- Tonight, a vast treasure of gold and sacred relics
held by a medieval religious order.
- The Knights Templar were the most charismatic,
powerful order of warriors in the Middle Ages.
- They're alleged to have the Holy Grail,
the Ark of the Covenant, the piece of the True Cross,
all this gold that they accumulate
over a couple hundred years.
- But in 1307 AD, the Templar treasure
mysteriously vanishes, or does it?
- They fell so quickly and so spectacularly,
and we don't know what happened after that.
Where did all the wealth go?
- Now, we explore the top theories
surrounding the Knights Templar and its secret hoard.
- The place where they dig is called Oak Island.
- He says that he saw the Templars smuggle this treasure
and that it took 50 horses to move all of it.
- There was interest in Templar treasure
from a very sinister source,
the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler.
- Does the Templar's treasure still exist and if so,
where is it?
(dramatic music)
November 1095, Pope Urban calls on all Christians
to take up arms against Muslims who control the Holy Land.
- Christian Army set off on what's going to be
the first of eight crusades.
They marched through modern day Turkey, Constantinople,
and what is today, Syria, Antioch.
- There was a massive response,
probably about 100,000 people
from all walks of life, mostly from the nobility,
but the poor, even Churchmen left their monasteries
in order to go on this Holy War.
- Pope Urban II wants to liberate the Holy Land.
He wants to liberate Jerusalem
and the most holy sites for Christians from Muslim rule.
- Then they set their sights on the holy city of Jerusalem.
It involves a siege process that lasts about a month,
and by July of 1099,
they have breached the walls of Jerusalem itself.
- [Laurence] The Holy Land and all its famed sites
are now back in the control of the Catholic church.
- This is a huge deal
because these are the holiest places in Christian lore
and people come from all over.
They come from Italy, from England, from France.
Pilgrims want to go now, to visit the holy places.
- [Laurence] But that brings a new challenge.
- Then as now, travelers were easy prey, especially
in a world in which there's no such things as ATMs
or travelers checks or credit cards.
You're gonna need money.
You're gonna need goods for several months.
You're easy targets for robbers.
There's no Motel 6, there's no local police forces
or things like that,
and so you have all sorts of pilgrims
who now are being murdered on the way to Jerusalem.
- I mean, literally the roads to Jerusalem
are littered with the skeletons, the pilgrims.
- [Laurence] In 1119,
with the blessing of the Catholic church,
a French knight in Jerusalem
forms a security force to protect the pilgrims.
They call themselves
the Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon,
but will soon become known simply as the Knights Templar.
- This is a monastic order and they take the vow of poverty,
the vow of chastity, the vow of obedience.
So you have these Poor Knights, but that will create
one of the wealthiest orders in the world.
- This idea of fighting for God
and the Holy Land really captures the imagination
of the Christian world and the Templars embody that.
They attract donations from all over Christendom
and this transforms them
into one of the most powerful forces of the period.
- The Knights Templar were
the most charismatic, powerful order in the Middle Ages.
Both priests and the bravest soldiers in the crusades,
they really capture the spirit of the age,
and particularly in Rome
where the Popes shower privileges on them.
They're not answerable to kings, to princes, to dukes.
They're only answerable directly to the Pope in Rome.
- [Laurence] The Templars' fortune grows
through their steady stream of donations.
They also acquire vast estates, castles,
and cathedrals all over Europe.
- They're involved in all kinds of sectors
of the European economy.
They're in manufacturing, they're getting mills.
They're getting all kinds of donations from wealthy donors,
so they're not just a group of knights with swords.
There's an entire intricate financial system
that's supporting that.
- It spans all sorts of countries,
and it may be in fact
the world's first multinational corporation.
- [Laurence] The Templars have outposts
throughout Christendom
and go on to create the world's first modern banking system.
- They set up a system of effectively banking
in which if you were a pilgrim,
you could make a deposit at a commandery or an outpost,
and then you would have a script you could redeem
when you get to Jerusalem,
and you were good for it when you got there.
- These Templar commanderies, they are banks,
but they're not ordinary banks.
I mean, they're fortresses.
Example, the Paris Temple looms over the city.
I mean, it's enormous.
The only thing I can think of to describe it
is the castle of Disneyland.
You know, it's that kind of presence in the landscape.
- And so, its banking system
that will allow pilgrims to travel without resource.
That way, they're less attractive to robbers.
Nothing to take.
- Pilgrims from all over Europe feel safer
because they're protected by the Templar Knights.
- When the Templars established themselves
as a presence in Jerusalem,
they're given the Al-Aqsa Mosque as their headquarters
built upon the Templar of Solomon.
It's on the Temple Mount.
It's one of the most holy places
of all three major religions in the world.
- This is the platform that was once the foundation
for King Herod's massive temple.
Underneath rumored to be lots of holy treasures.
So having got there,
the Templars start digging below to find that treasure.
- During work in that area, the story goes,
the Knights Templar discovered
two extremely important items for the Christian faith,
the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant.
And so they had not only wealth, but relics.
- [Laurence] But in 1187 AD, things change for the Templars.
- Crusades continue for centuries
and in 1187, the Muslims re-conquer Jerusalem.
So those pilgrimage sites are now under Muslim control
and Christians are forbidden from being there.
And the function the Knights Templar had
of protecting the pilgrims of the Holy Land
shifts dramatically in 1187
when you can't make that pilgrimage anymore.
- [Laurence] The Templars are forced out of Jerusalem.
- The Knights Templar flee
and presumably take all of their treasure with them.
That would've included perhaps the Ark of the Covenant,
the Holy Grail, and gold.
- [Laurence] They move their headquarters
to the port city of Acre,
about a hundred miles north in what is now Israel.
- Acre is a tremendously important city
because it's a meeting point between east and west
on one of the major trade routes
from all the way to China at the time.
So it was a very wealthy city, and so it was well defended.
- They have a massive fortification there.
It's got 20 foot thick walls.
It's the most formidable fortress
on the Mediterranean at that time.
- [Laurence] After a century based in Acre,
in 1291, the Templar fortress
is attacked by Muslim fighters.
A servant to the Templars named the Templar of Tyre
writes of the battle
and even makes reference to the fabled treasure.
- So the Templar of Tyre is one of the important chroniclers
from the late period of the Templars.
He does record the last battles the Templars have.
- He describes the chaos of a medieval siege
as the enemy has now broken through.
He describes a main tower with four golden lions
at each corner, and then another older treasure tower,
which clearly has been built to protect something.
- [Laurence] The Templars' fortress may be strong,
but they are cornered with no way out,
and the treasure seems to be in imminent danger
of being seized.
- If Templars brought the sacred treasures
from Jerusalem to Acre, and if, at that battle,
the Knights had to leave in such a hurry
that they weren't able to take all that treasure with them,
then there's the exciting possibility
their treasure could still be there.
(dramatic music)
- One of the great things about the Templars
is they're great builders,
and this goes back to the Temple of Solomon,
you know, this amazing structure
that forms part of their name of the Knights Templar.
- The Templar of Tyre describes how the Templars construct
these magnificent castles,
and presumably that is where the Templar treasure is stored.
We know this because we have surviving examples.
- Templar castles would shape the way
castles were built all over Europe.
Obviously Acre was a model of that,
a fist of iron and stone right there on the coast.
And the Templars didn't just build
these elaborate fortifications up above ground
to protect cities like Acre,
but they also built tunnels underground
as a part of their defense strategy.
- [Laurence] Is it possible the treasure is still there,
just underground?
In 2019, a team decides to search using new technology.
- What the LIDAR technology is able to do
is to create a 3D image of the remains of the fortress
underneath today's housing,
so you get a much clearer picture
of what was originally there.
- [Laurence] The LIDAR technology helps plot
what the Templar fortress originally looked like.
- The team has been able to approximate, more or less,
where the original Templar treasure tower stood,
and we get a much clearer idea
of where the Holy Grail may once have been kept.
- [Laurence] But if gold and priceless relics
are buried here,
they won't be recovered anytime soon.
- Governments can be finicky about digging under things,
especially a place like Israel
where there's so much archeology
and so much stuff has been dug up.
- [Laurence] But another discovery, this one in 1994,
reveals more about what's underneath Acre.
- There's a blocked sewer pipe,
they get a plumber to come,
and he discovers this tunnel
that no one's known about for 800 years.
It's a tunnel from the fortress
that goes almost 500 feet out into the city,
which is a really good way of smuggling things in and out.
- [Laurence] Could it be that at one time,
the treasure was under Acre,
but that it was on route to somewhere else?
- What we know from historical records
is that the last Templar there,
the Grand Master, Guillaume de Beaujeu,
dies in that defense of the siege of Acre.
- According to accounts, Thibaud Gaudin,
the Deputy to the Templar Grand Master,
Guillaume de Beaujeu,
was told, get all that sacred treasure,
take it into the tunnels,
and for God's sakes, get it out of Acre.
- [Laurence] The Knights Templar held immense wealth
during their 200 year existence.
But after their fortress in Acre
falls to Muslim marauders in 1291,
the Templar treasure seems to disappear,
it's fate a mystery.
Is it possible that they escaped with it?
- The thought was that they could get these valuable items,
meaning the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail,
or any of the other Templar treasure,
out of the treasure tower
through one of these subterranean tunnels
and spirit them away.
- They're able to bring the treasures they have out of Acre
because you have to remember,
they have fortresses throughout Europe,
so they've got places,
so does some of the treasure go here?
Does some of the treasure go there?
- [Laurence] As the legend goes,
the Templars look to the next safest place for the treasure.
- France is an obvious place.
This is where their founders came from,
and it's kind of the nerve center of the Templars.
- France has changed
when the Templars return in the 13th century.
King Philip IV was heavily in debt
because of his war with England.
It was a costly war,
and Philip IV had actually looked to the Templars for help.
He was deeply indebted to them.
- This is sort of an uncomfortable situation
as he's looking at this increasingly
powerful organization within his own kingdom.
- King Philip says, oh, we should get rid of them.
And by the way, that means my debt is canceled to them,
and by the way,
I can get their goods and take their treasure.
- In the Middle Ages, if you want to discredit somebody,
you say that they're a heretic.
You say that they're a witch.
And this is exactly what King Philip says
about the Templars.
He says that they are worshiping Satan,
that they are engaged in illicit sexual practices
with each other.
- The misinformation campaign
against the Templars really does work
because public support for these knights,
which was once so strong, now completely craters.
- [Laurence] On October 13th, 1307,
King Philip IV gives orders to arrest
and imprison all Knights Templar.
- That order goes into effect throughout Christendom,
but there is one place in France
where the Templars are not arrested and imprisoned.
- [Laurence] Could this be the place
where they keep their treasure?
(dramatic music)
- The village of Rennes-le-Chateau
has a very interesting history.
The Templars have taken what they had in all of Europe,
and this organization has been reduced
to this isolated community
that really is in many ways insulated from the church.
And this relationship develops with the locals,
even extending into a relationship
with the Count of Barcelona.
- [Laurence] Fast forward six centuries to the late 1890s
and to a small church in Rennes-le-Chateau
sitting in the shadow of the Templar Castle,
high on the hill above.
- There's a little church dedicated to Mary Magdalene
and run by a parish priest called Berenger Sauniere.
And he wants to renovate this church.
And the story goes that when he's supervising
the renovation of the area around the altar,
he sees something incredible.
- What he finds is sealed in wax in one of the pillars,
and has three wooden cylinders with parchment inside.
- [Laurence] The parchments are said to contain
complex ciphers and coded messages.
That's not the only strange discovery
during the renovation.
- Story goes, when construction workers
are working on a hallway
in an entirely different part of the church,
they unearth this clay pot
and within it are gold coins and a necklace, a bracelet,
and most intriguingly, a gold cup.
- [Laurence] Could the Templars have buried their treasure
in different parts of the Church of Mary Magdalene,
and could the parchments provide clues
as to where the rest of it might be?
- He's really excited with the parchments
that he's discovered,
so he takes them to Paris
to be deciphered by church officials,
but then he returns and he's a different man.
He's not talking about it anymore.
- He doesn't say anything about the hidden meaning
of these parchments,
but all of a sudden, he's got a lot of money
and he spends it on the renovations of the church.
- [Laurence] After his return from Paris,
Sauniere will spend almost 700,000 francs
in two decades time,
the equivalent of over $4 million today.
- Not only did he spend thousands
and thousands of francs just renovating
the church at Rennes-le-Chateau,
there's an estimate that says,
well, he spends 36,000 francs building his own estate,
which is an astronomical amount of money,
especially in the 19th century.
- The mystery of Sauniere's wealth continues to intrigue us
because we just don't know if he had the Templar treasure,
had access to part of the Templar treasure,
or if he only sold the parchments
that he found in the parish church.
- [Laurence] Sauniere keeps his mouth shut
until the end of his life when he entrusts the secret
to his loyal housekeeper. Marie Denarnaud.
- Marie Denarnaud is the only one that knows
what's the secret to this fabulous wealth
that this little parish priest has.
But unfortunately,
she dies in 1953 of a sudden and massive stroke.
So the secret dies with her.
Did Sauniere come by this wealth through the Templar treasure,
or did he get his money in a very different kind of way?
- [Laurence] Sauniere spent the last several years
of his priesthood
under suspicion by the church for a practice
called selling masses.
- So there is the possibility
that what the priest was actually trying to mask
was his own criminal activity.
Selling masses, a church crime that goes back centuries.
- When people are selling masses,
the priest is charging, effectively, admission
to come into the church and to be present
when the miracle of the Eucharist happens,
when the mass is celebrated.
The church has been very clear in its teaching
that this should never happen,
but teaching and reality
are very different things sometimes.
- [Laurence] If Sauniere didn't get the treasure,
could it still be here in the church?
- It was purported that one of the things
she said before her death
was that the people of Rennes-le-Chateau
were walking on gold and didn't even know it.
Is that a cryptic indication
it's the location of the Templar treasure?
- [Laurence] At the height of their power
in the 13th century,
the Knights Templar hold fortresses across Europe.
Experts believe any one of them could hold their treasure,
but for some, clues point overwhelmingly to one.
- Outside of France,
the Knights Templar had influence in Portugal.
And keep in mind that Portugal was an area of intense battle
between Christians and Muslims,
and the Knights Templar were helping Christian fighters
take back the area.
- [Laurence] In 1160 AD, the small town of Tomar
becomes the Templars' Portuguese headquarters.
- There is a Templar Grand Master in Portugal,
Gualdim Pais.
His statue still dominates the main square in Tomar.
And this battle scarred figure
oversees the construction of a Templar fortress in Tomar.
- And inside this fortress is the Convent of Christ Church,
which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- Gualdim Pais is famous in part
because of this church he builds at Tomar
called the Round Church.
It has 16 sides, built that way
so the Templars could attend mass on horseback.
- And this was done so they could be ready
to ride out at a moment's notice.
- [Laurence] But in July 1190,
Tomar is surrounded by Muslim forces
determined to take the city back.
- They are attacked, and during that battle,
the Templars defend Tomar and they defeat them.
So the defense of Tomar is a really important moment
for the Templars,
and it establishes Gualdim Pais as a hero
in Templar lore.
Tomar is a landmark site because of that victory,
and many believe this would've been a place
where the Templars would have kept their treasure.
(dramatic music)
- [Laurence] A major discovery in the 1960s
might lend credence to that theory.
- In the 1960s,
you had all sorts of treasure hunters in Europe,
but you didn't have the same kinds of laws
that we have today about antiquities
and taking antiquities out of one place to another place.
And so they're essentially grave robbers
looking for Roman artifacts.
So you have these treasure hunters
who are at the Convent of Christ Church in Tomar.
They dig into a grave and they pull out two caskets.
But what they find isn't Roman,
it's something quite extraordinary.
There's a chalice that's obsidian.
There's a reliquary to hold relics.
There's a sword that has a Templar design and a cross,
but they don't know what it is,
and so they sell it off piece by piece.
But clearly what they find are Templar artifacts.
- [Laurence] This collection, now known as the Tomar Hoard,
is believed to be one of the only stashes of Templar relics
ever found.
- You have treasure hunters digging up the whole place.
So, much of the hoard left Portugal, sadly, in the 1960s,
but over the last decade, Templar hunters,
Carl Cooksen and Hamilton White, have been striving
to bring all these items back into one place,
and they now have achieved that.
- And so you have a scholar, Jonathan Tokley Parry,
who looks at the Tomar Hoard to authenticate
where these things come from and says,
yes, this is authentic.
This actually does go back to the Templars,
that this is part of the treasure the Templars had.
- And we know that because due to aging,
the items inside have a certain amount
of calcium deposits on them,
and this helps to date these items
that do indeed date back to the Templar period.
What we can't say with absolute certainty
is that they were put in the ground
by the Knights Templar themselves.
- [Laurence] In their search for more evidence,
Cooksen and White make a startling discovery.
- During their research,
Cooksen and White discovered that in the 1930s,
there was interest in Templar treasure in Tomar
from a very sinister source,
the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler.
- For Hitler, it was not only the wealth
for a financing of war,
but think of what these objects were,
the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail.
If you have those objects,
you have control over people
for whom those objects are valuable,
and you know, the Germans were Christian.
And so having the Holy Grail,
the most important symbol for Christendom
in Hitler's possession
would've been a huge source of power for him.
And so he sent basically Nazi treasure hunters to Portugal
to try and find this treasure.
And Hitler assigned some of his best people,
including a troop led by Heinrich Himmler,
and we have reports of them searching in Portugal.
- But by all accounts, they came up empty handed.
So it's another quarter of a century after the Nazis
have been digging around in Tomar
that we get these Templar hunters turning up.
But neither party seems to have found
the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail,
or any of the other Templar treasure.
So as things stand today,
it looks like the Templars
either took whatever they had away or it's still buried.
- In the eight centuries since the Knights Templar
fled Jerusalem, many theories have surfaced
about where their mysterious treasure could be.
Some believe it remains in what's now Israel.
Others suggest it could be in Portugal or France,
all former Templar strongholds.
But what if the treasure was taken somewhere more surprising,
to a place where the Templars were certain
that no one would look?
- It's where they've believed
they will be able to hide their treasure away.
And unlike other parts of Europe,
there weren't that many prying eyes
looking at what the Templars were up to
because it's very much on the fringes of the Templar world.
(dramatic music)
- There's a legend that the Templars
had gone to Western Poland from Paris to seek safety,
to seek refuge, both for the Templars and the treasure.
- The Templars arrive in Poland in 1232
when they're given land around the town of Chwarszczany
on the Mysla River,
which is just a stone's throw from the German border.
And the Templars started building this chapel
of St. Stanislaus,
and it most likely took many decades to complete.
- In the aftermath of these arrests,
on Friday the 13th, 1307, there is sort of a ripple effect
across the Templar realm of influence
so that everywhere the Templars had extended influence,
from Western Europe as far as the reaches
of what is today, Poland, ceased to exist.
Fearing for their own safety,
many Templars fled and would've taken whatever treasure
they had with them.
What became of that treasure?
That's the big question.
- The story goes that the treasure
found its way to Chwarszczany with a small band of Templars
and medieval documents
described the well near the chapel of St. Stanislaus,
and it's rumored that the chapel has an entrance
to a secret tunnel.
- Friday the 13th is significant.
That's the date the arrest take place.
So facing arrest, the Knights Templar,
under the cover of darkness, took the Holy Grail
and other valued materials
and sunk them in a nearby lake.
- [Laurence] The lake dried up long ago,
and no treasure has been found there,
but the theory that the treasure made it somewhere
in Chwarszczany continues to attract attention,
including interest from a local archeologist.
- Fast forward 700 years,
in 2004, an archeologist, Przemyslaw Kolosowski,
brought a team of archeologists
to conduct tests and excavations
at the Chapel of St. Stanislaus.
What the team were hoping to discover
was a Templar fortress underneath this chapel.
What they found instead was a cobbled floor,
and that was pretty much it.
- [Laurence] But then, one of the archeologists
notices a small rectangular depression
beneath the cobblestone.
The team brings in ground penetrating radar
for a better look.
What they find shocks them.
- They find seven vaulted crypts
that could date back to the Templar times.
These vaults are empty,
which of course leads people to wonder,
what could have been there?
- Then another discovery is made
of a secret tunnel under the town of Mysliborz,
not far from the chapel of St. Stanislaus.
And between this tunnel at Mysliborz
and the chapel of St. Stanislaus
is the dry lake bed where some believe
the Templars hid their treasure.
So we have this chapel,
we have the entrance to a subterranean medieval vault.
We have the lake where the treasure
may have been buried under cover of night,
and then in a nearby town, we have this inexplicable tunnel.
So local people are absolutely convinced
that there is a secret that the Knights left there.
- [Laurence] But despite these discoveries,
no treasure has been found in Poland to date.
- What these discoveries point to is the tremendous
building abilities of the Knights Templar.
But what these tunnels and what these locations
were actually used for is a matter of speculation.
- [Laurence] Most of the Knights Templar brought to Paris
after the arrests in 1307
refused to talk under interrogation.
But one did,
and he paints a vivid picture of the treasure's movement.
- Confessions were extorted under terrible torture
from individual Knights Templar.
One of them, Jean de Chalons,
claimed that the treasure was taken from the Paris Temple
was extremely strongly fortified building,
undercover of night, down to the Port of La Rochelle.
And there were waiting ships.
- He says that he saw the Templars smuggle this treasure
and that it took 50 horses to move all of it.
When they arrived at the port,
they had 18 ships waiting for them,
and the treasure was loaded up and they sailed off.
- Because of where they were in eastern France,
historians speculate that the ships leaving there
would've gone to Scotland
as a place that they could defend easily,
because of course, it's an island.
- [Laurence] According to the story,
when the Templars arrive in Scotland,
a war of independence is underway.
They find an ally in the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce.
- And there's a legend that Robert the Bruce
fought alongside the Templars at the Battle of Bannockburn,
and it was a major victory for Scotland
in the war for independence.
- It's said that Robert the Bruce was so grateful
to the Templars for helping him to defeat the English,
that he gave them privileges,
he gave them titles, he gave them lands,
he helped them to regroup, reassemble,
and find their strength again in Scotland.
And one of the places associated
with the Templars in Scotland is the small town of Rosslyn,
and it's there that the Sinclair family,
an aristocratic family in Scotland
who developed close bonds with the Templars
also built this intriguing, fascinating chapel.
- The Sinclair family is also connected
with Robert the Bruce.
So you have a direct lineage of this family
with the Templars and the chapel that they built.
And so you get this story beneath this chapel,
there is a secret vault that contains
those treasures of the Knights Templar.
(dramatic music)
- Some refer to Rosslyn as a Grail Chapel.
What they mean by that is it was a place
where the Templars brought the Holy Grail.
And the story goes that it was buried under the nave,
under flags stands,
and kept in place with sand brought from Jerusalem,
and that it may also include the True Cross
upon which Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem.
(tense music)
- It is an amazingly detailed little chapel
with the kinds of iconography
that you would expect to the Templars.
In the chapel,
there are marvelous images of singers and musicians,
and so there's a story that says
if you stand in front of this wall,
which is believed through the wall that leads to the vault,
and you play a particular note on that instrument,
that will cause the wall to open.
- [Laurence] No one has yet cracked that code
or found any treasure.
- This whole idea about Rosslyn
being central to the story of the Templar treasure
really only gained traction in the 1980s
with the publication of a bestseller
called Holy Blood Holy Grail,
and then 20 years later, of course, The Da Vinci Code.
- Rossyln Chapel is actually the final setting
for the closing chapter of The Da Vinci Code.
This is where the entire conspiracy comes unraveled,
where it is realized that the Holy Grail
is in fact not located at Rosslyn Chapel,
but the Holy Grail actually represents
Mary Magdalene herself.
- The Da Vinci Code is a really compelling story,
but I think we need to remember, it is ultimately fiction.
- [Laurence] But even if Rosslyn Chapel
doesn't hold the treasure itself,
could it hold the key to where it is now?
- One of the images that appears in stone at Rosslyn
are ears of corn.
You may think, that's unspectacular.
But what you'd remember is that corn didn't arrive in Europe
until Christopher Columbus got to the Americas in 1492,
and crops that had never been seen before
suddenly arrived in Europe.
So how does the Sinclair family,
when they're building Rosslyn Chapel in the 1450s,
decades before Columbus gets to America,
how do they know about corn?
So consider this, going back to the Sinclair family,
so Henry Sinclair, a friend of the Templars
and also an able seaman in his own right,
he helps the Templars take the treasure
out of Rosslyn Chapel, and using his fleet of 12 ships,
they set sail, bound for the Americas.
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- [Laurence] After traversing the Middle East and Europe
in search of the fabled treasure of the Knights Templar,
could searchers be looking on the wrong continent?
A discovery centuries after the Templars disbanded
suggests the possibility that the treasure
could be thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
- In 1795, on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia,
a man called Daniel McKinnis and his friends
stumbled upon something on a particular spot
that piques their curiosity and they go to discover further.
And so they start excavating
with a great deal of enthusiasm.
And the place where they dig is called Oak Island.
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- As they dig, they uncover stones on top of planks.
They continue to dig
and they find more stones on top of planks.
They understood this to be a human construction.
- They go as far as they can,
but then, you know, their technology,
they can't go any further.
And so they build a company with these partners
to help continue on digging.
- [Laurence] The digging continues
and at the 90 foot mark,
they find a large stone engraved with strange symbols,
their meaning, as yet, unknown.
- This area becomes known as the money pit,
and you can see that in two very different ways.
Is it the money pit because at the bottom of this pit,
is the money, the treasure?
Or is it the money pit
because you've poured so much money
into this trying to find the treasure
that you're never gonna get your money back?
- Since Daniel McKinnis's discovery two centuries ago,
a long line of researchers and explorers
have invested resources on Oak Island.
- A whole range of people
have turned up looking for treasure in the money pit,
and they include a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
future President of the United States.
- [Laurence] It isn't until the 1980s
when a big discovery begins to point to Templar origins.
- In the 1980s, there's a real game changer of a discovery.
And that is a series of boulder-like stones.
And when seen from above, they're shaped as a cross.
Now this points to Templar activity.
- [Laurence] More wooden structures
are then found underground
in the second half of the 20th century.
Chisel marks indicate the work was completed
before the invention of modern tools.
- If we think about it,
the Knights Templar were crushed in 1307.
Now, Christopher Columbus arrives in the Americas in 1492,
so we've got a big gap.
- Columbus was certainly not the first European
to set foot on American shores.
There was a Viking presence there,
probably for like, a hundred years
in the midst of the Middle Ages.
- Going back to the Henry Sinclair around 1398,
some accredited Sinclair was discovering Nova Scotia,
which is New Scotland.
So it's possible that the Sinclair family
held on to the Templar treasure at Rosslyn Chapel,
which they built for that purpose,
before then, at the right moment,
setting sail with it for the Americas.
The timeline, the geography make this all feasible,
that the Templar treasure was taken from Scotland
and then eventually deposited into the money pit.
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- [Laurence] In 2006, search intensifies
when brothers Rick and Marty Lagina
purchase controlling interests of Oak Island.
They begin following the old clues
and discovering new ones of their own.
- One of the more compelling discoveries
was a lead cross with a kind of loop at the top
that has been scientifically analyzed and dated.
And they do date back to the Knights Templar period.
And it's a period of history on Oak Island
when there's not known
to have been any other human activity.
- I mean, Oak Island does seem to be kind of the place
where you go to look for things that shouldn't be there,
but maybe they're there,
so who knows what they'll find next.
- [Laurence] It's that dazzling array of possibilities
that has kept the treasure hunters
coming back to the mystery of the Templar treasure.
- I think one of the things
that people find fascinating about the Templars,
even to this day, is the fact that they fell so quickly
and so spectacularly,
and we don't know, kind of what happened after that.
It seems like it should have continued,
or there should have been something
that happened afterwards
or some sort of resistance or something there.
And so we're just wondering, where did all the wealth go?
- The Templars captured the imagination of Europe
at the time, and continues to be both revered and reviled
down through the centuries.
Authors have made them villains and heroes
like some of the Robin Hood legends and things like that.
- The Templar treasure is so powerful
because you're dealing not just with physical treasure,
with gold, silver, jewels.
You're dealing with people's faith.
You're dealing with religious matters,
not just simply worldly goods.
- They were this huge organization,
commanderies all over the place.
They had a massive number of people.
They had massive influence across Europe,
and then it was suddenly gone.
We have a hard time wrapping our heads around that.
- Is the treasure of the Knights Templar still out there?
And what priceless relics does it hold?
For now, the search continues for this mysterious
and allegedly vast hoard.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.
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