All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S05E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH[EZTVx.to]

Tonight, a vast treasure of gold and
sacred relics held by a medieval

order. Tonight's Templar was the most
charismatic, powerful order of

warriors in the Middle Ages.

They're alleged to have the Holy Grail,
the Ark of the Covenant, the Peace of

the True Cross, all this gold that they
accumulated over a couple hundred years.

But in 1307 AD, the Templar treasure
mysteriously vanishes. Or does it?

They fell so quickly and so
spectacularly. And we don't know what

that. Where did all the wealth go?

Now, we explore the top theories
surrounding the Knights Templar and his

hoard. The place where they dig is
called Oak Island.

He says that he saw the Templars smuggle
this treasure and that it took 50

horses to move all of it.

There was interest in Templar treasure
from a very sinister source.

the Third Reich, and Adolf Hitler.

Does the Templar's treasure still exist,
and if so, where is it?

November, 1095.

Pope Urban calls on all Christians.

to take up arms against Muslims who
controlled the Holy Land.

Christian armies set off on what's going
to be the first of a crusade. They

marched through modern -day Turkey,
Constantinople, and what is today Syria,

Antioch.

There was a massive response, probably
about 100 ,000 people from all walks of

life, mostly from the nobility but the
poor. Even churchmen left their

monasteries in order to go on this holy
war.

Pope Urban II wants to liberate the Holy
Land. He wants to liberate Jerusalem

and the most holy sites for Christians
from Muslim rule.

Then they set their sights on the holy
city of Jerusalem.

It involves a siege process that lasts
about a month.

And by July of 1099, they have breached
the walls of Jerusalem itself.

The Holy Land and all its famed sites.

are now back in the control of the
Catholic Church.

This is a huge deal because these are
the holiest places in Christian lore.

And people come from all over. They come
from Italy, from England, from France.

Pilgrims want to go now to visit the
holy places.

But that brings a new challenge.

Then as now, travelers are easy prey,
especially in a world in which there's

such things as ATMs or traveler's checks
or credit cards.

You're going to need money. You're going
to need goods for several months.

They're easy targets for robbers.

There's no Motel 6, there's no local
police forces or things like that, and

you have all sorts of pilgrims who now
are being murdered on the way to

Jerusalem. I mean, literally, the roads
to Jerusalem are littered with the

skeletons of pilgrims.

In 1119, with the blessing of the
Catholic Church, a French knight in

forms a security force to protect the
pilgrims.

They call themselves the Poor Knights of
the Temple of King Solomon, but will

soon become known simply as the Knight
Templar.

This is a monastic order, and they take
the vow of poverty, the vow of chastity,

the vow of obedience.

So you have these poor knights, but that
will create one of the wealthiest

orders in the world.

This idea of fighting for God and the
Holy Land really captures the

of the Christian world.

and the Templars embody that.

They attract donations from all over
Christendom, and this transforms them

one of the most powerful forces of the
period.

The Knights Templar were the most
charismatic, powerful order in the

Ages. Both priests and the bravest
soldiers in the Crusades, they really

the spirit of the age, and particularly
in Rome.

where the popes shower privileges on
them.

They're not answerable to kings, to
princes, to dukes. They're only

directly to the pope in Rome.

The Templars' fortune grows through
their steady stream of donations.

They also acquire vast estates, castles,
and cathedrals all over Europe.

They're involved in all kinds of sectors
of the European economy.

They're in manufacturing.

They're getting mills. They're getting
all kinds of donations from wealthy

donors. So they're not just a group of
knights with swords.

There's an entire intricate financial
system that's supporting them.

It spans all sorts of countries.

And it may be, in fact, the world's
first multinational corporation.

The Templars have outposts throughout
Christendom and go on to create the

world's first modern banking system.

They set up a system of effectively
banking in which if you were a pilgrim,

could make a deposit at a commandery or
an outpost, and then you would have a

script you could redeem when you get to
Jerusalem, and you were good for it when

you got there.

These Templar commanderies, they are
banks, but they're not ordinary banks.

I mean, they're fortresses. For example,
the parish temple looms over the city.

I mean, it's enormous.

The only thing I can think of to
describe it is the castle of Disneyland.

You know, it's that kind of presence in
the landscape.

And so it's banking system that will
allow pilgrims to travel without

That way, they're less attractive to
robbers. Nothing to take.

Pilgrims from all over Europe feel safer
because they're protected by the

Templar Knights.

When the Templars established themselves
as a presence in Jerusalem...

They're given the Alaskan Mosque as
their headquarters, built upon the

Solomon. It's on the Temple Mount. It's
one of the most holy places of all three

major religions in the world.

This is the platform that was once the
foundation for King Herod's massive

temple. Underneath, rumored to be lots
of holy treasures.

So having got there, the Templars start
digging below to find that treasure.

During work in that area, the story goes
the Knights Templar discovered two

extremely important items for the
Christian faith, the Holy Grail and the

the Covenant.

And so they had not only wealth, but
relics.

But in 1187 A .D., things changed for
the Templars.

Crusades continued for centuries, and in
1187...

the Muslims reconquered Jerusalem.

So those pilgrimage sites are now under
Muslim control and Christians are

forbidden from being there.

And the function the Knights Templar had
of protecting the pilgrims to the Holy

Land shifts dramatically in 1187 when
you can't make that pilgrimage anymore.

The Templars are forced out of
Jerusalem.

The Knights Templar flee and presumably
take all of their treasure with them.

that would have included, perhaps, the
Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and

gold.

They moved their headquarters to the
port city of Acre, about 100 miles north

what is now Israel.

Acre is a tremendously important city
because it's a meeting point between

and West on one of the major trade
routes from all the way to China at the

So it was a very wealthy city, and so it
was well defended.

They have a massive fortification there.

It's got 20 -foot thick walls.

It's the most formidable fortress on the
Mediterranean at that time.

After a century based in Acre, in 1291,
the Templar fortress is attacked by

Muslim fighters.

A servant to the Templars named the
Templar of Tyre writes of the battle and

even makes reference to the fabled
treasure.

The Templar of Tyre is one of the
important chroniclers from the late

the Templars.

He does record the last battles the
Templars have.

He describes the chaos of a medieval
siege as the enemy has now broken

He describes a main tower with four
golden lions at each corner, and then

another older treasure tower, which
clearly has been built to protect

The Templars' fortress may be strong,
but they are cornered with no way out,

the treasure seems to be in imminent
danger of being seized.

This Templar's brought the sacred
treasures from Jerusalem to Acre.

And if at that battle the knights had to
leave in such a hurry that they weren't

able to take all that treasure with
them, then there's the exciting

their treasure could still be there.

One of the great things about the
Templars is they're great builders.

And this goes back to the Temple of
Solomon, you know, this amazing

that forms part of their name of the
Knights Templar.

The Templar pyre describes how the
Templars construct these magnificent

castles, and presumably that is where
the Templar treasure is stored.

We know this because we have surviving
examples.

Templar castles would shape the way
castles were built all over Europe.

Obviously, Acre was a model of that.
It's of iron and stone right there on

coast. And the Templars didn't just
build these elaborate fortifications.

up above ground to protect cities like
Acre, but they also built tunnels

underground as a part of their defense
strategy.

Is it possible the treasure is still
there, just underground?

In 2019, a team decides to search using
new technology.

What the LiDAR technology is able to do
is to create a 3D image of the remains

of the fortress underneath today's
housing.

So you get a much clearer picture of
what was originally there.

The LiDAR technology helps plot what the
Templar fortress originally looked

like.

The team has been able to approximate,
more or less, where the original Templar

treasure tower stood. And we get a much
clearer idea of where the Holy Grail may

once have been kept.

But if gold and priceless relics are
buried here...

They won't be recovered anytime soon.

Governments can be finicky about digging
under things, especially a place like

Israel, where there's so much
archaeology and so much stuff has been

But another discovery, this one in 1994,
reveals more about what's underneath

Acre. There's a blocked sewer pipe, they
get a plumber to come, and he discovers

this tunnel that no one's known about
for 800 years.

It's the tunnel from the fortress that
goes almost 500 feet out into the city,

which is a really good way of smuggling
things in and out.

Could it be that at one time the
treasure was under Acre, but that it was

route to somewhere else?

What we know from historical records is
that the last Templar there, the Grand

Master, Guillaume de Beaujoux, dies in
that defense of the siege of Acre.

According to accounts, Thibault Godin,
the deputy to the Templar Grand Master

Guillaume de Bourgeois, was told, get
all that sacred treasure, take it into

tunnel, and for God's sake, get it out
of Acre.

The Knights Templar held immense wealth
during their 200 -year existence, but

after their fortress in Acre falls to
Muslim marauders in 1291, the Templar

treasure... seems to disappear.

Is fate a mystery?

Is it possible that they escaped with
it?

The thought was that they could get
these valuable items, meaning the Ark of

Covenant, the Holy Grail, or any of the
other Templar treasure, out of the

treasure tower through one of these
subterranean tunnels.

and spurt them away they're able to
bring the treasures they have out of

because you have to remember they have
fortresses throughout europe so they've

got places so does some of the treasure
go here does some of the treasure go

there as the legend goes the templars
look to the next safest place for

the treasure france is an obvious place
this is where their founders came from

and it's kind of a nerve center of the
templars

France had changed when the Templars
returned in the 13th century.

King Philip IV was heavily in debt
because of his war with England.

It was a costly war, and Philip IV had
actually looked to the Templars for

He was deeply indebted to them.

This is sort of an uncomfortable
situation, as he's looking at this

powerful organization within his own
kingdom.

King Philip says, oh, we should get rid
of them.

And, by the way, that means my debt is
canceled to them. And, by the way, I can

get their goods and take their treasure.

In the Middle Ages, if you want to
discredit somebody, you say that they're

heretic. You say that they're a witch.
And this is exactly what King Philip

about the Templars.

He says that they are worshipping Satan,
that they are engaged in illicit sexual

practices with each other.

The misinformation campaign against the
Templars really does work.

Because public support for these
knights, which was once so strong, now

completely craters.

On October 13th, 1307, King Philip IV
gives orders to arrest and imprison

all knights Templar. That order goes
into effect throughout Christendom. But

there is one place in France where the
Templars are not arrested and

Could this be the place where they keep
their treasure?

The village of Renlai Chateau has a very
interesting history.

The Templars have taken what they had in
all of Europe, and this organization

has been reduced to this isolated
community that really is in many ways

insulated from the church.

And this relationship develops with the
locals, even extending into a

relationship with the Count of
Barcelona.

Fast forward six centuries to the late
1890s and to a small church in Rennes

-les -Chateaux, sitting in the shadow of
the Templar castle high on the hill

above. There's a little church dedicated
to Mary Magdalene and run by a parish

priest called Berenger Saunière.

And he wants to renovate this church.

And the story goes that when he's
supervising the renovation of the area

the altar,

he sees something incredible.

What he finds is sealed in wax in one of
the pillars and has three wooden

cylinders with parchment inside.

The parchments are said to contain
complex ciphers and coded messages.

That's not the only strange discovery
during the renovation.

The story goes when construction workers
are working on a hallway in an entirely

different part of the church.

They unearthed this clay pot, and within
it are gold coins and a necklace, a

bracelet, and most intriguingly, a gold
cup.

Could the Templars have buried their
treasure in different parts of the

of Mary Magdalene?

And could the parchments provide clues
as to where the rest of it might be?

He's really excited with the parchments
that he's discovered, so he takes them

to Paris.

to be deciphered by church officials.

But then he returns, and he's a
different man. He's not talking about it

anymore. He doesn't say anything about
the hidden meaning of these parchments.

But all of a sudden, he's got a lot of
money, and he spends it on the

renovations of the church.

After his return from Paris, Sonnier
will spend almost 700 ,000 francs in two

decades' time, the equivalent of over $4
million today.

Not only did he spend thousands and
thousands of francs just renovating the

church at René Chateau, there's an
estimate that says, well, he spent 36

francs building his own estate, which is
an astronomical amount of money,

especially in the 19th century.

The mystery of Saunier's wealth
continues to intrigue us because we just

know if he had the Templar treasure.

had access to part of the Templar
treasure, or if he only sold the

that he found in the parish church.

Saunière keeps his mouth shut until the
end of his life when he entrusts the

secret to his loyal housekeeper, Marie
de Narno.

Marie de Narno is the only one that
knows what's the secret to this fabulous

wealth that this little parish priest
has.

But unfortunately, she dies in 1953 of a
sudden and massive stroke.

So the secret dies with her.

Did Saunier come by this wealth through
the Templar treasure, or did he get his

money in a very different kind of way?

Saunier spent the last several years of
his priesthood under suspicion by the

church for a practice called selling
masses.

So there is the possibility that what
the priest was actually trying to mask

his own criminal activities, selling
masses, a church crime that goes back

centuries.

When people are selling masses, the
priest is charging, effectively,

to come into the church and to be
present when the miracle of the

happens, when the mass is celebrated.

The church has been very clear in its
teaching that it should never happen,

but... Teaching and reality are very
different things sometimes.

If Saunière didn't get the treasure,
could it still be here in the church?

It was purported that one of the things
she said before her death was that the

people of Rennes -les -Chateaux were
walking on gold and didn't even know it.

that a cryptic indication of the
location of the Templar treasure?

At the height of their power in the 13th
century, The Knights Templar hold

fortresses across Europe.

Experts believe any one of them could
hold their treasures. But for some,

point overwhelmingly to one.

Outside of France, the Knights Templar
had influence in Portugal. And keep in

mind that Portugal was an area of
intense battle between Christians and

And the Knights Templar were helping
Christian fighters take back the area.

In 1160 AD, the small town of Tomar
becomes the Templars' Portuguese

headquarters. There is a Templar
grandmaster in Portugal, Guadalupe Paes.

statue still dominates the main square
in Tomar. And this battle -scarred

oversees the construction of a Templar
fortress in Tomar.

And inside this fortress is the Convent
of Christ Church, which is a UNESCO

World Heritage Site.

William Pice is famous in part because
of this church he built that Tamar

the Round Church.

It has 16 sides built that way. The
Templars could tend mass on horseback.

And this was done so they could be ready
to ride out at a moment's notice.

But in July 1190, Tamar is surrounded by
Muslim forces determined to take the

city back. They are attacked.

And during that battle, the Templars
defend Tomar, and they defeat them.

So the defense of Tomar is a really
important moment for the Templars when

establishes Gualdine Pice as a hero in
Templar lore.

Tomar is the landmark site because of
that victory, and many believe this

have been a place where the Templars
would have kept their treasure.

A major discovery in the 1960s might
lend credence to that theory.

In the 1960s, you had all sorts of
treasure hunters in Europe, but you

have the same kinds of laws that we have
today about antiquities and taking

antiquities out of one place to another
place.

And so they're essentially grave robbers
looking for Roman artifacts.

So you have these treasure hunters who
are at the convent of Christ's church in

Tomar.

They dig into a grave.

And they pull out two caskets. But what
they find isn't Roman. It's something

quite extraordinary.

There's a chalice that's obsidian.

There's a reliquary to hold relics.

There's a sword that has a Templar
design and a cross.

But they don't know what it is. And so
they sell it off piece by piece.

But clearly what they find are Templar
artifacts.

This collection, now known as the Tomar
Horde, is believed to be one of the only

stashes of Templar relics ever found.

You have treasure hunters digging up the
whole place. So much of the Horde left

Portugal, sadly, in the 1960s. But over
the last decade, Templar hunters Carl

Cookton and Hamilton White have been
striving to bring all these items back

one place.

And they now have achieved that.

And so you have a scholar, Jonathan
Tokley Perry, who looks at the Tomar

to authenticate where these things come
from and says, yes, this is authentic.

This actually does go back to the
Templars. This is part of the treasure

Templars had.

And we know that because due to aging,
the items inside have a certain amount

calcium deposits on them. And this helps
to date these items that do indeed date

back to the Templar period.

What we can't say with absolute
certainty is that they were put in the

the Knights Templar themselves.

In their search for more evidence,
Cookson and White make a startling

During their research, Cookson and White
discovered that in the 1930s, there was

interest in Templar treasure in Tomar
from a very sinister source, the Third

Reich.

and Adolf Hitler.

For Hitler, it was not only the wealth
for financing a war, but think of what

these objects were, the Ark of the
Covenant, the Holy Grail. If you have

objects, you have control over people
for whom those objects are valuable.

And, you know, the Germans were
Christian. And so having the Holy Grail,

most important symbol for Christendom in
Hitler's possession, would have been a

huge source of power for him.

And so he sent basically Nazi treasure
hunters to Portugal to try and find this

treasure.

And Hitler assigned some of his best
people, including a troop led by

Himmler, and we have reports of them
searching in Portugal.

But by all accounts, they came up empty
-handed.

So it's another quarter of a century
after the Nazis have been digging around

Tomar that we get these Templar hunters
turning up.

But neither party seems to have found
the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail,

or any of the other Templar treasure.

So as things stand today, it looks like
the Templars either took whatever they

had away, or it's still buried.

In the eight centuries since the Knights
Templar fled Jerusalem, many theories

have surfaced about where their
mysterious treasure could be.

Some believe it remains in what's now
Israel.

Others suggest it could be in Portugal
or France, all former Templar

strongholds. But what if the treasure
was taken somewhere more surprising, to

place where the Templars were certain
that no one would look?

It's where they believed they would be
able to hide their treasure away.

And unlike other parts of Europe, there
weren't that many prying eyes looking at

what the Templars were up to.

Because it's very much on the fringes of
the Templar world.

There's a legend that the Templars had
gone to western Poland from Paris to

safety, to seek refuge, both for the
Templars and the treasures.

The Templars arrive in Poland in 1232
when they're given land around the town

Szorszany on the Mislice River, which is
just a stone's throw from the German

border.

And the Templars started building this
chapel of St. Stanislaus, and it most

likely took many decades to complete.

In the aftermath of these arrests on
Friday the 13th, 1307, there is sort of

ripple effect across the Templar realm
of influence, so that everywhere the

Templars had extended influence, from
Western Europe as far as the reaches of

what is today Poland, ceased to exist.

fearing for their own safety. Many
Templars fled and would have taken

treasure they had with them. What became
of that treasure?

That's the big question.

The story goes that the treasure found
its way to Shorshani with a small band

of Templars and medieval documents
describe the well near the chapel of St.

Stanislaus. And it's rumored that the
chapel has an entrance to a secret

Friday the 13th is significant. That's
the date the arrests take place.

So facing arrest, the Knights Templar,
under the cover of darkness, took the

Holy Grail and other valued materials
and sunk them in a nearby lake.

The lake dried up long ago and no
treasure has been found there. But the

that the treasure made it somewhere in
Shvarshany continues to attract

attention, including interest from a
local archaeologist.

Fast forward 700 years. In 2004, an
archaeologist, Shemyslav Kolodzowski,

brought a team of archaeologists to
conduct tests and excavations at the

of St. Stanislav.

What the team were hoping to discover
was the Templar fortress underneath this

chapel. What they found instead was a
cobbled floor, and that was pretty much

it. But then, one of the archaeologists
notices a small rectangular depression

beneath the cobblestone.

The team brings in ground -penetrating
radar for a better look.

What they find stops them.

They find seven vaulted crypts.

that could date back to the Templar
times.

These vaults are empty, which of course
leads people to wonder what could have

been there.

Then another discovery is made of a
secret tunnel under the town of

not far from the chapel of St.
Stanislaus.

And between this tunnel at Michlibus and
the chapel of St.

Stanislaus, is the dry lake bed where
somebody's templars hid their treasure.

So we have this chapel. We have the
entrance to a subterranean medieval

We have the lake where the treasure may
have been buried under cover of night.

And then in a nearby town, we have this
inexplicable tunnel.

The local people are absolutely
convinced that there is a secret that

knights left there.

But despite these discoveries, no
treasure has been found in Poland to

What these discoveries point to is the
tremendous building abilities of the 9th

Templar. But what these tunnels and what
these locations were actually used for

is a matter of speculation.

Most of the 9th Templar brought to Paris
after the arrests in 1307.

refused to talk under interrogation. But
one did, and he paints a vivid picture

of the treasure's movement.

Confessions were extorted under terrible
torture from individual Knights

Templars. One of them, Jean de Chalons,
claimed that the treasure was taken from

the Paris Temple, this extremely
strongly fortified building, under cover

night. down to the port of La Rochelle,
and there were waiting ships.

He says that he saw the Templars smuggle
this treasure, and that it took 50

horses to move all of it.

When they arrived at the port, they had
18 ships waiting for them, and the

treasure was loaded up, and they sailed
off.

Because of where they were in eastern
France, historians speculate that the

ships leaving there would have gone to
Scotland.

as a place that they could defend easily
because of course it's an island

according to the story when the templars
arrive in scotland a war of

independence is underway they find an
ally in the scottish king robert the

and there's a legend that robert the
bruce fought alongside the templars at

battle of bannockburn and it was a major
victory for scotland in the war for

independence it said that robert the
bruce was so grateful to the templars

helping him to defeat the English that
he gave them privileges he gave them

titles he gave them lands he helped them
to regroup reassemble and find their

strength again in Scotland and one of
the places associated with the Templars

Scotland is the small town of Rosslyn
and it's there that the Sinclair family

aristocratic family in Scotland who
developed close

bonds with the Templars, also built this
intriguing, fascinating chapel.

The Sinclair family is also connected
with Robert the Bruce, so you have a

direct lineage of this family with the
Templars and the chapel that they built.

And so you get this story beneath this
chapel. There is a secret vault that

contains those treasures of the Knights
Templar.

Some refer to Roslin as a grail chapel.

What they mean by that is it was a place
where the Templars brought the Holy

Grail. And the story goes that it was
buried under the nave, under flagstands,

and kept in place with stands brought
from Jerusalem. And that it may also

include the true cross upon which Jesus
Christ was crucified in Jerusalem.

It's an amazingly detailed little chapel
with the kinds of iconography that you

would expect of the Templars.

In the chapel, there are marvelous
images of singers and musicians.

And so there's a story that says, if you
stand in front of this wall, which is

believed to be the wall that leads to
the vault, and you play a particular

on that instrument, that will cause the
wall to open.

No one has yet cracked that code.

or found any treasure.

This whole idea about Roslyn being
central to the story of the Templar

really only gained traction in the 1980s
with the publication of a bestseller

called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And then
20 years later, of course, The Da Vinci

Code.

Roslyn Chapel is actually the final
setting for the closing chapter of The

Vinci Code.

This is where the entire conspiracy
comes unraveled.

where it is realized that the Holy Grail
is in fact not located at Roslyn

Chapel, but the Holy Grail actually
represents Mary Magdalene herself.

The Da Vinci Code is a really compelling
story, but I think we need to remember

it is ultimately fiction.

But even if Roslyn Chapel doesn't hold
the treasure itself, could it hold the

key to where it is now?

One of the images that appears in stone
at Rosslyn are ears of corn. You may

think that's unspectacular.

What you can remember is that corn
didn't arrive in Europe until

Columbus got to the Americas in 1492.

And crops that had never been seen
before suddenly arrived in Europe. So

does the Sinclair family, when they're
building Rosslyn Chapel in the 1450s,

Decades before Columbus gets to America,
how do they know about corn?

So, consider this. Going back to the
Sinclair family, Sir Henry Sinclair, a

friend of the Templars, and also an able
seaman in his own right, he helped the

Templars take the treasure out of
Rosslyn Chapel, and using his fleet of

ships, they set sail, bound for the
Americas.

After traversing the Middle East and
Europe in search of the fabled treasure

the Knights Templar, could searchers be
looking on the wrong continent?

A discovery centuries after the Templars
disbanded suggests the possibility that

the treasure could be thousands of miles
across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1795, on an island off the coast of
Nova Scotia, a man called Daniel

McInnes and his friends stumbled upon
something on a particular spot that

their curiosity and they go to discover
further.

And so they start excavating with a
great deal of enthusiasm.

And the place where they dig is called
Oak Island.

As they dig, they uncover stones on top
of planks.

They continue to dig, and they find more
stones on top of planks.

They understood this to be a human
construction.

They go as far as they can, but then,
you know, their technology, they can't

any further.

And so they build a company with these
carpenters to help continue on digging.

The digging continues, and at the 90
-foot mark, they find a large...

engraved with strange symbols, their
meaning as yet unknown.

This area becomes known as the money
pit, and you can see that in two very

different ways.

Is it the money pit because at the
bottom of this pit is the money, the

treasure? Or is it the money pit because
you've poured so much money into this

trying to find the treasure that you're
never going to get your money back?

Since Daniel McInnes' discovery two
centuries ago, A long line of

and explorers have invested resources on
Oak Island.

A whole range of people have turned up
looking for treasure in the money pit,

and they include a young Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, future president of the

United States.

It isn't until the 1980s when a big
discovery begins to point to Templar

In the 1980s, there's a real game
-changer of a discovery, and that is a

of boulder -like stones.

And when seen from above, they are
shaped as a cross.

Now this points to Templar activity.

More wooden structures are then found
underground in the second half of the

century. Chisel marks indicate the work
was completed before the invention of

modern tools.

If we think about it, the Knights
Templar were crushed in 1307.

Now, Christopher Columbus arrived in the
Americas in 1492, so we've got a big

gap.

Columbus was certainly not the first
European to set foot on American shores.

There was a Viking presence there
probably for like 100 years in the midst

the Middle Ages.

Going back to Henry Sinclair around
1398.

Some accredited Sinclair was discovering
Nova Scotia, which is New Scotland.

So it's possible that the Sinclair
family held on to the Templar treasure

Rosslyn Chapel, which they built for
that purpose, before then, at the right

moment, setting sail with it for the
Americas.

The timeline, the geography, make this
all feasible, that the Templar treasure

was taken from Scotland, and then
eventually deposited into the money pit.

In 2006, search intensifies when
brothers Rick and Marty Lagina purchase

controlling interests of Oak Island.
They begin following the old clues and

discovering new ones of their own.

One of them will come.

compelling discoveries with a lead cross
with a kind of loop at the top that has

been scientifically analyzed and dated
and they do date

back to the night templar period and
it's a period of history on

oak island when there's not known to
have been any other human activity i

Oak Island does seem to be kind of the
place where you go to look for things

that shouldn't be there, but maybe
they're there, so who knows what they'll

next.

It's that dazzling array of
possibilities that has kept the treasure

coming back to the mystery of the
Templar treasure.

I think one of the things that people
find fascinating about the Templars,

to this day, is the fact that they fell
so quickly and so spectacularly.

And we don't know kind of what happened
after that. It seems like it should have

continued or there should have been
something that happened afterwards or

sort of resistance or something there.
And so we're just wondering, where did

all the wealth go?

The Templars captured the imagination of
Europe at the time and continue to be

both revered and reviled down through
the centuries.

Authors have made them villains and
heroes like some of the Robin Hood

and things like that.

The Templar treasure is so powerful
because you're dealing not just with

physical treasure with gold, silver,
jewels.

You're dealing with people's faith.
You're dealing with religious matters,

just simply worldly goods.

There were this huge organization,
commanderies all over the place. They

massive number of people. It had massive
influence across Europe, and then it

was suddenly gone.

We have a hard time wrapping our heads
around that.

Is the treasure of the Knights Templar
still out there? And what priceless

relics does it hold?

For now, the search continues for this
mysterious and allegedly vast hoard.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching History's Greatest Mysteries.