TOMB DISCOVERY AND 1ST FILMING
What follows is a brief description of a possible Tomb Scenario I put together that Sauniere may have found as mentioned in a entry in his diary in 1891 and how someone like me may have discovered its location many years later.
The Tomb shown on this page was discovered by deciphering some of the clues Saunière embedded in the decorations of the Rennes-le-Chateau Church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. For obvious reasons, at this moment in time, I am unable to go into any details of what decorations I used or how I deciphered them.
The clues led to a location in the surrounding hillside, and after a thorough search of many hours, I along with my brother, who had accompanied me on this trip, eventually located the site we had been looking for.
The site was completely overgrown and if I hadn't been searching for it I would have passed it by without a second glance. Also I believe the sun was at a certain angle to highlight the opening, making it more visible than it normally would be. It was with a feeling of excitement and anticipation that I entered. Though I did not realise at the time, situated a few meters beneath me was an ancient tomb. I shone a torch into the darkness and was disappointed to see a set of footsteps in the soft earth covering the floor. They did not seem fresh, though, and I remembered thinking at the time, perhaps they were Saunière's. After venturing further inside, I found it stretched back into the hillside about twenty meters. A small tight passage led off in another direction, and as it curved around a corner, I was prevented from seeing how far back it stretched.
Concentrating on the main area for now, we made a thorough search, looking for any tell tale signs carved into the rocky sides, that Sauniere had been there before. We all know how he likes to leave his mark, but there was nothing; just bare rock, crumbling and loose in places. At its highest point the site was tall enough to stand up in, and it was here that I found we were not alone - a couple of roosting bats had made this place their home. Much of the roof was a lot lower, sloping in many places, and large protrusions of rock almost touched the floor. This meant we had to crawl on hands and knees much of the time, and sometimes even squirm under the lower outcrops to reach other higher areas. A couple of hours, and a few dug holes later, we had still found no treasure or anything else of interest. It was time to turn our attention to the small passage.
As I squirmed a little way inside and shone the torch around, the roof of the passage moved. It was covered in spiders, and some of them looked quite big, so I backed out of the passage a lot quicker than I went in. I do not like spiders. Unable to persuade my brother to crawl into the passage to see what lay around the corner, I had to think of something else. If there was a pile of treasure hidden out of sight around the bend in the passage I would have been straight in there, spiders or not, but without this carrot dangled in front of me just yet, I decided to use my video camera. The plan was to put the camera on record, push it into the passage with a branch I had chosen especially for the task. It had a kind of hook shape on the end so I could pull the video camera back. The camera would be manoeuvred to film whatever secrets, if any, lay around the corner. If anything promising was revealed I would risk crawling though the spiders domain to investigate further. That was the plan.
I placed the camera in the passage as far as I could without entering the spiders' home. I had the hooked stick ready to push it along the passage, so I lent in and pressed the record button, suddenly the video camera disappeared, literally. It was gone.
Crawling forward, I looked where the camera had been and saw a hole. It was small, only slightly larger that the camera, of which there was no sign. The small shaft did not go straight down but twisted at an angle about a meter away from the top. Holding the torch, I poked my arm into the hole and only by poking my head in also could I just see the back of my video camera. All was not lost. Though the camera was too deep for me to reach with my hand, I knew if I could see it, I could probably retrieve it.
To cut a long story short, using a piece of thin looped rope and the hooked stick, I eventually managed to get my camera back, and luckily it still worked. Thinking that maybe the whole floor of the passage may be unsafe, and that because of the footprints we had seen earlier, some evidence that someone else had been here before us, and so had probably already explored the passage and taken anything of worth if there had been anything there to take, we placed a stone over the hole to stop any animals falling down, (my brothers idea) we left the bats and the spiders in peace.
Again, to cut a long story short, my campervan, that my brother and I had traveled to Rennes-le-Château in, and also cooked, ate and slept in, while we were there, broke down... mysteriously. (More info and pics about this here) The campervan could not be fixed in France so it had to be transported back to England. This meant that we had to hire a car and stay in hotels on the return journey. It was while staying at one of these hotels I decided to watch the video footage I had shot on the trip. I connected it to the television in my room and when I reached the part where the camera fell down the hole, I saw what it had recorded, a Tomb, complete with a shrouded body, chests, something that glinted in the light - I thought it had to be gold - but the strangest object of all was a large wooden cross leaning against the wall. You can only imagine my excitement at seeing the Tomb, we had been in the right place after all, I really had deciphered Saunière's church clues correctly, and though luck played a major part, by following the clues, I had found a tomb hidden in the landscape around Rennes-le-Chateau.
Image grabbed from the original Tomb footage revealing the first glimpse of the shrouded body
In the frame grab above you see the shroud covering the body decorated with a red cross. Bottom left, though not very clear in this image, is an object covered with another cloth, this time decorated with a Star of David design. Middle left, the first glint of something gold perhaps.
Unfortunately, as I was unaware of the Tomb at the time and so did not set up the video camera for better lit filming, suitable camera angles, etc, much of the footage is unusable, either out of focus or just of the sides of the shaft. It was however, invaluable in informing me that a Tomb did exist. Next time I would be more prepared.
SECOND FILMING OF THE TOMB
To help secure better film of the Tomb, now I knew it was there, when I returned to film it the second time I took with me a home made camera support consisting of short lengths of batten fixed together with hinged joints fixed with stops to prevent them bending at a right angle. The end on which the camera was fixed could also swivel. Fixed to this was a length of thin cord so I could turn the camera from side to side. This I hoped would allow me some limited control over the camera and so some control over what I was filming, even though I would be filming blind so to speak. I had purchased a second-hand twin bulb camera light from a camera fair. It was bright and had a wide beam so I thought it should light up the dark Tomb okay. The only drawback was it drained the camera's battery quickly, but I only needed a few minutes of film, because the Tomb did not look very big as seen in the first film.
After a few problems and a slight redesign when the ad hoc support failed on my first attempt, I managed to get some good footage of all the objects in the Tomb.
Three Images grabbed from the second Tomb footage
Though the lighting is not perfect, this time the film footage was a lot clearer and all the objects can at last be seen. The hint of eyes and a nose can be seen in the cloth covering the head, or maybe it is the shape of a mask or a helmet. If the red cross, which can be seen clearly now, is a Templar cross, this could indicate the body underneath is that of a Templar knight, possibly buried in full armour. There is a legend that knights have been buried in the secret vaults below Rosslyn Chapel in full armour, though of course it is just a legend. If it is not a Templar knight buried here, and the cross is a Templar Cross, then it must be the body of someone the Templars held in high esteem, or possibly even worshipped.
The Tomb looks like the scene of an ancient looting spree, with all the objects scattered across the floor, as if someone had entered the Tomb some years after it was sealed, sorted through everything and then took all the easy to carry and the most valuable objects, for some unknown reason the Tomb robber left the rest behind. If it was Sauniere maybe there was a danger of someone finding the Tomb's entrance. Perhaps he was being watched, so he decided to reseal the Tomb, no doubt planning to return at a later date, something he seems never to have done.
The Tomb
(Please note the above tomb image has been heavily enhanced in Photoshop to improve the details. Scale and placement of objects may have been altered during enhancement.)
There is only one entrance into the Tomb, situated on the right of the above image. Though the cavern, before it became a Tomb, seems to be naturally formed, the square entrance looks manmade. This was probably an already existing smaller tunnel which the Tomb builders enlarged to bring the objects into the Tomb. To me the Tomb seems to be shaped like a heart. Saunière had images of the 'Sacred Heart' included in the church and the Villa Bethania, but perhaps this is just a coincidence and the two are not related.
The above image shows clearly the scant amount of objects remaining in the Tomb and their scattered nature, and just what is the object concealed under the Star of David decorated cloth?
Tomb article is continued here: THIRD FILMING OF THE TOMB
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