Part 2 of The Knights Templar, Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant
Jacob Cove-Jones and the Mysterious Murals
The mysterious murals to either side of the north transept window in Burton Dassett Church.
The Treasure Hunt
When Graham Phillips and Graham and Jodi Russell climbed to the top of the Burton Dassett Hills on the evening of January 6, 2004, they were relieved to find that there were few clouds and the Big Dipper or the Plough could be seen hanging in the night sky. They stood on the summit, watching the constellation slowly moving as the earth continued to rotate until the moment of midnight arrived. The two tail stars, Benetnash and Mizar, were pointing almost vertically downwards towards the southern end of a hill that stood out in the moonlight as a stark silhouette on the far horizon.
The inscribed stone slab found near Chapel Green.
The Strange Church Warden
Jacob Cove-Jones and the Mysterious Murals
After the Black Death, the church at Burton Dassett had been abandoned for some years before coming back into use as a Roman Catholic church. During the English Reformation in the 16th century, it had been taken over by the Protestant Church of England and had become the Anglican parish church of the district. From a guidebook Phillips learned that the paintings were unique and had been painted about 1350, the time of the Black Death, and had only been preserved because they had been plastered over for centuries. During repairs to the building in 1890, the plaster was removed from the internal walls to reveal the ancient decorations hidden for centuries to either side of the north transept window. They were crude depictions of two human figures wearing crowns, accompanied by a series of faded inscriptions written in Latin. As they dated from around 1350, Jacob Cove-Jones was convinced that they held a coded message that would lead to the hidden treasure.
When Phillips visited the church, he soon accepted that Jacob Cove-Jones may have been on to something. The paintings depicted two crowned figures, one holding a severed head, the other a chalice. The angels on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant were said to have represented the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, who themselves are often depicted, one with a severed head and the other with a chalice or water container. If the Templars’ treasure had included the Ark of the Covenant then these two figures may have been used as part of the code to reveal their whereabouts. In fact, Jacob Cove-Jones had propounded more than just the belief that these paintings were clues to the whereabouts of the treasure; he also claimed to have cracked the code and knew where they were hidden.
When Phillips visited the church, he soon accepted that Jacob Cove-Jones may have been on to something. The paintings depicted two crowned figures, one holding a severed head, the other a chalice. The angels on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant were said to have represented the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, who themselves are often depicted, one with a severed head and the other with a chalice or water container. If the Templars’ treasure had included the Ark of the Covenant then these two figures may have been used as part of the code to reveal their whereabouts. In fact, Jacob Cove-Jones had propounded more than just the belief that these paintings were clues to the whereabouts of the treasure; he also claimed to have cracked the code and knew where they were hidden.
The mysterious murals to either side of the north transept window in Burton Dassett Church.
Apart from depicting the two archangels, who may represent the two angels adorning the Mercy Seat on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, the figure on the left holding the severed head could also be a depiction of King Herod holding St John the Baptist’s head (a saint the Templars venerated who some have linked to Baphomet). Alternatively, this representation may allude back even further in time to the Greek legend of the demigod Perseus holding up the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa, whose head he has cut off with his magic sword, which he later presents to the goddess Athena, who will then wear it on her breastplate. Meanwhile, the figure on the right representing the Archangel Gabriel is seen holding a chalice, which clearly links in with the Arthurian legends of the Holy Grail being a chalice or a cup holding Christ’s blood. However, Phillips makes a further connection between the two archangels (both of whom are depicted wearing crowns in the murals) and the constellation we know today as Ursa Major – the Great Bear – again a constellation linked with the mythical King Arthur.
The two tail stars of the Big Dipper, now called Benetnash and Mizar, which to the ancient Israelites represented the guardian angels depicted on the lid of the Ark.The Ark of the Covenant was described as being an ornate chest, approximately four feet long, two and a half feet wide and two and a half feet high, made of cedar wood overlaid with gold. A decorated golden rim ran around the top, and on the sides of the Ark there were rings through which poles could be passed so that it could be carried. On the lid, facing each other, were two golden cherubim, or angels, with their wings outstretched. They were said to have been the two archangels Michael and Gabriel, which according to Hebrew tradition guarded the gates of heaven and were represented in the sky by the two tail stars of the constellation Ursa Major, popularly known as the Big Dipper or the Plough. This in turn leads us to the ideas expressed in the book Hamlet’s Mill written by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend concerning the handle of the mill of the gods, the peg of which is Polaris, the current Pole Star, the handle according to tradition being either the seven stars comprising the constellation Ursa Minor or those comprising Ursa Major. We have also considered these ideas before in Gary Osborn’s article on Nicola Poussin and the esoteric knowledge he has found hidden within Poussin’s paintings. Laura also discussed the topic of Hamlet’s Mill in her book The Secret History of the World (see Chapter six, pages 218-222).
It is also worth recalling that John Dee and Edward Kelley also saw what Dee believed were the archangels Michael, Gabriel and Uriel in the visions or apparitions conjured up by Kelley, Dee’s skryer, within Dee’s famous shewstone. We have previously seen how Dee was knighted or initiated by Saint Michael when the archangel dubbed him on his head with a sword. Again I would point out that the C’s have told Laura that the ‘court of seven’ in which they said Perceval was knighted had a celestial meaning. Could it be that the court of seven refers to the constellation Ursa Major and the ancient Judaic link to the seven archangels of the Bible, who sit in judgement over the affairs of men? Indeed, Dees’ angels would send Edward Kelley on a treasure hunt of his own to recover on Dee’s behalf old parchments and artefacts that may have been buried at the time of the Black Death or subsequently at the dissolution of the abbeys and monasteries in the 16th century. This apparently was how he came into possession of the fine red powder by which he was supposed to have been able to achieve his alchemical transmutations, as detailed in an earlier post. Could this powder have been the remains of a mono-atomic substance like the Egyptians’ shewbread or the Israelites’ ‘manna’ perhaps?
However, it would be the local historian Jacob Cove-Jones who would send Phillips and his friends off on their personal treasure hunt for the Herdewyke Templars’ treasure, a hunt that would ultimately prove successful. If the Templars’ treasure had included the Ark of the Covenant then the two angelic figures may have been used as part of the code to reveal their whereabouts. In fact, Jacob Cove-Jones had propounded more than just the belief that these paintings were clues to the whereabouts of the treasure; he also claimed to have cracked the code and knew where they were hidden.
It is also worth recalling that John Dee and Edward Kelley also saw what Dee believed were the archangels Michael, Gabriel and Uriel in the visions or apparitions conjured up by Kelley, Dee’s skryer, within Dee’s famous shewstone. We have previously seen how Dee was knighted or initiated by Saint Michael when the archangel dubbed him on his head with a sword. Again I would point out that the C’s have told Laura that the ‘court of seven’ in which they said Perceval was knighted had a celestial meaning. Could it be that the court of seven refers to the constellation Ursa Major and the ancient Judaic link to the seven archangels of the Bible, who sit in judgement over the affairs of men? Indeed, Dees’ angels would send Edward Kelley on a treasure hunt of his own to recover on Dee’s behalf old parchments and artefacts that may have been buried at the time of the Black Death or subsequently at the dissolution of the abbeys and monasteries in the 16th century. This apparently was how he came into possession of the fine red powder by which he was supposed to have been able to achieve his alchemical transmutations, as detailed in an earlier post. Could this powder have been the remains of a mono-atomic substance like the Egyptians’ shewbread or the Israelites’ ‘manna’ perhaps?
However, it would be the local historian Jacob Cove-Jones who would send Phillips and his friends off on their personal treasure hunt for the Herdewyke Templars’ treasure, a hunt that would ultimately prove successful. If the Templars’ treasure had included the Ark of the Covenant then the two angelic figures may have been used as part of the code to reveal their whereabouts. In fact, Jacob Cove-Jones had propounded more than just the belief that these paintings were clues to the whereabouts of the treasure; he also claimed to have cracked the code and knew where they were hidden.
The Treasure Hunt
How Jacob Cove-Jones solved the supposed code or where it led him, he refused to reveal. If there was a code in the murals, then Cove-Jones would have been in a better position to solve it in the late nineteenth century than someone today. Long neglected and damaged by the passage of time since they were uncovered in 1890, much of the accompanying Latin writing has crumbled away. However, as the window flanked by the two figures that may have represented the Archangels Michael and Gabriel faces out onto the Burton Dassett Hills, Phillips could not help but wonder if the hills were somehow important. In the Middle Ages, when the murals were painted, the hills were known as the Phoenix Hills. In mythology the phoenix was a firebird and the hills were so named because of the beacon fires that were once lit on top of them as signals of important national events or to convey messages in wartime. A stone structure called the Phoenix Beacon, erected by the Templars who built the church, still stands on the highest point. However, nothing there seemed to provide any clue as to what Cove-Jones may have discovered. Why he didn’t tell anyone what he had discovered is a mystery but, from what is known, Cove-Jones had found something but then acted to spite his critics.
Phillips was able to speak to one of Jacob Cove-Jones’ descendants who explained that his ancestor had been involved in a dispute with other local historians over his finds and had fallen out with the local museum who accused him of perpetrating a hoax. His descendant confirmed that he had found Templar relics which consisted of three gemstones and a discovery of immense importance. Instead of showing them to anyone, he decided to hide them in new locations and left a series of his own clues to lead to their whereabouts. The clues to the locations were in two parts. The first was in the form of three bible verses and the second was in the form of a specially commissioned stained-glassed window designed by his artist friend Bernard Lamplugh that was installed in a the tiny parish church in the nearby village of Langley. Jacob Cove-Jones’ descendant was also able to confirm that the gem stones his ancestor had found were onyx, jasper and beryl. Phillips immediately made a connection between these gemstones and the ‘Stones of Fire’, which helped to control the power of the Ark. They had originally been set in the Jewish High Priest’s breastplate on his Ephod, which was described in detail in the Book of Exodus as a square design made from twined golden linen and inlaid with twelve precious stones set in four rows. According to the Exodus account, the three stones in the bottom row were jasper, an onyx, and beryl.
Over the years many local people had tried to solve the conundrum but had apparently failed. In fact, by now most people considered that there was no coded message in the window at all and that Cove-Jones had made the whole thing up. Phillips, however, was not so sure. It was something of a fad during the late nineteenth century for wealthy collectors of ancient relics to hide one or more of their prized possessions at the end of a trail of ciphered messages as a kind of personal epitaph, set for future generations to decode. Indeed, he had investigated just such a code left in another stained-glass window. Along with two friends from the USA, Graham and Jodi Russell, Phillips visited Langley church to examine the window.
Langley is a leafy village, a few miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon and Jacob Cove-Jones’ stained-glass window can still be seen in its tiny parish church (see below). When Graham and the Russells first visited the building they expected the window to depict an Old Testament scene but instead it showed a scene from the New Testament – the Epiphany. The Epiphany is the twelfth night of Christmas, on January 6, when the Three Wise Men or Magi are said to have visited the child Jesus. Called the Epiphany Window, the stained-glass scene showed the Wise Men with their gifts before the Christ Child in the Bethlehem stable where the Bible says Jesus was born.
The Epiphany Window donated to Langley Chapel by Cove-Jones in 1907. Phillips was able to speak to one of Jacob Cove-Jones’ descendants who explained that his ancestor had been involved in a dispute with other local historians over his finds and had fallen out with the local museum who accused him of perpetrating a hoax. His descendant confirmed that he had found Templar relics which consisted of three gemstones and a discovery of immense importance. Instead of showing them to anyone, he decided to hide them in new locations and left a series of his own clues to lead to their whereabouts. The clues to the locations were in two parts. The first was in the form of three bible verses and the second was in the form of a specially commissioned stained-glassed window designed by his artist friend Bernard Lamplugh that was installed in a the tiny parish church in the nearby village of Langley. Jacob Cove-Jones’ descendant was also able to confirm that the gem stones his ancestor had found were onyx, jasper and beryl. Phillips immediately made a connection between these gemstones and the ‘Stones of Fire’, which helped to control the power of the Ark. They had originally been set in the Jewish High Priest’s breastplate on his Ephod, which was described in detail in the Book of Exodus as a square design made from twined golden linen and inlaid with twelve precious stones set in four rows. According to the Exodus account, the three stones in the bottom row were jasper, an onyx, and beryl.
Over the years many local people had tried to solve the conundrum but had apparently failed. In fact, by now most people considered that there was no coded message in the window at all and that Cove-Jones had made the whole thing up. Phillips, however, was not so sure. It was something of a fad during the late nineteenth century for wealthy collectors of ancient relics to hide one or more of their prized possessions at the end of a trail of ciphered messages as a kind of personal epitaph, set for future generations to decode. Indeed, he had investigated just such a code left in another stained-glass window. Along with two friends from the USA, Graham and Jodi Russell, Phillips visited Langley church to examine the window.
Langley is a leafy village, a few miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon and Jacob Cove-Jones’ stained-glass window can still be seen in its tiny parish church (see below). When Graham and the Russells first visited the building they expected the window to depict an Old Testament scene but instead it showed a scene from the New Testament – the Epiphany. The Epiphany is the twelfth night of Christmas, on January 6, when the Three Wise Men or Magi are said to have visited the child Jesus. Called the Epiphany Window, the stained-glass scene showed the Wise Men with their gifts before the Christ Child in the Bethlehem stable where the Bible says Jesus was born.
To cut a long story short, Phillips and the Russells were able to deduce from the Biblical verses and the clues set out in the stained-glass window the locations of the three gemstones and after experiencing a very fortuitous set of events and coincidences were able to track each one of them down in the local area. A jeweller was able to confirm that the stones were all handcrafted but this did not prove when they had been cut and polished. Hence Phillips turned to a geologist, Dr. Mellor to determine where the stones had come from. He was able to show that the beryl stone came from Egypt, the jasper from Arabia and the Onyx from the area around the Dead Sea. Phillips also noted that if Cove-Jones had been perpetrating a hoax then it was likely that he would have sourced the gemstones from the main mines where these stones were mined in the 19th century, which were in the Americas and the Far East, two areas of the world that were supposedly inaccessible to the ancient Israelites and the Herdewyke Templars in their respective ages. Although Dr. Mellor’s findings did tend to support Cove-Jones’s claims, they did not prove that the gemstones were genuine Old Testament relics as the Herdewyke Templars could have picked them up anywhere in the Middle East, as they would have been relatively common gems possessed by the medieval Arab population. However, the stones did seem to produce certain anomalous effects such as leaving a foggy shadow on undeveloped photographic paper (although there was no indication that they were radioactive) and when Phillips and the Russells took them out into some local woods at night, they encountered a mysterious geoplasmic ball or fiery orb of red light as large as a soccer ball near to a small lake renowned for such occurrences, which caused the torches or flashlights they were carrying to dim and go out. The orb approached very close to them, making a high pitched noise as it did so as if it were alive. It then suddenly shrank down to the size of a tennis ball and, upon making a loud hissing noise, it shot up into the air spiraling upwards until it disappeared over some trees growing on the opposite bank of the lake. Whilst the orb was close to them, each had experienced a strange tingling sensation all over their bodies, like being in a strong field of static electricity. After encountering the ball of plasma, each of them was left with a red prickly rash on the palm of the hand in which they had been carrying one of the gems they had each individually found, which would subsequently disappear within 24 hours of the orb’s appearance. Phillips wondered whether this phenomenon was what the Israelites had described as the ‘Glory of the Lord’.
If you read the abridged account of Phillip’s book per the link above, you will see that he makes no mention of the hunt for the three gemstones. Whether this was because of reasons of space or a subsequent change of heart on his part as to the authenticity of the stones as genuine Templar relics or the Israelites’ Stones of Fire I do not know. However, the discovery of the three gemstones left one last relic hidden by Cove-Jones to be discovered and its discovery would potentially be the most important find of all – since it was to be “a discovery of immense importance”.
Written in StoneIf you read the abridged account of Phillip’s book per the link above, you will see that he makes no mention of the hunt for the three gemstones. Whether this was because of reasons of space or a subsequent change of heart on his part as to the authenticity of the stones as genuine Templar relics or the Israelites’ Stones of Fire I do not know. However, the discovery of the three gemstones left one last relic hidden by Cove-Jones to be discovered and its discovery would potentially be the most important find of all – since it was to be “a discovery of immense importance”.
Eventually Graham and the Russells concluded that if the window had held a coded message for each of the gemstones they had found then it might also hold a clue to help lead them to “the discovery of immense importance” that Cove-Jones had claimed to have found, in which case they felt the clue had to have something to do with the star of Bethlehem depicted at the top of the window. According to the New Testament, a strange new star appeared in the sky at the time of Jesus’ birth. Somewhere to the far east of Judea, the three Wise Men believed that the star was a sign from God to reveal the birthplace of the Messiah. They travelled in the direction of the star until they reached Bethlehem. The story concerned a place being found by following a star. Could a star somehow be involved in leading to the whereabouts of the Templars’ treasure? In fact, the stained-glass window appeared to show two stars, one overlaid on the other.
If Phillip’s theory was correct then the Templars’ treasure included the Ark of the Covenant and there were two stars fundamentally associated with the Ark. These were the two tail stars of Ursa Major - the Big Dipper or the Plough, now called Benetnash (the ancient Hebrew name being ‘Reysh’ meaning the head, as Michael was the head or supreme angel) and Mizar (the ancient Hebrew name being ‘Kos’ meaning the cup), which to the ancient Israelites represented Michael and Gabriel (known as the ‘kings of heaven’ after Lucifer’s fall from grace and casting out from heaven), the guardian angels depicted on the lid of the Ark. Indeed, this tied up with the figures portrayed in the murals to either side of the window in Burton Dassett Church. Gabriel was the bringer of enlightenment and God’s message and was often depicted with a vessel containing the sacred water of God’s salvation, while Michael was the instrument of God’s wrath, often depicted with severed heads of the Lord’s enemies. One of the figures in the Burton Dassett murals held a chalice and the other a severed head. Even though they were depicted as medieval kings, this was surely more than coincidence. Perhaps they represented the two archangels of the Ark. Maybe either or both of the Big Dipper stars they were associated with somehow indicated the secret hiding place.
However, if Jacob Cove-Jones had used these stars to indicate a hiding place, Phillips and the Russells would need to know where and when they should be observed. The positions of the stars change all the time, not only in relation to the rotation of the earth, but also throughout the course of the year as the earth orbits the sun. If the treasure was hidden somewhere that was, for instance, indicated by the stars directly above it, they would need to know the precise time and day of the year to observe them. Furthermore, they would need to know where to observe the stars from, as they would appear to be over different locations depending on the viewing point.
Phillips and the Russells eventually came up with a solution. At the top of the Epiphany Window there was the star which guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem. In fact, it appeared to be two stars, one overlaid on the other. And right next to it there was a phoenix rising from flames – the very same creature after which the Burton Dassett Hills had originally been named. Could the location from which to observe these stars be the top of the Phoenix Hills? In fact, on top of these hills there stood the Phoenix Beacon, erected by the Templars themselves, which bore a striking resemblance to the central image in the stained-glass window: the odd-shaped casket held by one of the Wise Man. It looked very much like the round tower, with its peculiar, conical roof and castellated walls. The casket even had a bird upon it that seemed to be another representation of the phoenix rising from the fire. When Phillips and the Russells realised that the panels either side of the phoenix image beside the star were decorated with the letters B and M, they were convinced that the Phoenix Beacon was where they should observe the stars. These were the initials of the two tail stars of the Plough or Big Dipper - Benetnash and Mizar.
Now the account I am setting out here is taken directly from the abridged version of Phillip’s book found on his website. However, he has left out an important incident that helped him to determine the location of the fourth relic. Why this is so, I cannot say but it may be related to the strange manner in which he was assisted. On an earlier visit to the Templar church at Burton Dassett, he had encountered a kindly man of about sixty who he had taken to be the church warden. This gentleman had previously been very helpful to Phillips. After the Russells had returned to the United States, Phillips returned to the church at Burton Dassett alone and encountered the same man again. Phillips asked the man for help when they both stood underneath the window where the pictures of the two angels were found either side of it. Besides the angels, the mural showed red spirals as well. Phillips had previously asked the man what he thought the red spirals represented. The man told him that he thought the spirals might be connected to the apparitions at the ancient well located outside the church, which people in the Middle Ages had viewed as miraculous visions of saints and angels. Even today, people still see such strange sights but do not attribute them to miracles. Apparently, a previous vicar had seen a red fiery ball of light, which had emitted a bolt of lightning that had struck a gatepost, setting it on fire. People who had seen the light had seen it spiralling up into the night sky and disappearing. The man felt that this was what the artists had been trying to depict in the murals. At the time, this reminded Phillips of the strange balls of light that had been reported at Jebel Madhbah in the Valley of Edom. On re-encountering the church warden and having experienced the red ball of light at first hand himself, Phillips asked him if he knew that these things had been seen all over the local hills. The man suggested that the worshipers at the church had seen these lights in the green hills that rose behind the church and could be seen through the window. They may therefore have viewed the window as holy and may have been the reason why the church was called All Saints, because the worshipers may have thought they were seeing saints. This makes me think of the visions that the people of Tenerife were supposed to have witnessed of angels and people walking in procession as described in the transcripts. However, the strange little man pointed out that the apparitions were occurring there long before Christianity arrived and the Romans had called the hills the Phoenix Hills (the Phoenix being the firebird) long before they became known as the Beacon Hills. However, when Phillips went to his car to retrieve a photograph of the window at Langley Church he wanted to show the man, he found he had disappeared.
The final question for Phillips and the Russells was when they should observe the stars. Ultimately they decided that the answer lay in the name of the window and the event it depicted – the Epiphany on the 6 January. There was only one thing left: at what time on that night should they observe the stars? Something in the window did provide a precise hour of the day. At the very top of the window there was a cockerel, which in Christian tradition crowed at midnight to reveal to the Wise Men the precise whereabouts of the stable where Jesus had been born, once the star had led them to Bethlehem. If they were right then midnight on January 6 appeared to be the precise time they needed to be on top of the Burton Dassett Hills.
If Phillip’s theory was correct then the Templars’ treasure included the Ark of the Covenant and there were two stars fundamentally associated with the Ark. These were the two tail stars of Ursa Major - the Big Dipper or the Plough, now called Benetnash (the ancient Hebrew name being ‘Reysh’ meaning the head, as Michael was the head or supreme angel) and Mizar (the ancient Hebrew name being ‘Kos’ meaning the cup), which to the ancient Israelites represented Michael and Gabriel (known as the ‘kings of heaven’ after Lucifer’s fall from grace and casting out from heaven), the guardian angels depicted on the lid of the Ark. Indeed, this tied up with the figures portrayed in the murals to either side of the window in Burton Dassett Church. Gabriel was the bringer of enlightenment and God’s message and was often depicted with a vessel containing the sacred water of God’s salvation, while Michael was the instrument of God’s wrath, often depicted with severed heads of the Lord’s enemies. One of the figures in the Burton Dassett murals held a chalice and the other a severed head. Even though they were depicted as medieval kings, this was surely more than coincidence. Perhaps they represented the two archangels of the Ark. Maybe either or both of the Big Dipper stars they were associated with somehow indicated the secret hiding place.
However, if Jacob Cove-Jones had used these stars to indicate a hiding place, Phillips and the Russells would need to know where and when they should be observed. The positions of the stars change all the time, not only in relation to the rotation of the earth, but also throughout the course of the year as the earth orbits the sun. If the treasure was hidden somewhere that was, for instance, indicated by the stars directly above it, they would need to know the precise time and day of the year to observe them. Furthermore, they would need to know where to observe the stars from, as they would appear to be over different locations depending on the viewing point.
Phillips and the Russells eventually came up with a solution. At the top of the Epiphany Window there was the star which guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem. In fact, it appeared to be two stars, one overlaid on the other. And right next to it there was a phoenix rising from flames – the very same creature after which the Burton Dassett Hills had originally been named. Could the location from which to observe these stars be the top of the Phoenix Hills? In fact, on top of these hills there stood the Phoenix Beacon, erected by the Templars themselves, which bore a striking resemblance to the central image in the stained-glass window: the odd-shaped casket held by one of the Wise Man. It looked very much like the round tower, with its peculiar, conical roof and castellated walls. The casket even had a bird upon it that seemed to be another representation of the phoenix rising from the fire. When Phillips and the Russells realised that the panels either side of the phoenix image beside the star were decorated with the letters B and M, they were convinced that the Phoenix Beacon was where they should observe the stars. These were the initials of the two tail stars of the Plough or Big Dipper - Benetnash and Mizar.
Now the account I am setting out here is taken directly from the abridged version of Phillip’s book found on his website. However, he has left out an important incident that helped him to determine the location of the fourth relic. Why this is so, I cannot say but it may be related to the strange manner in which he was assisted. On an earlier visit to the Templar church at Burton Dassett, he had encountered a kindly man of about sixty who he had taken to be the church warden. This gentleman had previously been very helpful to Phillips. After the Russells had returned to the United States, Phillips returned to the church at Burton Dassett alone and encountered the same man again. Phillips asked the man for help when they both stood underneath the window where the pictures of the two angels were found either side of it. Besides the angels, the mural showed red spirals as well. Phillips had previously asked the man what he thought the red spirals represented. The man told him that he thought the spirals might be connected to the apparitions at the ancient well located outside the church, which people in the Middle Ages had viewed as miraculous visions of saints and angels. Even today, people still see such strange sights but do not attribute them to miracles. Apparently, a previous vicar had seen a red fiery ball of light, which had emitted a bolt of lightning that had struck a gatepost, setting it on fire. People who had seen the light had seen it spiralling up into the night sky and disappearing. The man felt that this was what the artists had been trying to depict in the murals. At the time, this reminded Phillips of the strange balls of light that had been reported at Jebel Madhbah in the Valley of Edom. On re-encountering the church warden and having experienced the red ball of light at first hand himself, Phillips asked him if he knew that these things had been seen all over the local hills. The man suggested that the worshipers at the church had seen these lights in the green hills that rose behind the church and could be seen through the window. They may therefore have viewed the window as holy and may have been the reason why the church was called All Saints, because the worshipers may have thought they were seeing saints. This makes me think of the visions that the people of Tenerife were supposed to have witnessed of angels and people walking in procession as described in the transcripts. However, the strange little man pointed out that the apparitions were occurring there long before Christianity arrived and the Romans had called the hills the Phoenix Hills (the Phoenix being the firebird) long before they became known as the Beacon Hills. However, when Phillips went to his car to retrieve a photograph of the window at Langley Church he wanted to show the man, he found he had disappeared.
The final question for Phillips and the Russells was when they should observe the stars. Ultimately they decided that the answer lay in the name of the window and the event it depicted – the Epiphany on the 6 January. There was only one thing left: at what time on that night should they observe the stars? Something in the window did provide a precise hour of the day. At the very top of the window there was a cockerel, which in Christian tradition crowed at midnight to reveal to the Wise Men the precise whereabouts of the stable where Jesus had been born, once the star had led them to Bethlehem. If they were right then midnight on January 6 appeared to be the precise time they needed to be on top of the Burton Dassett Hills.
When Graham Phillips and Graham and Jodi Russell climbed to the top of the Burton Dassett Hills on the evening of January 6, 2004, they were relieved to find that there were few clouds and the Big Dipper or the Plough could be seen hanging in the night sky. They stood on the summit, watching the constellation slowly moving as the earth continued to rotate until the moment of midnight arrived. The two tail stars, Benetnash and Mizar, were pointing almost vertically downwards towards the southern end of a hill that stood out in the moonlight as a stark silhouette on the far horizon.
By flashlight, they looked at a map to see that the hill was called Napton Hill, some 14 miles to the north-east. To its immediate south was the location to which the stars had pointed – a tiny district on the edge of the village of Napton-on-the-Hill called Chapel Green.
As they drove out to Chapel Green the following day, the three of them wondered what they would find there. In the Epiphany Window the star is shown hanging over what appears to be a chapel surrounded by a defensive wall and a red-brick, arched entrance. This was presumably meant to represent Bethlehem, but could it also represent what they were looking for? If Jacob Cove-Jones was to be believed, the place they were seeking was the hiding place of the Templars’ relics. As these items were considered holy, then the likelihood was they would have been hidden on hallowed ground. Chapel Green was named after a medieval chapel that once stood there but all that remains of it now is a holy well that stands beside a road at the foot of the hill. In fact, in the 1800s the original shrine that marked the spot was replaced by a drinking fountain that would have been there in Cove-Jones’ time. This, they decided, was their best bet.
When they arrived at the spot they discovered the drinking fountain all overgrown in the hedges of a roadside verge. When they saw it, they were convinced that they had cracked Jacob Cove-Jones’ code. It was a rectangular structure, about three feet high, four feet wide, and a foot thick, with a rounded arched niche in which a tap for the spring water had obviously once been set. Built from red brick, it reminded them of red-brick arch in the Epiphany Window. The star – or perhaps two stars – in the widow design was directly over a rounded brick arch that was remarkably similar to what they had found.
The area around the water fountain was later surveyed by archaeologists using geophysics equipment to detect what was under the ground. Unfortunately, nothing of interest was found. However, it was ultimately discovered that in the 1940s the entire area around the fountain was dug up to widen the lane and to build a number of houses along the new road. The records showed that the excavated rubble had been used to divert a stream in a nearby wood and this area too was investigated by the geophysics team. Although there was no evidence of any gold objects like the Ark of the Covenant, one thing was found that must have originally come from the ground excavated beside the water fountain. In the banks of the stream, a flat stone slab was discovered which was about an inch thick, a foot and a half long, and a foot wide. In the abridged account, Phillips again fails to mention that they had been drawn to the location of the stone slab by a blue orb of light this time, which was about the size of a tennis ball. As they approached it, the shining blue sphere that seemed to hang suspended like a Christmas decoration over some bushes growing along the edge of the small stream suddenly blazed a brilliant white and then shot up silently into the air, spiralling upward before disappearing into the darkness. This orb left Phillips even more dumbfounded than the first orb they had experienced at the lake. He thought the appearance of the first orb was probably a coincidence but to have experienced a second such light seemed to him more than just coincidence.
Why Phillips chose to leave these strange occurrences out of the abridged version of the book on his website seems very odd to me, unless he felt that people might think these events were just too uncanny to be believable. If so, why did he include them in his book in the first place? Perhaps the editorial decision to do so was left to someone else, but I think it robs the reader of learning of the truly bizarre circumstances in which the relics were found. The same is equally true of the strange church warden he encountered (see postscript below for more on him). When taken together with other odd occurrences experienced by this small team when locating and finding the gemstones, their treasure hunt seemed to involve some very remarkable synchronicities, which leads me to suspect that someone or some force wished the relics to be discovered by these individuals. It would be very interesting to get the C’s comments on this.
Made of sandstone, the flat stone slab was inscribed with what appeared to be thirteen separate symbols, cut into the stone to a depth of about a quarter of an inch. The slab had clearly been broken off from a longer piece as one end was irregular and jagged. The other end, however, was smoother and had been deliberately rounded at the corners.
The slab was taken to the British Museum in London, which boasts England’s best facilities for identifying ancient artefacts. However, as the stone was not made from organic matter it could not be carbon dated and, as it had been removed from its original location and used for landfill, its age could not be determined by the usual archaeological methods. How long ago the slab was shaped and inscribed was also a mystery as the symbols carved into it could not be identified. They appeared to match no form of ancient or modern writing. In fact, they could not be matched with any known alphabet or symbol system on the museum’s massive database. At the time of the book’s publication, the Russells were planning to have the slab scientifically examined at Brigham Young University in Utah. In addition, the archaeologist David Diesseman, who had assisted Phillips with his research in Israel, was arranging for the inscriptions to be examined by linguists at the Hebrew University in Israel. I am not aware of what the scientists or linguists had made of the slab and the inscriptions but Phillips had noted in his book that ancient Hebrew had only emerged in written form around 1000 BC, some 350 years or more after the Exodus.
If the Templars treasures had been hidden in Chapel Green they had long since been removed, either by Jacob Cove-Jones or someone else. The stone slab, however, may have been overlooked. It is just possible that it may have been the most important artefact of all. The sandstone from which it was cut was identified as arenite sandstone – precisely the same sort of rock from which Jebel Madhbah in the Valley of Edom is formed. If Phillips was right this was the true Mount Sinai, and the Book of Exodus states that the stone slabs from which the Ten Commandments were made came from that very mountain (Exodus 34:4). Could this strange stone slab have been one, or part of one of the two tablets that the Bible says were inscribed by God, given to Moses and kept in the Ark of the Covenant?
As they drove out to Chapel Green the following day, the three of them wondered what they would find there. In the Epiphany Window the star is shown hanging over what appears to be a chapel surrounded by a defensive wall and a red-brick, arched entrance. This was presumably meant to represent Bethlehem, but could it also represent what they were looking for? If Jacob Cove-Jones was to be believed, the place they were seeking was the hiding place of the Templars’ relics. As these items were considered holy, then the likelihood was they would have been hidden on hallowed ground. Chapel Green was named after a medieval chapel that once stood there but all that remains of it now is a holy well that stands beside a road at the foot of the hill. In fact, in the 1800s the original shrine that marked the spot was replaced by a drinking fountain that would have been there in Cove-Jones’ time. This, they decided, was their best bet.
When they arrived at the spot they discovered the drinking fountain all overgrown in the hedges of a roadside verge. When they saw it, they were convinced that they had cracked Jacob Cove-Jones’ code. It was a rectangular structure, about three feet high, four feet wide, and a foot thick, with a rounded arched niche in which a tap for the spring water had obviously once been set. Built from red brick, it reminded them of red-brick arch in the Epiphany Window. The star – or perhaps two stars – in the widow design was directly over a rounded brick arch that was remarkably similar to what they had found.
The area around the water fountain was later surveyed by archaeologists using geophysics equipment to detect what was under the ground. Unfortunately, nothing of interest was found. However, it was ultimately discovered that in the 1940s the entire area around the fountain was dug up to widen the lane and to build a number of houses along the new road. The records showed that the excavated rubble had been used to divert a stream in a nearby wood and this area too was investigated by the geophysics team. Although there was no evidence of any gold objects like the Ark of the Covenant, one thing was found that must have originally come from the ground excavated beside the water fountain. In the banks of the stream, a flat stone slab was discovered which was about an inch thick, a foot and a half long, and a foot wide. In the abridged account, Phillips again fails to mention that they had been drawn to the location of the stone slab by a blue orb of light this time, which was about the size of a tennis ball. As they approached it, the shining blue sphere that seemed to hang suspended like a Christmas decoration over some bushes growing along the edge of the small stream suddenly blazed a brilliant white and then shot up silently into the air, spiralling upward before disappearing into the darkness. This orb left Phillips even more dumbfounded than the first orb they had experienced at the lake. He thought the appearance of the first orb was probably a coincidence but to have experienced a second such light seemed to him more than just coincidence.
Why Phillips chose to leave these strange occurrences out of the abridged version of the book on his website seems very odd to me, unless he felt that people might think these events were just too uncanny to be believable. If so, why did he include them in his book in the first place? Perhaps the editorial decision to do so was left to someone else, but I think it robs the reader of learning of the truly bizarre circumstances in which the relics were found. The same is equally true of the strange church warden he encountered (see postscript below for more on him). When taken together with other odd occurrences experienced by this small team when locating and finding the gemstones, their treasure hunt seemed to involve some very remarkable synchronicities, which leads me to suspect that someone or some force wished the relics to be discovered by these individuals. It would be very interesting to get the C’s comments on this.
Made of sandstone, the flat stone slab was inscribed with what appeared to be thirteen separate symbols, cut into the stone to a depth of about a quarter of an inch. The slab had clearly been broken off from a longer piece as one end was irregular and jagged. The other end, however, was smoother and had been deliberately rounded at the corners.
The slab was taken to the British Museum in London, which boasts England’s best facilities for identifying ancient artefacts. However, as the stone was not made from organic matter it could not be carbon dated and, as it had been removed from its original location and used for landfill, its age could not be determined by the usual archaeological methods. How long ago the slab was shaped and inscribed was also a mystery as the symbols carved into it could not be identified. They appeared to match no form of ancient or modern writing. In fact, they could not be matched with any known alphabet or symbol system on the museum’s massive database. At the time of the book’s publication, the Russells were planning to have the slab scientifically examined at Brigham Young University in Utah. In addition, the archaeologist David Diesseman, who had assisted Phillips with his research in Israel, was arranging for the inscriptions to be examined by linguists at the Hebrew University in Israel. I am not aware of what the scientists or linguists had made of the slab and the inscriptions but Phillips had noted in his book that ancient Hebrew had only emerged in written form around 1000 BC, some 350 years or more after the Exodus.
If the Templars treasures had been hidden in Chapel Green they had long since been removed, either by Jacob Cove-Jones or someone else. The stone slab, however, may have been overlooked. It is just possible that it may have been the most important artefact of all. The sandstone from which it was cut was identified as arenite sandstone – precisely the same sort of rock from which Jebel Madhbah in the Valley of Edom is formed. If Phillips was right this was the true Mount Sinai, and the Book of Exodus states that the stone slabs from which the Ten Commandments were made came from that very mountain (Exodus 34:4). Could this strange stone slab have been one, or part of one of the two tablets that the Bible says were inscribed by God, given to Moses and kept in the Ark of the Covenant?
The inscribed stone slab found near Chapel Green.
The Strange Church Warden
As a postscript, when Phillips subsequently returned to the church at Burton Dassett to thank the strange little man who had helped him, he could not find him. He had assumed on both occasions that he was the church warden, as he had been lighting candles and tending flowers in the church, something which typical church wardens might do. However, despite asking around, nobody in the village and the local area seemed to know who he was. It was clear that he was not a regular visitor to the church. In fact the Vicar of All Saints Church told Phillips that no one matching the man’s description was a church warden at the church. Phillips had not asked the mysterious little man his name and so was never able to establish his identity. On the first occasion he had met the man, he had come up behind Phillips without making a sound, even though the old door to the church creaked loudly on opening and footsteps on the stone floor echoed all around the church. However, Phillips acknowledged how fortuitous it was to have met the man on the two occasions he had visited the church, since without his help he might never have found the gemstones and the stone slab. Was this more than a case of good fortune though?
Continued in Part 3
Continued in Part 3
