Petra tomb find: Holy Grail artefact and remains of 12 people found at iconic Indiana Jones film location
An artefact resembling the Holy Grail has been discovered along with the preserved remains of 12 individuals in a hidden tomb found under an iconic monument that was also a location for the filming of the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The find was made under Petra’s iconic Al Khazneh — or The Treasury, which is largely recognised as one of the Middle East’s greatest monuments.
The remains of the 12 individuals were well-preserved and are believed to be more than 2000 years old, according to The Times of Israel.
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The excavation, a joint enterprise between the American Centre of Research and the Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown, marks a bold new discovery for Petra, an ancient city that has been explored and excavated for more than 200 years.
The chalice, which bears a bizarre resemblance to the Grail featured in the Indiana Jones film, has piqued the most interest among the researchers.
Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates described the find as a “hugely rare discovery”.
“In the two centuries that Petra has been investigated by archaeologists, nothing like this has been found before,” he told CNN.
“This may be the largest discovery of human remains within a single site in Petra.”
There’s speculation that the presence of such a large number of individual skeletons could mark the tomb as a burial place reserved for high-profile Nabataeans.
