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Old 4th January 2005, 02:28 PM   #20
Mark
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I am drifting from the thread here, but I can't resist on commenting on something I actually know a little about.

One of the "Spear(s) of Destiny" (naturally there is more than one around) was found during the first Crusade (1098 AD) during the siege of Antioch. They Crusaders were bogged down, exhausted, hungry and diseased and everyone just wanted to go home. A monk, whose name I forget, had a dream wherein the location of the Spear of Destiny was revealed to him. They dug at the site, and found a rusted hunk of metal. This inspired the Crusaders, who proceeded to do their worst to the city. Other candidated were bought in the booming relic trade in the Levant, and brought back to Europe (they say that if all the finger bones of the Virgin Mary were genuine she would have had like 20 fingers). As for more recent history, I hadn't heard that it had been taken to Nurenburg, though I know that Hitler was keen on finding it, as he was of many esoteric items of purported spiritual power.

The True Cross, at least the biggest hunk of it, was in Jerusalem until its conquest by Saladin. Queen Helena (Constantine's Christian mother) has found it during a trip to the Holy Land to find holy sites and relics. Saladin had it taken to ... um ... I forget. Damascus or Bagdad. I think he had been the Emir of Aleppo so maybe it was there. Anyway, it was made into the stoop of a mosque so that pious Muslims would be able to step over it every time they went to pray, to show the supremacy of Islam over Christianity. It was later destroyed apparently. There are lots of supposed slivers of it all over Europe.
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