Could this be the Holy Grail? New secret tomb in ancient city of Petra may hold key to millennia-old secrets
14 October 2024, 17:23 | Updated: 14 October 2024, 17:50
A new secret tomb has been uncovered in the ancient city of Petra with the remains of at least twelve humans and a 'Holy Grail' cup.
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It's reminiscent of the 1989 film 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade', in which the Temple of the Sun is a stunning Middle Eastern shrine that houses the Holy Grail.
In an instance of 'history imitating art', the new site has been discovered beneath the real-life filming location of Al Khazneh, The Daily Mail reports.
Experts carried out excavations under Al Khazneh, which is known as the Treasury and is an elaborate rock-cut tomb, carved out of a sandstone rock face in Petra, Jordan.
They uncovered a 'previously unknown' tomb with 12 skeletal remains and grave goods, including a grail-shaped cup similar to the one in the movie.
Previously, they found a tomb containing 12 skeletal remains and grave goods, including a grail-shaped cup similar to the one in the film featuring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
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Experts are hopeful that analysis of the human remains might reveal more about the Nabataeans, who are the ancient Arab people who built Al Khazneh.
Dr Pearce Paul Creasman, executive director of the American Center of Research (ACOR), undertook excavations alongside Josh Gates, host of The Discovery Channel.
In an episode of his show 'Expedition Unknown' from Petra, he called it a "hugely rare discovery".
He added: "In the two centuries that Petra has been investigated by archaeologists, nothing like this has been found before.
"Even in front of one of the most famous buildings in the world…there are still huge discoveries to be made."
In 2003, expeditions found two tombs below the left side of Al-Khazneh with partial skeletal remains.
However, Dr Creasman and colleagues had suspected that there were more secret tombs out there to be found.
A ground-penetrating radar, which is a surveying technique that gives out pulses of electromagnetic waves indicated there were underground chambers on the right as well as the left of Al-Khazneh.
The Jordanian government granted ACOR permission to dig beneath the Treasury in an effort to prove that additional chambers were really there.
Excavations conducted in August and filmed for Expedition Unknown identified tombs filled with twelve complete skeletal remains and well-preserved artefacts of bronze, iron and ceramic.
Due to Petra's seasonal floods and humidity, certain skeletons were found with mould on.
A ceramic chalice was also found which resembled the shape of the Holy Grail.
Gates added: "It really was this awesome moment of history imitating art."
