I read your piece on the Turin Shroud and being quite fascinated by the object I thought that I’d drop you a short note.
By any measure of logic the shroud is a fake.
It turns up in the middle-ages with no satisfactory explanation as to where it had been kept or hidden for the previous 1000 years.
At that particular time there were thousands of bits of the true-cross and crowns of thorns and nails used in the crucifixion etc and forgery of these "relics" was big business.
The shroud was tested and found to be of medieval origin.
It would seem incredible to believe that the scientists who tested the shroud could not differentiate between the original cloth and pieces that had been repaired.
But – and a big but: if it is a forgery then it is the cleverest forgery in history. The forger had to have knowledge of things that would not be known until 800 years into the future.
How was the image put on the cloth and be in the form of a photographic negative etc etc etc.
A real mystery if there ever was one.
What things would not be known until 800 years into the future? Or were they just flukes?