Holy Grail Quest in Iceland Ends

The Grail quest of Italian cryptographer Giancarlo Gianazza and architect Thórarinn Thórarinsson is officially over. The pair made headlines earlier this year by publicly presenting their theory that the Holy Grail was hidden in the Kjölur Mountain pass in Iceland. They ascertained the location of the Grail by unraveling “clues” obfuscated in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Da Vinci’s Last Supper, and various painting by Botticelli. All the evidence they amassed pointed to the Grail’s resting place being a secret underground chamber in the mountain pass.

Iceland Review reported this week that the team did in fact do some excavations the Kjölur Mountain pass this summer. Alas, the team came up with nothing more than water where the secret chamber should have been. The article goes on to report that Gianazza is still hopeful that the Grail lays in Iceland, somewhere…

Possibly the most disappointing part of the story is that while doing some research in Iceland prior to the excavations, a possible allusion in local records to a Templar presence in Iceland was uncovered. Gianazza went on record as saying, “He [Thórarinn Thórarinsson] has told me that in the official historic records of Iceland it is stated that in 1217, during the meeting of the Althing – the Parliament established in 930 – the leader and poet Snorri Sturlusson appears next to what the text defines “80 knights from the south, all dressed and armed in the same fashion” and is elected as commander for that year.” No evidence of these Knights being Templars has since surfaced in this summer’s excavations as well.

I have to applaud the group for following through with taking their research to real world tests and seeking the Grail. Few have the convictions of their armchair Robert Langdon dreams. Furthermore, the fortitude it took to announce to the world that they were wrong says something about Gianazza’s efforts as well. Maybe next time guys.

Iceland: The Land of Björk and the Holy Grail?

The location of the Holy Grail has made yet another appearance in the main stream media. Grail Seekers everywhere are now directed to the land of geothermal power, Björk, glaciers, and The Sugarcubes; Iceland. The publication Iceland Review published the theory of architect Thórarinn Thórarinsson and Italian cartographer Giancarlo Gianazza on 2 Jan 08.

The pair believes the final depository of the Grail is in a five meter secret passage in the rural district Hrunamannahreppur (try saying that five times real fast, or finding it on Goggle Earth for that matter). The area in question is near the Kjölur Mountain pass in a place that Gianazza calls the seats of White Rose of the Blessed and Beatrice. Thórarinsson has also secured the necessary approval from the Hrunamannahreppurian authorities to conduct digs in the area to validate their claims.

The Iceland Review article doesn’t go into much detail on how the duo came to believe the Grail lay in Iceland. Luckily, I was turned on to this story with another source via Rick at Oopa Loopa Cafe and have had a couple of weeks to stew on it. Giancarlo Gianazza was interviewed in the Italian publication Hera Magazine in November of 2006, and an English translation is found on gopfrettir.net.

In the article Gianazza goes into great detail on how they were able to pinpoint the location of the Grail using art and literary references. Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Dante are all indicted as co-conspirators in encoding the location of the Grail in their works. The Botticelli and Da Vinci connections and evidence is a little tenuous. Gianazza points out the same vague hidden geometry that we’ve seen since the Tomb of God was published.

Call me dumber than a sack of hammers, but I’ve never seen the significance of the points that most theorists chose to find their hidden geometry/meaning in paintings. Or for that matter why some elements of a painting have significance while others do not. Gianazza points out in Botticelli’s painting Spring, that five of the nine figures encode a date. What significance do the other figures have? One would think that all the elements would hold significance. Maybe art just isn’t my thing…

The lynch pin of their theory is that the Divine Comedy was written as an allegorical to a trip Dante made to Iceland. This I can wrap my mind around. According to Gianazza specific verses in the Divine Comedy make veiled references to his trip and have encoded longitude and latitude points. All this taken together pointed Gianazza to his specific spot in Iceland.

That’s not quite all. The most promising gem of the whole theory is buried at the bottom of the article. Gianazza states: “He [Thórarinn Thórarinsson] has told me that in the official historic records of Iceland it is stated that in 1217, during the meeting of the Althing – the Parliament established in 930 – the leader and poet Snorri Sturlusson appears next to what the text defines “80 knights from the south, all dressed and armed in the same fashion” and is elected as commander for that year.” Of course the inference is that the 80 knights mentioned are the Knights Templar.

I know there’s half a dozen possibilities of who those Knights were. But, there’s no reason that the Templars wouldn’t have shown up in Iceland in 1217. By that time, they were well into shipping and had their fingers in every Royal Court in Europe. Iceland would have been a prime place to keep a stash hidden out of the sight of prying eyes.

Finally, Gianazza has conducted georadar and electric tomography measurements of the area he’s pinpointed. According to the scan pictured in the Hera article, there does seem to be some mass below the surface. I guess sometimes it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you do. Since the blessings of the Icelandic authorities have been given to dig, there could be news very soon on what actually lies beneath the lichen.