Arcadia Discussion Zone

In order for Dayan's involvement/interest in the area, one would have to "buy" into the premise that whatever items were possibly to be recovered would have a biblical/middle-eastern connection, as Dayan never had any interest in any other class of antiquities.

And THAT, opens a completely different can of worms with regard to what realistic possibilities might have fit the bill... or might've been believed - through legend and/or local myth - to have fit the bill. (No, not the Ark... that's a non-starter, but there are other possibilities that might have been believed)

more recent invention whose purpose is to cover past errors and stupid mistakes made by amateurs unfamiliar with the Foix family genealogy

i didnt realise until recently that there is a funeral tradition amongst the European royalty of removing the heart before buriel

Anyone have any views on this?

Relevant?

Provenance?

Important?

A treasure map

Then, using Boudet’s book and establishing a “Boudet meridian”, he comes to the conclusion that there are three potential locations for this treasure. He adds: “Here we are therefore confronted with a double (or triple) cache, spiritual and material. In the Razès, one can only think about the Cathar treasure, to whom such a double nature has often been attributed.” He then goes on to explain how he has gone to these sites to verify his remarks. He then quickly moves on to state that apart from those on-site inspections, he had certain encounters with people who lived there: the names are well-known: Déodat Roché, Franck Marie, Lucienne Julien, Jean Robin and Pierre Jarnac.

The players

Next, we find several other players that are now well-known to be part of the “mystery”: Vincent de Paul, the Lazarists, etc. Specifically, he lists Bigou as a key player, a man who left his imprint and knowledge behind, before leaving and dying n Spain. And he argues that this knowledge is also about other locations, though these are not part of the mainstream interest in the enigma. He lists Bézu as one such site, stating: “There is a small church there which today is abandoned. In this building, a statue of John the Baptist, with his right arm broken and stuck back on the wrong way around (after 1959) appears to indicate a point of the vault. What can John the Baptist show us with his cut and turned over wrist?” Let us note that since, the church of Bézu has been partially restored. We also find certain notes to other seldom mentioned sites, in regards to Notre Dame de la Salette and Isère.
Though discussions about St Sulpice are now commonplace (and definitely so after The Da Vinci Code), at the time of writing, the observations Pumaz made were less if not ill-known. “In the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris: the stations of the cross; the reversed N in two signatures of the painter Signol; in the crucifixion painted by this artist, the plaque at the top of the Cross of the Saviour where the three lines are written from right to left, the Greek and the Latin thus the other way around.”
Speaking of inversions: Signol becomes Longis, which is the name of the soldier who allegedly pierced the side of Christ. Such displays of ingenuity underline his professional acquaintance with ciphers.

For Pumaz, Bigou is not a small-time priest in a godforsaken village. In fact, elsewhere, in the researchers’ magazine, he wrote that “If I come across Bigou in the other world, I will be happy to talk to him a bit…”

In 1985, there was even a rumour that there was a role in this enigma for a priest by the name of Cauneille, as well as two books, whose existence remained unproven – or non-provable. Cagger, the man he is, makes certain enquiries and discovers that there is indeed such a person, whose name is largely written like Cauneille, but not precisely. Furthermore, no-one has devoted any attention to his man, simply, it seems, because he is a Catalan priest and – of course – most tenors of the debate exclusively focus on the Aude region, confusing the mystery of Saunière with that of his vilage. As to the two books, these are the two notebooks, which are located in Spain. He adds that he has been able to recover this information by making use of his “position”.
Let us finally add that in his unpublished material, there was also much more information about St Sulpice and the church of Bézu.