The hype and controversy surrounding the documentary film Bloodline has reached maximum levels in the lead-up to the first screening of the film in New York this Friday. Film-maker Bruce Burgess appeared on both Nightline and Good Morning America (click links to watch videos) to discuss the Da Vinci Code-like discoveries his team have allegedly made over the past few years. Some of the video presented includes footage of the discovery of a mummified body beneath a 'Templar' shroud. Bruce will also be appearing on Fox and Friends this weekend.

However, doubts about some of the discoveries have been increasing in the Rennes le Chateau research community, with this National Post article even quoting our good friend Andy Gough (from the Arcadia website) on some of the issues at hand:

The Internet hype is that Mr. Hammott has solved Sauniere's riddles -- that the Holy Grail has been found and is now held at a secure location by Hollywood producers -- but Mr. Gough said Mr. Hammott's behaviour after finding the bottles suggests a stronger interest in publicity than discovery.

"If you or I discovered a bottle that we thought contained great secret parchments and messages and codes, wouldn't you open it? But no, they bring it back to London and take it to a symposium in Glastonbury, and open it in public, and everyone says, 'Oh, that's red felt-tip pen. I didn't know they had soluble ink at the turn of the last century.' It looked totally implausible. Then, all of a sudden, there's three or four more bottles. And there's spelling errors. The priest [Sauniere] spells his [own] name wrong. It goes from bad to worse ... It's like an Easter egg hunt," Mr. Gough said.

The Rennes le Chateau Research Resource website has a detailed list of concerns about the discoveries presented in Bloodline, and the Arcadia forum has an evolving discussion with input from some of the key protagonists (or is that antagonists? You be the judge).

People familiar with the tale/myth of Berenger Sauniere's alleged world-shaking discoveries should be used to all this cut and thrust, controversy and innuendo - after all, it's been going on like this for decades. Which is why I think a lot of readers will enjoy this insightful essay by Mariano Tomatis Antoniono: "ARG as a new model for Rennes-le-Château phenomenon: Alternate Reality Game and the theories about the treasure of Bérenger Saunière". I'm also currently reading Jacques Vallee's interesting JSE paper on the anatomy of a great hoax (using the Philadelphia Experiment as an example), and I might post on the similarities to be found there at a later point.

We've all had quite enough of that Da Vinci guy this decade - but now a new book suggests that Michelangelo also hid messages in his artwork, most notoriously in the Sistine Chapel Fresco. In the book The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican. (Amazon US and UK), authors Roy Doline and Rabbi Benjamin Blech claim...

...that Michelangelo embedded powerful and even dangerous messages in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, that he encoded these messages using his knowledge of mystic Jewish texts and that he intended some images as insults to the pope.

...According to Doliner and Blech, Kabbalah is the key to cracking the code of many of Michelangelo's hidden messages. But their first clue didn't come from an art historian. Rather, it came from a tourist from Indiana who looked up at the famous panel of "The Creation of Adam," and was reminded of something else.

"In the late 1970s, a surgeon went into the Sistine Chapel, took a look at this [fresco]. He said to himself, wait, this is Anatomy 101.… This is actually a cross-section of the brain, the right hand side of the brain," Blech said.

An interesting comment on the similarity to a brain cross-section - see the ABC News picture gallery for this story to a visual guide. Not a sacred feminine in sight though...

I have posted a new video here on TDG, the documentary "The Great Year", narrated by James Earl Jones:

The Great Year is a compelling documentary that explores the possibility that the fall of ancient civilizations around the globe and the rise of modern civilization might be related to our Sun's motion around a companion star. The film examines evidence that ancient civilizations may have known of this celestial cycle and that our Sun may indeed display the characteristics of binary motion.

This documentary (official website here) was produced by the Binary Research Institute, and has a companion book written by our friend Walter Cruttenden, Lost Star of Myth and Time (Amazon US and UK). For those interested in a separate overview, Walter also wrote an article about these topics for Issue 2 of our free PDF magazine Sub Rosa. If you would prefer to watch the documentary in a more comfortable manner, you can pick up the DVD from Amazon US.

The Rennes-le-Chateau Research website now have a large number of video clips from the upcoming documentary film Bloodline available for viewing. They give a good feel for the movie, with excerpts of interviews with key players and researchers, as well as visits to locations of interest.

Further to the topic of locations in the film, the producers of Bloodline have been kind enough to offer a pre-release exclusive from the film for Daily Grail readers: apparent confirmation from a Priory of Sion insider that the tomb discovery of 'Ben Hammott'/'The Tomb Man' (see attached picture) is genuine. Here's the entire release, with some of my own comments afterward:

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Priory of Sion confirms Hammott’s tomb: “One of three in the area”

Nicolas Haywood, representing the Priory of Sion, confirmed both by email and in phone conversations to the Bloodline producers, that Ben Hammott’s tomb is real and that it’s one of three tombs in the area near Rennes-Le-Chateau. He said that the three tombs each contain a shrouded corpse, and their locations form a triangle around a larger central ‘repository’, and that at least one the tombs contains a woman. He also said that there are items in all three tombs that come from this larger ‘repository’. He would not be drawn on any specifics about what was in this repository, but according to the producers, the inference was that it had been used to hold both Templar and Cathar relics, archives and treasure since it was first hidden there in the 13th century. ... Read More »

As expected, the 'mystery of the crystal skulls' is becoming more and more a hot topic in the lead-up to the new Indiana Jones movie, slated for release next month. As mentioned in the news briefs earlier this week, Archaeology.org have posted quite a detailed and interesting feature about the crystal skulls, which I recommend anyone interested have a good read of. As mentioned in the article, and previously here on TDG, most of the mystery/controversy revolves around the provenance of the "Mitchell-Hedges skull" - and there is a good website devoted to that topic, the official Mitchell-Hedges website. Lastly, we also now have a Red Pill entry about the skull, kindly provided by our good friend, researcher Filip Coppens.

I love history. And I'm a sucker for historical documentaries, which reveal how things unfolded, action by action. So, I just have to point you towards the recent Frontline documentary "Bush's War". It's just a wonderful, concise but insightful look at a defining part of our history - told by many of those who were there. On the Frontline website you can view the complete documentary (4 hours or so), which charts developments from 9/11 through to the modern day, as well as loads of extra content: complete interview transcripts, background articles, extra video content, timelines, etc. It's sad and enlightening, all at once.

I'm very sorry to have hardly heard anything about this documentary in the news or online. A sad state of affairs when something of this importance is ignored, but everyone clambers for their dose of celebrity gossip. What have we become...

The wonderful PBS series Nova has created another excellent historical feature, which airs tonight: "Cracking the Maya Code":

The ancient Maya civilization of Central America left behind an intricate and mysterious hieroglyphic script, carved on monuments, painted on pottery, and drawn in handmade bark-paper books. For centuries, scholars considered it too complex ever to understand—until recently, when an ingenious series of breakthroughs finally cracked the code and unleashed a torrent of new insights into the Mayas' turbulent past. For the first time, NOVA presents the epic inside story of how the decoding was done—traveling to the remote jungles of southern Mexico and Central America to investigate how the code was broken and what Maya writings now reveal.

As usual, the Nova website offers numerous interactive features which let you get right inside the topic, as well as a short preview video. Make sure you take a look at the show if it airs in your location. But if you can't, head back to the website after April 9th and you can watch it all online! (h/t Cosmic Log)

As you've probably noticed, there is a new banner advertisement on the site, for the upcoming documovie, Bloodline. The banner position here on TDG is vital to help cover expenses, so I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Bloodline folk for their support, and also to urge readers to check out the site (and the movie, when released from May onwards) if it piques your interest.

The website for the documentary Bloodline had a massive makeover earlier this week, and now looks extremely purty and has plenty of features worth browsing through (with more still to be added). The film - which touches on many of the elements in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and the seminal Holy Blood, Holy Grail - is due for release in May in theatres in New York and Los Angeles.

Currently on the site you'll find a bunch of raw film clips from the 3 year 'journey' of film-maker Bruce Burgess, the trailer for the film, a number of pictures from the shooting, and details as to what the film covers. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for in May.

(In the interests of full disclosure: the film's producers have this week enquired about advertising here on TDG. This story was not posted for this reason though - as regular readers will know, I have been posting updates about Bloodline for some time now, as it is a topic of interest to many Grailers).

At Cabinet of Wonders, Emps has posted a great video series on the life and work of Joseph Campbell:

Joseph Campbell's work on myth was some of the most influential ever done, not only for our understanding of the power and nature of such tales, but also because he broke the structure down to core elements, which could then be used as a template by writers and film makers - cropping up everywhere from Star Wars to The matrix (see The Writer's Journey for both a how-to and an analysis of a number of films, including The Fully Monty - who knew?).

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth is an epic 6 hour documentary, which explores this topic through long interviews with Campbell and others (conducted over 2 years at George Lucas' ranch). It is not just one of best documentaries on this topic, but is truly a tour de force of the medium which you'd struggle to find these days.

I don't think I have 6 free hours in the next year, but I'll be trying to fit as much of this in as I can!