Holy Grail claim brings crowds to Spanish church

Holy cow!

Nope. Holy Grail!

Rumour has it that the Holy Grail itself has been found. I know, we've heard this a hundred times before, but maybe this time they've really found it.

Spanish historians claim they have found the mythical chalice from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper, causing crowds to swarm a church where it is on display.

In fact, so many people showed up to get a glimpse of the precious cup, curators were forced to remove it from display at the San Isidro basilica in Leon, a city in northwestern Spain.

Margarita Torres, a Leon University medieval history lecturer, and art historian Jose Manuel Ortega del Rio were the ones to identify this chalice as the Holy Grail, described in their book Kings of the Grail. The book, which triggered the pandemonium, was published last week.

The pair said they began a three-year investigation after discovering two Egyptian parchments at Cairo’s University of Al-Azhar in 2011.

Before now, the cup was known as the goblet of the Infanta Dona Urraca, who was the daughter of Fernando I, Leon's king from 1037-1065.

But from their studies, Torres and del Rio identified the upper piece of the goblet, which is made of agate as the grail -- missing a piece just as the parchments described.

On Friday, the cup was temporarily removed from display. Because of such large crowds coming to see apparently one of the holiest of Christian artifacts, basilica museum director Raquel Jaen said they are looking for a larger space to exhibit the chalice.

“It was in a very small room where it was not possible to admire it to the full,” she told AFP.

The beautiful chalice is made of agate, gold and onyx and studded with precious stones. It is constructed from two goblets joined together form the chalice, one flipped up and the other down.

This piece of history is certainly fit for a king; maybe it truly is holy. Clearly, many in Leon seem to think so.