Rosslyn Chapel
Rosslyn Chapel—often called the Cathedral of Codes—stands seven miles south of Edinburgh, Scotland, on the site of an ancient Mithraic temple. Built by the Knights Templar in 1446, the chapel is engraved with a mind-boggling array of symbols from the Jewish, Christian, Egyptian, Masonic, and pagan traditions. Its geographic coordinates fall precisely on the north-south meridian that runs through Glastonbury, a longitudinal Rose Line that is the traditional marker of King Arthur's Isle of Avalon and is considered the central pillar of Britain's sacred geometry. It is from this hallowed Rose Line that Rosslyn—originally spelled Roslin—takes its name.
Architecture and Symbolism
The chapel's rugged spires cast long evening shadows as Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu arrive. The west wall is an oddly protruding structure that casual visitors assume was unfinished, but it is in fact an exact architectural blueprint of the west wall of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The Knights Templar designed Rosslyn as a replica of that temple, complete with a narrow rectangular sanctuary and a subterranean vault like the Holy of Holies, where the original nine knights had first unearthed their priceless treasure. Every surface in the chapel has been carved with symbols—Christian cruciforms, Jewish stars, Masonic seals, Templar crosses, cornucopias, pyramids, astrological signs, plants, vegetables, pentacles, and roses. The master masons left no stone uncarved, making Rosslyn a shrine to all faiths, to all traditions, and above all, to nature and the goddess. The sanctuary is empty except for a handful of visitors listening to a young man giving the day's last tour, leading them along a well-known route on the floor—an invisible pathway linking six key architectural points. Generations of visitors have walked these straight lines, connecting the points, and their countless footsteps have engraved an enormous Star of David on the floor, also known as Solomon's Seal, once the secret symbol of the stargazing priests and later adopted by the Israelite kings David and Solomon.
The Keystone's Destination
Langdon and Sophie have come to Rosslyn because the text of Saunière's final message could not have been more specific: "The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits." The poem also makes reference to "the blade and chalice guarding o'er Her gates" and "Adorned in masters' loving art, She lies" and "She rests at last beneath the starry skies." Langdon had fantasized that Saunière's "Grail map" would be a diagram with an X-marks-the-spot, but the Priory's final secret had been unveiled in simple verse. Despite the clarity of Saunière's final revelation, Langdon felt more off balance than enlightened, because Rosslyn seemed far too obvious a location. For centuries, this stone chapel had echoed with whispers of the Holy Grail's presence, and the whispers had turned to shouts in recent decades when ground-penetrating radar revealed the presence of an astonishing structure beneath the chapel—a massive subterranean chamber that dwarfed the chapel atop it and appeared to have no entrance or exit. Archaeologists petitioned to begin blasting through the bedrock to reach the mysterious chamber, but the Rosslyn Trust expressly forbade any excavation of the sacred site, fueling speculation about what the Trust was trying to hide.
The Reunion and Revelation
Inside the chapel, Sophie feels a strange familiarity and recognizes the two intricately sculpted pillars at the far end of the sanctuary—Boaz, the Mason's Pillar, and Jachin, the Apprentice Pillar—which Langdon explains are exact replicas of the two pillars that stood at the head of Solomon's Temple. Sophie's memory clarifies: her grandfather brought her here when she was very young, a year or so after her family's death. She recalls lying on the floor gazing up at the encoded ceiling while her grandfather stepped outside to say goodbye to a dear friend he feared he would not see again for a very long time. The young docent, who lives with his grandmother in the rectory, notices the rosewood box Langdon is holding and remarks that his grandmother has an identical jewelry box. Langdon, realizing the implications, asks about the docent's parents and learns they died in a car accident on the same day as his grandfather. Sophie, drawn to the fieldstone house, finds her grandmother, Marie Chauvel, who reveals the truth: Sophie's parents were from Merovingian families—direct descendants of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ—and her brother, the docent, survived the accident and was raised in hiding. The family was separated for protection, and Sophie's grandfather had been trying to tell her the truth all along.
The Grail's True Location
After the reunion, Langdon asks Marie Chauvel if the Holy Grail is in the vault beneath Rosslyn. She laughs and tells him the Grail is no longer there; one of the Priory's most ancient charges was to return the Grail to her homeland of France, and Jacques Saunière, as Grand Master, succeeded in building her a resting place fit for a queen. When Langdon presses her about the keystone's poem pointing to Rosslyn, she suggests he may be misreading its meaning. She reads the poem aloud and then smiles knowingly, saying, "Aah, Jacques." She tells Langdon that as she has witnessed on the chapel floor, there are many ways to see simple things. She confesses she has never officially been privy to the present location of the Grail, but her women's intuition is strong. She tells Langdon he will leave Rosslyn without any real answers, but something tells her he will eventually find what he seeks, and when it does, she trusts that he, of all people, can keep a secret. Later, alone in Paris, Langdon follows the bronze medallions of the ancient Rose Line to the Louvre, where he stands beneath the inverted pyramid—the Chalice—and above the miniature pyramid—the Blade—and realizes the Holy Grail lies beneath the Louvre's inverted pyramid, the true resting place of Mary Magdalene.
