TEMPLAR CONNECTION to the Lost Ark | Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail (S1, E4) | History

Video Statistics and Information

Video

Captions Word Cloud

Reddit Comments

Captions

male narrator: The Knights Templar... [majestic music] The most feared and mysterious warriors of the Crusades, rumored to possess God-given relics, like the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. With armies and strongholds spanning three continents, they were richer than kings and popes, and that's exactly who brought them down. In 1307, they were hunted to extinction and vanished. Or did they? [intriguing music] Could the Templars and their powerful relics have survived and transformed into secret societies that still exist today? - Templars, they were the zealots of the zealots. Their entire life is that devotion to God. They've never given up, ever. narrator: Garth Baldwin has conducted investigations on battlefields around the world. Mikey Kay spent years hunting terrorists in the Middle East with the British military. - Templars have this very sophisticated military capability: covert operations, networks that they'd built. They were going to achieve their mission. narrator: Together, they'll investigate this ancient mystery: What happened to The Knights Templar? [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ Friday the 13th, October, 1307. The alleged destruction of the Knights Templar began with a wave of mass arrests. The Knights were hunted, imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Most believe this marked the end of the Order. But new evidence tells a different story. ♪ ♪ Earlier in the investigation, Mikey and Garth found signs many Templars could've escaped with their treasure and holy relics... - Right around here, that treasure was found. - [inaudible] narrator: And found safe haven in Spain. - So, what is the symbolism behind that window? - The Grail. The Holy Grail. narrator: But by 1312, even Spain would prove deadly. The Pope convicted the Templars of heresy. [dramatic music] Surviving Knights all over Europe were given a choice: renounce the Order... or die. - So, around Europe, the Templars had been round up and declared to be disbanded. It's over. [solemn music] narrator: But some believe that from the ashes of this dying order, the Templars would rise again. - The Templars were resilient; the Templars were tenacious. The big question is, where would they have relocated themselves in order to regenerate the Order? ♪ ♪ narrator: With enemies everywhere, where could they go? Some say they went north to Scotland, joining Robert the Bruce in his war for Scottish independence in 1314. Others claim they fled east into the Alps, and helped transform Switzerland from a remote backwater to a banking powerhouse. But their greatest refuge of all may have been to the west. - In Portugal, there's this sort of glimmer of hope that the Templars could have been raised again. narrator: The Templars may have had the ultimate contingency there: a king they could control. It was part of a game of thrones the Knights had been playing before Portugal was even a kingdom. And it would set the stage for a new era of Templar evolution. [intriguing music] At a remote monastery in Northern Portugal, Mikey and Garth meet up with historian Ricardo Vermelho. According to history, this monastery had no known ties to the Templars. But many of its records were lost in a fire in the 1800s. - I think this was covered for a long time. A few years ago, when this collapsed, nobody could see this. narrator: When these ancient walls crumbled a few years ago, a window into a shadowy chapter of Templar history was revealed. - Depending of the light conditions, we can see it more obviously or not. Sometimes it's much more difficult to see. Today, we can see it clearly. - How bizarre. This is subtle. This is really subtle. - It is one is in a place where it isn't supposed to be. - But it's there. - The official belief is, the Templars went there, into the monastery. - This cross here is an absolute counter to that logic. - Yes. - What makes this place so special? Why here? - Because, probably, this is the place where our first king was educated. narrator: In 1139, just as the Templars were reaching their height across the Middle East and Europe, Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, won independence through war and bloody rebellion against a Spanish kingdom. Many scholars believe the Templars were secretly behind the plan. This monastery wasn't officially founded until 1155, but medieval records show Afonso grew up and was educated on these lands 40 years before, an education that may have put him under Templar influence. - Educated by who? - By the first Templars who were sent to Portugal. By St. Bernard. narrator: Afonso's uncle, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was one of the most powerful men in Europe in the 12th century, who just happened to be the visionary behind the rise of the Templars. - Bernard of Clairvaux is the architect of the Templars. The Templar Rule, which was in part written by Bernard of Clairvaux, sort of contained the Templar DNA. It laid out everything: when you pray, what you say, how you fight. Every single detail of Templar life was summed up in the Rule of the Templars. It's like the blueprint for the Order. narrator: Bernard may have had even bigger plans for Portugal. The first Templars arrived there in the 1120s, when the future king, Afonso, was just a boy. - The rumor is that Bernard had a secret plan to found the country. - Portugal was born by the will of St. Bernard, and it was the Templar-born nation. narrator: Afonso had ripped Portugal away from a lawful ruler, a Spanish king, making enemies across Europe. But in 1143, his uncle, Bernard, the Grand Architect of the Templars, may have used his power with the Pope to legitimize the new king. Once on the throne, King Afonso would give 1/3 of his land to the Templars. - First donations of our first king to the Order of Temple, he signs, "I am your brother in the Order and in the mission." - Wow. narrator: By signing as a brother, Afonso signaled he and the Templars were inseparable. Afonso's first charter for the new kingdom of Portugal contained an anagram, whose letters spelled not "Portucale," as Portugal was known then, but "Portugral," which meant "port of the grail," a possible reference to the Templars' most sacred relic: the Holy Grail. - He was a kind of Templar in secret. narrator: If Bernard's dream was to create a Templar nation, they would never be openly accepted. [tense music] It was an age where only monarchs were seen as rightful rulers. The Templars would've needed a king as a front man. Had the Templars set up one of the world's first shadow governments in Portugal-- an alleged strategy of secret societies today? It wasn't the only time the Templars meddled in governments. ♪ ♪ They'd worked behind the scenes to overthrow Christian rulers in the Holy Land in 1186 and 1229. - They were getting rid of kings. They were trying to overthrow legitimate governments. They were pursuing their own military strategy and tactics, against the goals of the government at the time. narrator: Could wielding secret power be the key to resurrecting their fractured order? Even after the fall of the Templars, their shadowy influence on the kings of Portugal would hold. ♪ ♪ In 1319, King Dinis sat on the throne, the sixth king in Afonso's bloodline. Seven years after the Pope outlawed the Knights, King Dinis quietly gave former Templar property to a newly established military order, a group that bore an eerie resemblance to the Knights Templar. - The orders that came out from the Pope to wind up the Templars couldn't just be ignored. After a few years, once everything had died down, King Dinis of Portugal set up the Order of Christ. There's continuity of personnel; there's continuity of property. The uniforms change; the names change. Although historians have argued about this, you can see, if you want to, the Order of Christ as Templars 2.0. - So, once everything had died down, King Dinis of Portugal set up the Order of Christ. By 1319, 1320, what you really had was a kind of re-founded Portuguese Templars. narrator: Members of the Order of Christ took vows identical to the Templars: poverty, chastity, and obedience. - The big question in the whole investigation is, how and if the Templar survived. And to come to Portugal and to find out that the Templars may have transitioned into the Order of Christ, that's something else. narrator: Was this truly the rebirth of an order that was once a world superpower? Or was it merely a group of Knights fleeing persecution? [intriguing music] In 1319, Portugal was a poor, pastoral outpost on the edge of the known world, barely able to mint its own coins. So the Order of Christ may have seemed like an insignificant band of knights to the Pope, when he gave King Dinis the go-ahead to form the Order. ♪ ♪ - King Dinis took a lot of the membership of the Templars and put it into the Order of Christ, up to and including the Master of the Portuguese Templars, a man called Vasco Fernandes, who was given an position of high authority in the new order. ♪ ♪ narrator: Through his stealthy maneuvering, King Dinis ensured the safety of the most high-profiled Templars, and he was about to ensure their most valuable military assets. In 1319, King Dinis sent a long list of items to the Pope for his approval. Buried in the fine print was a key request: that the city of Tomar, Portugal's former Templar headquarters, be given to the new Order. The king's sly request was granted, and the Order of Christ seized control of the entire region. Included in the deal was Almourol Castle... ♪ ♪ A massive former Templar fortress that guarded access to the city of Tomar. - Seeing this from miles away... - Yes. - It's a symbol of the power. ♪ ♪ - I mean, this is a good reminder of who actually controls this territory, right? narrator: Mikey and Garth meet Colonel Pablo Albuquerque, a historian for the Portuguese army, to trace the next step of the Order's evolution. ♪ ♪ - As we pull in off that boat, and then you look up, and the first thing that went through my mind was that, if somebody's yelling, "Take the hill with me," I'm thinking, "Hell no." There's no way. The hill is this high, and then there's a castle on top of it. - Imagine trying to attack that... - [groans] - You know? - Cactus and brambles. That's barbed wire... - Yes. - You know? - That's the barbed wire. In fact, it was so difficult to attack that we have no records of... - [laughs] Anybody trying 'em? - Yes. - That's nuts. - No one tried. ♪ ♪ narrator: Almourol Castle was built by the Templars in the 1100s to help the Portuguese fight invading Muslim Moors. But by the time the Order of Christ moved in, the Moors had been repelled from Portugal for 70 years. - This is a place with a hugely fortified castle, so what was their plan? Who were their enemies? Who were their threats? [tense music] [panting] - Oh, my goodness. - Wow. - Yeah. - Ha-ha! It's about 15 kilometers, the ridgeline? - Yes. - That's an incredible view. - Yes. Up the river, you have another small castle, and you can see another Templar castle: Cardiga. - Cardiga's right there, and I can see them, so I know that a couple guys with, like, torches, you can make signals with smoke. - In fact, it was a network of fortifications to cover the territory of Tomar. narrator: Along with Cardiga Castle, Almourol Castle formed part of a chain of strongholds: a defensive ring around the Order of Christ's headquarters in Tomar. - This is an interactive network of defense. - Exactly that. - Exactly. - This series of defense positions, they learned those lessons in the Holy Land, and they're putting them into operation obviously here. ♪ ♪ narrator: The Order of Christ would've also learned their most important lesson from the Templars' deadly betrayal in France in 1307: Trust no one. - If you're trying to regrow your organization, albeit under a different brand, fortified castles that have integrated network capability, that's one key component: rapidly responding to a threat before the threat becomes overpowering. The Tomar region would've been the perfect set-up for a long-term rebuilding strategy. - What do you think? Do you think the Templars became the Order of Christ? - Yes. - Here, it's just a fact. - Yes, it is a fact. male narrator: Tomar, Portugal: headquarters of the Order of Christ, a possible alias for the Templars 2.0. Mikey and Garth are investigating whether the Templars' reemergence here was the next step in their transformation to a secret society. - A few decades after their fall, the Order of Christ just popped up in place of the Templars. They didn't get stomped out. They continued on, and they evolved. narrator: By 1357, 50 years after the official end of the Templars, the Order of Christ was by all outward appearances a pious order of Knights, loyal to the Pope. But far from the eyes of the Vatican, they were quietly consolidating power, retaking former Templar military strongholds all across a land whose hidden name was "Portugral," the Port of the Grail. [intriguing music] - Look at it! The whole pathway is covered in crosses. Three abreast, every step. You think they're trying to tell us something? - [chuckles] - This was Templar. narrator: Was the Order of Christ defending Templar secrets here? - We have to understand the psychology of a long-term regeneration growth plan. Are they working in the shadows? And what is their ultimate objective? narrator: The Order of Christ took over the former Templar castle in Tomar, expanding it into a military compound that would eventually reach 4.8 million square feet. But their most important sanctum lay far outside the fortress's walls: Santa Maria do Olival. The church had deep ties to the Templars, who buried several grand masters inside. - You've got the walled castle, a very fortified area. And then, outside of that, by about a kilometer, you've got a church. It just seemed odd that the two were disconnected. narrator: The team meet up with local expert, Joao Fiandeiro. - If the Templars are transitioning to the Order of Christ... - Yes. - Is there anything around here that would suggest that the Order of Christ could've started working in the shadows? ♪ ♪ - Right. ♪ ♪ - And the church that is named Santa Maria do Olival-- olive trees-- here we have the Mount of Olives, the place where Christ was with communion, with his brothers. narrator: This church is named after Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, where Jesus met with the disciples, his most trusted inner circle. Could it have served a similar purpose for the Order of Christ? ♪ ♪ - Ah. - Excellent. narrator: The Order had covert security features in place, signs this small church was for much more than just worship. ♪ ♪ [intense music] The pentagram is the same symbol the team found at a remote monastery in Spain. - That was the sign for the masters of the Order, those guys who had the knowledge. narrator: Some experts believe the pentagram is a mark of secret knowledge, used by a clandestine group of high-ranking Templars. ♪ ♪ The symbol is also revered by the Freemasons, a group long-rumored to be controlled by a top-secret inner circle whose darkest plans are kept from even rank-and-file members. Could an inner brotherhood of the Order of Christ be the missing link between the Templars and the Masons, safeguarding power and knowledge behind a wall of secrecy? - Look at this. It's out of order. You know, it's out of symmetry with everything else. [intriguing music] - Is there anything else like it in the church? ♪ ♪ narrator: Local legend claims this stone blocks the entrance to a web of tunnels below the town, connecting this church to the Order's headquarters on the hill. Such tunnels would've provided clandestine access. ♪ ♪ - And the castle's over there? ♪ ♪ Tunnels are absolutely critical to organizations that are covert in operating in the shadows, like in Acre. That is a former in a Templar that we have seen time and time and time again with the Templars. narrator: Recent construction projects have revealed evidence of the tunnel's existence. ♪ ♪ - Okay. ♪ ♪ - Where? Where? Where's the tunnel? ♪ ♪ [suspenseful music] Oh, look at that. - Mm-hmm, the opening. I think it's got a tarp on it. [solemn music] Yes. That's it right there. And that's there. And then those three windows-- those narrow windows are right there. - What were the Order of Christ using them for? ♪ ♪ narrator: The Order of Christ are long-rumored to have had the Holy Grail in Tomar. But their inner circle may have been safeguarding even more powerful Templar secrets, secrets they would use to reshape the world. The Order's new cross contained coded hints to their ambitions. Its four pillars represented a new kind of crusade, spreading to the four corners of the earth, the Templar mission on a global scale. Within a century, the Order would have 450 outposts and strongholds, spread over 2/3 of the world. And this tiny sanctuary, named for the Mount of Olives, would become the mother church... that ruled them all. Tomar, Portugal: headquarters of the Order of Christ, the new incarnation of the Knights Templar. - The way the Order of Christ goes, it takes scraps of Templar DNA, that are left after the catastrophe of 1307, and brings them to life. narrator: After fortifying their new base of operations, the Order's inner circle was meeting behind closed doors in Tomar, laying bold plans to reshape the known world. [dramatic tone] Before the alleged end of the Templars in 1307, Portugal had no formal navy. Decades later, with the Order of Christ in place, they were plotting sea voyages to destinations that didn't exist on any official map. In medieval Europe, maps were crude and extended little beyond the Mediterranean. Voyages into open sea were considered suicide. So, how did the Order plan to cheat death in unchartered waters? - The Templars had access to knowledge that's been lost, possibly scrolls and books and things that they found underneath the Temple Mount. narrator: Many believe that when the Templars were in Jerusalem, they spent nine years digging beneath the Temple Mount, where it was rumored they found the Ark of the Covenant, mystical scrolls, and lost maps, passed down from ancient civilizations like Babylon and Egypt. Could these lost world maps and ancient technology have helped the Order, as they sailed into the unknown? - Navigating across water on a globe, you have to have really advanced mathematics. Portuguese sailors had access to the Astrolabe. It's an navigation tool to chart courses across open seas. It was something that the ancient Egyptians had, and if the Portuguese acquired that, it might help explain why the Order of Christ had such success navigating. narrator: An astrolabe is a sophisticated instrument, developed in ancient Egypt, that measures the position of the stars. The Portuguese were the first in history to use it for sailing the open ocean. Their early voyages launched the Age of Discovery, a period of extensive European exploration from the 15th to the 17th century, a time when new worlds were discovered and empires were built. With Templar crosses emblazoned on their sails, the Order planted their flag across 2/3 of the world. [energetic music] - Templars 2.0, the Order of Christ, are now going out and creating new empires. - They're not just that. They're the leading members of their society. The people that were involved in this were-- and you'll know these names-- Henry the Navigator... - Right? - Magellan... - [chuckles] Yeah? - Vasco da Gama. All of them are Order of Christ. They took crews and ships and Order of Christ soldiers overseas, and they took over huge areas for the glory of Christ and the enrichment of Portugal. narrator: Prince Henry the Navigator was the Order's first Grand Master with royal blood. His navigation school launched a generation of explorers. Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India by sea. Magellan was the first to sail around the Americas and into the Pacific. - These were three characters that were responsible for changing the course of history, for changing the course of geography, for discovering new lands, new worlds. If these guys were coming from the Templars, that's incredibly powerful. narrator: It's rumored that even Christopher Columbus may have stolen his place in history from the Templars. - They say that Columbus stole a map that was Templar-- or Order of Christ-- that he got his hands on that, and that's what led him west. narrator: But long before Columbus reached America, the Order of Christ had already built an empire, with colonies and trade routes spanning from India to Africa to the Indies and, eventually, the New World. They amassed a fortune in gold and spice, turning tiny Portugal into the world's first global economic superpower. But their true mission... remained the same as the Templars': retake the Holy Land. - They just changed the name, and it continued. And their secretive nature just got bigger. narrator: The Order's new power gave them a stealthy new weapon... [intense music] Economic warfare. Instead of clashing with the powerful armies of Islam on the battlefield, the Portuguese used their ships to disrupt the spice trade in India, wreaking havoc on the Muslim economies in the Middle East that depended on it. The ensuing economic chaos led to the downfall of the Muslim Mamluks in 1517, payback for the defeat the Mamluks had handed the Templars in Acre 225 years before. - Every military capability in the history of warfare evolves. With the transition of the Templars to the Order of Christ, had transitioned from a knight on a horse to now a maritime vessel that was looking to conquer enemies. narrator: The Knights perfected this economic subterfuge, a strategy that may still inspire secretive organizations today. Like the Bilderberg Group, a hush-hush international cabal of political and business elites. Every year, Bilderberg holds top-secret meetings, where they allegedly conspire to manipulate world economies. - This is amazing. The evolution is quite incredible. narrator: The Knights Templar had built a military and banking superpower lightyears ahead of its time. Using Templar secrets, the Order of Christ had built a worldwide trade empire that would lay the groundwork for global capitalism. How would they continue to evolve? And what other powers would they harness? - Who knows where their boundaries lie. ♪ ♪ male narrator: By the 1500s, the second coming of the Knights Templar, the Order of Christ, was a world superpower, running an empire that spanned 1 1/2 million square miles from India to Brazil. - The Order of Christ, they have everything. They have wealth, power, land, strongholds. And they knew how to get more powerful. narrator: The master puppeteers of this global organization were taking the secrecy of the Templars to new extremes. - What did they have? What did they know? What did they do? This, you know, they kept secret from history, because secrecy was a part of the organization. And it leaves them open to speculation about what else they were hiding. You know, what other kind of sordid rituals were taking place behind closed doors that we don't know about? narrator: The priceless maps that had launched them to the New World were considered state secrets. But even more closely guarded were hush-hush initiation rituals some say endowed the Knights with occult powers, and may have echoes in secret societies today. - If they have those secret initiations and ceremonies, they need hidden places to worship. narrator: Mikey and Garth investigate expert claims that the Order of Christ conducted top-secret rituals in tunnels below the city of Tomar. Remnants of these tunnels connect in Mata dos Sete Montes park, next to the Order's headquarters. Its name means "the forest of seven hills," echoing the seven hills of Jerusalem, where the Order believed heaven and earth met. [intriguing music] - So, I'm assuming there's a lot of these kinda networks around here. - Yeah, I mean, it's all limestone, so the thing is, it's quite easy to carve and develop them with their own mine-works. narrator: Mikey and Garth are joined by Portuguese Templar and Order of Christ expert Tony McMahon. - Some of those tunnels have collapsed. Some of those tunnels, the entrances have been cemented over, for whatever reason. Some of the tunnels have been lost. - What type of things are the tunnels being used for? - Essentially squirreling away the riches, the stuff that the Templars found in Jerusalem, or conducting their initiation ceremonies, and the idea being that those might have been based on the sects like the Essenes: famous for being the mystical Jewish sect who wrote the "Dead Sea Scrolls" at the time that Jesus was alive. The Templars, they may have encountered the kind of theology of Essenes when they were out in the Holy Land. ♪ ♪ narrator: Known for their mystical rites and knowledge, the Essenes performed an initiation ritual known as raising the dead. The initiate was confined to a cavern for several days without food or water, reaching a near-death state. This provoked an out-of-body experience, and the initiate would rise again with a higher state of consciousness. - The Essenes, through the initiation rites, purified themselves for God. There was no need for salvation through popes and bishops. It was the closest thing to the real Jesus Christ. narrator: Based on the lost "Gospel of Phillip," many claim this resurrection ritual was handed down from the Essenes to John the Baptist, who then taught it to Jesus. - It would have indicated that the Templars' religious practices were much more original Christianity, which is a big deal, because they would've been considered radicals. narrator: With the only legal form of Christianity defined by the Vatican, such devotion was punishable by death. But the Order had long turned away from the popes, who had betrayed them in 1307, seeking new enlightenment on their own terms. If they had a direct line to the divine through rituals, it would mean there was no power above them except God himself. - This one doesn't actually go anywhere. Are there any that actually plow right into the hillside? - King's Throne. narrator: Mikey heads to the King's Throne, a defunct water tunnel built as part of a massive expansion of the Order's headquarters and rumored to have been used for initiation rites. - All right. ♪ ♪ [grunts] Whoa... Now, this looks pretty eerie. There are a [bleep] load of flies... inside there. What could possibly go wrong? [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ This is a [bleep] deep tunnel. All right. Well, I'm stood in here. Kinda looks like it's for water. If it's just for water, why doesn't it stop there? Probably we're about 50 meters into the hillside by now. There's something that smacks you right in the face, which is, this isn't just for water. narrator: Could the true purpose of this cavern be disguised behind its everyday use? - I have a lot of questions about this. narrator: According to some experts, the Order's initiation rites may have taken place in tunnels whose shape represent wombs or birth canals, signifying the initiate's reborn state. The descriptions resemble rumored initiation rites of the modern Skull and Bones society. Started at Yale in 1832, its members include a founder of the CIA, both Bush presidents, and a key member of Obama's cabinet. Bonesmen are said to lie naked in a confined coffin, in order to "die to the barbarian world" and be reborn in the divine company of the brotherhood. - [groans] ♪ ♪ I don't know how, but those two walls, they've come together there. Right at the very end, the tunnel starts coming together. I can see right behind it that there's another cavity. There is definitely a passage beyond that. I'm 6'6"; I'm too big. I just can't get under it or over it, but I can see beyond it. And so, the question for me is, what was it for? narrator: Did this tunnel deliver water or higher consciousness? [music intensifies] Did the Order find a way to channel the power of God in secret? And to what end? Those who went through the raising of the dead ritual were said to be able to see the past and the future. The Templars' past had been to the east in Jerusalem, but many believe their future would be to the west... in the New World. - The Templars are probably one of the most resilient organizations in history. Having seen what we've seen, we've come to the conclusion: If they ever came under threat, they always had a contingency plan to move to another organization, and to reemerge as something that was bigger, that was better, that was more powerful, that was more knowledgeable. male narrator: The Templars always had powerful enemies, but with every deadly encounter, they evolved and survived. Saladin and his Muslim army tried to destroy them in Jerusalem in 1187. - The center-point of their world is about to fall. narrator: The Templars came back, building a massive military complex in Acre... - This is huge. [chuckles] narrator: And the most sophisticated banking empire the world had ever seen. - This is just unreal. narrator: The Pope and the King of France tried to annihilate them in 1307. [tense music] The Knights slipped undercover and reemerged in Portugal. - The Port of the Grail. narrator: Using ancient secrets to guide their ships, they built a superpower that spanned the globe, from the Far East to the New World. - The ethos of the Templars, it's an organism, and they just keep going. [solemn music] narrator: In 1529, the Pope finally cracked down on the Order of Christ, expelling members and forcing reforms that put a leash on their power. But the Templars had already evolved their ultimate survival tactic: secrecy. Under a cloak of stealth, silently infiltrating the ranks of society, they could be untouchable. No one could attack them if they didn't know who they were or how they operated. And their power could only grow. - The investigation started in the Middle East, and it's taken us slowly west, with a good understanding of who the Templars were, what brought them down, where they managed to become resurgent, and then sailing off to conquer new worlds. The investigation needs to follow those ships now-- westbound. narrator: Far to the west, in America, possible signs of the Templars' trajectory can be seen in the layout of our nation's capital. The streets of Washington DC form a pentagram: Solomon's Seal, a Templar symbol Mikey and Garth uncovered in Spain and Portugal. It's the same symbol revered by the Freemasons, a group whose members include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and FBI founder, J. Edgar Hoover. - One of their legends is that there's some connection between the Templars to what is now the Freemasons. narrator: The Freemasons believe their path to God and power lies through ancient secrets passed down from Solomon's Temple, a reference to both the biblical temple and the Templars' original headquarters on the Temple Mount. The Masons' role in founding America is indisputable. 32 of the 56 signers of "The Declaration of Independence" were known or suspected Masons. The Masonic symbol that adorns the back of the dollar bill speaks to an even greater ambition. Its words, "Novus Ordo Seclorum," translate to "a new order of the ages," which some suggest could reference a new world order of Templars. - This is about the idea of the Templars going underground. They had an agenda, which was way bigger than controlling territory, that was way bigger than taking control of Jerusalem. narrator: Possible Templar connections exist with countless secret societies, coincidences too big to ignore. Thomas Jefferson wrote secret messages using a code from the Rosicrucians, a group whose rosy cross symbol appears in the Templar headquarters in Portugal. Even Skull and Bones uses the same symbol that flew on the flags of Templar ships. - Are there organizations out there today that are direct descendants of the Templars? Think that they incorporated all the things they'd been learning and then evolved. narrator: The connections between these shadowy groups remain obscured by centuries of myth and secrecy. The truth remains to be proven, and their powerful relics remain to be found. And perhaps that is the greatest accomplishment of the Knights Templar. - There's a reason we're sitting here talking about the Templars and not the Teutonic Knights or the Hospitallers or any of these other military orders that existed at the same time as the Templars. Templars exert a kinda hold on our imagination that almost no other medieval organization can match. Part of that is their faith. Part of that is their deeds, the things that they achieve. And then, you plug into that the dramatic, scandalous end of the Order. It just creates this cocktail of excitement. They're this endlessly fascinating organization. They have been for hundreds of years. And they still speak to us. [dramatic tone]

Info

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 254,584

Rating: 4.8485069 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, buried: knights templar and the holy grail, buried: knights templar and the holy grail show, full episodes, Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail season 1 episode 4, Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail se1 ep4, Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail s1 e4, Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail s01, Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grail 1X4, Templar Connection, Lost Ark, knights templar

Id: tdwuDeref-c

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 42min 17sec (2537 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020