of the Yarnwinder exposed in his final two versions, the cross metaphor remained prominent so that the uninitiated would remark on the Madonna's domesticity and her inability to change his course towards crucifixion. The real intention for such a strange choice of icon has never been made clear, except when viewed as an instrument able to perpetuate information of an already crucified Jesus and to indicate where his remains are.
There has been considerable speculation as to how Leonardo’s notebook material arrived in Britain. How, did ‘providence’ or ‘Fortune’ ensure that a huge guilt lettered book (bound and covered in Milan in the sixteen hundreds), would end up in the same country in which Leonardo, by his thumbnail sketches, indicated that he would show the whereabouts, through his Yarnwinder paintings, the location of the most important holy relic in Europe.

Even today the Royal library at Windsor Castle is as much in the dark as the rest of us as to the provenance of what might be considered Britain's greatest art treasure. We find the first reference to Leonardo's manuscript in England in 1690. How is it, (considering all his handbooks and remaining art pieces were left with Meltzi), that they finally end up in the Royal collection across the channel in England.

Meltzi, on his return to Italy, after the death of Leonardo, married, and fathered a son, Orazio. During this time Meltzi was responsible for selling a few works of Leonardo's. But when Meltzi passed on, he left everything to his son Orazio. Orazio also would have been responsible for selling some of the master’s works to interested and persistent parties. When Orazio died on his estate in Vaprio d'Adda, his heirs sold the remaining collection of Leonardo's works.

On the book cover which once contained these drawings, written in guilt letters in Italian, is the title “Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci restored by Pompeo Leoni”. It seems that most people are somewhat at a loss as to how they got from Pompeo into a chest at Windsor to be re-found in the 18th century. The pages found in the chest were from Pompeo’s book, the book rumoured to have had its contents cut out after its arrival in Britain.

In the Ambrosiana museum in Italy,is an engraving in marble stating that in the 17th century, Count Arconati, preserved for Italy ‘The Codex Ambrosiano’ by paying more than an English king had bid. Not being successful on the first attempt, it would seem Charles I, went hunting to purchase another set of drawings. Melzi had tried to organize all of Leonardo’s notebooks and drawings into some semblance of order, presumably putting anatomical drawings together and inventions together, but no-one is quite sure what criteria were used.

Orazio would have sold some of these loose leaves to the Italian sculptor Pompeo Leoni who then bound them into a leather volume. Probably through Orazio’s ignorance Pompeo could have picked out the choicest of the drawings. Pompeo probably, would not have understood the complexity of Leonardo's attempted rebuses, and would have considered them facile, even juvenile compared with his other studies. The Windsor collection is notably one of the finest and it may well be that Pompeo was able to pick the works he liked but it actually seems unlikely, compared with the other material, that he would choose the page of rebuses. Why would he have included these in the same bound volume as some of his greatest drawings?

We know that Leonardo was worried about the fate of his drawings but we shall probably never know whether specific instruction was given privately to Melzi, concerning certain drawings before Leonardo died. Why did Leonardo attempt his Yarnwinder rebus backwards, making its deciphering more complicated and potentially rendering his riddle unintelligible to posterity? Why and for what other reason could one possibly imagine that Leonardo da Vinci would attempt such an articulation, but the wish to convey a sense? This was not a random phrase he was toying with. As we shall see some of the other rebuses that he experimented with could be applied in certain circumstances, but this message was highly specific in that, he was going to show us a facade and it was going to be through his Yarnwinder paintings.

However, ‘Lady Fortune’ did shine upon Leonardo, his rebus being preserved in the very country he was directing us to in both Yarnwinder pictures, exposing a location which he wanted to show. The contents in this ancient bank vault holding the greatest treasures on earth, relics from the Temple of Jerusalem retrieved by the Templars, possibly even the Ark of the Covenant and certainly the mass of Templar treasure. The Templar treasure not only consisting of gold and jewels, but a body of knowledge passed down through the generations until the fourteen hundreds.

Chapter 14

The Grail stories confirm what Melkin informs us; that the body of Jesus is in Avalon, but it is the Templars role in the removal of the Turin Shroud that explains it lack of provenance or historical footprint.

On October 12th 1307, three Templar treasure ships were moored in La Rochelle harbour, the next day they had vanished. Most of the mystique concerning the Templars today stem from the fact that they occupied the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and are rumoured to have retrieved from it, ‘The Ark of the Covenant’ and other Temple treasures such as the Menorah. The Holy Grail quickly became associated with the Templars, even in the twelfth century, Evalak’s shield becoming the Templar emblem as the red cross. One of the first Grail romances, ‘Le Conte du Graal’, was written around 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes. Perhaps twenty years later Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the tale, refers to knights called ‘Templeisen’ or in the French ‘Les Templiere’ who were guarding the Grail Kingdom. It becomes clearer that the Templars or a secretive hierarchy embodied within the order, possessed arcane knowledge, and were responsible for emanating the Grail stories and the Templars with connections such as Eleanor of Aqitaine becoming interwoven in the romances as a form of flattery by the troubadours as the romances proliferated.

The relics of the Templars and what others thought were their religious beliefs played a large part in their downfall, but the main reason for their demise was that other institutions were after their wealth and envious of their power. At the Templar inquisition, instigated by the King of France, they were accused of heresy, sodomy and worshipping bearded heads, Baphomet and other such strange practices, which may have been invented by their accusers to give weight to charges of heresy. The Templars were in possession of certain relics from the Temple in Jerusalem which seem to have been re-discovered at the second crusade because of information supplied by Joseph which ended up with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The head of John the Baptist could have been preserved from King Herod’s days and also kept secreted beneath the Temple. Herod’s daughter Herodias had danced for his guests and demanded John’s head. This could have been retrieved and secreted in the Temple by those who realised John’s role in the Divine plan, (a plan which had been related by the prophets). John’s head would have been regarded as sacred and therefore preserved for veneration and then subsequently re-found in the same cache as the Temple treasure.

The Templars main claim to a sacred religious relic was to possess a piece of the original cross from Cavalry but as we have seen already, these were so prolific that a piece existed in Montacute. In all the considerable documentation involving the trials of the Templars, nothing has been found concerning the Grail, so even though the stories were propagated by the Templar organisation, the concept of the Grail, as something that Joseph had brought to Britain was in the public domain and was slowly shaped into an object by association with Melkin’s misunderstood description.

It seems highly likely that the likes of Walter Map and Chrétien de Troyes, and other ‘trouvere’ before them, were shown an ancient text written in Latin and possibly a French copy might have been made of the whole Grail book but maybe only extracts were compiled in French as intonated by Helinand. Either way, it would certainly account for the gross misunderstanding of the essence of the Grail if the initial translator/s made substantial errors. The troubadours were either asked or paid to write stories (extracted and compiled according to the interests of the original troubadours) , that alluded to historical fact in allegorical prose; this being initially instigated it would seem, at Eleanor’s or her father’s court. With this gradual proliferation, the characters, some, as we have seen from the crusade period (due to court flattery), got mixed in with early accounts from a Cornish royal line that traced its heritage back to Joseph and Jesus.

Even the objects within the Grail stories are so interrelated and undergo transformations that it is hard to establish what was in Melkin’s book. Joseph, Nicodemus and Vespasian were mixed together with Arthur from the Saxon period. People who historically lived hundreds of years apart are intertwined in tales with objects from the crucifixion. The Grail itself, objectivised from this text, refers directly to the gradual degrees, the ‘Graal’ of the enlightenment of man and this is alluded to as being part of the quest. Jesus’ role in these events plays a major part in the enlightenment of man and the story involving his relics being brought by Joseph to England has resulted in varying perspectives and degrees of allegory. The different Grail writers alluded to a greater or lesser degree, certain passages or sections taken from Melkin’s original book of the Grail.

This is as we have seen in regard to Camelot, the name which was derived from a Hebrew pilgrimage, eventually transposing itself into a beautiful city. We know that Tintagel was Arthur’s base in Cornwall and there is no mythical city that has disappeared since the six hundreds. We can see the same with ‘Excalibur’ derived from the Aramaic ‘quali’ meaning ‘forged’ (from which we derive the modern word ‘calibre’), rendering ‘forged long ago’, being interchangeable as Solomon’s sword (the implement threatened on the disputed baby), iconized as judgement. This judgement was a part of the original story related by Melkin in the book of the Grail regarding the ‘gradual’ enlightenment of man. Coincidentally Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘Historia’ also states that Avalon is where Arthur’s sword Caliburn (Excalibur) was ‘forged’.

Briefly, we should look at an alliterative poem said to be written about A.D. 1330-50 regarding Joseph which contains much of what the Grail book alluded to, but which seems to have been passed over in some part by other Grail writers who concentrated upon Arthurian knightly escapades, rather than, for us, the most important facts about what it was, that Joseph actually brought with him. Although it is not part of the endeavour to investigate the various perspectives which constitute the Grail romances, this particular romance, which can be related to other similar source material such as the ‘The Lyfe of Joseph’ or ‘De Sancto Joseph Abarimathia’, specifically derived from or seemingly condensed, the same early source as Mr Furnivalls ‘Seynt Graal’, a prose version from a manuscript in the British Museum. This will show us how Melkin was able to speak of his ‘double folded grave cloth’, as described in his prophecy and the provenance and method of fabrication of the Turin Shroud.

This ‘Alliterative poem’ which seems to have a very early source from its lack of embellishment, is from a unique copy in the Vernon Manuscript at Oxford and by its content, shows its content is of a much older date than is supposed by experts and it must have been taken from a much earlier version. The subject of the story portrays the adventures of Joseph of Arimathea at the court of Evalak, king of Sarras, with the episode of king Evalak's shield in part, included. The story of Evalak’s shield is related to Galahad by ‘the White Knight’, in the Romance of the ‘Quest of the Saint Graal’, and from there it was inserted by Malory in his ‘Morte d’Arthur’. The object of the poet was to make known and translate much of the legend of Joseph which had come from the Book of the Grail and we can only guess at what the original French extract might have selected to omit from the original Grail book. This poem provides evidence of a very early source because of its non-corruption of essential information that was initially related by the original Grail book. A break down of the story follows closely that which we have already quoted from John of Glastonbury and relates that:

After Jesus’s entombment, Joseph of Arimathea was seized by the Jews, and imprisoned in a dungeon, without a window, where he remained for forty-two years, till released by Vespasian. This seems unlikely if Jesus was approximately 35 when he died and Joseph, being his uncle(or Father), would have been about 25 years older. This would have made Joseph approximately 102 years old before his arrival in Britain. This as we will show shortly, is relating information about the essence of the grades or degrees of the Graal which the author of the poem is including as part of the story, which also correlates with the prophet Daniel’s three and a half years. The forty two years have been extrapolated from the Latin Grail text which is alluding allegorically to the forty two months (and may indeed have had the word ‘months’) as mentioned in the book of Revelation, which also correlates with the three and a half days mentioned in Revelation and as seen in Daniel 9:27 ‘And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week……giving the same time period of the Three and a half days’, but this will be explained when we deal with ‘Biblical Time’.

After his release, Joseph then tells Vespasian that the time of his imprisonment seemed but three days, which also confirms that the writer is innocently divulging occult information that was in the original text but has omitted the half day because of not understanding its significance. The text then goes on to say that Joseph, having just been baptized himself, then proceeds to baptize Vespasian and fifty others, after which Vespasian wreaks vengeance on the Jews who had imprisoned Joseph.

In obedience to a divine voice, Joseph, with his wife, his son Josephes and a company of fifty people, (possibly the same as Rabanus’s group before disembarking the women in France), left Jerusalem, and arrived at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, containing Christ's blood which is carried inside an ark or box. It is the opinion of the author that the original exposed that Joseph left with his son(meaning Jesus) and in the transcription process ‘Josephes’ became the son of Joseph. In other Grail stories the group are said to arrive on Josaphes shirt which is surely the inclusion of a mistranslation of the original word meaning cloth, vestment, or covering in reference to the doubled over grave cloth or ‘duo fassula’. Let us assume for the moment, that Sarras is the Belerion of Pytheas and Belerion is named after the God Bel by Zarah’s offspring. Sarras where Zara’s offspring migrated to, has an anciently renowned Island within its confines where the thing called the Grail is kept. This Island in Sarras, in translation gets confused by the original French Grail writer; and is termed ’The Island of Sarras’ because most certainly Melkin knew that the Grail remained on an Island.

The Island of Sarras may, alternatively have been named and noted by Melkin because of its connection with Zara or Zerah in his Latin book of the Grail which turned up in France. However the Grail writer Robert de Boron thought that the Island of Sarras is in Egypt. This would appear to have come about by the common misconception of association with Saracens being synomymous with Arabs in the east. The Saracens were the ancient Jews of Cornwall. Robert de Boron, however, says the final destination of the Grail is 'En la terre vers Occident , Ki est sauvage durement , En vaus d'Avaron' – ‘in the land to the West, which is extremely wild, in the Vales of Avaron’. There is only one place in the West which is full of vales and that is Devon thus named because of the vales. Where wilder than Dartmoor from which the ‘Avon’ river leads downstream to the Isle of Avalon or ‘Avaron’ where there actually was a religious house known as ‘St Michael by the Sea’. Burgh Island to this day is still rumoured (long before the St. Michael Chapel was built) to have had a monastery at one time on it.

Robert, however does not say that Joseph is to be found in the same place as the Grail. In the Perlesvaus, also known as Li Hauz Livres du Graal or The High History of the Holy Grail (possibly re-mastered by Henry of Blois, Master Blehis), are the echoes of the original script of the book of the Grail written by Melkin. Perlesvaus seems to be a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes unfinished ‘Story of the Grail’ or ‘Perceval’ which co-incidentally is literally translated as ‘through the vales’. As we shall get to in the last chapter ……… whether or not Melkin left a Latin original in Britain and wrote the book of the Grail in France is full of contention especially regarding the witness of Helinand. Especially when we hear regarding the perlesvaus:

‘The author of the High Book of the Grail even claims that his text is copied from a Latin manuscript which was found in the Isle of Avalon in a house of holy religion which sits at the head of hazardous tides where King Arthur and Queen Guenievre lie where according to the witnesses of good and religious men that are there, that have the whole story thereof, true from the beginning even to the end.'

We do have a line of Kings of the most important biblical heritage who have a name that a French translator or early troubadour would pronounce as ‘sarra’ and later be written as Sarras. However, the mention of Egypt (or the coming out of it) is purely (as we shall see), one of the degrees to spiritual enlightenment foretold by the Biblical prophets along with ‘spiritual Babylon’, where coincidentally Tholomer came from. The complete mix-up of information by the Grail writers is astounding when Melkin relating in spiritual terms about Tholomer, (who is synonymous with Ptolemy king of the Egyptians), then becomes King of Babylon. But as we shall cover in detail later both the ‘coming out of Eygypt’ and ‘returning from Babylon’ are spiritual stages to pass through as Grades to enlightenment. The reference to these spiritual stages in a man’s life (originally referred to in the Latin Grail book) have entered the story as extraneous detail taken out of context from the original Grail book.

However this unravels the appearance of an Island from French sources, having the name Zara (translating as Sarras), which coincidentally just happens to be where the Grail is, just the same as it is said to be in the Island of Avalon with Joseph. So this Island mentioned by Robert de Boron as having Joseph's family bringing the Grail to it, the ‘vaus d'Avaron’, the valleys of Avaron in the west (Devon being the county of Vales), may have been named as ‘Avalon’ also in the first translation from Melkin’s Grail book as well as the island belonging to Evalak king of the Saracens.

The concentration on certain details by the early Grail writers was purely an individual choice. Some writers, as in the ‘Alliterative poem’ we are looking at, concentrated on his personal interest of the story concerning Joseph so he leaves out the Arthur material (also in the grail book) covering a later historical period. Others intermingled source material without regard to chronology just to weave the tale while others might choose to pick just one word, as we have seen with Camelot and embellish that word until its origins were unrecognisable.

The Grail writers did not understand that Melkin had used biblical metaphorical language as part of the Grail material which in essnce recounts the spiritual stages of man. This can be readily confirmed by reading the biblical Prophets where one can transliterate from an historical into an individual context. Without this understanding of the prophets, for the most part if read as purely historical (without transliteration into the spiritual meaning) they are fairly unintelligible appearing as random sections. This is the reason we have the inclusion of the kings of Egypt and Babylon in the Grail stories. After all the Grail writer is giving an account of Joseph’s arrival in Britain so what at all has this to do with Babylon or even Egypt as he sailed to Marseille as a first port of call. This reference to Egypt and Babylon can only be understood as a reference to the spiritual grades as set out as passages of rite to be passed through, and this can only be grasped by a good understanding of the body of material known as the Prophets. Unfortunately, biblical commentaries are still trying to rationalise this body of material from a purely historical perspective. So the mention of Eygypt and Babylon confirms their inclusion purely as stages applicable to the heightening of man’s Consciousness. This was before the Grail writers created a complete ‘salad’ of what was a coherent account that could have been substantiated by an understanding of the Biblical Prophets.

Joseph tried to convert Evalak, the king of Sarras, whose kingdom was as (we covered earlier) synonymous with the Kingdom of Belerion of Pytheas and the Dumnonia of King Arthur which became Devon and Cornwall. Joseph we are told after his arrival declared the doctrine of the Trinity to the king. This doctrine was the essence of the occult information which Joseph had brought with him and related to the three spiritual stages or progressions of Mankind toward enlightenment; the ‘coming out of Egypt’, the ‘return from Babylon’ and the ‘Period of peace’ which were continually reiterated from every perspective by the biblical prophets. The king of Sarras provided for the wants of Joseph's company, but has his doubts about the truth of the doctrine. The following night, the king was converted by two visions.

In the first he saw three stems growing from one trunk and appearing to coalesce into one perhaps emblematic of the Trinity but could also be construed as the coalescing of the three Abrahamic Religions as a vision of the future, as this is (in effect) the outcome of finding the Grail (if we consider the impact it will have at the tombs discovery).

In the second vision the King saw a child pass through a solid wall without any injury to the wall and the Grail writer interjected that it was an emblem of Christ's spotless Incarnation. However what is more likely is that it was part of the occult account of spiritual progression through the ‘degrees’ without injury to the soul. The child being synonymous with man giving birth i.e the son of man derived from the fusion of soul and spirit, the birth of Gnosis. This is a situation where complex material is being related by Melkin that is being reiterated by the Troubadour completely out of context.

Josaphes, the son of Joseph, also saw a vision when he peered into the Grail-Ark. He beheld Christ upon the cross and five angels with the instruments of the Passion; with eleven more angels appearing afterwards, whilst Christ seemed to descend from the cross, and to stand beside an altar, upon the one end of which were the Lance and Three Nails, and upon the other the Dish with the Blood (the Holy Grail).

This is where the account gets interesting if we understand that the French writer was constructing a plot from Melkin’s elusive or incomprehensible occult information, while remembering that Melkin’s account is constructed from an eye witness account.

Let us assume that the Grail ark or box as it was described was in fact a coffin type container that contained the corpse of Jesus wrapped in the grave cloth which was submerged in Cedar oil. This oil was possibly mixed with other essential oils such as Juniper. The reason we are even considering this is that Melkin says Abbadare(Jesus) is in the same tomb as Joseph of Arimathea. This is not too far to stretch considering Jesus connection to the Grail and the Grail in every account holds or contains something related to him. In the sealed coffin was the lance, three nails and possibly an unlikely ‘sealed chalice’ and more likely a Eucharistic cup. This would be the five items enumerated, not as the story relates, that there were five angels, while maybe the number eleven would be a reference to his disciples woven into the story.

The Whangers who have carried out many experiments on flower imprints on the Turin Shroud, discovered faint images of other objects on the shroud, including a nail, a hammer, a broom (probably mistaken for the spear, a piece of rope and a round wreath of thorns, the marks of which can be seen on Jesus’ forehead (on the shroud image), a reed, and a sponge. The reed and the sponge are witnessed by Mark 15:36 ‘One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a reed, and offered it to Jesus to drink’. It is also noted that in the Elucidation of the High history of the Grail that we came across earlier, the spear was kept with the body, obviously not mentioned by the Gospel accounts. The evidence found by the Whangers that the spear remained with the body lends credence to an eyewitness account of the contents of the Grail Ark, if substituted for the words Holy Sepulchre. ’but rather honoured the body the most he might, rather laid it along in the Holy Sepulchre and kept safe the lance whereof He was smitten in the side’. (THE HIGH HISTORY OF THE HOLY GRAAL)

The oil with which Josaphes was consecrated was kept in the Grail-ark, and afterwards the poem says that it was used at the consecration of all the kings of Britain down to Uther-pendragon. This same Ark which Joseph and Josephes are said to ‘retreat to and Pray over’ on several occasions in the poem and in which “was seen the body of Christ”, even being described as ‘just as he was at the time of his entombment’. The original burial shroud (spoken of in all four Gospels) from Jerusalem was wrapped over Jesus in this oil soaked Grail Ark and his body was said in this alliterative poem to be wrapped in ‘a clothe called Sendony’, which one would assume is a corruption in the old French for Cedar, ‘cedre’ Pliny has ‘Cedrus anointed with the juice or oil of a cedar tree and so preserves from rotteness’. Coincidentally the word ‘sindon’ from the Greek σινδών is precisely the word chosen in the Gospel of Mark to describe the burial cloth of Jesus and today the term ‘sindonology’ is used to refer to the formal study of the Shroud. In Fact the The Orvieto Worldwide Conference labelled "Sindone 2000", ‘discussions about the Shroud’ are referring to the same bit of cloth mentioned in the Grail story brought to England by Joseph of Arimathaea, but until now it has not been connected to the cloth that was attested to by Melkin as seen at Jesus’ tomb at Avalon.

Let us take a short digression here to try to correlate all this extraneous information. Cedar oil is difficult to extract and some Egyptologists have argued that Pliny was mistaken when he wrote, in the 1st century AD, about "cedar juice" being employed as an embalming method by Egyptians. Recent discoveries support the writings of Pliny the Elder (AD23-79), when he described the method of how the precious oil was extracted by putting cedar wood in a chamber heated from outside.This can simply be understood as distillation. “The first liquid that exudes flows like water down a pipe; in Syria this is called ‘cedar-juice’, and it is so strong that in Egypt it is used for embalming the bodies of the dead".

Herodotus, five centuries earlier, had also written a similar description of a liquid cedar for preserving flesh. Recently at Germany's Tuebingen University they carried out tests separating embalming material by ‘gas chromatography’, found near a 3500-year-old mummy called ‘Saankh-kare’, unearthed at a site in Deir al-Behari in Egypt. Among these chemicals were sequiterpenoids and guaiacols which are organic compounds found in tar and oil from conifers such as cedar. These compounds constitute a colourless aromatic oil and will be found(at the next scientific examination) to exist among the poly-saccharides found in the threads of the Turin Shroud. Scientists tend to confirm a theory when they have a theory with which to match their data and it has long been known that Cedar oil was used as an embalming fluid but no-one thought that the body of Jesus was submerged in oil and therefore always thought of the shroud (if it were genuine) as being formed in a dry environment. One can see the waviness of the suspended cloth in computer imaging, but the scientific examiners were mainly steered in the context of how they reviewed their results by the Gospel account of a dry burial.

The Egyptians would have rubbed the precious cedar resin on the body and into the body cavities as part of the embalming process to act as an insecticide and antimicrobial in a dry burial. Joseph however was wealthy and could obtain enough of this very expensive oil to submerge the body of Jesus. The cedar oil spoken of by Herodotus and Pliny is called ‘Cedri Succus’, Cedrium surely the root of the corruption in the name of the cloth to Sendony in the alliterative poem.

The potent essential oils found in the many unguents used in the mummification process contained myrrh, attar of roses, cedar and sandalwood and were effective anti-aerobic bacterial agents, and are mostly responsible for the preserved state of the mummies around today.

Many Egyptologists thought the key ingredient in embalming was juniper oil, but recently with improved scientific analysis it has been proved to be, cedar oil instead. The remarkable properties of cedar wood to resist decay, was valued by the Egyptians. They even used it to build their temples, chests, coffins, idols and boats, in addition using the precious cedar oil in embalming and numerous cosmetic preparations.

Solomon's temple was even built entirely of Lebanese cedar from the Lebanese cedar forests but alas, they were cut and eventually depleted because of the demand for their wood. It should not be forgotten that Joseph would have been well acquainted with this oil, travelling from Tyre and Sidon in Lebanon on his mercantile trips to Britain.

Getting back to our Alliterative poem, the story then continues that Christ ordains Joseph a bishop, and bids him go to Evalak's palace. The kings chamberlain who was appointed by King Evalak to dispute with Joseph, was miraculously struck dumb, whilst at the same time his eyes flew out of his head. This part of the poem seeming to relate that, at Evalak’s disbelief at the new and foreign religious account, he then employed an orator or sophist to counteract the Gnostic revelation brought by Joseph and while in debate, the orator was struck blind and dumb.

Evalak then repaired to a temple of idols, hoping to secure the chamberlain's recovery, but the idols were powerless. Soon after, a messenger arrived to tell Evalak that his land has been invaded by Tholomer, king of Babylon, whereupon Evalak prepares for war. This section in particular is relating like the prophets had done, the connection between disbelief and denial and the invasion of the Babylonian army upon Jerusalem. This again will become clear when we cover the subject of Time and the prophets.

Before he set out, Joseph and Josaphes have a private audience with Evalak, wherein Joseph tells the king that he is acquainted with all his previous history. (This again is the book of the Grail recounting that Joseph told the descendants of Judah in Sarras of their historical connection to the Davidic line). After this, Josaphe gave Evalak a shield with a red cross upon it, telling him to pray to Christ in the hour of peril. The essence of this passage being that Jesus becomes (or is synonymous with) the eventual shield, as explained in the Grail book as the third ‘degree’ of Gnosis.

In the first encounter, Tholomer's men were successful, but lost their tents. Evalak then collected more men, and was joined by his wife's brother, Seraphe, with five hundred men. This last passage and the following section is directly bound up with the occult meaning of the Grail as Man’s spiritual progression and attainment in Biblical Time which, if elucidated here, will cause further digression but briefly; the five hundred years (men) is an interpolation representative from the Jews return from Babylon to the coming of Jesus.

In the next battle, King Evalak and Duke Seraphe performed wonders, but at last Seraphe was wounded sorely, and Evalak made prisoner. As Evalak was being led to death, he remembered Josaphe's advice; he uncovers the shield with the red cross, and prays to Christ. An angel came to the rescue, in the outward form of a ‘White Knight’, who slayed Tholomer, healed Seraphe, mounted Evalak upon Tholomer's horse, and helps him to achieve a complete victory; after which he vanished. This is again relating occult information regarding the degrees to peace defeating the Babylonians through belief in Jesus (the shield) until the individual in his spiritual endeavour inherits the king of Babylon’s horse (the power of the king).

The Sceptic will be faltering here, but this account is the nearest we will get to what Melkin was relating as an account of the divine plan and this will become clearer as we progress.

If we consider that Joseph, after his initiation had understood this story of the Divine plan set in ‘Time’, then recorded this, with different references in a volume that must have been in a mixture of Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew. Then Melkin, transcribing all this occult or Gnostic information in addition to the historical Arthurian and genealogical material, conglomerates this evidence into the Latin Book of the Grail. From this, by various means, we arrive at our French sources, effectively making the very early sources third hand accounts at best, which underwent at least two translations which covered a change in language over a period of a thousand years. It is no wonder that the account has come down to us in a garbled and corrupted form.

Meanwhile, Joseph had an interview with Evalak's queen, who was at heart a Christian, and whose early history was also related. This again is riddled with gnostic meaning concerning the relationship of Christianity to the Grail account of Zerah.

Evalak returned home, and was baptized, having been named Mordreins (back from the dead). Seraphe was also baptized, with the name of Naciens (reborn). Joseph further baptized five thousand of Evalak's subjects, and abided at Sarras, meanwhile Josaphes and Naciens set out upon a missionary journey whilst the Holy Grail was left at Sarras- (the island of Avalon) in the charge of two of Joseph's company. Again it is not by accident that this entire account concerning Joseph has happened in the five thousandth year of the seven thousand total of Biblical Time, showing again the poems and the original Grail book’s occult relationship to what the prophets relate in Biblical time.

The poem ceased here, with a brief reference to the subsequent imprisonment of Joseph by the king of North Wales and his future release from captivity by Mordreins (Evalak).

Galahad, Joseph's youngest son, was (according to the French) the ‘ancestor of the famous men who so increased the renown of Britain’. However in this poem, our translator seems to think that Galahad, was the son of Lancelot and Elaine. Now if Lancelot is, as we have mentioned earlier, an elaborated name for Jesus; is Elaine a compound version of Magd’elaine? Is ‘Mag’, or the ancient French root of ‘Mage’ (meaning chief or principal) of European derivative. Apart from being a general root for words that relate to ‘great’, with French and English etymological roots.

The name Mary however, can have so many etymological roots but it does seem to have been a popular appellation at the time of Jesus and could have been so popular due to its meaning of female aspiration to beauty. Originally the name Mary is based on its derivation from the Egyptian mer or mar, to love and Miriam Moses’ sister is the only person in the old Testament with this name and as Moses was named by Pharaoh’s daughter, Miriam would seem to have an Egyptian origin as Aaron her brother also has no etymological roots in Hebrew. Maryam with the Hebrew divine name Yam or Yahweh denotes "one loving Yahweh" or "one beloved by Yahweh". Mariam and Maria are the later forms of the Hebrew miryam. The only reason for mentioning this is the oddness of having the popular name Mary and the English or French appellation of Elaine or Helen as a compound of her name. We shall investigate when we cover the appellation of Tombelaine or Tumbelena (the Tomb of Elaine) as pertaining to The island of Avallon, how it was transferred as relating to Mont-saint-Michel in France.

We are now averted to the possibility that Avallon contains the body of Jesus and that Mary Magdaleine. If she accompanied Joseph with Jesus’ body to England, she would not only know of the location, but would wish to be buried in the same place. Hence this place became known as ‘Mons Tumba’ the mount of the tomb but then through some strange quirks became associated with a different St. Michael shrine that of Mont St. Michel in Normandy. The French tradition has Mary being originally buried in Aix en Provence and her relics to have been later removed to Vézelay. It does not take but a cursory read of the ‘The Little Book of Vézelay about the relics and translation of the Blessed Mary Magdalene’ to realise that the Glastonbury story of Arthur’s discovery and reburial is mirrored in this overly elaborate and contrived account with the same purposes of attracting pilgrims as a motive.

Let us return back to our investigation to the Templars after many digressions. The Crusades were undertaken by European states and also by British King's, ostensibly to recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem, from the non-Christian Mohammedan’s. Each endeavour was being carried out with a clear conscience and religious fervour in the name of Christendom and political gain. The first Crusade took place in 1095 and the ninth Crusade ended in 1272 and in this period of 200 years, the Templar institution was being continually empowered by knightly deeds for Christendom. Having consolidated much power across Europe, the organisation outwardly came to an end on Friday the 13th 1307. As we have witnessed in the construction of the St. Michael churches, the power, wealth and knowledge amassed and wielded by them during this period was still to be seen in full operation, manipulating events on a grand scale.

It appears that The Templars or the brains behind the organisation were responsible for the release of a body of information that perpetuated a theme based largely upon legends of Joseph having transported a relic of Jesus to Britain. With embellishment, this account became anachronistically and inextricably connected with accounts of the early Dumnonian Kings and these accounts were all consolidated by Melkin. A body of evidence showed that Joseph of Arimathea had come with Jesus’s relics to what was still the residue of the kingdom of Belerion, with the royal line of Kings having genetical ties to Judah. This body of evidence in the Book of the Grail included an account similar to the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus. It seems likely that this Nicodemus account, which existed separately in Britain and probably derived from crossover material which Melkin had written that remained in Britain, was largely responsible for the Joseph tradition in Britain before the advent of the Grail stories. Melkin’s Manuscripts were transcribed incorporating this knowledge and accounts of events up to and including the time of King Arthur in around 550-650 A.D. It would seem then that both Bale and Pitts were wrong about Melkin ‘flourishing before Merlin’, (if Merlin were a contemporary of Arthur), otherwise he would not have been able to write his ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa rotunda’ and the book of the Grail and more importantly, be able to relate the whereabouts of Arthur’s resting place.

As the Saxons and the original Britains intermingled, the Celtic Welsh, (like the of Celts of Dumnonia), overtime began to ascribe Arthur’s deeds to themselves, and the corruption of these accounts were based sympathetically on the common Celtic struggles against the Saxon foreigners and thus gradually they usurped Arthur’s Dumnonian heritage. This was simply achieved by association with the same struggle, eventually leading to Arthur's Welsh backdrop. These ancient associations through common struggle that glorified illustrious Celtic heritage were more proliferated through the Welsh monastic system; monasteries being less prevalent in Dumnonia. William of Malmesbury was responsible for propagating this tradition, while at the same time, paying little attention to and thus diminishing the Joseph and Nicodemus traditions. However these traditions were mainly kept alive in the monastic system at Glastonbury, separate from any link with the Arthurian tradition until it became useful to do so. These Welsh traditions were further established and embellished by Geoffrey of Monmouth. However, the Arthurian material, the original Joseph accounts, inclusive of the Nicodemus traditions, genealogical and occult material in the Book of the Grail, made its way over to France, after the Saxon invasion, and became the source of the Grail romances.

It is this relationship between a royal line established in Southern England and the Davidic line, which will be part of our further investigation. Joseph is central to this relationship, the one who brings the connection of Jesus and the Davidic line, conjoined with the fulfilment of the prophets, which will cause a new spiritual awakening. Joseph will be ultimately responsible for guarding the proofs of Jesus’s suffering by the evidence provided on the Turin Shroud. He is already responsible for the preservation over a two thousand year period of the arcane knowledge, which will agree with the Prophets (once they are generally understood in terms of Biblical time), which, if Melkin had not reiterated, would have been lost. Finally he will be responsible for the awakening of mankind as predicted by Melkin by acting as a Harbinger and a marker of Appointed Time in a Divine Plan that will change the world religions forever.

All four gospel writers confirm that Joseph of Arimathea claimed the body of Jesus after his death and placed him in a tomb owned by Joseph. The accounts of Luke 23:50-56, Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47 and John 19:38-42, are bearing witness to his burial. Paul also in 1 Corinthians 15:4 writes that he (Jesus) was buried, but without the contrived eschatology there would have to be a body. Joseph was a wealthy man of standing but during Jesus’ life he became converted and was secretly a disciple of Jesus. Joseph not only witnessed his words and deeds in Jerusalem but had probably spent many hours with his nephew on ocean passages hearing his enlightened views on the prophets. As soon as he heard the news of Jesus' death, he "went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." Mark15:43. Pilate who was reassured by a centurion that Jesus was dead, allowed Joseph's request before the Sabbath came, to remove and bury Jesus. Joseph immediately purchased fine linen, Mark 15:46 and proceeded to take the body of Jesus down from the cross. “So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb”. At the tomb, assisted by Nicodemus, Joseph took the body and wrapped it in the fine linen and applied myrrh and aloes these being substances which Nicodemus had brought, according to John 19:39. Myrr is a gum but also an essential oil like cedar. Jesus' body was then conveyed to the tomb that had been prepared for Joseph's own body, a man-made cave hewn from rock. Apart from the polemically motivated variations of the burial account related in the gospels that were provided to substantiate differing accounts of the gospel writers, we are left with the core theme that Joseph took charge of Jesus’s body. Eventually, through conflicting reports and the disappearance of Jesus’s body; we remain without a corpse and only three ways to explain this dilemma. The following are the three main scenarios which have been postulated to rationalise the dilemma.

1) Jesus’s, body and spirit were resurrected into Heaven leaving behind his grave cloth and the residue of ointments that were applied. At a later date, he appeared spiritually not bodily, but this would of necessity negate the account of doubting Thomas. Jesus then appears to the disciples during his resurrection appearances. This scenario would concur with the Gospel accounts and confirm the Pauline theology and apologist account of the Resurrection and Ascension. It would however negate any suggestion that Joseph brought the body of Jesus to England. It would also prove the Turin Shroud to be a fake and we shall discuss how it was formed shortly.

2) A second scenario is that Jesus was given a sedative in the sponge passed to him while on the cross and appeared to be dead. This would go some way to explain the eye witness account of positive blood pressure upon entry of Longinus’s Lance but would run contrary to evidence found on the Turin Shroud that shows this was a post Mortem wound. He was then laid in a tomb possibly in the hope of resuscitation but Joseph was unable to revive him after the unexpected lancing. Joseph then prepared his body with ointments, and secreted it for transportation to Britain with or without the help of Nicodemus or even the accompaniment of others mentioned by Rabanus.

3) A third scenario posited is that Jesus survived the ordeal of the cross, was revived and nursed back to health, appeared to Thomas and the rest of the disciples as the resurrection accounts attest and then left without the knowledge of Mary Magdalene, his mother and Salome. When his body is unveiled showing evidence that concurs with the markings found on the Shroud, this third scenario will obviously be negated.

These scenarios or a mixture of them have over the years tried to rationalise or answer some of the discrepancies found within the Gospel accounts, however we are now aware that Melkin’s ‘Duo Fassula’ is in fact the Turin Shroud and thus we are certain that Jesus’s body wrapped in this shroud was brought to Britain.

The subtext within the Grail romances, which themselves, as we have discussed, are probably derived from original eye witness accounts in England, are now substantiated by Melkin’s description of the ‘duo fassula’ which he must have witnessed at the burial of Arthur. He also must have left it there not knowing that later it would be removed because, he actually states that the tomb would be untouched at its unveiling. He could not know that the one artefact that he states is in the tomb,the same artefact mentioned by all Gospel writers, would be removed by a Templar.

Regardless of this new revelation, the Grail stories perpetuate a contiguous theme, of an arrival or at least burial of a Jesus relic at an island subsequent to Jesus’s crucifixion, while at the same time having a connection with Joseph of Arimathea resulting in the blood line of Kings and knights related to Arthur.

The Grail sometimes described as an Ark or Box containing oil from the earliest unembellished accounts seems to account for a preserved corpse arriving in Britain. Although we are told the spices were Aloe and Myrr this could have been an attempt at early resuscitation or acted as an interim preservative concoction enabling Joseph to embark on his journey to obtain the amount of embalming oil to fill what was to be called the Grail ark. The Cedar oil would have more probably been manufactured in Lebanon and the Egyptian confusion as the location of Sarras being derived from the Prophets understanding of a Spiritual ‘coming out of Egypt’. This occult meaning of Egypt is witnessed in the passage in Revelation 11:8 ‘And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified’. This is in fact a reference to the two witnesses. (Jesus being one, the other being St. Michael), which speaks directly of spiritual Egypt which, as we will get to, is part of the understanding pertaining to the ‘Gradatim’ or degrees to spiritual enlightenment that is bound up in ‘Biblical Time’. So let us not dwell on the Egyptian connection to Sarras for the moment and let’s look at the evidence for the Turin Shroud being synonymous with the ‘duo fassula’ that Melkin says was in the same tomb as Joseph.

Since Jesus's body has never been retrieved and the fundamental creed of Christian faith is substantiated by the fact that his body has never been recovered, it would not be expedient of Melkin to report before the ‘appointed time’, that the body of Jesus existed or that the evidence of his crucifiction existed on an imprinted grave cloth. Not wishing to be accused of heresy, but safe in the Gnostic knowledge he had obtained (supposedly by angel, but more likely by a visit to the island to bury Arthur)……… Melkin chose to obscure the fact that Jesus’s body was buried in Britain, but made sure that we knew the cloth that provided the proof of who he was, rested in the Grave with them both. So we have the one man who knew of the cloth’s existence providing a clue in his prophecy and also leaving behind evidence of its existence in the book of the Grail.

During the body’s voyage from Jerusalem with Joseph to the Isle of Avalon it would have been covered with a cloth, the same cloth which was reported in the Gospels, while the body lay in the Grail ark or box. This highlights the polemic specifically centred on the cloth from the gospels and the different accounts surrounding it. For the wounds to be so clearly defined in blood and the outline on the Turin Shroud to be formed, it surely must show that the cloth spoken of by the gospel writers never remained in the tomb in Jerusalem but remained wrapped around the abused and suffered corpse of Jesus for a very long time while being submerged in oil.

Controversy has certainly surrounded the Shroud due to the carbon dating system used to test its age. This piece of cloth, known as the Shroud of Turin, is one of the most important Christian relics in the world. It depicts a full-scale imprint of the body of a crucified man evidencing within the image the scars and wounds that are recorded in the accounts of Jesus’ death. The importance of the burial cloth should not be underestimated since the cloth is mentioned several times in the gospels. Apart from Melkin’s testimony and that of the gospel writers, not only did a burial cloth exist, but it plays an important role as each of the gospels describes the body of Jesus being wrapped in this linen cloth after having been recovered by Joseph from the cross. The shroud as seen today depicts all the right features that concur with the crucifixion account of Jesus down to the minutest details. In fact the surest way to know that the Shroud is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus and was formed over a long period of time in the oil of the Grail Ark is to look at the 3-d imaging from many experts. All of them show quite plainly by the cloth having been partly suspended in oil, the ripple effect in the 3-d imaging on the visage of Jesus.

The Shroud of Turin was first heard of in 1357 when it was displayed in a church in Lirey, France. It was allegedly discovered in the vaults of a property belonging to Geoffrey de Charny a Templar who died at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. He and his wife Jeanne de Vergy are supposedly the first recorded owners of the Turin Shroud. It is often cause for confusion that a Geoffroi De Charney was burned at the stake with Jack de Molay the final Grand Master of the Templars in 1314. This later Geoffroi De Charny was said to have participated in a failed crusade under Humbert II of Viennois in the late 1340s and is known to have visited the British isles twice around 1350. In 1453 a Margaret de Charney supposedly the Templars granddaughter, deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy and in 1578 the shroud was transferred to Turin.

The Turin Shroud measures 4.4 by 1.1 m. It bears the faint front and back, feet to head and head to feet imprint of a naked man. It could not fit the description of a doubled swaddling cloth described by Melkin more accurately. The image depicts the nail wounds of the crucifixion of Jesus as described in the New Testament accounts. The shroud was stored in a silver chest in a chapel in Chambery, France and in 1532 a fire raged through the chapel. Part of the chest melted and droplets of molten silver burned through the shroud. Luckily most of the damage did not interfere with the outline of the figure, but left a symmetric pattern due to the way it was folded in the chest. Later the burn holes were patched.

The image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The negative image was first seen in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of an amateur photographer, named Secondo Pia, who was permitted to photograph it while it was on show in the Turin Cathedral. When Pia developed his negative, he expected to see an image on the negative that was more faint or ghost-like in appearance than the original positive image of the photographed sepia coloured cloth, the image becoming positive only when the light values are reversed in a photographic negative. The light areas observed normally appeared as dark, and the dark as light and the negative image of the Shroud appeared as a well-defined picture of a crucified man laid to rest.

Since the actual image on the Shroud was ghostly to begin with and hard to make out, Pia was initially shocked at the result in his developing pan when the image became crystal clear. What he had done in effect was to create a positive image that originally had been formulated in negative. An incredible artistic feat for a forger but then one must ask, ”why fabricate something that is barely recognisable and none can know of its artistic craft or beauty until the advent of Photography”? Many experts still think that the shroud is an elaborate hoax and that position is simply based upon a logical set of blinkers. For most, the lateral evidence of being formed in a liquid is precluded by association with the shrouds gospel associations with the tomb in Jerusalem. Even for the sceptical examiner bent upon proving the shroud a hoax, there is no precedent of such an artwork being formed in a liquid.

In 1978 a detailed examination was carried out by a team of American scientists (S.T.U.R.P). They found no evidence of forgery and were baffled, but could not give a definitive answer as to how the image was formed or even any propositions. Many ensuing scientific enquiries have followed all with inconclusive results as to the genuineness of the shroud as pertaining directly to Jesus. The Shroud accurately represents an abundance of three-dimensional information. When modern image analysis began in 1974, the image of the shroud was found to contain an impressive amount of accurate three-dimensional spatial information.

At the advent of Pia’s photograph, no longer was there a ghost like image and lack of definition between light and dark areas but instead, Pia witnessed a picture that was so lifelike that it could not have been a painting, but more akin to an actual photograph. The image on the Shroud originally created or formed in negative, led researchers to think that the shroud was composed as if one would normally construct an artistic image, except in reverse. With the evidence of the Grail stories and the fact that we now know Jesus’s body was submerged in oil, it is plain to see how residue from the Cedar oil itself left an overall residue on the cloth as it evaporated and is responsible for its sepia quality. This in conjunction with build up from anaerobic micro-organisms impregnate the cloth internally forming a denser build up where the body was touching the cloth and restricting free movement. This is precisely how the negative image was formed. The Turin Shroud has been examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser-microprobe Raman analyses, and micro-chemical testing, but interestingly enough not one scientist has posited that the image was formed by particle movement in liquid. There has never been evidence of pigments (paint, dye or stains) as some have claimed, nor has there been evidence of an artist's intent found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin.

With an ordinary optical microscope, it can be seen that most of the thread fibres have extraneous deposits that cover their surface. These coatings may be composed of micro-organisms (bacteria and fungi) and non-cellular heterogeneous materials. It would seem that the colouring that formed the image is mostly organic in nature and was deposited as exo-polymers by the evaporated cedar oil and by bacteria that invaded the textile fibres over time by being in solution for a minimum of six hundred years and probably some of these fibres were later affected by Fungi as it was removed from the body and put aside in the tomb.

The reason for giving this date when the ‘doubled fasciola’ might have been removed from Jesus’ body, is due to Melkin’s description of the Shroud. Unless it was unwrapped from Jesus’s body, he would not know that there was an outline beneath the body and this resinous coating must have had time to dry before smudging occurred. It would seem that Melkin could have been responsible for removing it and leaving it folded in the vault still covered in oil as it steadily evaporated. This would explain the slight imprint of the face on the rear side of the shroud as it would have been folded as it was when covering the body. The first fold evident in the middle and as the resinous oil evaporated, the imprint from the microbial detritus opposite, left a faint impression. This imprint would of course be more pronounced if the first fold that doubled the cloth was eventually placed at the bottom of the rest of the folded shroud.

This would have meant that this area would have remained soaked longer being underneath, as over the years the oil gradually evaporated and dried this bottom layer was soaked and weighted giving rise to the faint facial imprint. There is also reason for Melkin removing the shroud as it was noted that the nose and knee area show signs of dirt and this might have been caused by the gradual evaporation from the Grail ark over the six centuries while dust from the tin vault gradually soiled the exposed protruding areas. Alternatively though, these two areas could have protruded at times above the surface of the oil where there may have been floating debris initially.

The Shroud has been expertly reviewed by many scientists and since 1988 have produced carbon 14 results that conclude the shroud to be from the fourteenth century, but they have not taken into account the microbial residue that pervades much of the textile structure and how it got there. It is these bacterial infestations that form part of the superficial coatings and it is the density of deposit that actually define the image.

It is not only scientists but archaeologists and scholars, who are naturally sceptical about any relic purporting to be older than they can establish without an historical footprint. In medieval Europe, fake relics abounded, but none that can defy modern science and withstand such scrutiny as the shroud has undergone. Scientists have been struggling with how the image on the Shroud was formed, and how old the linen cloth is, for the past forty years. It would appear that their answers depend more on the prejudices of the scientists than they do on the scientific data itself, if the mode of manufacture is factored into the resulting conclusions.

The official statement from the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) at the end of their extensive analysis says: "We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The bloodstains are composed of haemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved."

Well those futuristic scientists stated that the cloth is medieval because they could not isolate a fibril of the shroud without impregnation of microbial carbon deposits that gives an erroneous C14 date for the cloth.

The Turin Shroud is not the product of an artist and exhibits no apparent brush strokes, and it exhibits no evidence of layering which shows that the image was formed as part of one process. In recent tests on samples, they found micro-colonial black Fungi and Bacteria. Some of these formed filamentous structures that surrounded the fibres, or pervaded their internal structure. The individual fibres of the cloth are surrounded by a bio plastic coating and this bio plastic coating will have been formed from ‘terpenes’ that constitute the resinous cedar oil.

It is significant to note that the biopolymer coating can in certain samples make up the most substantial portion of the fibril being tested and if a liquid medium had been considered this would have provided a good starting point from which to conduct scientific analysis. The pervasiveness of a now evaporated fine oil that has formed into a resinous film over and through the fibrils is the cause for the Shrouds opaque colour. The oils capacity when as a liquid, to transfer micro-bacterial material to the core of the flax sample would assuredly alter any Carbon 14 data, even with the most rigorous cleaning process. The cleaning process used by radiocarbon labs was duplicated by one lot of experts even increasing the strength of the regular cleaning solution. This process had absolutely no effect on the bio-polymeric coating but instead dissolved some of the flax cellulose which goes to show the resilience of this resinous residue and how the cloth itself cannot be accurately dated by this method. This resulted in less C14 being obtained from the shroud itself and even more from the contaminating bio-plastic varnish, thus not really measuring the age of the cloth. The particles of residual bacteria that were suspended in the solution has been the cause of the darkened colouration that forms the outline image as it settled in place and became part of the bio-plastic varnish as it encrusted with differing quantities of residue that forms the shading of the image.

The anaerobic bacteria deposits in the coating obtained some of their sustenance from carbon dioxide and they would have introduced additional carbon 14 to the cloth giving an erroneous date for the fibrils. Science needs to prove conclusively the C.14 date of the cloth alone without contamination to prove the Shroud is 2000 years old. After all unless one can isolate a pure fibril one is not going to get a accurate Carbon 14 result for that fibril. As all fibrils are contaminated with the plastic residue from the oil which also have locked in microbial residue one can dismiss the C. 14 results as indeterminate for the cloths date.

The main stumbling block to any scientific analysis is a preconception and since the Shroud has no history as a religious relic prior to 1357AD this might have a bearing on the results that have been produced so far. How the tests are conducted or how the results might be viewed are always more conclusive given a viable explanation. The results of Shroud testing would of course be more accurate if a credible theory were put forward to which the results could be married. As we now know the provenance of the shroud and the fact that it was submerged in oil in a dark sarcophagus for at least 600 years, and possibly rested in there until December the 25^th 1307 before it saw daylight; we can be sure the next analysis will be more circumspect.

If one was still to believe that the Shroud had not come from the vault on Burgh Island and the negative image of Jesus had not been formed over time in a solution; it would take an incredibly adept artist to create the shroud with the amount of scrutiny that has been afforded to it. Apart from the fact that the Shroud has no historical footprint before 1350, the other main reason put forward for it being a fake is that some critics say that one cannot drape a three-dimensional object with a piece of cloth and get the same proportions. This is fairly obvious but the shroud does not present us with a wrapped image, but the image is shaded to give three dimensional representation. The hair each side of the face is exactly as one would expect of a cloth gently suspended in oil over the top of the body. It gives the correct representation on the reverse as representive of a back and legs where parts of the body do not touch the cloth. The main contention is that the 7-8” as measured from ear to ear across the face becoming 11-12” as measured on cloth wrapped around the face from ear to ear. Apart from the hair of which the volume was of an unknown quantity, the three dimensional quality is given by shading and the argument that the shroud (if it were genuine), could only have been formed as a wrapped cloth is erroneous. This argument assumes it was touching all parts of the body which we know it was not, as it was formed in a fluid while being suspended.

The clever way that the shroud is said to have been formed by chemical reaction by a ‘camera obscura’ would leave chemical residue which is not detected. This is quite a ridiculous theory as the image is made up from the coloration of particles that have been encrusted in dried cedar oil residue and this encapsulated the blood particles beneath this outer layer of the fibril. A difficult result to match from a ‘camera obscura’ method! The fact that Leonardo da Vinci is implicated as the fraudster is also quite preposterous as he was not born when it was first shown and not even he would think about incorporating pollen grains from the dead sea area and including the imprint of flowers. What needs to be understood about Leonardo is he detested religion and those that peddled it but he understood Jesus’ divinity and this is exemplified in his paintings, but he would not deign to forge such a sacred object. The forger theory still persists based upon the dates of the C.14 results, but it is this date parameter of 1260-1390 given by science that has forced this conclusion.

A forger would have to have knowledge to paint the bloodstains before applying the image material because at the microscopic level, the cedar residue and anaerobic micro-bacterial residue that it leaves, cover the blood stains in the fibres. The obvious reason for this is that the blood soaked into the shroud by capillary action before the microbial deposit and encrustation of the resin occurred. Research has shown that there is no underlying image present under the blood spots and the blood shows under UV light a serum-separation which is visible as a halo. This is comprised of a serum retraction ring of albumin around the solid parts of the blood and this is typical for post-mortem blood. This halo is not visible with the naked eye and this reaction was not known until recently, so a forger would have had to use a dead body.

A hoaxer would have to have an amazing talent to give the three dimensional effect and also have the ability to think in negative. The Shroud was obviously formed in the Grail Ark by the laying down of detritus entrapped in the fibres of the shroud as it was suspended in Cedar oil. The Shrouds suspension as it settled over the face can clearly be seen on a ‘V.P 8 Analizer’ computer image. Not only would our clever artist be painting this image with some unknown micro-bacterial medium using an unknown technique, he would have to stand back 20 or 30 feet away to check his work in order to construct the ghost like image that is barely perceptible in the positive on the ivory coloured cloth. Not only would he have to overcome working at a distance if working in the conventional artistic approach, but he would have to match anatomically both sides exactly. Those who contest that the body is not anatomically correct should understand the body of Jesus underwent the most horrendous abuse that would have caused swelling. Who except Melkin had ever stated that Jesus’ shroud was doubled over in one piece, because to fabricate this match is difficult without a body, but the forger would have to know of Melkin’s description. This basically would need a crucified victim to carry out the plot and would seem a bit excessive for a one off hoax and if this were the intention, why construct it in barely perceptible negative and on a ‘doubled fasciola’, if no-one else knew of this description?

Photograph by G. Enrie, 1933

Figure 48 Showing on the left the Sepia coloured shroud impregnated with Cedar oil residue, mixed with bacterial detritus forming a Negative image and on the right the photographic image, the positive of the naturally formed negative.

Not only would this supposed artistic genius have to have forensic knowledge of blood flow patterns to match blood flow from the wrists at 65° from vertical, which concurs with the crucifixion position of the arms, but we would have to accept that our artistic forger is a pathologist and took into account the lesser secondary smaller blood flow angle that would have been created as Jesus tried to pull himself up to alleviate his breathing difficulty.

Someone who is able to reconstruct the position of the arms in such a way as to place them where they would have to account for gravity and direction of the blood flow that are seen on the shroud, would have to have a genuine crucified victim. Our forger would also have to show the blood flows with genuine group AB blood confirmed by the presence of porphyrins, bile pigments and serum albumin. This is obviously a ludicrous assumption as an artistic endeavour, as the artist would have had to deny forensic science the ability to uncover his method, which is why no artistic method has been found. Realistically if Melkin is the only person who has mentioned this doubled cloth and no-one has ever understood his meaning of ‘Duo fassula’……… would it not be simpler to do a one sided image if one was just aiming at artistic intent? Basically, it would be pointless to match an unknown description of a doubled shroud and therefore this adds credibility to the Shroud as genuine. The Shroud is quite simply not a fake, but the real burial cloth of Jesus and not some medieval custom Crucifixion for the sake of a hoax. How could a hoaxer know to match Melkin’s description of something that actually existed and was recorded in an obscure British puzzle.

For the sceptic, the Shroud will remain a fake until science can confirm our proposed method of manufacture and then undoubtedly the concurring carbon 14 results will follow. The proof that it is the genuine death shroud of Jesus will only come when its previously unknown history is established at the unveiling of the tomb.

How could any artist have the foresight to duplicate abrasion marks on the knee and compression marks on the shoulders to coincide with the carrying of the cross to Cavalry. Did he really go into such ‘minutae’ to overcome 21^st century scrutiny, to consider duping any investigator into thinking that the man portrayed had carried a heavy weight following the scourging? From the image on the Shroud, we can see signs of beating about the face, swelling under the eye and clumps of his beard having been ripped from Jesus’ face, which shows incredible attention to detail for any medieval forger.

In all medieval representations of Jesus on the cross, the nails go through the hands, yet in the Shroud they go through the wrists which concurs with modern archaeological findings of crucified victims from that area, during that Roman period. Even if the fraudulent artist did not have his own crucified victim, he would even have to possess knowledge that Jesus’s thumbs needed to rotate inwards, because the nail had passed through the Median nerve and because of this there is what seems to be a thumb shadow on the shroud that has led some investigators to think that the image must convey some x-ray qualities. This just shows that there was no detritus in solution where the thumb under the palm was resting. There is too much detail for the supposed artist to consider without being uncovered……… if this were in any way a fraudulent endeavour. The chance of an artist not only creating but matching an anatomically correct outline of a man on a shroud with no uncovered artistic method is too improbable under modern scientific scrutiny. The fact that this piece of cloth is said to have existed by Melkin in the Dark ages along with the body of that same man whose image is displayed on it and was witnessed to be in a tomb that no-one knew existed, seems more than a little coincidental.

The many scientists will concur that this is the shroud of Jesus when the body that formed the image is unveiled and matches anatomically. The fact that no investigator has proposed that it was formed in a liquid seems astounding for the most investigated article on earth. How else could one get the fibrils covered with the encrusted residue to give the overall sepia colouration.

There has been considerable speculation that the image of the Shroud was somehow painted because of traces of Iron oxide used in many artistic pigments, but there seems to be no correlation between concentrations of iron oxide particles and the varying densities of the image and would more likely be explained by the oxidisation of the spearhead or crucifixion nails that may have been enclosed within the Grail Ark. What really negated the pigment theory was that during scientific chemical analysis, it was discovered that unlike artist’s pigment which contains iron oxide often mixed with nickel, cobalt and manganese, the iron oxide examined on the shroud was nearly pure and widespread over the samples as opposed to being more concentrated in the shaded areas that comprise the image. This tends to indicate it was dispersed while in solution from metallic objects within the Grail Ark.

Again if this were a fake, the supposed artist seems to have had amazing palynological knowledge to match plant spores and microscopic pollen, but to incorporate not only flowers into the shroud that are only indigenous to the region of the Dead Sea, seems too full of foresight to stay ahead of scientific analysis. The flowers that would have been placed into the Grail Ark by those closest to Jesus, are those that have left their imprint on the shroud. This also seems to be a bold move by the artistic hoaxer straying from the orthodox script of the Gospel accounts. Rather, the existence of the flower images add credibility to the story that Jesus was removed from Jerusalem in an oil filled coffin and it was those close to him that added the flowers.

Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss, one identified plant imprint on the shroud grows only in Israel, Jordan, and Sinai; its appearance helps to definitively limit the shroud’s place of origin as these flowers would have been placed in the Grail ark before the oil and before the Ark was sealed before starting its journey westward. Pollen grains from Gundelia tournefortii also found on the Shroud, particularly found in the arid areas of Syria, Palestine and Jordan seem conclusively to evidence the shrouds area of origin. This locale was surely not known for its scientifically verifiable fabrication of religious relics.

Faint imprints of indigenous flowers were found around the head area on the cloth and were placed over Jesus’ body by Mary Magdalene and others that loved him and had witnessed his cruel murder. The shroud is a physical record of the most heinous travesty of Justice and those that loved him were not going to witness any further abuse of this innocent man and so removed the body from Jerusalem.

The flowers remained within the oil to eventually leave their imprint and microscopic pollen grains found embedded in the cloth were from plants endemic to regions around the Dead Sea. Many of the air-born pollen grains would have been deposited before the oil was added to the Ark. Is it unlikely that a forger would know that this could all be scientifically discovered 700 years after the supposed hoax? The shroud contains pollen grains from 58 species of plants, 17 indigenous to Europe where the artefact has been for 7 centuries since Geoffrey De Charney removed the Shroud from the vault. The majority are indigenous plants to the Holy land some exclusively, to the area of the Dead Sea, including, Artemisia herba-alba, Onosma syriacum and Nyoscyamus aureus but when pollen is found from the plants indigenous to Devon that we can see in figure 40,37 and 34 that blossom around June when the Grail ark was probably delivered, then the sceptic will have his proof of the provenance of the Shroud.

Our artistic genius painted an anatomically and photographically precise human image in photographic negative and all of this, centuries before the science of photography was developed and just to complicate the issue decided to portray both sides anatomically perfect. He then would have had to use micro bacterial deposits with the correct quantities to create the shading in the appropriate areas in a medium combined with a poly-saccharide caramel to express himself.

The Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus and with all findings from modern three dimensional computer analyses, biochemistry, medicine, forensic pathology, anatomy and botany, a potential fabricator had to know enough of the effects of crucifixion on the body to avoid detection by all the efforts of modern science. One can scarcely imagine in the early 1300’s an artist who would contemplate waiting until the advent of photography before the full effect of his artistic brilliance would be discovered as this would be modesty in the extreme.

The artistic fabricator also took chances supposedly painting Jesus as a nude. Medieval paintings never depict a nude Jesus as it was accounted sacrilegious and even today, the image of a totally naked Christ would be unacceptable to the very market the supposed fraud is aiming at. On the other hand, a nude body of Jesus conforms to genuine Roman crucifixions as archaeological evidence has shown.

Our Genius fraudster would have to know that Gundelia tournefortii blooms in Israel from February to May around Jerusalem to coincide with these being present at Easter time when the plants were placed on the Shroud just before Jesus’ Grail Ark was transported toward the port of embarkation in Tyre or Sidon. Easter, when Jesus is recorded to have been murdered is a moveable feast day and the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon i.e. the Paschal Full Moon, following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox. This is thought to be on March 21 even though the equinox occurs, astronomically on March 20 in most years and the "Full Moon" is not necessarily the astronomically correct date. So the date of Easter differs a whole cycle between March 22 and April 25. Therefore, the brilliance of our fictitious artist would need to be acquainted with the blooming dates for the 30 species he has included to incorporate into the Shroud, in total contradiction to the gospel writers account, in which Myrr was said to have been applied to Jesus.

Any medieval artist would have placed the nail marks on the hands if he were fabricating an image of the crucified Jesus just to concur with popular portrayal. This placement of the nail in the wrist depicted on the Shroud goes against medieval artistic convention, as the nails were depicted by every other artist as piercing the hands. Instead the Shroud represents the actual practical position where the nails must be inserted in order for a body to hang on a cross without ripping through the fingers. One wrist bears a large round wound from the piercing spike, the other wrist wound being covered by the top hand but we can assume that the lower one is identical. There is a sign of a wound consistent with an upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic cavity.

This Medieval forger’s ability to follow the Gospel account is unrelenting as he also supposedly imitates small punctures around the forehead and scalp from the crown of thorns and scores of linear wounds from a Roman ‘flagrum’ on the torso and legs. Also there is the evidence on the Shroud of swelling around the face from severe beatings and large puncture wounds in the feet as if pierced by a single large spike. What a sacrifice to knowingly endure such atrocities for the sake of mankind! Jesus knew the profound meaning of the Paschal lamb that would ensure the Jews ‘Coming out of Egypt’.

Evidently, it is more fantastic to think that the Shroud could be a fake than to accept that it is the genuine grave cloth from Jesus’s body. If one does come to this conclusion, it is interesting to note however, how accurately the Gospel accounts of events endured at the passion of Jesus, coincide with wounds that have left their imprint on the Shroud. One can really see how brutal the treatment of Jesus was and all because he had understood the Law and the purport of the prophets more perfectly than the religious leaders of that time. One can barely contemplate St. Paul pursuing Jesus’ followers and being a part of the same atrocities, all in the name of religion. What a miraculous conversion he had, but the sad outcome of which was another religion due to contrived eschatology. Formalized religion must cease, but the prophets must be understood in the correct context before the Abrahamic religions no longer find offensive the true purport of the Divine plan. In the future, will witnesses be allowed to be treated with such brutality, as the priest class of religious teachers condoned such violence to Jesus? –The chief priests, self-professed leaders from all the dead religions, which prevent their adherent’s entrance to Heaven and from perceiving the truth behind the divine plan, which is plainly set forth by the prophets.

The Turin shroud is the ‘duo fassula’ from a genuine burial casket containing cedar oil which contained many flowers, mostly leaving their impression in the vicinity of the Jesus’s head. These must have left their imprint as they rested on the shroud as they were gently suspended in oil over the centuries. It seems probable that Brownian motion might have had an effect within the oil in distributing the organic detritus that makes up the shading of the image. Where the shroud made contact with the skin or hair of Jesus there was more deposit over the long time span as the detritus was restricted. The image on the Shroud varies inversely with the shroud-to-body-distance as it floated in solution i.e. the image density or ‘pixilation’ corresponds to a mathematical gradient directly relative to distance between the body and the cloth, which highlights that the Shroud covered an actual body during the time of image formation. The darker the image in the original, the closer this part of the shroud was to the body, the darkest parts actually touching. The lighter the image the further away these parts of the body were from the Shroud and thus less chance of entrapment and build up. This gives the impression that the Shroud is in a way pixelated by shading with a relationship of darkness the closer it is to the body. So we can see also, that the case is strong for micro-bacterial anaerobic activity that ranged free, suspended in solution and thus depositing itself more heavily where the cloth was inhibited by contact and received a larger residue build up by a combination of two forces within the solution, Brownian motion and microbial movement. However the image could have been caused by brownian motion alone. There may have been as some attest either the nails from the cross or the spearhead used to lance Jesus that were deposited also in the Grail Ark.

Did the tin lining of the Grail ark cause a reaction to oxidise the spear that was deposited in the Coffin. When dissimilar metals are in contact with each other through an electrolyte, galvanic action occurs, resulting in the deterioration of the metal with the lower galvanic number. Since tin has a higher galvanic number or nobility than Iron...... did the oil act as an electrolytic medium and is this the cause of the iron oxide deposits found on the shroud?

All the iron deposits found on the Shroud, whether from iron oxide particles or from blood, proved to be 99 percent chemically pure, with no discernable Manganese, Nickel, or Cobalt, so we can rule out paint artistry. The earth pigment, Red Ochre or Venetian red, from either medieval or older sources would have been contaminated with manganese, nickel or cobalt if the image had been created with paint.

The proposed time period of six hundred years for the formulation of the image is only a considered guess based upon Melkin’s assertion of the shroud being folded amongst other factors such as the faint facial imprint on the rear, but the reference to folding(pleta), could be just a re-iteration or clearer definition of the ‘doubled’. If we have fully understood that Melkin’s meaning was that it had been removed and the shroud was set aside from the body and folded before he exited the tomb..... this would of course allow the drying and caramelising of the oil before being removed by the Templars.

It would appear then that microscopic residue from the anaerobic activity worked in conjunction with Brownian motion. This process in effect deposited more material in the spaces unimpeded by the skin and hair of Jesus, thus rendering a near perfect negative image.

This became fainter but fixed once removed from the box during the solidification of the varnish like residue as the oil slowly evaporated. The fact that the Shroud was covered in oil that impregnated every fibre, certainly explains the cloths imprint surviving through the centuries, as under normal circumstances the flax would have rotted over a two thousand year period.

Despite the seemingly definitive tests supposedly proving the shroud to be a fraud (purely on the basis of date)……… the status of the Shroud of Turin is as unclear as ever before, because the date arrived at by c14 tests preclude that the shroud is a fraud. It is not so much that the results are wrong however, but given the information about the preceding 1300 years until it was displayed, allowances could be made for the Carbon 14 measurement and new tests devised especially when the body that formed the image is uncovered.

The Shroud cloth is woven in three-to-one herringbone twill, composed of flax fibrils, which in its day was a quality piece of cloth and could have been woven to the length specifically for the purpose it was used for. The cloth appears to be of a pre 12th Century weave and the manufacture indicates a Middle East origin. The two outline views front and back are aligned along the mid-plane of the body and are oriented in opposite directions, consistent with a doubled all in one grave cloth and the image formation as we have proposed. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth and evidence the cloth was once draped over the body of Jesus as seen below.

Figure 48a Showing the photographed image of Jesus on the Turin Shroud, which also highlights the burn marks.

Since the Shroud is made of materials which were once living plants, radiocarbon dating should be accurate, but of all the theories used to explain the excess carbon 14 in this ancient relic, none take into account living micro-organisms, such as anaerobic bacteria which were present on the shroud for at least six hundred years during its undisturbed spell in the solution of Cedar oil. As these micro-organisms lived and multiplied leaving behind their detritus, they would have incorporated new carbon into themselves, and into their organic wastes which would assuredly alter the accuracy of any Carbon 14 results. One could posit that during seaborne transportation, agitation in part was responsible for the distribution of the image, but this would not give the erroneous C14 results we are witnessing left by their residue. The unlikelihood of anaerobic Fungi also existing in solution would seem to indicate that these filaments pervaded the cloth after it was taken out of solution and left folded within the tomb.

The outermost fibres of the cloth are coated with a layer of starch fractions and various saccharides from the resin oil. Widely spread throughout the cloth, the coating has turned into a caramel-like substance, thus forming the medium and fixing agent for the image’s shading particles while acting as a ‘fixant’ for the enduring image. Where there is no encapsulated darkening that forms the images, there is an otherwise clear starch and polysaccharide coating on most of the shroud’s fibres and the varnish like film is precisely what one would expect from evaporated and dried resinous cedar oil. Spectral and chemical analysis reveal that the ‘chromophores’ of the Shroud of Turin's images are complex, conjugated carbon bonds which do support the assertion that they have been deposited by a mixture of evaporated resinous oil mixed with micro-bacterial detritus. The final confirmation that the formation of the image was indeed constituted in solution is shown by computer analysis that picks up the wave of the shroud as it was suspended in the liquid.

Before 1988, the Shroud had already undergone several forensic tests made by many experts in the field, each finding, supported the belief that this cloth was approximately 2000 years old, and that it originated from Israel. It seems that science has been steered by the fact that the Shroud not having a documented history appears suspect. A sacred relic pertaining to a such a specific event in global history appearing 1300 years after it was first recorded has tainted its credibility purely for the lack of its known provenance. We should look to Melkin for the confirmation that he saw this same object circa 600AD.

Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta: Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.

It is hard to get more precise than this description by Melkin especially since he is the man who gives account of how these events unfolded. This by itself confirms that the ‘duo fassula’ is not the Grail of popular conception but now focuses our attention on the other things that the Grail has had associated with it. The original Graal was commensurate with a ‘processional’ in which it appeared while the Grail questor was at meat, which was indicative of a three stage progression over time. Grades or Degrees as the name suggests are stages of spiritual progression and indicate a level of attainment. It is only by careful understanding of the purport of the prophets that one can realise the correlation of what is meant by Melkin’s elucidation in the Grail book.

Lastly a quest, journey, or both, is the stamp or essence of the Grail and on an individual basis is the life saga of all mortals, but for mankind as a whole, the Grail is the work of God that can be witnessed within the parameters of ‘Biblical Time’ which is elevating consciousness through the divine spark or Holy Spirit. All of these attributes of the Grail have been incorporated in the Romances but their substance has been somewhat misconstrued. The Grail Quest has become the spiritual search of the soul for divine union, set in a context of Knightly pursuits of chastity, virtue, and prayer, but as we now know the Grail itself, in the person of Jesus, has been transposed through misunderstanding to a physical object to be searched for.

So we now can remove ourselves from a quest to find an objective tangible Grail, to the discovery of a more valuable possession that exists or comes to fruition out of Time and to which the real purport of the Grail alludes and which is born witness to by the Prophets. This is in effect a concept of potential to be understood and this is the essence of the Grail, something that can never be attained by conscious will but by the Spirit of God. Something that cannot be found, but only attained through heightened consciousness and the understanding that this consciousness is being elevated within the confines of a divine plan, over a pre-determined time span that we shall call ‘Biblical Time’.

When the Shroud was definitively removed from Joseph’s tomb is unclear but if our assertion that the ‘duo fassula’ is the shroud, why would Melkin state that he expected it to be found in what was to be an ‘undisturbed’ grave, if he is responsible for taking it to France along with the Book of the Grail. The only reason for postulating such a proposition is because there is a possible instance where we hear of the shroud prior to its first accepted appearance but the evidence is not strong. From all the evidence produced here, Melkin appears to have removed the Shroud and folded it leaving it to slowly dry in the sepulchre chamber. By his own account he believed the chamber would not be opened until the appointed time in ‘Biblical Time’ and did not know the Templars were going to deposit their treasure in the tomb and remove the Shroud. To have mentioned it in his prophecy indicates that he knew what impact the shroud would have on the world, acting as a proof of Jesus’ sacrifice and suffering, but he never contemplated it would be separated from the Grail Ark which together, established it as the genuine shroud referred to in the Gospels. It is very probable that when Melkin saw the Shroud the image (the positive of a negative formation) was much clearer before it dried.

Now we know that the Grail writers have allegorised a body of knowledge in their own imaginative ways, it could also shed light on the strange reference to Josephes and other’s crossing the channel on a shirt (which is a strange concept) and should be understood as another example of a reference to a mistranslation or the sense being misconstrued and in this example the shroud or cloth from the original becomes a shirt in the Romance. This actually epitomises the random allegorization that was perpetrated by the Romancers. This would be no surprise, as we have already witnessed greater mutations from the original form in other aspects of the Romances. But this particular piece of information could indicate that the Grail Ark was in fact transported up through France and then the fifty (said to accompany Joseph), then went to the Island of Sarras, to the final resting place of the Graal.

At the inquisition of the the Knights Templar, Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who joined the Templar order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and he was then instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times. Had the Templar illuminate, who possessed the manuscripts recording early British history, also had in their possession the Shroud removed from Jesus’s body at the death of King Arthur at his burial in Avalon? If so this puts an earlier date than 1307 for the opening of the tomb and the extraction of the Shroud from it, but we will cover this shortly. The Knights Templar had been accused of worshipping idols, in particular a “bearded figure” which some reported as a bearded head but was this object they had secretly venerated, the Shroud which of course depicts a bearded Jesus.

The old tin vault first being used as a tomb seems to have occurred at the burial of Jesus and subsequently by those who buried Joseph. It is also related that some or all of the Kings from this early royal line up to Arthur are also buried there. ‘Galahad dies at Sarras, says Hardyng, but sends Percival with his heart to Arthur, praying the king to bury the heart beside king Evalak and duke Seraphe, who were buried beside Joseph ( in the chapel of Our Lady at Glastonbury)’. The last bracketed phrase is an afterthought being an affirmation and interpolation of an earlier record. Finally, Melkin must have witnessed Arthur’s burial to have related that the ‘duo fassula’ was buried in the same place as Joseph. So it is only Sabbatier and the The Pray Codex (The Hungarian Pray Manuscript) a collection of medieval manuscripts, that offer any prior knowledge of the shroud before the 1350’s, so it is not clear when or if it were De Charney who removed it.

The Pray Codex is an old handwritten Hungarian text dating to between 1192-1195 showing a similar picture of repose to Jesus’ imprinted on the Turin shroud, but no further evidence or likeness except an exaggerated artistic impression of the twill pattern which could be considered striking but vastly exaggerated and any likeness completely coincidental.

Figure 48b The Pray Codex, showing the similarity of repose of the body of Jesus as being similar to the image formed on the Shroud.

This of course could be just coincidental and does not in any way prove a connection with the shroud and even if it did it might just indicate that the Templars deposited the Ark of the covenant in the Tomb before 1195AD as we hear only rumours of the Ark’s removal and nothing in any Templar documentation. The Pray codex is only given such credence as representative of the shroud based upon three similarities. The repose of the body is the first, the burn marks or ‘poker holes’ in the real shroud that appear to be in an ‘L’ shape and the pattern of four holes represented here in an upside down ‘L’, and lastly the supposed representation of the ‘Herringbone Twill’ cloth that comprises the Shroud. It would seem that the poker holes are just decoration by the artist, the same feature found on what looks to be the belt of the Angel and its wing, but also found above the chest of the female administering saint. The top scene is quite simply Joseph and Nicodemus preparing the body and the second is the three women witnessing the white cloth left in the tomb, both as representative of Gospel accounts. There is no mention in the codex of the image representing the shroud and the supposed pattern of the weave of the cloth has been deemed a more important feature by the artist than representing the image of Jesus on the cloth which is slightly redundant if the picture were genuinely portraying a knowledge of the Shroud. The fact that Jesus is having lotions applied like the Gospel account seems to indicate that coincidentally the way the body is laid out is similar to the shroud but the real intent is to show the body receiving attention after having been removed from the cross as the gospel accounts convey.

One would think that if one were in some way trying to recreate the image portrayed on the shroud as something the artist had witnessed, it is a most striking feature that the beard is not included. Would it not strike anyone coming across the shroud that Jesus wore a beard rather than leave out the feature. In the image of the Shroud of Turin, the right palm is over the base of the left hand, while in the Pray codex, the arms intersect above the wrists. If one were trying to depict the 14 feet long Shroud, significantly larger than the small shroud depicted here in the codex, one would at least portray that an image existed on the Shroud. It seems that the main reason for considering the similarities of the Pray Codex was to confute the dating provided by the C14 results of 1260–1390 AD and establish the Shroud existed at an earlier date. The similarities are only due to the fact that they convey differing portrayals of an historic event about the same person through different mediums.

The last time the Tomb seems to have been opened is on December 25th 1307, seven years before the death of De Charney or fifty years before the Shroud was first displayed in 1357. It seems unlikely that the Shroud was in continental Europe until just prior to its first showing, and why would Melkin say the cloth is with Joseph if he had removed it to France.

It is surely not by coincidence, that the same Templar society that built the St. Michael churches had knowledge of the Grail, physical proof of the Turin Shroud and knowledge of the whereabouts of the Island of Avalon. This surely would be the perfect place in which to deposit their treasure.

It is surely not by coincidence, that the same Templar society that built the St. Michael churches had knowledge of the Grail, physical proof of theTurin Shroud and knowledge of the whereabouts of the Island of Avalon. This surely would be the perfect place in which to deposit their treasure.

Finding an empty tomb in Jerusalem by itself does not prove a resurrection. However the fact that the tomb in which Joseph had put Jesus was empty, is essential to the resurrection’s truthfulness for fundamentalists. If anybody would have been able to produce Jesus’ body, any resurrection claims would be voided and Christianity would not be founded on the tenets it possesses today. So here we are presented with two options; Jesus survived the ordeal of the cross and carried out his appearances which would explain Thomas seeing the two holes in Jesus’s hands and Luke having Jesus say "behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have," Or, the resurrection accounts are inaccurate…….. and there was no resurrection. If there was an appearance, it must have been a spiritual appearance rather than Luke or Thomas’s witness. This form of appearance is well attested by St. Paul’s conversion from persecutor to advocator and is evidence of Jesus enduring as the Spiritual leader of Judah’s heritage as attested to by the Prophets.

If one is not a fundamentalist then Jesus’s resurrection is just as important, yet it must be understood in a way that the prophets speak of it and in the sense that the Grail Book recounts as Jesus being part of the ‘Divine Plan’. Jesus was resurrected that all men that believe in him might also be resurrected, this is a spiritual resurrection not a bodily one because his earthly body did not undergo an Elijah like flight into Heaven. If it had, how could the shroud have been created?

It is Jesus’s bodily resurrection that provides validation of his incarnation for the primitive and fundamental Christian mind and for St. Paul. The entire Christian faith rests upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope for a life after death as St. Paul confirms here: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”. St. Paul, who can probably be accounted one of the greatest men who ever lived, was assuredly converted to a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, spoken of by the Prophets. Apart from Jesus’ sacrifice, Christianity’s evolvement and perpetuation is largely due to St.Paul’s effort. Having no other substance upon which to base his resurrection accounts except those given by the Gospel writers, his eschatology becomes somewhat rationalized on the assumption that the Body of Jesus ascended to heaven. The resurrection occurs in this life on earth as stated by Jesus - in the spiritual sense while in the body and this conception is attested to throughout the Prophets. This spiritual resurrection would not occur had it not been for the sacrifice of Jesus and this resurrection is part of the individual’s life. This resurrection applies to the Judaic heritage which extenuates to all the offspring of Abraham, iconic as the first man to have Faith. Otherwise why would there be the reassurance of the second death having no power and is faith all that man can establish. Is not Faith the precursor to the certain knowledge of God? Faith is only called for until proof can be established by a higher consciousness- ‘credo ut intelligam’. Paul spoke of how the state of consciousness existed in his ‘Times’ from Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, Or more correctly as St. Paul saw it,

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. But due to Man’s consciousness existing and being formulated in Time, we now find that resurrection is no longer confined to Faith but now becomes a proof.

How could Jesus be crucified in Egypt? Egypt in this sense is identified as one of the degrees of spiritual attainment spoken of by the Grail book and throughout the prophets, as spiritual attainment mirrors Biblical history. If one does not achieve belief that Jesus lived and died as part of a Divine plan and was the Saviour who came to help every individual, then there is no further Spiritual progression, hence the first death. If Jesus had not come, those who fell asleep would not be reawakened during their lifetime in the flesh as this is the essence of his coming, that life (a spiritually awakened soul) may continue after the death of the flesh; for had he not come, those who died in the Law since his coming, would not be resurrected.

Those who do believe but fall away, undergo the ‘troublous times’ spoken of by the Prophets which is a period after the spiritual fall of Jerusalem and a seven year period of spiritual purification. If they are purified (by complying to the Law), they then accomplish the equivalent of the return from Captivity in Babylon. This can only become clear with a good grasp of the biblical prophets as being applicable spiritually today and an understanding of Biblical Time which we shall cover shortly. The current theologogical interpretation of the resurrection at the time of Jesus’ death was based upon prophetical metaphorical language. So we can understand the necessity of the creation of a resurrection scenario to marry with misunderstood prophetical prognostications such as Isaiah 26:19 But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. And Ezekiel 37:5 ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’

Theological issues aside; the scenario mentioned above that Jesus appeared in the spirit to the apostles and Gospel writers recorded sightings of an Angelic or Spiritual form of Jesus is but one explanation. More probable is that the Gospel writers polemicized his appearance to add credibility to his resurrection……… trying to marry together what the prophets had predicted, with what Jesus had also told his disciples, and their current view of what should happen to fulfill those expectations. This would of course, have been made simpler if the body of Jesus had disappeared up to heaven and was not seen again.

When Joseph removed Jesus body from Jerusalem, only the closest of those who travelled with him knew the truth while the resurrection account offered by the Gospel writers filled the void. This rationalization was essentially understood by the compilers of the ‘Q’ source and the Gospel writers, then subsequently elaborated upon as they tried to add detail as if having come from eye witness account.

Thanks to Melkin’s appellation of ‘Abbadare’ as a pseudonym for Jesus, no-one has suspected that the corpse of Jesus existed in Britain except the illuminate from the Templars, who it would seem, learned of the tomb’s whereabouts from the Grail book. This would of course mean that Joseph had removed the body of Jesus as we have posited and as the Grail book maintains……… to remain in a casket of oil which now lies in the Island of Avalon with Joseph.

The strange thing about the Gospels is their ability to be so factual and to record faithfully some events, yet at other times provide completely garbled and contradictory accounts to rationalize the void left by a Messiah and no body to revere. This is also witnessed on the relationship of the Magdalene and marriage issue along with the missing husband of the Virgin Mary. It is not the object of this enquiry to cause any offence to the faithful but the Virgin birth of the prophets is a reality and the virgin birth of Jesus was not. Hence we have total obfuscation about Joseph, Jesus’ father because you can’t square a virgin Birth based upon Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel…… with a physical Father. Essentially the Messiah had to be the product of a Virgin otherwise for the fundamental understanding Jesus could not be the Messiah if conceived naturally. Yet interestingly enough his geneaology is traced through Joseph which is pointless without input. The virgin birth of a son can only be understood in Spiritual terms and what the language of the Prophets refers to, is the birth of the spirit within man. The prophets words can be understood to apply to spiritual growth.

Not wishing to cause further contention about Joseph, it is worth mentioning that there is no record of a place called Arimathea that existed, except as it is noted in the Bible. The mention of it as a place was extrapolated from what Luke (23: 51)…… saying it was "a city of Judea". Nowhere is the place of Arimathea mentioned except in connection with Joseph and it is this point which may be pertinent if Arimathea was originally a misunderstanding of ‘Ara Mithrea’ Ara (altar or temple) Mithrea (grotto or cave where Mithras was worshipped) which shows that Joseph himself could have been British. Many thought Apollo and Mithras (both sun Gods) were synonymous and as we saw, Paracelsus thought Avebury was the Sun Gods temple in Britain. The background to Mithraism in Britain is well known to historians and mithraea, (small basilical buildings resembling caves) were where ceremonies were performed. Was Joseph referred to as coming from the temple of Mithras in Britain or of that religion. Just a thought, as Joseph the name of Jesus’ father who no-one dare comment on in the gospels, (as to what happened to him), has the same name as an uncle. Joseph as an uncle (if he really was his father) is far easier to square with a virgin birth but he can still be included in the gospel accounts carrying out the acts of a loving family member without spoiling the eschatology. This too might be the explanation of why rumours still exist that Jesus spent time in Britain(prior to his burial there) as certainly he had picked up a different understanding of the prophets as what was understood by the Pharisees in Jerusalem.

Not unlike the Grail stories in many respects, (but more so like the stories about Arthur that emanated from Glastonbury), the Gospels are unable to obscure the truth behind the polemicism and rationalizations. One such garbled and contradictory account is the burial of Jesus in Jerusalem where none of the Gospel writers concur, but elaborate on ‘Q’. Is the cloth, much like the ‘Wattled’ church, overstated in the contradictory accounts of the Gospel writers. The two salient facts that Jesus was buried by Joseph in a tomb he owned and with a white cloth, seem to indicate a story built upon slight detail and then dovetailed to match the perceived eschatology. Could this burial information and the fact that it was a hewed out tomb in which no other person had been laid, be mixed with the rumoured echo that Jesus was to buried in a tomb hewed out. Was this tomb spoken of hewed out by Dumnonian miners and is situated elsewhere, but still owned by Joseph? Is the real story that, some close to Jesus, saw Jesus in the Shroud, heard he was to be buried in a hewed out tomb owned by Joseph and then he was never seen again? Someone close to Jesus will have placed the flowers in the Grail Ark and this most probably, was Mary Magdalene. She would not want his body to undergoe any further abuse and might even be responsible in part for the rumour starting that Jesus was in Joseph’s tomb. It could be that this information never actually became public knowledge until later because most of those who witnessed Jesus in the shroud and were close to him went to England. If so then these small details would certainly give the compilers of ‘Q’ and the Gospel writers, cause to stretch, embellish and bring to life, the only information that was passed onto them, i.e. the matter of fact information concerning a white cloth and a hewed out burial chamber belonging to Joseph. The various differing accounts, guards outside the tomb etc, can only be seen as an attempt to explain the unexplainable with fraudulently compiled eye witness accounts that all contradict each other, used individually as a devise by each Gospel writer to substantiate his version of events.

Whether Jesus appeared after the crucifixion or not, has no relevance to his sanctity as he was spoken of by the prophets and he fulfilled the very purpose for which he had come which he himself bears witness to. This was to give life or resurrect the Israelites in the spiritual sense…… ‘come out of Egypt’ as had been done historically (but spiritually emblematic). To resurrect those who had become spiritually dead by their ignoring or denial of compliance to the law. If Jesus had not come in that capacity, his voice and message would not have changed the world. There is absolutely no question that Jesus is the Messiah, but it was unnecessary to rationalize the gospel accounts to fit with the current understanding of what Prophets predicted……… but rather to understand the context of the Prophets predictions.

The tombs discovery will in effect negate the fundamentalism of the bodily resurrection for Christians and realign the Abrahamic religions firstly to a new and cohesive understanding of the Prophets and latterly on a global scale by inclusion of the other faith religions. Ultimately there is only one God and this will be understood by the record left behind by the Prophets, that foretell of spiritual elevation as the work of God especially when that record is perceived as a fundamental truth and becomes understood as having transpired as a Divine Plan set in pre-cognitive Time.

In effect Jesus’ mission was to bring all Israelites (an inclusive term) spiritually ‘out of Egypt’ which is equitable with an individual’s first knowledge of God; the Law having been not so much imperfect, but primarily a precursor, in bringing mankind to enlightenment.

This was because of no failing in the Law, but down to the hardness of Man’s heart as part of the process toward Gnosis. Jesus was to be the spiritual redeemer of mankind and he was to come forth at a appointed time. One could contradict this way of understanding and say that the law was not received until after coming out of Egypt. However the answer lies in the foreshadowing that takes place in Biblical Time and will be understood once the concept of Biblical Time is commonly accepted. This foreshadowing, as we shall eventually see, is part of pre-cognition in a divine plan that has been set in Time so that Man can comprehend God’s work; the goal of which is aimed at ‘Gradually’ elevating mankind to full consciousness. This is the proof of which St. Paul thought we could only know by Faith but two thousand years ago man’s level of consciousness was not ready to accept or indeed understand such truths. Thus the practice of religion has perpetuated the knowledge of God until Man became eligible through elevated consciousness to accept that his spiritual nature has been nurtured from a Divine Spark implanted in Adam 6000 years ago.

How may man reach Gnosis or self-awareness when the only orientation he has is time, yet he has no concept of it except measurement. Jesus was to challenge the world view of ‘ignorance’ with the two basic precepts that encapsulated the law and the Prophets; ‘treat others as you would hope to be treated by them and have knowledge and love of God’. Up until around 36 AD, no one had so succinctly defined the point and the lot of mankind.

When Jerusalem was delivered from the Mohammedan’s initially, the bulk of the Crusaders returned back to Europe. During the reign of Baldwin the second patriarch of Jerusalem in 1118, Hugues de Payens and another eight knights vowed to defend Jerusalem as a Christian kingdom and to protect the routes into Jerusalem taken by pilgrims. Baldwin was grateful of their avowed assistance and gave the Knights a place in his Palace adjoining the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. From then on they were known as the ‘Pauvres Chevaliers du Temple’ and poor they were in those days, relying on alms charitably handed out by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem. In its period of growth and evolution as an organised body, the Templar’s power and renown was inextricably connected to the church and European imperialism. Hugues de Payens journeyed to the West to curry favour with the Church and to obtain recruits from the sons of the landed aristocracy of Europe. The Templar dress at this stage was not uniform until after the Council of Troy in 1128 where they adopted the Red Cross of the Cistercian order of St. Benedict which just happened to be the same emblem as upon Evalak’s shield. With the Pope's blessing of the Templar order, recruits were found from the sons of nobility throughout Europe pooling much of Europe's wealth into one organisation. In the future these extensive financial resources would fund a large number of architectural projects across Europe and the Holy Land.

The Templar organisation became the guardian of arcane knowledge, having direct links to the great cathedral builders of the age and before that, drawing knowledge from the monastic tradition, who had built the Abbeys since 500 AD. Eventually the Templars knowledge provided for an offshoot that became the Freemasons, incorporating knowledge from the pyramid builders, and the builders of Solomon's Temple and the architects of the Ley system. From the 1600’s they incorporated Templar symbols and rituals evidencing the intermingling and consolidation of various organisations as part of the York Rite. The Knights Templar grew very rapidly across Europe within its 200 year fruition, empowered by religious fervour with the dreams of young nobility pursuing knightly endeavours, gaining renown for martial prowess.

The Pope added to their meteoric rise in stature by ensuring them protection throughout Europe and exempting them from all taxes and jurisdiction both secular and episcopal. One wonders what it was that the Templars had, which qualified them for a Papal ‘Carte-Blanche’, if it were not a piece of information that would crush the church and the basis upon which it was founded.

The Templars were a force to be reckoned with and the red cross they wore was a symbol of martyrdom and assured any young knight who fought for the organisation a place in heaven, creating a cult of fearlessness on the battlefield. The knights of the Templar order were forbidden to surrender unless the Templar standard had fallen. The Templars wealth and the overall education of their adherent’s, accompanied by their fervour proved them to be elitist and allowed for top-quality armour, excellent horses and exemplary training, making them the largest non-national force in Europe to be reckoned with. The order grew in power, as every member who joined willingly handed over all their wealth and goods, the adherents avowing chastity, piety and obedience to the order and from one or more of the orders subjects, information concerning the temple mount and the British Tomb, fell into the hands of the ‘Illuminati’ that formed the core of the order.

The founder Hugues de Payens circa 1118, was officially their leader as Grand Master and the last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay who was made to confess under torture to heresy and then later retracted and died defiant facing Notre Dame Cathedral. As the ‘Chinon Parchment’ was found in the Vatican archives in 2001, having been filed in the wrong place in the 17^th century; it revealed records of the trial of the Templars and related that Pope Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before finally disbanding the Order in 1312. Why, one wonders, after such a witch-hunt and no convictions were the King of France and the Pope so intent on ridding themselves of the knights Templar order?

In the 200 years of Templar power domination, their wealth which was kept in its temples in London and Paris, especially in the latter years in which the organisation existed, was lusted after by the church and the King of France. Kings and princes and private persons banked their wealth with the Templar order, while in Paris, even the royal treasure was kept in the Temple. The Order of Hospitallers, a less material organisation, established much the same time as the Templars, started to assert their authority across Europe by interfering with the Templars’ material business empire. In the end, both organisations’ eventual defeated by the Crusader nemesis Saladin in Jerusalem, impaired much of their power. Eventually, after the rounding up and disbanding of the Templars in Europe and at the death of the Grand Master Jack de Molay, the remaining non-compliant Templars around Europe were arrested and tried under the Papal investigation or put to death for their compliance and admissions to heresy. None were convicted and most who remained alive then joined other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or were pensioned off.

By Papal decree, the evident residue of the Templars wealth was transferred to the Order of Hospitallers, thus concluding the final disbanding of the Templar order by the Papal See, mainly instigated and steered by the King of France. The Vatican today admits that the final persecution of the Knights Templar was unjustified. It also admits that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its rule. The Vatican standpoint today in retrospect and self-absolution is that, Pope Clement was pressurised into commissioning his witch-hunt, by the Templar’s increasing worldliness and banking profligacy and succumbed to the huge influential power wielded by King Philip IV over the Papal See.

No accurate record exists as to the Templar membership, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15 and 20 thousand Templars. Many of these having pooled the wealth of their estates into which they had been born, which created what probably could be termed the world's first multinational conglomerate and probably, had it not been disbanded, would have led to an eventual Republic of Europe.

The rivalry between the military orders had compounded their downfall and the Pope’s solution was to consolidate them all. This consolidation had been proposed twice by Pope Nicholas IV trying to avoid the crisis that eventually ensued. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, the Pope issued a papal bull, which officially dissolved the Order, and merged it with the knights Hospitaller after the king’s hope of finding a wealth of gold along with the relics recovered from the temple of Solomon had not been realised.

However, the main blame for the disbandment of the Templar order should remain with King Philip IV, who was deeply in debt to the Templars, and set up the inquisitors, taking the position that he had heard certain unsubstantiated revelations concerning their heresy and acts of sodomy. He contrived to send secret orders throughout France to arrest all the Templars on the same day, which was designated as the 13 October, 1307. King Philip made it appear that the orders had come from the Vatican, for breaches in religious piety and the Templars rumoured devotion to non-Christian idols, amounting to heresy. Of course, with the severity of the torture which existed at that time many of those captured admitted to things that were certainly not true of the Order. The long talks about amalgamation between the two orders of The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller in effect had taken place at the dissolution of the Templars but both the King and the Pope through their own devious imaginations had missed their prize. The King did not manage to steal their rumoured treasure and the Pope did not stop the residue of the Templars leaving behind clues to posterity, so that they might be led to the only object that could remove power from the church. The King and the Pope may have assumed control vicariously through the Knights Hospitaller and gained control over much of the business empire, inheriting a banking empire which held letters of credit from the nobility, but the true essence that empowered the Templar order had escaped them.

The Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle from before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties. La Rochelle was a Templar base on the Atlantic Ocean and from there, carried out their business with Britain. It is not even certain that the Templars owned their own fleet or alternatively hired ships from traders as they needed them, but there is a legend that some Templars used the port of La Rochelle to escape from France with the fleet of 18 ships which had brought Jacques de Molay from Cyprus to La Rochelle much earlier in the year of 1307. This rumour seems to have come from the port records that record Jack de Molays return from Cyprus but in the intervening months it is likely that most of the ships had been employed elsewhere. Eighteen ship loads of treasure transported across France from Paris to La Rochelle under duress seems unlikely. Three ships possibly, but eighteen would risk losing too much and that volume of treasure is surely exaggerated, but where there is rumour of treasure, there is usually a grain of truth. The ships reportedly left laden with treasure just before the issue of the warrant for the arrest of the Order in October 1307,

On hearing of King Philip's plan to arrest all Templars on Friday October the 13^th, most of the Templar wealth amassed from European estates and conquests and the choice valuables that were stored in the Temple in Paris, had been assembled into three ships that lay on the West coast of France in la Rochelle. On October 12th 1307 the ships left La Rochelle and were never seen again.

Chapter 15

Finding the Templar Treasure.

“I saw three ships come sailing in,” today is a catchy little tune which has been sung as a Christian Carol since the 1600s. The first references to it are from Cornwall in association with the arrival of Joseph of Arimathea in Belerion. The song nowadays is sung in churches throughout England, set to the tune of Greensleaves at Christmas time. The origin of the song owing its provenance to the south-west of England, relates to the arrival of the treasure ships that left La Rochelle on that fateful day before Friday the 13th 1307. The ships rumoured to contain the untold wealth of the Templars were never seen again, while the treasure which they contained is as yet still not accounted for.

Most people can remember from their school years, the fact that those things that one hopes to keep hidden or one is self-conscious about, are brazenly thrust in one’s face. Childish rhymes set to taunt and expose, the examples of which would be endless, but for the most part, such taunts are also couched within a rhyme or tune. As the old adage goes, there is nothing hidden that shall not be found out. The locals, on the Devon coast who witnessed the arrival of the treasure ships would have been aware of the attempt to keep the operation secret. There would most probably have been land-based agents, dis-banded Templars, who would have created diversionary tactics, even though the delivery of the treasure was to be on Christmas Day. One would assume that the entrance to the ancient tin vault, now housing the relics of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea, would be known to those who were about to make such a magnificent deposit and if the Pray Codex is indeed evidence of the Shroud possibly the Ark had been deposited at an earlier date within the tomb. It was they who had propagated the Grail stories and had physical evidence through the book of the Graal of the islands existence so obviously it would make a perfect place to conceal their wealth.

The obvious day in anybody's calendar to remove a treasure trove from three ships without being seen would be Christmas morning. If no other land-based diversion had been organised, it would be safe to assume, that the minimum number of watchful eyes gazing out to sea, would coincide with this day. Christmas morning, the one day of the year when most working folk who otherwise might be out ploughing or fishing, would be at home with their families or otherwise engaged at church.

If the treasure ships were able to slip in to Bantham in the early morning and anchor behind the headland, they would be hidden from view, from any passing seaward vessel, just as they were when the island of Ictis acted as the tin agency, stockpiling tin and foreign trade goods, for the whole of the Dartmoor region. To have three ships moored out in the bay off the island while they unloaded would have attracted attention from Hope Cove and Thurlestone villages. Because of Bantham’s solitary location however, they could have remained there undetected for at least 24-hours. Anchored in the small harbour at the mouth of the River Avon, they could transfer their loads over into the old vault on Burgh Island as the time of day or the tide became convenient.

Figure 49 Showing a chart of the entrance between the sand flats at low tide and the proximity of Bantham harbour to Avalon.

Bantham due to its remote location would have been very quiet that Christmas morning, once the ships had moored in the small harbour and while the fields were found empty of prying eyes from field labourers. Although today the Sloop Inn at Bantham, is a busy little pub, back in 1308, there would probably have only been one or two houses at the end of the long winding single-track Lane leading down from Churchstow. Bantham even today has remained a remote and sleepy little haven, having lost all memory of its ancient history as the secret port of the Island of Ictis. The ‘banned’ hamlet as its name suggests, is secreted in the depths of Bigbury Bay not visible to any other hamlet except for the modern day seaside village of Bigbury on sea, just across the river mouth where the Avon's waters are mixed with the sea.

Figure 50 Showing the silted harbour where the Treasure ships moored in Bantham harbour.

One Thousand years before the birth of Jesus, ‘Tinners’ on southern Dartmoor transported their ingots downward, passing through South Brent and Loddiswell and onward through Aveton Gifford on the road shown in Leonardo’s painting. The ancient trackway further upstream from the bridge has now disappeared but is evident in Leonardo’s Lansdowne painting. The old track is now covered by the flood plain opposite Venn but it was used to transport the tin by cart as Pytheas had related and this old trackway down from Loddiwell led to a small bridge called Hatch Bridge upstream of the weir on the river Avon. The tin was then stored on the island until a trading vessel arrived to buy the miners wares.

Figure 51 Showing the tidal road which was the ancient track-way from the moors to Ictis and after rising up to the village of Bigbury, it then passes through the ancient settlement of Folly hill above Bigury on Sea.

They would have passed along the tidal road in Aveton Gifford (Figure 51) and up a small hill, travelling through the small hamlet of Bigbury and as they descended down the hill from there, they would come across the most beautiful vista on the British coast seen in Figure 52; a tiny island lying peacefully, shrouding a mystery, keeping its ancient secret for 2,500 years.

On that Christmas Day in 1307 an unknown number of people witnessed the ships arriving. The small village of Bigbury on Sea, lying across the sand causeway and opposite to Burgh Island was at this time, completely undeveloped and the small beachside village of Challabourogh didn't exist. It would seem likely that the originators of the song in question were the witness’s from Hope Cove and Thurlestone who might have espied the ships entering Bantham, on Christmas day early in the morning. However, were these, the people or persons responsible for the specific wording of the Christmas Carol that has come down to us today, which has its provenance in the West Country?

Figure 52 Showing the peaceful Island of Ictis as it is today.

It seems likely that, as in the schoolyard situation, these people at a later date when letting Templar officials know what they had seen, taunted them with such words as ‘And what was in those ships all three’? As they would not have seen the activity of unloading the treasure but knew by the ships very arrival on Christmas morning, there was something not quite right, they unwittingly had created a chorus that was to last until the present day. Ships of this type did not generally go in to Bantham in this era, and the ship's departure the next morning had the air of something secretive. It is not an unlikely scenario that a single villager would have sung the song as a taunt to extort money for their silence, and villagers might have seen the resultant pay-out and done the same to receive further compensation.

The Templar ships left, and as life returned to normal and memories faded of that day, the catchy tune lingered on. No one actually saw the treasure been unloaded at night, hence the enquiring statement “and what was in those ships all three”.

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning.

And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?

It continues on:

Pray whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
Pray whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?

O they sailed into Bethlehem,( Bantham)
On Christmas day, on Christmas day,
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas day in the morning.

Figure 53 Showing the turning room for a sizable craft circa 1930 before the silting of Bigury anchorage due to the construction of the Avon dam. This illustrates the ample depth and room for navigating and mooring the Templar ships, which were probably similar to a French ship of the era.

Figure 54 showing the old Bantham tin trading port which has now become more silted since the Avon dam was built.

The Dead Sea lies 20 miles from Bethlehem and cannot be seen from there. Apart from the fact that there is no record of the wise men coming to Bethlehem by ship (purportedly what the song is commemorating), it seems far-fetched that this song has its roots in the Holy land. It seems that the residents of Hope Cove and Thurlestone actually recorded in their song that the treasure ships arrived at Bantham, and as this tune emanated throughout the South West the original purport of the song was lost in the mists of time. Through the 14th and 15th century, when the tradition of Joseph of Arimathea as a tin merchant trading in the South West was still a known and widely accepted fact, this Devonian song became associated with his arrival on the shores as it still is in Cornish tradition today.

Templars were aware of the island of Ictis, its history traced back through Greek and Roman chroniclers and they also knew that it ‘coveted’ in its vaults, deep within, the bodies of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. They were also fully aware that the island of Avalon (one of Burgh Islands various appellations) held the remains of the wounded body of King Arthur the Cornish king because the source of their information was Melkin. The Grail romances, that the Templars themselves had propagated, bore witness to a consolidated body of knowledge connecting the British and the most famous members of the Davidic Royal line in recent history.

It is with this certain knowledge that had been conveyed to the Templars, through the manuscript of Melkin’s Book of the Grail in France that the knights journeyed to Jerusalem to uncover what was known to exist under the Temple of Solomon upon which the Al-Aqsa Mosque had been built .

Eleanor of Aquitaine was the wife of the English King Henry II. As we have already covered, she first married the French king Louis VII and had knowledge from her possession of the Book of the Grail as to the whereabouts of the Temple treasure in Jerusalem. It was her family which commissioned the Grail writers while she was alive as her father, known as ‘The Troubadour’ had done before her. It is more than likely that it was her father who instigated the first translation of Melkin’s book into French.

When Louis VII went on crusade in 1147, Eleanor of Aquitaine his wife went with him. Eleanor, Raymond of Poitier’s niece, together with Louis visited Antioch. Raymond sought to deter Louis from going south to Jerusalem and attempted to induce him to stay in Antioch and help in the conquest of Aleppo and Caesarea. So it was in Antioch in 1148 that Eleanor met up and had an affair with her uncle Raymond.

After the crusade Louis wanted his marriage to Eleanor annulled, but why did Eleanor want to go to Jerusalem so much as to risk having an affair with her uncle?

According to John of Salisbury, Louis became suspicious of the attention Raymond lavished on Eleanor, and the long conversations they enjoyed. William of Tyre states that Raymond seduced Eleanor to get revenge on her husband, who refused to aid him in his wars against the Saracens, and that, ‘contrary to Eleanor's royal dignity, she disregarded her marriage vows and was unfaithful to her husband’.

Did Eleanor the most powerful woman in Europe with full knowledge of the Joseph material which probably revealed the whereabouts of the Temple treasure, have an affair with her Uncle to get him and his army to Jerusalem? What were their long conversations about? If she did retrieve the Ark, was it now in Ictis along with the Book of the Grail since neither have surfaced? It also seems probable that Eleanor is the link to the Templars (the builders of the St. Michael churches), having had knowledge of the whereabouts of Joseph. After all, it was the Templars who followed Melkin’s instructions and built the St. Michael churches that indicate the line that must be bifurcated to find Joseph. The Ley line existed long before it was defined by the dedicated churches which now demarcate its existence. We would be able to find Avalon from the circle contained within the pyramid from Harnhill, by plotting the St. Michael shrines, even if we had not had John Mitchell to locate the Ley line for us.

Figure 55 Showing the St. Michael chapel at Roche Rock in Cornwall, equidistant from the St. Michael Ley line, and the Harnhill line.

Melkin’s line, with which we are to bifurcate, was not evident until the St. Michael churches were built along it. But not only has a wealthy order with complete knowledge of this design shown us the line we are to look for, they have also put a St. Michael church on every marker for us to find, by linking them up like dots. It is for this reason it appears that several of the ‘Marker churches’ were not only destroyed but someone in the intervening years actively tried to hide the Montacute connection. In the case of Father Good’s testimony about Montacute, we saw it was blatantly absented from manuscripts, but to remove every stone, which constituted the chapel that existed atop St. Michael’s hill, is accounted as serious obfuscation and with a definite intent.

Figure 56 Shows a cut and shaped stone from the old St. Michael chapel. This honey-gold Ham Hill stone, cut from the Ham hill quarry was found in the undergrowth about 100ft from the summit on the eastern side of St. Michael’s hill. This forgotten stone is the only surviving physical evidence of the previously removed chapel.

The only confirmation that we have located the resting place of Joseph is through the fact that the Joseph line passes directly over the old chapel at Montacute as this was said to be, by Father Good, ‘where Joseph was carefully hidden’. Who tried to obscure this confirmation since the Templars built this 13th century design to enable us to find the Isle of Avalon? Without Father Good’s reference or the name Montacute on the Glastonbury pyramid, Melkin’s thirteen degrees would not have been confirmed that Burgh Island is where Jesus and Joseph are.

It is uncertain that the Ark of the Covenant was recuperated but if it was, it would be with the rest of the Templar treasure. The Ark and the rest of the Jerusalem Temple treasure like the Menorah had been secreted beneath the Temple before, either the Egyptian or Babylonian armies threatened to ransack Jerusalem. The Temple treasures that were eventually seized by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon were of great value in gold, but the Menorah and the Ark had been secreted as there is no record of them being carried off to Babylon. The knowledge of their whereabouts was passed down much as we witnessed at Glastonbury and during a period of 500 years from the Captivity, this information was eventually to be passed on by Joseph.

This information was no doubt relayed by Melkin in the book which Eleanor and the Templars eventually possessed. The treasures taken as booty from the Temple by the Babylonians at the first and second deportation into captivity, was returned with the Jews after the captivity, by Ezra and Nehemiah on the magnanimous orders of Cyrus the great. On the arrival of the Romans, and most probably during the Maccabean revolt, much of the gold and Temple treasure that was restored to the returning Jews, was also secreted with the Ark and the Menorah beneath the Temple. However the Menorah is in fact depicted in a frieze as having been carried off by the Romans (on the Arch of Titus in Rome) at the sacking of the temple in 71AD but this was most probably a replica, the original having been built by Moses, secreted under the Temple. There is certainly no record of it having been in the temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. The Menorah was as sacred as the Ark and can be considered to be a representation of “Biblical Time,” illustrated in a vision received by the prophet Zechariah, of the Lord’s ‘Two Anointed’ as olive trees emptying out of themselves and supplying the Menorah with oil and again reiterated in Revelation11:4 ‘These are the two olive trees and are two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth’, but we shall return to this shortly.

The knowledge of The Temple cache in all probability had been revealed to Joseph of Arimathea, who was rumoured to have been one of the Temple elders in Jerusalem as a member of the Sanhedrin. This raises the question of what else was passed on in the text to be re-itterated by Melkin and did Joseph of Arimathea originally translate this information which, as we have seen, contained Hebrew words, into Latin? If we assume that Camelot is derived from the Hebrew and it was un-translated, how much of the document came to the French as Hebrew? It would seem that the word Graal that gives the sense of the concept of degrees or grades, was translated into French but the name from which the concept is derived ‘Shirei ha Ma'a lot’ was transcribed literally. Joseph of Arimathea probably wrote the detailed account of the literal meaning of ‘Shirei ha Ma'a lot’ as pertaining to the divine plan in Latin. We do not know if this account of a Divine plan was passed to Joseph by Jesus directly or that some of this material taken from the temple by Joseph was later read and compiled into the book of the Grail still leaving traces of its Hebrew origin.

The primary source written by Joseph of Arimathea, from which the Grail stories and Melkin’s material were derived, was probably written in Latin with reference to Hebrew sources and this assumption is based upon the probability that Melkin did not read Hebrew, the Vulgate and ‘Vetus Latina’ in circulation well before Melkin’s time. We must not forget however that ‘Abbadare’ is a word comprised from two Hebrew words invented by Melkin as Jesus’ Psuedomyn, so he must have had some comprehension of the Language. Whether Melkin did or did not read Hebrew (considering the complexities of understanding the ‘Shirei ha Ma'a lot’ as a concept) is debatable, but for the Ark to be found by the Templars, indicates that he must have related that information in the Grail book. In either case the Templars (or Eleanor) would have had first-hand knowledge of the treasure's location beneath the Temple. This Jerusalem literary material would probably have existed in two parts, one part divulging knowledge of the Divine Plan related to Joseph by Jesus, (that of the Gradual Steps to the temple), the other part relating to the directions to the Ark, either by temple documents or by Joseph’s personal knowledge. Joseph however may have compiled a volume of his own.

Other parts of the Joseph account related in the Grail book would have been those bits of detail found in the early Grail stories when Joseph tries to convert Evalak, the king of Sarras, Zerah’s offspring; declaring the doctrine of the Trinity, the very truth behind ‘Biblical Time’, (time, the Times and half of the Times). It becomes clear that for there to be a King of Sarras there must have been an account of the connection of Zerah to the British, (Zara and Sarras sounding identical in French). The Grail story went on to say, that the king provided for the wants of Joseph's company, but the King has doubts about the truth of the doctrine. This actually sounds like first hand information that only Joseph would have related and then Melkin reitereated to be picked up by the grail writers. The King of Sarras would (as the story relates) not have understood or probably accepted the part played by Jesus in the Divine plan or certainly would have found its truth or doctrine doubtful. Yet if Jesus had undergone instruction in the Prophets outside Jerusalem we may assume( if it were in Britain) the King was appraised of the prophetical literature.

The Ark of the covenant containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments within it, overshadowed by the two golden Cherubims (pre-ordination and confirmation of the two witnesses) on top of the chest, each side of the Mercy Seat, together with the Menorah, and all the Temple treasure may have been secreted at Burgh Island before the final transport of the rest of the treasure in 1307. However an amassed treasure hoard would have been cached in the temple in Paris until it was transported to the treasure ships.

It seems that the treasure ships headed out from La Rochelle into the Atlantic, but there are several options here for those responsible for the safekeeping of a body of knowledge likely to stem back from ancient Egypt, when Joseph, Jacobs son, was Pharaoh’s Vizier. The Ark of the Covenant and the rest of the Temple treasure along with arcane knowledge, the proofs of biblical history, the knowledge of mankind’s progression toward full consciousness since the birth of civilisation, was now perilously afloat in the Atlantic Ocean.

What a responsibility must have weighed on the shoulders of the three captains, not to mention the new ‘Nautonnier’ of a nameless dis-banded order! If we are correct in our portrayal of events, let us consider the circumstances.

In the 13th century oceangoing schooners were not rigged for upwind sailing. Although they could go up wind, the tacking would have been laborious probably being able to make only 50-60° against the apparent wind and the hull of the ship, (which was more akin to a bath tub) would have added more leeway to their intended course, so one would need to be an excellent seaman to arrive at a specific point on a specified day.

It was a 74 day period from October 13 1307 until Christmas Day of that year. As previously discussed with any land based participants, the arrival at Bantham had to be on a Christmas Day to coincide with any diversionary tactics or night time signals that had been prearranged. So the question is, in the interim, did the ships head north of the Azores and heave-too for some of the 74 days, waiting stationary hove too for a month and a half before heading back to Burgh Island on the predominant Westerlies, to deposit the cargo, or did the ships set sail south of the Azores? If the three ships followed the trade winds across the Atlantic, bearing starboard in a following wind as they approached the Caribbean and headed up the East Coast of the United States on the Gulfstream to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, they could have possibly waited out the winter and returned the next year on the already agreed day for an undercover entry into Bantham.

Most certainly this was within the Templars capability because South American, Eskimo, Mayan and Aztec records and legends bearing witness, to Europeans making landfall in the Americas, still prevail today. It is common knowledge that, earlier than Columbus, even though Rodrigo de Triana was accredited as the first person to site the New World aboard the Pinta on October 12, 1492; it had already been seen by Europeans. Prior to this date, landfall had been made by the Europeans and it is even rumoured that Henry I Sinclair Earl of Orkney (Rosslyn Chapel) visited parts of North America via Greenland. This could of course be just the story that would give explanation behind the Money Pit, where most commentators consider the treasure to have been hidden.

It was certainly not beyond the Templars’ ability to make such a trip, and probably a prior trip in recent memory, noted in Templar records had been successful in completing the north Atlantic route, which is aided by prevailing and following winds throughout the circuit. Any returning vessel from North America could sail with ease to the western approaches on the prevailing westerlies and onward up the English channel, the coast of France or the entrance to the Mediterranean, no matter what the sail plan or hull shape.

It however seems more likely, taking into account the ships’ precious cargo, coupled with the likelihood of the ships getting separated on a long ocean voyage, and a whole list of unknown risks, that the treasure ships would have headed north of the Azores and hove-too for a month and a half. The perils of undertaking such a transatlantic journey heading south of the Azores, would surely have averted any pursuers but surviving a year in an unknown destination with unknown currents, populations, and wind patterns would have persuaded the Nautonnier to deposit his cargo at the earliest possible opportunity, avoiding all the aforementioned risks.

The three treasure ships having completed their covert operation in the dark would then have set sail for the New World on an ebb tide on Boxing Day morning, the crew for the most part unaware of the previous night's disembarkation of its cargo. “Pray whither sailed those ships all three”, does seem a rather misplaced enquiry while celebrating in Church the birth of Jesus, during the festive Carol season, for the last 500 years. The fishermen and the resident families of Hope Cove and Thurlestone confirmed that they neither knew the business of the treasure ships nor their eventual destination by including this question within their verse.

In spite of the fact that it was deemed in the best interest of secrecy to pay bribes to the villagers for their silence, it would seem that the opposite happened and it is fortuitous for us, otherwise the Templar treasure would never be confirmed as secreted in Jesus and Joseph’s tomb. It may be that the Templars were marking the treasure only but the fact that this was done by dedicated churches to St. Michael shows that they had understood the essence of the Grail, as St. Michael plays an integral part in the Divine plan spoken of by Daniel the prophet and this will become clear as we progress.

The ‘Money Pit’ on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, rumoured to be the burial place of the Templar treasure, could quite possibly have been a ruse devised by the Nautonnier of the three treasure ships, laying a false trail for any future treasure hunters. The treasure from each of the three ships would have been covertly removed during Christmas night, after the crew had been plied with ample celebratory alcohol after a month and a half of being hove-too at sea. French military ships probably not dissimilar from those used by the Templars, generally ranged between 60 and 80 feet, weighed about 60 tons and were crewed by at least 20-30 hands. The Templars aboard the three ships were the surviving order of an elite group in the Templar hierarchy, the ships providing a means of escape for them from the persecution, while at the same time, securing the treasures which were transported urgently from the temple in Paris.

The most likely explanation for the Money Pit on Oak Island is that the three Templar ships arrived there in Nova Scotia and the 60-80 crew (not privy to the unloading) were set to work constructing the pit, in which, on their departure, they assumed the treasure was buried. This ruse would at least ensure that where ever the crew ended up, the ‘Nautonnier’ would have succeeded in perpetuating the story of Templar treasure being buried on the other side of the Atlantic.

As we have discovered during our coverage of events during these pages, an island exists off the Devon coast called Burgh Island that contains not only Templar knowledge and treasure but the potential for reawakening mankind’s consciousness to a new form of understanding, when the contents, which lay within the vault on Burgh Island are unveiled. Since Christmas day in 1307 the contents have laid undisturbed, but what must the Templars have thought in adding their treasure to the already hugely important and sacred contents? There is nowhere else on earth that contains anything this momentous. Where else on earth could one bury something of such importance in the hope that it will be found by a later generation? Where else could one bury something this momentous or big but in a place called Bigbury?

Figure 57 Showing Burgh Island from a photo taken in 1918

Figure 58, showing the bustling causeway today at low tide, on which the cart loads of tin described by Pytheas, were unloaded on to vessels dried out on the beach.

Figure 58a Showing the Harbour of Bantham in 1904

Chapter 16

Bigbury and Burgh Island and its associations to the Biblical Zerah,The Tinners and onward down through the Ages.

Bigbury, aptly named, is a small village situated one and a half miles from Bigbury on Sea, the small seaside Hamlet that derives its name from that which is buried on the island opposite, across the sand causeway. For years, the wagons related by Pytheas would have passed through Bigbury, having come along the tidal road from Aveton Gifford, conveying their tin ingots down to the fabled island of Ictis. The small village just along the road called St Anne's Chapel, named after Jesus's grandmother, most probably commemorating the arrival with the Magdalene while Kingston, the next village was named after the arrival of Jesus himself or one of Joseph’s descendants such as Arthur. Loddiswell (the Lords well) is on the route that the Tin was carried down to Ictis from Southern Dartmoor. Challaborough opposite the Island would seem to derive its name from after the Templar visit when the Grail was deemed to be a Chalice.

Aveton Gifford situated at the tidal limit of the River Avon, received its name from being situated on the River Avon, Aune or Aven on the oldest maps, and also from Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville, who was appointed a commissioner by William the Conqueror to compile the Domesday Book. Strangely enough it was a descendant of his, a Walter Giffard that built the St.Michael church at Brent Tor around 1155, before many of the Templar churches.

Kingsbridge the largest market town in the South Hams at the Head of the Salcombe Estuary, most probably derived its name from the northern most limit of the Southern promontory kingdom described by Pytheas as Belerion which defined the southernmost limit of the Saxon named county of Wessex at a later date. Bolt head and Bolt tail received their name from the God Bel from Zerah’s arrival. It is very probable that since early times Devon and Cornwall survived as a small kingdom since the arrival of Zerah, financed by the tin trade through to the time of King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account bestowed on Arthur a Welsh backdrop but as explained earlier, that tradition is most likely derived from Celtic association rather than from purely Welsh historical fact. It is more likely that Arthur defended the South West, not going further than Dorset yet his fame became national when he defeated the encroaching Saxons.

The earliest writer to describe the Battle of Mons Badonicus, King Arthur's greatest victory, is in the ‘De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, written by the monk, Gildas in the mid-6th century. In these writings, Gildas states that the battle was a major victory for the Britons after a period of continual encroachment by the Saxon invaders. Gildas went onto relate that this halted the Saxon advancement and brought a short period of peace. Gildas related that this siege took place 44 years before the writing of his book. Although not named by Gildas (but nor is anyone else), it seems that Arthur is accredited with this victory. So this puts King Arthur in the right location at the right time in history, as the siege is supposed to have taken place at Badbury hillfort in Dorset.

Figure 59 Showing the tidal road up to Aveton Gifford with the Serpentine river flowing down to Burgh Island as it is depicted in Leonardo’s ‘Yarnwinder’ painting

Aveton Gifford's history and connection with the tin trade since the earliest times, is now completely forgotten due to the secrecy maintained around the island that it once served as a probable provender of the gatekeeper community that existed on Folly hill. Domesday much later, records Jewish roots in the area, a certain ‘Judhael holds Loddiswell’ that includes a fishery that pays 30 salmon. The island of Ictis would have been decommissioned, just prior to Jesus having been buried there, during the gradual southern advancement after the Roman invasion. It is incredible that Pliny the Elder referred to this island of Ictis long after the island had been made redundant and Jesus had found his rest within. The southern British tin trade would have experienced decreases in demand as the Romans captured the tin deposits in northern Spain and Portugal after the defeat of the Carthaginians in 206 BC. Due to the overall increase in demand worldwide at that time, the lull would have been shortlived. The Veneti, cousins of the Devonians made up a large tribe which inhabited western Gaul and who were in the business of conveying the tin over to France as Diodorous related for its 30 day journey south to Marseille. It is probably at this point in 56 BC after Julius Caesar had destroyed all the ships of the Veniti that Ictis’s prominence started to dwindle.

The ancestry of the Dumnonni, the ‘Devon People,’ who in part were derived from Zerah, constituted the main part of a legendry kingdom with such progeny as Utherpendragon, King Arthur and Galahad, which evaded as long as possible the Roman encroachment and kept secret, the contents of the Island of Avalon. After the Roman conquest, came the running down of stock and eventual closure of Ictis, as it would have acted as a focal point for pillage and until the time of King Arthur there was a move westwards of the tin trade into Cornwall with the advancements of mining methods. With the arrival of the Saxons, there was a migration across the channel of some of the Dumnonian population, into western France to Amorica, where many of the Celtic race of Dumnonni had close ties to the Veniti, which eventually became known as Little Britain or Brittany. However, the Devon and Cornwall kingdom that once existed before the Roman invasion, got squeezed further west into Cornwall as the Romans occupied Exeter and Plymouth. Hence, for the first four or five centuries after the Roman invasion, the illustrious line of Kings descended from Judah and Joseph stayed south probably moving west of the Tamar toward Tintagel and eventually, after Rome's demise, re-emerged further north to keep the Saxons at bay. The Location of Avalon was still known as it is here that Arthur was transported in the hope that a miracle might be wrought upon his wounded body.

In ancient times, from the melting of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, there was a gradual separation of the landmass between France and Britain as rivers poured across the lowland plain of Lyonesse. Eventually this gave rise to a coastline that extended out as far as Eddystone rock around 6000 years ago as the English channel flooded. As all these rivers ran off the Moors, cutting through the granite, the cassiterite was separated for the early ‘Tinners’ to gather and this marked the beginning of the Bronze Age in Britain.

Not only is this Bronze Age activity, evident throughout Dartmoor, but we can see its early beginnings less than 8 miles distant from Ictis, on the escarpment between the Erm and the Avon Rivers, and in the valleys on either side. Here, an early establishment fanned out, towards Plymouth and northward, centred around the obvious advantage offered by Ictis as a tin depot, which eventually came to serve the whole of Dartmoor.

Figure 60 Showing the remains of three round ’Tinners’ huts in the foreground which have nearly been submerged by the Avon dam. The picture is taken from the dam wall looking up the valley toward the river’s source on Dartmoor where a Bronze age burial Cairn is visible

Evidence of scars upon the landscape, with deep gullies and large indentations into the hillsides, contours scoured into the land by the Tinners industry, are a record of the immense mining activity carried out from the discovery of tin until the beginning of the Roman era. The longest stone row anywhere in Britain and the abundance of standing stones and cairns above Ivybridge and South Brent, all bear witness to a hive of industry by the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age Tinners. In fact this area gives the largest density of these stone works anywhere in Britain. The early days of the Tinners after gravitating from the riverbed's themselves, evolved to the process of tin streaming, much as one would look for gold, which in turn evolved into later processes of ‘costeaning and shamelling’, leaving scars of shallow pits which followed the veins or lodes. This evolution eventually gravitated westward toward Plymouth, as aboveground sources dwindled and then to mining further north on the moors at a later date. The smelting process from the early Tinners was fairly basic and consisted of heating the black tin and converting it into white tin at source, by simply lighting a fire in a hole in the ground or rock pool and retrieving the smelted ore from the ashes in the ground. This process was obviously very inefficient and over a period of 1,500 years accompanied by the later evolution of bellows and furnaces, ‘blowing houses’ evolved which came to be known as ‘Jews houses’.

In an area called Shipley Bridge, just below the Avon dam there is early evidence of wooden pegs been used along fault lines within the granite outcrops, which upon expansion would separate the granite along the lode line exposing the tin ore, which could then be scraped away from the granite block. There is also another strange feature at Shipley Bridge the like, of which is not evident elsewhere around the moors; and that is the abundance of Lebanese Barouk cedars, of the same variety as those found in Lebanon today from the Chouf Region. It is possible that these have self-perpetuated since the days of the arrival of Zerah, as it was not uncommon practice to carry the seeds of useful trees from one's own homeland, especially as these trees were ideal for construction with the minimum amount of cuts. It is clear from archaeological evidence, that these straight poles, were used abundantly in the settlements surrounding the reservoir, such as ‘Riders Rings’ and those on Hickaton Hill, where findings showed that conical roofs of the huts were supported by a central pole and then again by an interior ring of posts a meter inside the external wall.

Figure 60a Showing ‘Riders Rings’ a Bronze age hut enclosure with the remains of several huts and the tin producing Valley in the background.

Archaeological evidence is prolific, with signs of small communities living and herding on the edge of southern Dartmoor, until the boom arrived and the tin export bonanza was born. These Tinners were in the business of supplying the Mediterranean cultures in exchange for their sophisticated wares and delicacies such as wines, pottery and jewellery. Diodorous commenting on the Celtic thirst, related that the Mediterranean traders got a good price for each amphora of wine, being exchanged for a slave by the Dumnonian.

Geologically the vertical nature of what used to be a horizontally formed sedimentary slate found throughout the rock at Burgh Island, gives a perfect environment in which to construct a storage cave. Just as a hump back bridge maintains its structure, so too this island will have not moved and the keystones comprising the vault ceiling will have been locked in place since the cave was hewed.

Figure 61 Showing a photograph of Burgh Island in 1904 taken from Bantham showing the same view as depicted in Leonardo’s painting with only the Pilchard Inn visible.

Burgh Island, ‘where the Aven's waters with the sea are mixed; Saint Michael firmly on a rock is fixed’, so aptly described by Camden, is one of the most beautiful sights to behold as one descends down the old tin route from Bigbury. Today, there stands a large Art Deco hotel where the chapel dedicated to St. Michael once stood. The island was referred to in 1411 as St. Michael de la burgh or the island of St. Milburga later and as an iceberg translates as an island or rock of ice, so a ‘burgh’ meant rock or island, giving the appellation in this book, ‘St. Michael’s Rock’. Early maps show that the chapel stood on the top of the island where the ‘Huers hut’ now stands. It is even rumoured that there once stood a monastery on this island, but this will be covered in a later chapter as it appears the rumour of this Island caused much confusion for the early community of Mont-saint-Michel. There are records of Monks from Buckfastleigh maintaining a Light house on the Island which does seem a little odd given the Islands remoteness and Lack of prominence within the bay of Bigbury. The reason for their interest in keeping a light might just have been a cover, taking over guardianship from a now disbanded monastic presence. It would appear however that the Norman Benedictines of Mont-saint-Michel had heard of an Island called ‘St. Michael by the sea’ and that Island at Burgh Island was worth faking a charter to get ownership, but they occupied St.Michael’s mount in Cornwall by mistake thinking they were in fact taking ownership of a rumoured island that was a tomb of great importance.

If we are correct about the directions given by Melkin in his riddle refering to a place of Prayer ‘ad orandam’ at the verge, there must have been something that resembled a religious building in the six or seven hundreds before Melkin left for Mont-saint-Michel. One must not forget that Melkin was not aware of what would transpire in the interim concerning any community at Burgh Island. The ’duo fassula’ has been taken from the vault and possibly an older place of prayer has been destroyed since the time he wrote, until the replacement St. Michael church was built. One translation of Melkin’s directions could be rendered, Ora tor cratibus preparatis super potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim:

At a coastal tor, prepared there above a crater, (the mermaid pool) toward (or after) where one prays, at the verge high up in Ictis is where they dwell in the Sepulchre at thirteen degrees. As we have learned earlier, this could also be seen as ‘at the brim of the verge’.

It seems that local lore places the original Chapel where the hotel stands now. For any prospector wishing to find the entrance to the Sepulchre, it is made very clear how to find it within these pages, because the St. Michael Chapel was surely built on a different site than the original building that is referred to by Melkin.

Figure 62 Showing the Huer’s hut on the top of Burgh Island. When the first hotel was built, the hut had been a tea room so that walkers could rest there.

The ‘Huer’s hut’ so named, apparently because of the fact that lookouts from this vantage point, used to give a ‘hue and cry’ to the Pilchard fleets situated out in the Bay, to direct them to the shoals. It is very unlikely that there was ever a job or activity that involved a ‘hue and cry’ as the Bigbury Bay is vast and more often than not the wind would be in a contrary direction to carry voices. It's more probable that the name echoes from the past and has its roots from those who ‘hewed’ out the vault. It seems highly unlikely that this is where the St. Michael chapel once stood, but it is quite remarkable that from approximately 100 yards to the right of dead centre in the middle of the Avebury stone circle, is 104 nautical miles to the ‘Huer’s Hut’, the precise number of miles given by Melkin in his riddle, directing us to where Joseph and Jesus lay. The map shown in figure 49 marks the ‘Huer’s hut’ as the site of the old St. Michael tower and this seems to concur with what Camden had remarked as ‘firmly on a rock is fixed’ which does tend to indicate its dominant position. The island also lies in a ‘Southern Angle’ on a line that is precisely 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line which it bifurcates inside the Avebury circle, exactly as Melkin had told us.

Figure 63 Shows the protected landfall at Ictis for visiting foreign trading vessels to beach in safety, on the eastern side of the causeway.

As one crosses the sand causeway, the Pilchard Inn built in 1336, (around the same time as the Templar chapel to St. Michael), sits just below the present Art Deco hotel and is rich in history. It is said to be patrolled by its own friendly ghost Tom Crocker a master smuggler, who was shot to death by a customs officer but this seems unlikely with the remains of such illustrious personages taking their rest close by. Outwardly, the island in no way reveals its inner contents or its past history, and much has happened since the two hotels have been built upon the site of the old chapel, possibly prompting us to think that it could be the site of the entrance to the underground chamber. The building of the second hotel was completed in 1929 and there had been no use of any original stonework from the chapel. The original hotel built by George Chirgwin the musical entertainer, was constructed entirely of wood while Archie Nettlefold, the builder of the ‘Great White Palace’ had brought all his building materials across the sand causeway. On 31 May 1942 the hotel was bombed and lost the top two floors of the of the Art Deco structure. Seven months later the church in Aveton Gifford from which Leonardo had painted his Lansdowne perspective, was also destroyed by a Focke-Wulf 190 thinking it was Loddiswell church.

There had of course been rumours, since the discovery in 1991 of the tin ingots at the mouth of the River Erm, that Burgh Island could have been the Island of Ictis, but tradition and modern research had placed it in St. Michael’s Mount, Marazion.

Figure 64 showing the impracticality of arriving to pick up tin on a rocky foreshore on the tidal causeway of St. Michael’s Mount. The picture is taken looking toward Marazion in the fog.

High up on Bolt tail the old iron age encampment on the headland from Inner Hope Cove looks down across Bigbury Bay and would have been a perfect look out and signalling station for alerting the tin Agency of approaching Roman ships trying to interfere with the trade; a local trade that had existed for more than a thousand years before their arrival. The entrance to the Hillfort is oddly aligned to look directly over Ictis as seen in figure 65 and probably worked in conjunction with the hill enclosure of Folly Hill just above Bigbury on Sea as look out stations for approaching vessels.

Figure 65 Showing the entrance to the Iron age hill fort on Bolt tail with the Island of Ictis in the foreground. The Burgh Island hotel is to the right of the Island and the distant hill on the right of the picture is the tin producing area of Southern Dartmoor.

The Folly Hill site which is being archeologically excavated shows evidence of a large community living along the hillside from the present Bigbury Golf course to the other side of what used to be the cart route down from the tin deposits on the moors. Bronze Age pits were uncovered underneath the Iron Age surfaces and have been dated by ceramics. Only a small area along this ridge at Folly hill has been archeologically surveyed but there is evidence through high resolution magnetic gradiometry and from surface evidence that a large community lived along the ridge. This was probably the gate community that controlled Ictis and through which the cart traffic carrying tin had to pass.

Presently the archaeological excavation carried out by Dr Eileen Wilkes has dated the site to around 300BC through to approximately 300 AD and shows evidence of extensive trade with the continent. Around 800 shards have been found, dated to this era including examples of ‘South West Decorative Ware’ usually found in Cornwall, local ‘Coarse Ware’, ‘Black Burnished Ware’ from the Poole area and Exeter ‘Fortress Ware’. Amongst these shards were red ‘Samian Roman pottery’, Romano British Ware and pieces of pottery from Brittany and Germany. This does show early evidence of trade but what is most interesting is the find of some locally made granite clays and these are surely evidence of the earlier culture that initially set up Ictis as the Agency and are probably commensurate with the earlier dwellings. Other Iron Age sites are all within sight of each other , one just east of the mouth of the Erm, were obviously strategically placed as communities engaged in commerce and the support of Ictis.

Figure 66 Showing a view from the Folly hill community down over Bantham harbour. Also showing the ‘Long Stone’ to the right.

In the great storm of 1703, apart from destroying the Eddystone lighthouse, it uncovered a Roman camp on the beach at Bantham ham. At the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, Ictis had ceased to exist as the tin agency, but the Romans had obviously eventually made use of the little port of Bantham. With the recent building of the lifeguard hut on Bantham beach, archaeologists have noticed signs of settlement from a very early time through the iron age with the discovery of later artefacts confirming trade with the Mediterranean and Phoenicians.

The translation of the word Emporium is now more plainly understood as Ictis acts as a trading post with a safe haven harbour that serves both coastal traffic bringing tin to market and tin transported by cart on an ancient trackway from the southern edge of Dartmoor.

In 2003 a component of an Iron-age ‘Linch-pin’ was found south west of the iron-age hill fort of ‘Blackdown Rings’. No other iron-age finds have been found in the area, which indicates that the cart pin was lost ‘en route’ down from Shipley Bridge to Ictis. The Pin is of the Kirkburn type and dated to around 300BC. Where this pin was found is right next to the oldest road down from the alluvial tin deposits on Southern Dartmoor which leads to the tidal road in Aveton Gifford, the same track that the wagons took to get to Ictis. Just as Pytheas had said, carts brought the tin to the beach. The use of carts is rare in the hilly terrain of Devon, compared with the rest of the country and for the most part, pack horses were used. So this really is a singular link to the usage of carts in a prehistoric period because the tin ingots would have been too cumbersome for the back of a pack horse. The Devon Archaeological Society goes on to say in their report:

‘The Loddiswell find is the only example known so far in Devon of a piece of equipment which can with reasonable confidence be attributed to the prehistoric chariot or cart. It therefore provides the earliest evidence in the county for the use of a wheeled vehicle. Such vehicles seem not to have been common in many parts of rural Devon even in the 17th and 18^th centuries, when pack horses were preferred’.

The most amazing evidence which confirms this as the old trackway where the linch pin was found, is the trackway’s continued use into Roman times where Mr Terence Hockin has found many Roman artifacts such as coin dated to Claudius and a small Roman statue. It should not be forgotten that the tinners of old in Pytheas’ day would have only comparatively light trade goods in effect to take back up to the southern hills of Dartmoor by cart. It seems probable that the transport facility would have been organised by the Ictis Agency and may well have gone along the shoreline of the river when the carts were too full to go uphill Folly Hill from the end of the tidal road. These heavy loads not stored at Ictis would have been transferred onto boats having come further upstream. The main route that Pytheas would have witnessed being carted down through Bigbury having come along the tidal road portrayed by Leonardo.

Figure 66a Showing the view from the spot where the Linch Pin was found leading down to Hatch Bridge and the Aveton Gifford tidal road that leads out to Ictis.

Figure 66b Showing signs of wear from ancient cart tracks running along the shore a few meters further on from the end of the present tidal road

There have been other finds beneath the shifting dunes of Bantham Ham, but it is the remarkable find of some 40 tin ingots by divers of the South West Maritime Archaeological Group that really goes a long way to concur with the story related by Strabo over 2000 years ago that a sea captain deliberately ran his boat on the rocks to keep Ictis secret.

Figure 67 Shows the perfect landfall of Ictis for any foreign trading vessel at all states of the tide by comparison with the rocky foreshore of St. Michael’s Mount.

The entrance to the Erme mouth is partly obstructed by West Mary's Rock and East Mary's Rock and the chain of small rocks lurking beneath the water that join them. There is evidence of a small harbour at Oldaport but this with a hazardous entrance was probably not as well used by foreign vessels as Bantham was. East and West Mary's rocks are uncovered only slightly at low tide and on a floodtide the entrance looks navigable and the reef is unseen. This is obviously what fooled the Roman ship following our brave Phoenician captain that we related earlier.

Most of the ingots found just to the north of West Mary’s Rock, were spread out and worn by the tidal flow while also being encrusted with marine life and the ingots had eroded and become oxidised. Most were plano–convex (bun shaped), all of them different shapes and sizes having been probably cast in many different locations upon Dartmoor. The shaped ingots described by Diodorous as ‘astragali’ (some commentators Astralagi Astragalus) seems obtuse as a reference to shape as most examples found were once bun shaped before oxidation due to rock moulds caused by eddies at the sides of the rivers where the cassiterite was collected. The most probable explanation of the etymology of this term in reference to an ingot is some reference to its metallic brightness and provenance as it could have been termed a Gallic star or Astro-Gallus.

It seems Pytheas, if indeed this word is his was originally commenting on the uniformity of shape, caused by similar rock pool indentations, but size differs greatly amongst all the existing examples, as the Tinners used different moulds along the river edges. From the earliest time, a collection of cassiterite would have been placed in an indent in the rock and a fire lit above it, as tin melts at the low temperature of about 230°C.

However, the heaviest example found at the mouth of the Erm was rectangular and flat with a slightly thickened rim, indicating that it was cast in a fabricated mould of stone and could be of a more modern date. It could be the case that Ictis was releasing a stockpile of ancient tin ingots along with more later and larger moulded ones in the Roman era which is the era Strabo relates. The reason for change of shape could be the result of stronger vessel design from wood and fastenings. Certainly at this late period in Ictis’ history the Ingots shape would not have been wholly dependent upon fitting them within a vessel fabricated from animal skin nor would the tin have only been collected next to water. After all, just before the invasion, the ingots would have been sold by weight with no regard to inventory date. The most famous tin ingot found in 1812 just off the sand at St. Mawes Falmouth (another account makes it Carrick or 1823), weighed 72 kg and is obviously of a much later date and could as some say be a hoax of 18^th century fabrication to support the Ictis theory in Cornwall. The variation in the Tinners ingot sizes and shapes indicates that Ictis was in business over a long period of time and would not have been concerened with how long it kept its stock. Strabo was writing around 40 BC and this is the precise time that Ictis would have been under a lot of Roman pressure causing the operators to liquidate their stock. This could be the reason found for the differing sises and shapes found at the Erm site. One would assume that it was during this 70 to 80 year period before Jesus was entombed in Ictis around 36AD, that the Island went through its decline and closure.

Figure 67a Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary looking west at mid tide in a southerly wind, where the Phonecian captain’s cargo of tin ingots were found just north of West Mary’s rocks just inshore of the breaking reef.

The fact that if indeed these are the very ingots of our brave Phonecian captain at the mouth of the Erm, it would indicate by the vast array of ingots from old ‘Astragali’ to the more recent moulding, that Ictis was running down its long held stock. The fact that these Ingots are found so close to Ictis and there is a story to account for what otherwise would have been nigh on impossible to account for (given that a trader would hardly exit a port full of cargo which he had successfully navigated into it), the tin in this place can only be explained reasonably by two explanations. The fact that the most part of the Ingots were found to the north and west of West Mary’s reef definitely indicates the boat was on its way entering rather than exiting when it hit the rock’s. The location further adds credibility to the find being the product of the same account that Strabo had related. We must consider this in the context of a boat with Devonian tin cargo should be exiting a port.... not entering and the fact that our location of Ictis is only a stone’s throw away. The only other alternative explanation is that a local boat was trying to exit with cargo from the tinners based on the Erm for a delivery to Ictis, but he would hardly founder inshore of a reef he was perfectly aware of.

Figure 67b Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary at Low tide where the tin ingots were found from the Phoenician trading ship, just inshore from where the swell is seen, caused by the two rocks.

As one can see in figure 67b with the sand showing, the Phonecian trader must have worked out to lure his Roman pursuer at half or full tide when the estuary appears navigable with a favourable entrance in fair weather. In these conditions there is little to warn any navigator of the reef that lurks beneath.

Just to the east of the Avon dam above Shipley Bridge where there are several settlements, recent excavations have found in the hut encampments, tin slag and a pebble of cassiterite confirming that these were, in fact, the living quarters of the Bronze Age tinners. By the time Pytheas wrote of his exploits in the fourth century BC, the small craft which were once used, were being changed to more solidly built craft from wood, and the reason for Astragali shaped ingots became redundant. It does logical that the local traders that worked down stream on the other rivers apart from the Avon brought their ingots to Ictis by sea in their coracles as Pytheas relates just for small coastal distances ranging each side of Ictis from the Dart to Plymouth. The Tinners up on the moors however used the route down through Loddiswell as Pytheas had witnessed.

One wonders if it was Joseph who, through his exploits as a tin merchant, discovered that the people of the kingdom of Belerion were the descendants of Zerah. How did he first establish that these people were related to Calcol? It seems sure that Joseph is bringing Jesus’s body to Sarras to where Jacob’s Prophecy on Judah was to be fulfilled. What was it that established this common ancestry from Judah when Joseph of Arimathea and Zerah’s offspring on the Belerion promontory first spoke, or was it known for a long time previously? Melkin is certainly the derivative for the Grail writers reference to Zerah as having a descendant king of Sarras but this connection must have been made by Joseph and it must have been him who purchased the island in which to Lay Jesus’ body.

Professor Rhys thinks, tracing the etymological roots that the Celts who spoke the language of the Celtic Epitaphs in the 5th and 6th centuries were "in part the ancestors of the Welsh and Cornish people," He thinks that they subsequently changed their language from a Gaelic or "Goidelic" form to a Gallo-British or "Brythonic" form. Certainly there are no evident signs of a Hebraic heritage except that witnessed by the population of the South’s preponderance to adherence to the Law and the evidence of an understanding since Neolithic times of a ley and circle system, the use and knowledge of which has now become lost.

Diodorus, when commenting on British dress says that the British had learned the art of using alternate colours for their weave so as to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares ‘the cloth was woven of divers colours, and making a gaudy show. It was covered with an infinite number of little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with flowers. They seem to have been fond of every kind of ornament and they wore collars and "torques" of gold, necklaces and bracelets, and strings of brightly-coloured beads, made of glass or of a material like the Egyptian porcelain.’ Archeologists have thought that the glass was brought by traders from Alexandrian factories. But glass-making is often the by product and manufactured by smelting metal and often the residue from bronze-furnaces produces a kind of glass, a silicate of soda, coloured blue or green by the silicate of copper mixing with melted sand particles and this will have been the reason why beads are recorded long before the art of glass making. It is possibly the reason that Pytheas initially set out to look for ‘Amber’ confusing this with British glass, that he might have seen coming from the Phoenician traders as they passed by Marseilles on their way to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Why does the Genesis account of Solomon’s precedence over Zerah’s offspring even occur, if there was no threat of one of Zerah’s descendants being the inheritor of Jacob’s blessing? Did the offspring of Zerah have some object as proof that they were of Judah’s line and will this object or proof be found in the tomb along with all the other artefacts establishing the Kings of Sarras? Was Blake being prophetical and is ‘Jerusalem builded here’ in England, fulfilling the prophecy of Jacob upon Judah?

Figure 68 Showing the mouth of the river Avon flowing out toward Avalon as seen from Folly hill.

Continued on:

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The Holy Grail and the Templar treasure are buried in Avalon

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Templar treasure is in the Island of Avalon