Fans of Indiana Jones may remember the film about the Holy Grail, and the part where Indy needs to figure out which of the many ancient cups in front of him was the one Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Of course, the answer was a drab and utterly innocuous vessel — to match the humility of Jesus: a cup very much like the one you see here.
This is the Nanteos Cup, or the part that remains, and for 100 years some folks have decided that it must in fact be the Holy Grail. It’s not (spoiler alert), but that doesn’t change the awesomeness of the story behind this drinking bowl.
The legends of the Holy Grail got going during the age of the Crusades, with the cup Jesus drank from during his last meal with his apostles having attributes of healing and power associated with it. Britain, far from Jerusalem where the Last Supper took place, got drawn into these legends. The late 12th/early 13th century French poet Robert de Boron wrote “Joseph d’Arimathe” about the New Testament figure who buried Jesus after his crucifixion. In it, Robert claimed that Joseph was sustained by the Holy Grail while imprisoned, and after Joseph got out of jail, he sent his followers to take the Grail to Britain. Other (British) Medieval authors built up this legend.
Fast forward to the Nanteos Cup, now located (having been list and recovered from a robbery in 2014) in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth. In the 1800s it had garnered a reputation of magical healing properties to those who drank from it, and by the early 20th century, it had become a contender for Holy Grail status (to be fair, so had many other drinking vessels). Even though scholars pretty much agree that the Nanteos Cup was made in the Late Middle Ages (out of wych elm!), it makes sense that more modern Brits who were enamored with the Authurian myths would have supported the Holy Grail idea.
