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Holy Grail

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"That's the cup of a carpenter."
―Indiana Jones[src]

The Holy Grail , also known as Cup of Christ[4] or simply the Grail, was an artifact said to have supernatural powers, specifically the ability to grant immortality and was tied to the story of Jesus Christ and later connected to Arthurian legend.

Water held in the Grail was given extraordinary powers: when the liquid was consumed or applied to a person's skin, it could rejuvenate their body and heal serious injury, such as otherwise fatal gunshot wounds. Those who were continuously sustained by the True Grail could be granted eternal life. However, such a prize came with a catch: the Grail was required to stay within its resting place and any attempts to take the relic beyond the temple's boundaries would result in the destruction of the site.

Contrary to popular belief, which held that the cup of the King of Kings would naturally be a fabulous golden chalice encrusted with jewels and inlaid with silver, it actually took on the misguiding appearance of a simple, worn and very battered clay cup.

History[]

Origin[]

"The Holy Grail, Dr. Jones. The chalice used by Christ during the Last Supper. The cup that caught His blood at the Crucifixion and was entrusted to Joseph of Arimathea."
―Walter Donovan[src]

Crafted around 33 AD,[1] the Holy Grail was believed to be the cup that Jesus Christ, the son of God, used during the Last Supper. It was also used to catch Christ's blood at his crucifixion, after the Lance of Longinus pierced his side. The cup was then entrusted to Joseph of Arimathea,[2] who had caught the blood as Christ was removed from the cross.[5]

It was said that the Grail could give to whomever drank from it eternal life.[2] Indeed, the Grail had even the power to heal any injuries and clear any infections or diseases, giving sustenance and hydration to the drinker.[6] Many of the Grail's attributes would be culled from several different narratives, each building upon its predecessor to perpetuate the relic's legend.[5]

Joseph of Arimathea reached Great Britain in 37 AD[7] with the Holy Grail and housed it at the site that would become Glastonbury Abbey but the relic went missing some time after,[3] remaining lost for a thousand years. Legends of the 4th century claimed that Mary Magdalene had taken the Grail as she fled from the Holy Land to Marseilles, France.[5]

The Crusades[]

"After the Grail was entrusted to Joseph of Arimathea, it disappeared, and was lost for a thousand years before it was found again by three knights of the First Crusade. Three brothers, to be exact."
―Walter Donovan[src]

The Grail was rediscovered centuries later by King Arthur who placed it under the care of Sir Bedivere. When Arthur was mortally wounded by his nephew Mordred, he was taken to Glastonbury Tor by Bedivere. After the king's passing, Bedivere returned the Grail to where Joseph of Arimathea had left it in Glastonbury Abbey and founded a hermitage. What happened to the Grail afterwards was unknown to most.[3] Another Arthurian legend involving the quest for the Holy Grail were that of King Arthur's young knight Perceval, who sought the Grail due to his beliefs that it would restore the Fisher King's health, people and land or that of Sir Gawain, who actually saw the Grail and discovered it through a series of visions that culminated in the image of a golden chalice that provided a brilliant light. Perceval's story would go on to become the prototype for all other subsequent legends, though some later works eclipsed his role with Gawain's.[5]

However, after Camelot fell to the invading Anglo-Saxons, the Holy Grail was lost[8] and delivered by Sir Galahad to the monastery at Iona where the cup remained for around three hundred years. In either 717 or 719, a Christian hermit had a vision of the Grail. The monastery was sacked by Vikings in the 9th century and the Holy Grail got as far east as Kiev before trade or raid carried it south.[9]

In the year 1000, an Aramaic-speaking Semite secret society used a pre-existing Greco-Roman facade to construct a temple in a hidden gorge to house the Grail. The group eventually established itself as the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword,[10] which had started to protect the Cup of Christ around six decades prior.[11] They swore to keep it safe from discovery[2] for its sanctity[5] and misuse by any means necessary.[2]

Jesus

A depiction of Christ's blood being caught in the Holy Grail.

The Grail was found in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon after the First Crusade by a company of knights from France, three brothers who pledged to protect it. They lived in the cup's sanctuary—where a Great Seal acted to prevent the artifact from being taken beyond the temple's entrance—for nearly one hundred and fifty years.[2] Around that time, a chalice was looted from Constantinople by the Knights Templar and it became one of many false grails placed on an altar in the canyon temple to disguise the real cup of Christ as well as to test any seekers; only those of true heart and faith would be able to identify it, while others would fall victim to the allure of glittering gold and shining silver.[12]

Although all three lived to a remarkably age,[5] the bravest and most worthy of the brothers was chosen to stay behind while the other two returned to Europe and left a marker near Ankara, Turkey about the Grail's location.[2] During his vigil, however, the remaining Grail Knight, would age a day for every time his spirit wavered and was not worthy to drink from the cup.[6][13]

Sir Richard's shield carried a second marker but the man died on the journey back and he was buried with his shield in a tomb in Venice, Italy. The third brother returned home and in the 13th century told his story to a Franciscan friar[2] who recorded about the whereabouts of the holy relic somewhere "in a canyon deep in a range of mountains" and made a painting about it which was kept in a castle's chapel at Klasenheim, Austria-Hungary.[9]

Legend over legend[]

In the centuries after the Holy Grail's second disappearance, several men, writers and adventurers sought the secrets of the mysterious cup, with some correctly thinking of it the cup Jesus and his disciples used in the Last Supper and the vessel Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the blood of God's son as he was removed from the Cross, while others believed the Grail to be actually the platter from which Jesus and his disciple ate during the Passover lamb and not a cup. All the early Grail romances and myths, however, were primarily written for Lords and Ladies of the French courts, so as they valued items of great beauty, the Holy Grail was depicted as something grand, wonderous and something to marvel at, not as a plain unadorned cup, which was how Leonardo da Vinci came the closest to accurately depicting it as simple pewter and glass in his painting The Last Supper.[14]

During the "Good Friday" of 1163, Saint Hildegard of Bingen received a vision of the Holy Grail which she documented in a manuscript.[9]

The earliest story about the Holy Grail was written by the northern French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who was credited for starting the entire cycle of Grail Romances in 1188 with his narration of Perceval's adventures in the form of Perceval, though de Troyes described it as a wide, deep bowl instead of a cup in his work.[5] As it was in the same year that the Crusaders took over Jerusalem from the so-called "infidel" Moslem, the rash of Arthurian Grail Quest stories saw their popularity increase as they greatly appealed to anyone who craved excitement and adventure during the age of the Crusades. The plot of Perceval, which was was left unfinished when de Troyes died before he could finish, would go on to become the prototype for all other legends that followed, whose popularity rapidly spread all over Europe with de Troyes regarded as the founder of all subsequent Grail legends despite his claims of employing earlier sources from France and Wales, with the Welsh story Peredur (found in the Welsh Mabigonian written down in the 1300s but with much earlier oral roots) and the 11th century Irish story The Phantom's Frenzy having similarities to Perceval.[14]

The next Grail Romance written by the French would be Perlesvaus, compiled anonymously between 1191 and 1212. Its author credited the Knights Templar as the Guardians of the Grail and introduced Sir Gawain as the Grail legend's new hero rather than Perceval.[5] The Grail, however, was depicted not as a cup but as a series of changing images like a vision of Jesus on the cross, a child, a king with a crown of thorns and at last a golden chalice that gave off a brilliant golden light.[14]

Appearing between 1199 and 1200,[14] Robert de Boron would later bring the subject of the Holy Grail to his narration of Joseph of Arimathea, known as Joseph d'Arimanthie,[5] which de Boron claimed to have based on earlier sources like de Troyes, in his case being Biblical ones.[14] There, de Boron defined the Grail as the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and passed to Joseph so he could collect Jesus' blood when he was removed from the cross and introduced the relic as a vessel that possessed miraculous healing powers,[5] effectively as a Christian vessel of grace.[14]

Between 1215 and 1235, the early Grail Romances were nearly swept aside by The Vulgate Cycle, a series of stories authored by Cistercian monks that forever tied the Grail quest with Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, deriving its material from much earlier tales, replacing Perceval with Galahad as the main quest's hero and describing the Holy Grail at one point like the dish in which Jesus and his disciples used to eat the Passover lamb, though other chapters referred to it as a vessel called the sank-greal and connected to the blood of Christ. Nevertheless, the Grail Romances began to die out in the mid-1300s, in part because the Crusaders brought back the Bubonic Plague from their journeys. Travelling minstrels and storytellers who spread the Grail legends throughout the land were were ostracized due to fears that they were bringing the dreaded Black Death with them.[14]

In the 13th century, the Bavarian knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach claimed that the Grail was a magic stone known as the lapsit exillis (translasted as "stone from the heavens" and thought to have been alchemy's famed Philosopher's Stone) upon which God wrote messages in golden letters that order others out (akin to a celestial modern Fax machine) and is used as a cornucopia, which was how he depicted it in his Parzival story, which he wrote between 1197 and 1212 and set in a fictionalized Continental Europe lacking the English Channel unlike previous legends with the Grail's moving castle being called the Munsalvaesche, whose intent was to show the relationship between a secular man and his God and how that fitted into the complete pattern of life.[14]

In the 15th century, King Rene d'Anjou collected hundreds of "Grail cups" at the area of Pyrenees in the South of France, possibly figuring that if he collected enough of them, he would eventually find the the real Holy Grail. The 1400s saw a resurgence in adventure seekers who looked for the Grail, leading to the Age of Exploration between 1420 and 1620.[14]

In the middle of the 15th century, Thomas Malory took on the task of combining, editing, re-arranging and developing the earlier myths of Le Morte D'Arthur, his seminal work, bringing together the Holy Grail's chief attributes[5] between 1446 and 1460 before William Caxton first published the stories in 1485 after Malory's death in 1471, becoming to modern writers what de Troyes' work was to the early 13th century writers, drawing heavily on de Boron's work and also the one of the Cisterian monks.[14] In a tribute of his own to the conclusion of the Age of Chivalry, Malory had the Grail appear first in a vision to all of the Knights of the Round Table during the Pentecostal feast of King Arthur, prompting all of the knights to vow to search for the fabled Cup of Christ, ignoring that many of them were just too sinful or immature to achieve more than a fleeting glimpse of the sacred Christian vessel[5] with the exception of Galahad, who sees the Grail in all its holiness and a vision of Jesus confirming him the holy dish's use in Castle Carbonek before being joined by Sir Percivale and Sir Bors on the feast and healing the Maimed King until Joseph de Arimathea, angels of from Heaven bringing candles and the Lance of Longinus and Jesus take the Holy Grail away after a mass ceremony due to the realm of Logres not being worthy anymore but adivising the three to take a ship to Sarras in a three day-trip to see the Grail even more clearly, after which Galahad becomes the Grail's immortal keeper until one day he requests God to be allowed to die with his request being granted with God taking his soul and His son's cup up into Heaven, leading Percivale and Bors to sadly bury their brother-in-arms before the former becomes an hermit and holy man while the latter returns to Arthur's court and recounts the tale to the king's scribes, who place their story at the Salisbury library. Many versions of Malory's story would go on to be printed since the 1400s.[14]

The Cauldron of Regeneration, one of the great artifacts in Celtic mythology that appeared in many Irish, Welsh and British tales, eventually merged with Christian legends and became part of the body of knowledge surrounding the Holy Grail, that being the Grail lore.[15]

In 1842, Alfred, Lord Tenysson rewrote Malory's works into verse, entitled Morte d'Arthur, later including it on his poem Idyllis of the King in 1885, with his abridged version's title eventually becoming known as the title for Mallory's book. Tenysson's take differed on the Holy Grail's appearance though, depicting it as a crystal bowl often giving off a radiant crimson light. That same year, German composer Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal depicted the Grail once again as a golden chalice, now studdied with gems, with the title character as the hero once more but this time with a dual mission, consisting on seeking the Cup of Christ and retrieve the Holy Spear of the Fisher King Amfortas from Klingsor's clutches.[14]

At one point, a Sufi gave Sir Richard Francis Burton a description of the Holy Grail, information he collected in one of his journals. Though most were burned by Lady Burton upon her husband's death, deeming them obscene and lascivious, an individual named "A—— D——" managed to salvage some of their contents and related it to Lady Eleanora Ferrers-Lansdowne.[9]

Growing up, the royal noble who would become the Sultan of the Republic of Hatay by the late 1930s heard an old story about the empowerment of the Holy Grail, but dismissed looking for the artefact as a "foolish" quest despite thinking it could exist, but merely as a golden up meant for a museum or private collection, hence his liking to allow any interested parties to search for the Grail due to its value increasing.[6]

Modern times[]

"The quest for the grail is not archaeology, it's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the Earth!"
―Henry Walton Jones, Senior[src]

Indiana Jones' father Professor Henry Walton Jones, Senior became obsessed with the Holy Grail after a vision he had beheld in 1898. He made thorough researches and travels for its study and kept several notes about it in his Grail Diary.[9] He even went on to always attend the annual British Grail lore conference at Glastonbury, England as a speaker.[7] On November 14, 1905, Jones received a letter from his friend Marcus Brody, who told him that the abbey of Cantanez, France on the coast of Brittany was in possession of some old Irish manuscripts that referenced the Grail, where he traveled with his family and found convincing proof of the Cup of Christ's existence on July 8 of the following year, visiting the Klasenheim castle full of Grail artifacts like a Flemish painting of Christ's crucifixion eight days later that the professor believed to have been drawn by the friar who recorded the third Crusader knight's last words.[9] Devoting his life to uncover the legendary vessel, Dr. Jones didn't see the search as a vulgar hunt for a powerful relic, but instead, did recognize the quest as one of virtue, healing and compassion,[5] not a search for the "cup of a carpenter" or a relic of power, hence why several sought the Grail in the wrong places for the wrong reasons.[14] By contrast, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler later wanted the Grail for his own glory.[5] The Nazis saw the Holy Grail as a trophy, a symbol of supremacy to cow the world they wanted to conquer.[13] Many people besides Hitler believed the Grail to be an actual relic, capable of being located somewhere.[14]

In 1910, a cup found in Antioch was thought by many scholars to be the Holy Grail due to being an ancient chalice.[16] On February 22, 1912, Henry Jones received a cable from the scholar G. Codirolli, a friend of his, who spoke to him about Paolo of Genoa's journal, which contained information about the Grail.[9] Sometime prior to Halloween of 1913, Henry had published two books about his studies on Grail lore: The Quest of Gawain and Search for the Holy Grail.[8] He would later take his son Junior to Greece in pursuit of clues for the artifact in September 1914.[9]

On August 19, 1916, Henry Jones attended a conference in Philadelphia, where he was ridiculed by Carruthers and others for his pursuit of the Holy Grail, dismissing its existence despite Henry's evidence. While in the ruin of Kaffa after the end of World War I, Codirolli discovered a parchment with the testimony of the physician who attended to the dying of the Franciscan friar who spoke of three trials at the location of the Grail. Codirolli later shared the Kaffa parchment with Henry Jones around 1920.[9]

WalterDonovan

Men under Walter Donovan's employ found the knights' first marker.

By 1928, Henry was still continuing his search after the Holy Grail as noted by his son Indiana Jones upon uncovering the last Alicorn staff and reading its New Testament Greek inscription, itself a service from the Byzantine liturgy known as the Trisagion, leading him to feel exalted as he perceived the air around him like the wavy surface of a lake shined by the sun with translucent images, mirages and rainbows shimmered around himself, reminding him of his father's quest.[17] Despite his father's obsession with the Cup of Christ,[2] Jones himself didn't believe that the Holy Grail had a basis in reality, as he dismissed the relic as mythical along with King Arthur's sword Excalibur in 1935 when he was approached by Kai Ti Chang and Mei Ying to find the Heart of the Dragon. In turn, Kai considered the Holy Grail as nothing more than "Western fancy".[18] The following year, Indy scoffed at an acquaintance named Reeko offering information on a find worth $500, asking if he had the Holy Grail, Noah's Ark and Atlantis "wrapped up in one".[19]

In his lust for obtaining the Cup of Christ, Hitler dispatched his dreaded Schutzstaffel troops to search for the Holy Grail, leading his soldiers to primarily look for the relic around Renne-Le-Chateau's ancient ruins in the South of France, after looking into the legends about Mary Magdalene taking the Grail there[5] thus making several excavations there at France's South due to the location's popularity in Roman Cathar and Templar myths that attracted treasure hunters for years. There weren't any records, surprisingly, of Hitler sending the SS to sneak into Great Britain despite sending them to many places due to the many myths surrounding the holy vessel.[14]

The Ankara marker to the Holy Grail's location, a stone tablet, was eventually unearthed by engineers excavating for copper under the employ of American industrialist and antiquities collector Walter Donovan. Donovan was enticed by the Grail's promise of eternal life but the tablet was missing its top portion.[2]

At the close of 1937,[9] Donovan hired Henry Jones to search for the Grail alongside Doctor Elsa Schneider but both Donovan and Schneider were secretly in league with the Nazis, who had their own sights on acquiring the Holy Grail for Hitler. While working on the project, Jones and Schneider became lovers.[2] On May 25, 1938, Henry gave an interview to Bob Ellis of The Byzantine Crusader to dispell rumors he had gone to the Nile Delta, clarifying about his efforts to find the Holy Grail due to further evidence in Central Europe, explaining the artifact's history, its details and the expedition's progress, but declined to comment with a faint smile when Ellis asked about the whereabouts about the Grail's keeper.[20] However, as Jones traced the location of the second marker to Venice, Italy with his Grail Diary, which told them to go to Alexandretta, he discovered Schneider's Nazi affiliations and sent the book to his estranged son: Indiana Jones. He was abducted by the Nazis soon afterwards.[2]

Sometime later, Donovan contacted Indiana to pick up where Henry had left off and find the Grail, which Jones used as an opportunity to seek out his father. After being attacked by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword who sought to protect the Grail, Indiana was told by Kazim, their leader, where Henry Jones was being kept. Indiana rescued his father and the pair resumed the Grail quest to prevent the Nazis from harnessing its powers. The Grail was located in a mountain-side temple in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon in the Republic of Hatay and was protected by three deadly booby traps, revealed to Indy right after rescuing his father in Germany.[2]

When Indy, his father, Brody and Indy's longtime friend Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir, reached the interior of the temple, they found Donovan's party trying to pass through the final few chambers where the Grail was kept. As they watched, one of Donovan's men was beheaded, seemingly by the first booby trap Jones Sr had spoken of. Indy's party was discovered and brought to Donovan. After a short argument where Indy refused Donovan's demand that he enter the chamber, Donovan viciously shot Jones Sr in the abdomen to force Indy's hand, saying that finding the Grail was his father's only hope.[2] Despite all the incredible things he had seen beforehand, Indy still didn't quite believe the Grail existed, but feared that if he didn't at least try, Donovan would probably gun Sallah and Brody down too or try to send them through the first challenge.[21] While he knew no ancient cup could heal a bullet wound realistically and that maybe the scenery couldn't be repeated for the sake of science, Indy expected his strange experiences to prove him right and for the artifact to work once at least.[6] In order to reach the cup, Indy was required to overcome the three challenges. The first was the "Breath of God", the second the "Word of God" and the third being the "Path of God",[2] though Henry knew how to bypass them thanks to learning from the challenges in Saint Anselm of Canterbury's writings.[5] Afterward, there were extra trials, as the guardian of the Grail had to be defeated in single combat. Finally, the correct Grail had to be found among the dozens of other cups adorning the altar in the chamber. While the Holy Grail would grant eternal life to its drinker, the wrong chalice would see their life taken away.[2]

On Elsa Schneider's recommendation, Donovan made the mistake of choosing a False Grail which he saw as most befitting a "King of Kings". Donovan toasted to eternal life, but instead rapidly aged to death. Indiana Jones, however, found the most modest of the chalices and recognized the true Grail as the cup of a carpenter, drinking from it to confirm if it was the real one.[2] Jones didn't feel any different for better and worse, fearing having chosen wrong when his sight turned blurred and felt dizzy, but soon he could see the Grail transforming into an eagle in a vision.[6] The Grail Knight then confirmed he had chosen wisely, but warned him about the Holy Grail's limitations.[2]

ElsaHand

The Holy Grail just out of Schneider's reach.

Indiana refilled the Holy Grail and ran back to take to his father. Indy had his father take a few sips from the cup and then poured the water over his gunshot would, healing it in a few seconds. Revived, Jones Sr had only a few moments to admire the object of his lifelong quest before Schneider tried to take the Grail from the temple despite the warning not to do so by the Grail Knight. Holding the cup, she crossed the temple's great seal, prompting a large earthquake, and the Grail fell onto a ledge in a rift which had opened up in the temple floor. Schneider, who had nearly fallen in herself, was saved by Indiana but greedily tried to grab the Grail below with her free arm. Indiana, unable to pull her up by both her arms, pleaded with Elsa with give him her other arm so he could get a firm grip to save her. Elsa insisted she almost had the Grail, but her hand broke free of her glove, and she plummeted to her death in a seemingly bottomless pit. A tremor then knocked Indiana into the pit, but he was caught by his father. Indiana, like Schneider, tried to reach the cup, but was persuaded by Henry to let it go, avoiding Schneider's fate[2] while realizing that his father indeed cared more for him than for the Holy Grail.[21] Consequently, the Grail fell into the vast chasm[5] in the Earth's crust.[22] For Jones Sr, realizing the Grail had actually existed was more important than actually possessing it.[2]

Though the Holy Grail was ultimately lost, the experience gave both Indiana and his father the chance to mend their rocky relationship,[2] as the journey itself revealed the Grail's true nature, which allowed the Joneses to end their mutual estrangement.[5] Before exiting the crumbling temple, Indy and his father looked at the Grail Knight,[2] who smiled at them, content that the Grail, beyond anyone's reach, was once again safe.[23]

Legacy[]

Presumed lost in the temblor that rocked the Temple of the Sun,[22] Indiana Jones would later draw a sketch of the Holy Grail in his journal, noting that he hoped his father hadn't gotten used to tagging along with him with their adventure for the Grail, thinking that the older man had had enough of the adventuring lifestyle. On his part, Henry wrote an article about the Grail for the Princeton Review, a copy of which was also kept inside Indy's journal.[16] Eventually, The Ruling Council of Twenty-Three would become aware as Indy's participation in locating the Grail, regarding the whole affair as one of the three best known so-called adventures of Jones alongside those where he found the Sankara Stones and the Ark of the Covenant.[24] Even though the Grail was gone, Jones Sr. kept speaking at an annual British Grail lore conference in England, including one event where a German delegation piqued his interest in the Lance of Longinus due to it being another of the sacred objects involved in the Grail procession, and the professor correctly deduced that the attendees were secretly a group of Nazis maneuvering an expedition in pursuit of the lance.[7]

In 1941, Daan van Rooijen queried how the Golden Fleece could be a myth when the Holy Grail and Ark of the Covenant ended up having a basis in reality.[25] Months later, the elder Jones remarked on the elusive, indefinite nature of the Grail, commenting that the cup discovered by the father-son team was simply "a Grail. But many of the oldest Grail texts, written by the most ancient seers, refer to the Grail as an elixir, as a bread, a powder, gold, or a stone".[26] In 1943, during a World War II mission to Zile Muri-yo, Haiti to retrieve the Heart of Darkness before the Nazis or the Japanese Imperial Army, Indiana Jones reflected to himself that whatever Marie Arnoux was keeping to herself about the Heart, it didn't matter and he should let her have her own secrets because everybody deserved a few, such as the Lord with the Holy Grail. Later on, when warned about a gris-gris, Indy reflected that despite having been once an educated and not superstitious scientist, he had started to accept science may not have all the answers after dealing with the Grail and that only an idiot wouldn't accept such possibilities. Later on, when talking to Arnoux and George McHale, Jones mentioned his father but choose to not comment how he was only still alive for drinking what from what was the Holy Grail.[27] In the end, the Grail did have an effect beyond the Temple of the Sun, as it rejuvenated the health of Henry Jones Sr., who was nearly murdered at the hands of Donovan.[2] The Grail's final kindness permitted the elder Jones a peaceful passing in 1951 through a natural death as opposed to homicide, a fitting legacy for the artifact.[28]

In 1957, after making contact with the Crystal Skull of Akator, Jones reflected that he thought the Holy Grail didn't exist prior to finding it due to considering himself as much scientist as adventurer, but the Grail's existence and powers had made him become more openminded, hence his reasons to not dismiss Akator's existence.[29]

In 1992,[30] while flying over the United States of America,[31] an older Indiana Jones[30] relived the adventures of many years ago, including the memories of the Holy Grail.[31]

Behind the scenes[]

The prop Holy Grail currently resides at Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco, California.

If the assertion by Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, set in 1938, that the Grail Knight and his brothers began guarding the Holy Grail 700 years prior, around 1238, is accurate, then the siblings can't be knights of the First Crusade per Walter Donovan's "bedtime story" earlier in the film.[2] The First Crusade lasted from 1095, as pointed out specifically by the knight in Rob MacGregor's novelization, until 1099. In the novel, however, Jones says 800 years instead.[6]

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, the Grail's appearance is random each time, and its final determination is part of the game's copy protection. When Indy looks at each Grail, he comments "Now THIS is a cup of a carpenter". In the game, it's possible to catch the Grail with the whip, and then surrender it back to the Grail Knight. This can be done even before Elsa tries to catch it, and that way, she can live through the end of the game.[32]

The carpenter line is spoofed in Monkey Island, where it's repeated by Guybrush Threepwood when he sees a chalice.[33] It's further spoofed in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, when looking at an Atlantean stone cup, Indy comments "Certainly NOT a cup of a carpenter".[34]

There were plans by Icons in the mid-1990s to create a Holy Grail prop replica for a proposed Indiana Jones licensed product-line called The Treasures of Indiana Jones, so a prototype was made to convince Lucasfilm Ltd., but Icons' plans ultimately did not go ahead.[35]

Appearances[]

Non-canonical appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Indiana Jones apparel  (Design: Rare Artifacts Poster T-Shirt)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Templars
  4. ↑ Lucasfilm.com 40 Great Indiana Jones Quotes on Lucasfilm.com (backup link on Archive.org)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 IndianaJones.com Holy Grail's Marshall College entry on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Young Indiana Jones and the Ghostly Riders
  9. ↑ 9.00 9.01 9.02 9.03 9.04 9.05 9.06 9.07 9.08 9.09 Grail Diary
  10. ↑ Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
  11. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
  12. ↑ Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide doesn't give a date, though it is likely to be connected to the taking of Constantinople in 1204 at the end of the Fourth Crusade, at a time after the Knights of the First Crusade discovered the Holy Grail.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 junior novel
  14. ↑ 14.00 14.01 14.02 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.06 14.07 14.08 14.09 14.10 14.11 14.12 14.13 14.14 "Lost in the Mists of Time: The Muddled Myths of the Holy Grail" – The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine 8
  15. ↑ Indiana Jones Artifacts
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
  17. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Unicorn's Legacy
  18. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb
  19. ↑  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Revenge of the Ancients"
  20. ↑ The Byzantine Crusader
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 2008 junior novel
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 The Indiana Jones Handbook
  23. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Read-Along Adventure
  24. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Other Tales
  25. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece
  26. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Mystery of Mount Sinai
  27. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead
  28. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  29. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull junior novel
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Verdun, September 1916"
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 The Day of Destiny
  32. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
  33. ↑ Monkey Island
  34. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
  35. ↑ Icons GRAIL CUP prototype at THROW ME THE IDOL (Web archive)

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