Claims that the Holy Grail has been found after sitting for 1,000 years in a Spanish church face a tough inquisition from doubtful historians. Visitors flocked to the museum of the San Isidro basilica in Leon after a new book said it contained the chalice from which Jesus Christ sipped at the Last Supper. Experts on Tuesday poured doubt on that dramatic claim by two Spanish historians, saying the Grail — subject of tales from Medieval times to Indiana Jones and Monty Python — was a myth, not a real drinking vessel.

 

"The Grail legend is a literary invention of the 12th century with no historical basis. You cannot search for something that does not exist," Carlos de Ayala, a medieval historian at the Madrid’s UAM university, told AFP. The cup joined a list of hundreds of pretenders to the title of Holy Grail, including one in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia. Made of onyx and encased in gold and precious stones, the goblet in Leon has been known as the chalice of the Infanta Dona Urraca, daughter of Fernando I, king of Leon in the mid-11th century. [Link]