It seems that there were ample financial reserves held at the Sidon Preceptory and so the treasure of the Templars cannot have been gold or otherwise it would not have been mentioned. Phoenicians bringing gifts for the Persian king. When Gaudin finally arrived at the Templar port of Sidon he was elected the next Grand Master - or Lord. The leaders of Sidon were linked with the Templars and would have seen the Templar’s banking system as highly important.Īs the Holy Land finally fell to the Muslims in 1291 I found mention of a Templar knight by the name of Tibald Gaudin who is thought to have carried off the famous Templar treasure. In fact they were one and the same in many respects - both feeding from one another. It had a huge fleet, and so did the Templars. It collapsed in the 14th century, and so did the Templars. The links between Sidon are strong: Templars were highly commercial and indeed linked to slavery, so was Sidon. So was this Lord of Sidon mentioned in the Templar story really a pirate? I considered also the link of the skull and crossbones to piracy, especially as it was linked to the Templars, and the fact that the Lord from the skull and crossbones story was Lord of Sidon. The fact that it was well known as a ‘nest of pirates’ was startling. So this was a brief but relevant history of Sidon and its relationship to my story was remarkable. Slowly however Sidon again declined until the late 20th century when again it has risen from the ashes to become an important commercial and agricultural centre. Under Fakhreddine’s guidance it became a base for French merchants who used it as a staging post to further their commercial conquests.
Mysterious Camerano Underground City – Secret Meeting Place For Knights Templar? Knights Templar – Among The Most Wealthy And Powerful Of The Western Christian Military Orders Knights Templar – Their Clothing And Eating Habits According To Exceptionally Strict Rules Only Sidon was not yet dead in the water though and flourished again briefly in the 17th century when it was rebuilt by Fakhreddine II - the then ruler of Lebanon. The lack of water and resources - added to Turkish invasions - led to lack of interest. However, by the 14th century, and following the downfall of the Templars, Sidon was on the ‘way out’ as a player on the world market. It was a very commercial, and in fact, warlike city, with a powerful navy - something the Templars looked up to and emulated.įrom early on, Sidon was a rendezvous for pirates, and even the slave trade continued after the fall of slavery elsewhere. In 1111 AD the crusader Baldwin, who was later to become King Baldwin of Jerusalem, besieged the city and it was later to become one of the four baronies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Under his successors Sidon became known as the ‘holy city of Phoenicia’ and enjoyed relative freedom, with games and competitions attracting people from far and wide. However the place did go on to play host to one of Alexander the Great’s garrisons for a while, which was used to subdue this piratical element for Alexander’s own purposes. Sidon had its own coinage that bore the head of Athena (also Minerva a serpentine, feminine deity linked with healing.) I found that Athena was indeed the patroness of the city even though its people were sometimes termed ‘a piratical horde’ and Constantine Porphyrogenitus called Sidon a ‘nest of pirates.’ I turned firstly to the main character in the tale, the infamous Lord of Sidon.Īs a Titular metropolis of Pamphylia Prima, Sidon, dates as far back as Neolithic times.
There were more nuggets of information in this text, which needed investigation and I decided that it was about time the code was broken.
But before I decided this to be the case I wanted to delve deeper and found myself in an ancient world of symbolism and secrecy.