It was the valiant last stand of the Templar Knights. They fought furiously to save civilians – and their treasure. But it all came tumbling down around them. Now, archaeologists are digging through the rubble.
“These warrior monks are the stuff of legend and so is their gold,” says National Geographic presenter and archaeologist Albert Lin. “During the Crusades, the Knights Templar battle for God, gold, and glory. Somewhere in the modern city of Acre lies their command centre and possibly their treasure.”
Now, a new documentary reveals the recently discovered remains of the Templar Knights’ last grand Crusader bastion.
They were knights who took the vows of monks to fight for the glory of their religion. They killed to save their own souls. And, in the process, they built up an enormously rich international network of fortresses, estates, farms – and banks.
It was all intended to feed the knights in the Holy Land with cash, horses, food, armour, equipment and fresh recruits.
Instead, it spurred a swath of legends spanning the centuries. A fascination for the white-clad rose-cross knights persists even today, with films such as Indiana Jones and the Da Vinci Code, television series such as Knightfall, computer games such as Assassin’s Creed, and a seemingly endless barrage of conspiracy theory books.
Read the article in the NT News.