Once again, history’s most mysterious relic is in the news. According to scientists at an Italian research facility, the Shroud of Turin is genuine: heartening its devotees, and dispiriting sceptics; puzzling those who feel they have no stake in the story either way. What are we to make of it?
Back in 1988 I interviewed the late Professor Edward “Teddy” Hall, lead scientist in a once-and-for-all bid to date the shroud with a standard carbon-14 test. Hall was an internationally respected figure in the world of archaeology and in 1953 he had declared Piltdown Man a fake.
