het mysterie van rennes le chateau

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AT LAST A SOLUTION?

After decades in which little new information about Abbé Bérenger Saunière and his activities in Rennes-le-Château emerged, recently there have been some exciting new developments that may supply vital clues, or even a solution, to the mystery of his fabulous wealth.


The Tour Magdala during construction.



In 2000, the mayor of Rennes-le-Château received a letter from Jean-Louis Génibrel, an American of French descent who lives in Long Beach, California. Génibrel said that his uncle's grandfather had been in charge of the builders who constructed Saunière's domaine - and revealed that he had helped the priest bury a chest or casket beneath the foundations of the Tour Magdala.

Génibrel also contacted the eminent professor of archaeology, Dr Robert Eisenman, at the University of Long Beach. Eisenman is best known as the scholar who, in the 1980s, finally broke the academic embargo on the release of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Eisenman in turn contacted the Merril Foundation, a private foundation that funds archaeological work, especially in the Holy Land. The Foundation agreed to finance a ground scan in Rennes-le-Château.

In April 2001 a team of Canadians, who had previously worked at Qumran in Israel, under Dr Eisenman's supervision, arrived in the village with ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment. Their survey of the ground beneath the Tour Magdala and the church produced some provocative results.

Beneath the floor of the church they detected what appears to be a crypt. But more excitingly, they confirmed that there is indeed what appears to be a chest or box, some 3 feet square, buried around 12 feet beneath the floor of the Tour Magdala.

The discoveries caused a great stir in the French press - along with much speculation, that was encouraged by the lack of information being issued by the team. Much of the speculation centred on the presence of three Italians from a public relations company called Robadoba, which was said to be owned by the Vatican. (This has since been denied.)

More controversy was caused by the involvement of a theologian named Dr Serena Tajé, and some of the statements that she was reported as having made. Newspaper reports quoted her as saying, 'Perhaps we will discover items concerning the foundation myth of the Church', and, more startingly, 'It could be a question of a document that will challenge the history of the Catholic Church!… Unless it is a tangible sign of the presence in this place (a presence attested to by the holy texts) of Jesus's judge, of that same Herod Antipas who stopped here, at Rennes-le-Château, on the path of exile, in the company of a certain Mary the Madgalenian.'

But one of Dr Tajé's reported comments eclipsed even these statements. It was widely reported in the French press that, according to the mayor, she had told him: 'The Church has given me the mission of destroying any compromising documents that we might find'.

However, this was later explained as a joke made during a dinner at a local restaurant.

The Merril Foundation agreed to fund an excavation of both sites, and an application was made. (Excavations have been forbidden in the village since 1965.) In September 2001 the formation of the Consortium Rennes-le-Château was announced. This will carry out the excavations, under the direction of Dr Eisenman and Italian archaeologist Professor Andrea Barattolo, with funding from the Merril Foundation.

The dig was originally announced for September 2001, but the Consortium Rennes-le-Château put it back to February 2002, giving bureaucratic delays as the reason. However, the dig did not happen then - and there is still no news about when it will take place.

If Saunière did bury a chest beneath the foundations of the Tour Magdala, why? What does it contain? And why the delay in carrying out the excavations that will answer these questions?