"There are Templar graffiti in the dungeon at Warwick Castle in England and at Chinon Castle in France. But by far the strangest and most intriguing examples are to be found at the guardhouse at Domme, in south-western France.

Traces of the order that have been unaccountably overlooked in the thousands of pages written about the Templars. These wall carvings are as close to first-hand Templar writings are we are ever likely to get, so when the opportunity arose to take a close look at them I seized my camera and sallied forth. Little did I suspect that what I was to find would leave me astonished and engulf most of my spare time in the following months as I became driven by the need to comprehend what the Templars had left behind on the walls of this terrible place. "

Notwithstanding the repetition in popular Templar publications of enthousiastic descriptions as the above, rock solid evidence on a certain Templar origin of the grafitti is missing. The same is the case with similar grafitti from elsewhere. Recent research at Domme even concluded that " the grafitti would perhaps be posterior to the time of the Templars. No traces were found attesting that the building served as a prison for incarcerating Templar Knights there at the time (1307). However, the patterns at Domme suggest at least a relationship with Jerusalem and crusading. This is documented by the many pictures available on the internet such as here and here. Whether the grafitti were done by crusaders, Templar or not, living at the building free or captive may remain hidden in history, though it seems possible.

source of top quote, illustration Domme grafitti, photo Jochen Jahnke, CC BY-SA 3.0, source Wikipedia. Additional pictures of the site can be found here.

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