Simcha’s Supposed Smoking Templar Firearms

As many longtime rogueclassicism and Explorator readers know, when Easter comes around we usually get one or two claims of varying degrees of credulity having to do with the crucifixion and/or resurrection of Jesus (Explorator readers, e.g., will be getting the latest Shroud of Turin news this weekend). A frequent forayer in this particular milieu is Professor Simcha Jacobovici of Huntington University fame. This year, however, Professor Jacobovici took a somewhat odd turn by riffing on a documentary which appeared on the History Channel relating to assorted (familiar) claims relating to the Templars (Tracking the Templars). He latched onto the image of a coin of some King John and linked it to the first set of Talpiot tombs … ecce:

To make a short story even shorter, Professor Jacobovici is now taking his stories into Holy-Blood-Holy-Grail-land and is suggesting a link between his Talpiot tomb and the Templars. You can read about it in more detail here: Smoking Templar Gun. James Tabor has added a bit of detail as well here: John of Brienne, Templar “King of Jerusalem” and the Talpiot “Jesus” Tomb, although he is a bit more conservative in terms of conclusions.

In case you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, that little circle in the triangle on John’s crown and on the Talpiot tomb are supposedly a ‘connection’. One very detailed bit of criticism worth reading is Jason Colavito’s spin, which looks at various medieval crowns:What Was Scott Wolter’s “Templar” Coin?.

Quibus rebus cognitis, for what it’s worth, I didn’t intend to blog about this at all — it seems clearly outside of our purview there didn’t seem to be a Classical connection. But then I was stuck in the car this past weekend, on a long road trip back from visiting the protoclassicist, and it struck me that what James Tabor ended his piece with almost/unintentionally hit the point:

There is a much earlier coin of William I “The Conquerer” (1066-1087), minted around 1070 that seems to show the King wearing some kind of crown but with a “temple” like facade behind his head that has some similarities to the Chevron and circle imagery.

Why do we call this ‘chevron and circle’ when even those who see ‘chevron and circle’ can connect it to a temple? Why aren’t we — instead of trying to leap twelve centuries to make a link — looking at some of the coinage from the first couple centuries A.D.? Check this 2nd century coin (one of several) from Pseudo-Autonomous:

We can list other coins with a circle-in-pediment design (sometimes called a shield rather than a circle) with less ‘pseudo’ images: Alexander Severus, Caracalla, Augustus, and Maxentius (the latter used the image a LOT).

So let’s take the next logical step and suggest that the circle-and-chevron is actually some sort of shorthand for the facade of a temple. Would it be used in a tomb situation? We can point to the 4th century B.C./B.C.E. rock-cut tombs at Kaunos, perhaps, although they technically have a ‘square’ in the pediment:

… but the general idea is there. So what, then,  would be a more logical progression: using a tomb facade on a rock cut tomb in imitation of generic temples (even if they might be pagan) seen in coins and probably in countless necropoleis in the Eastern Mediterranean, or make it a specifically-crypto-Christian symbol that the Templars were aware of and passed on (of course) to the Priory of Zion yadda yadda yadda. It’s a generic temple facade, not a ‘templar’ facade. I think we need to start emphasizing a ‘Hellenized Jew’ spin in opposition to Professor Jacobovici’s claims.