A precious cup that has been claimed to be the Holy Grail by historians was forced to be taken off the shelf as crowds ended up swarming around the display in a church in Spain, Agence France-Presse reported.
After two historians published a book last week claiming that the ancient goblet was the mythical chalice from which Christ sipped at the Last Supper, curators had to remove the cup when a large amount of visitors flocked to the San Isidro basilica in the northwestern city of Leon.
An exhibition space that will be able to accommodate the large crowds is being searched for. Until then, the cup was taken off display on Friday, Raquel Jaen, the director of the basilica's museum, said.
"It was in a very small room where it was not possible to admire it to the full," she told AFP.
Known as the goblet of Infanta Dona Urraca, the cup is made out of agate, gold and onyx and encrusted with precious stones.
According to AFP, formed by two goblets joined together, with one turned up, the other down, the object in Leon has been named after the daughter of Fernando I, King of Leon from 1037 to 1065.
In the book "Kings of the Grail," authors Margarita Torres, Leon University medieval history lecturer, and art historian Jose Manuel Ortega del Rio identified the cup as the Holy Grail.
"They said two Egyptian parchments they found in 2011 at Cairo's University of Al-Azhar set them on a three-year investigation," AFP reported. "Their studies led them to identify the upper part of the princess's goblet, made of agate and missing a fragment as described in the parchments, as the grail -- one of the most prized relics in Christianity."
There are supposedly 200 Holy Grails in Europe, the Spanish researchers said.
Apart from the controversial reveal, the authors also tried to debunk the authenticity of some of the better known candidates in their book, AFP reported.
