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Holy Grail Found? Wooden Relic Believed To Be Christ’s Cup Recovered A Year After Theft

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 02:36 PST, Jun 27, 2015

A wooden cup, believed by some to be the Holy Grail, has been recovered by police more than a year after it was stolen.

The relic, known as the Nanteos Cup, was the only object taken from a home in Weston Under Penyard near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire last July, according to the Daily Mail. Though police have been reluctant to reveal details of the “grail’s” retrieval, they noted that media coverage had aided the search. The cup was turned over to authorities on Friday June 19, on “neutral ground.”

“An anonymous source came forward after seeing the Crimewatch appeal which resulted in it being physically handed in,” a police spokesman noted. “Some people may class it as the Holy Grail, but that’s only speculation. As far as the police are concerned this is a treasured object, and we are happy to have reunited it with its rightful owners. We take the theft of any item very seriously.”

No arrests have been made following the cup’s recovery, though authorities noted that their investigation was ongoing. The theft is believed to have been targeted, and reportedly took place when the relic was on loan to a woman who was ill. As the Inquisitr previously reported, police raided a nearby pub in the weeks following the theft, acting on a tip that the cup was hidden there, to no avail.

The stuff of legend, the Holy Grail is considered to be one of the most sacred relics in the Christian world. Various iterations of the grail myth have surfaced over the centuries, describing it as either the cup that Christ drank from at the last supper, or the vessel which was used to catch his blood at the crucifixion. Many grail researchers believe the holy cup then eventually made its way to Britain, possibly as early as the first century, in the hands of Joseph of Arimathea.

Long associated with stories of the Holy Grail, the Nanteos Cup has a reputation for possessing unusual healing abilities. Despite widespread belief that the cup is indeed the grail, researchers have asserted that it was actually made sometime in the 14th century, as the Independent reports. They noted that the Nanteos Cup is fashioned from wych elm, not the olive wood that would be expected from a Middle Eastern relic like the Holy Grail.

[Image via the Independent]

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