A COLLECTION of sacred
artefacts looted by the Romans from the Temple
of Jerusalem and long suspected of being hidden
in the vaults of the Vatican are actually in the
Holy Land, according to a British archaeologist.
Sean Kingsley, a
specialist in the Holy Land, claims to have
discovered what became of the collection, which
is widely regarded as the greatest of biblical
treasures and includes silver trumpets that
would have heralded the Coming of the
Messiah.
The trumpets, gold candelabra and the
bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence were
among pieces shipped to Rome after the looting
in AD70 of the Temple, the most sacred building
in the ancient Jewish faith.
After a decade of research into previously
untapped ancient texts and archaeological
sources, Dr Kingsley has reconstructed the
treasure’s route for the first time in 2,000
years to provide evidence that it left Rome in
the 5th century.
He has discovered that it was taken to
Carthage, Constantinople and Algeria before
being hidden in the Judaean wilderness, beneath
the Monastery of Theodosius.
Dr Kingsley said: “The treasure resonates
fiercely across modern politics. Since the
mid-1990s, a heated political wrangle has been
simmering between the Vatican and Israel, which
has accused the papacy of imprisoning the
treasure.
“The Temple treasure remains a deadly
political tool in the volatile Arab-Israeli
conflict centred on the Temple Mount [the site
of the Jewish Temple and the Muslim Dome of the
Rock].
“The treasure’s final hiding place – in the
modern West Bank . . . deep in Hamas territory –
will rock world religions.”
Emperor Vespasian ordered the destruction of
the Temple at Jerusalem after a Jewish revolt
and Roman forces took about 50 tons of gold,
silver and precious art to Rome.
The Arch of Titus, built a decade later,
depicts Roman soldiers bearing the sacred spoils
on their shoulders. The Jews were expelled from
Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the
world.
Between AD75 and the early 5th century, the
treasure was on public display in the Temple of
Peace in the Forum, in Rome.
The Vatican has told Dr Kingsley that there
is no evidence in its archives that the treasure
resided in Rome from the medieval period
onwards.
He said: “One thing is for sure – it is not
imprisoned deep in Vatican City. I am the first
person to prove that the Temple treasures no
longer languish in Rome.”
Dr Kingsley’s sources include Josephus, a
1st-century Jewish historian who sometimes
exaggerated but is an authority on Roman and
Jewish history. Dr Kingsley also found evidence
in, among others, the works of Procopius, a
court historian of the Emperor Justinian, who
died in AD562, and from Theophanes Confessor
(c760-817), a Christian monk from
Constantinople.
In Chronographia, which spanned
AD284 to 813, Theophanes recorded that Gaiseric,
king of the Vandals, loaded the treasures that
“Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of
Jerusalem” on a boat to Carthage in Tunisia in
AD455.
In the first holy crusade in AD533, the
Byzantine Belisarius seized the treasure from a
royal ship fleeing the Algerian harbour of Hippo
Regius. It was then shipped to Constantinople,
the capital of Byzantium.In the 7th century,
Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands of
Christians, and dragging the Patriarch,
Zacharias, to Persia. Dr Kingsley believes that
his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the
treasures to their final hiding place in
AD614.
Dr Kingsley will reveal his findings in
God’s Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple
Treasure of Jerusalem, to be published by
John Murray on October
5.
