DOUGLAS GORDON, the Turner prize-winning video artist, is producing a new work based on Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, thought by some to be the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.

Glasgow-born Gordon, who is now based in New York, has won a £100,000 scholarship from Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and will start working on the project next month.

He has been inspired by the 15th-century chapel founded by the Knights Templar and reputed to house a cache of holy relics. At various times it has also been claimed to house the mummified head of Christ and the Holy Grail in its crypt.

Gordon intends to make a film exploring the history and myths around the site.

He won the Turner prize in 1996 for his video art — including his most famous installation in which he slowed down Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho to run for 24 hours.

The 37-year-old has recently been critical of the lack of a national market for contemporary art.

Only one of his works — the £100,000 List of Names in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art — is owned and on display in his home country.

Now he has been offered the John Florent Stone scholarship at the ECA which will also involve some teaching work.

“I have always had a deep interest in Scottish life. I’ve also always been interested in Rossyln,” he said.

“Although I studied in Glasgow, many people there were trained at the ECA and it is a natural progression to come back and work with the people I know.”

Rosslyn Chapel was founded in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, the third and last St Clair prince of Orkney, and has been linked to biblical and Masonic legend throughout its history.

It contains detailed carvings incorporating special symbols, and also represents the story of the master and apprentice mason in its own pillars.

According to Robert Forbes, Bishop of Caithness, writing in 1774, the master mason went to Rome to see an original model of an exquisite central pillar — but in his absence an apprentice completed the work.

Inflamed with envy on his return, he struck the pupil with a mallet, killing him instantly — and a model of the apprentice’s shattered head is represented at the back of the chapel.

The college is delighted to welcome back the Scottish artist. “Douglas has always been interested in moral duplicity, and has been much inspired by works such as James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” said a spokesman for the ECA.

Gordon’s work exploring fidelity and duplicity also includes a photograph of his own arm with a tattoo reading “Trust Me”.

Mark Naples, head of Mystery TV — which has researched the legends of the Knights Templar including Rosslyn — said: “A huge number of people internationally are interested in the legends of Rosslyn.”

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