page_title: Holy Chalice
section_title: Antioch Chalice
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Chalice / Modern candidates / Antioch Chalice
caption_attribution_description: The Antioch Chalice, first half of 6th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art
context_page_description: The Holy Chalice, also known as the Holy Grail, is in Christian tradition the vessel that Jesus used at the Last Supper to serve wine. The Synoptic Gospels refer to Jesus sharing a cup of wine with the Apostles, saying it was the covenant in his blood. The use of wine and chalice in the Eucharist in Christian churches is based on the Last Supper story. In the late 12th century, the author Robert de Boron associated the pre-existing story of the Holy Grail, a magical item from Arthurian literature, with the Holy Chalice. This association was continued in many subsequent Arthurian works, including the Lancelot-Grail cycle, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Two main artifacts, a cup in the Cathedral of Valencia and a hexagonal dish in Genoa, have been particularly well known since Medieval times and have been both identified as the Holy Chalice.
context_section_description: The silver-gilt object originally identified as an early Christian chalice is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was apparently made at Antioch in the early 6th century and is of double-cup construction, with an outer shell of cast-metal open work enclosing a plain silver inner cup. When it was first recovered in Antioch in 1910, it was touted as the Holy Chalice, an identification the Metropolitan Museum characterizes as "ambitious". It is no longer identified as a chalice, having been identified by experts at Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, believed to be a standing lamp, of a style of the 6th century.
caption: Antioch Chalice, first half of the 6th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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