More relic fail!

Just last week, I discussed how archaeology and relics often don't go together so well, with the former usually negating the validity of the latter. And so this week, when a report of the archaeological discovery of a nail like that used to crucify Christ (and even better, cherished by Knights Templar as a relic!), my archaeo-sense immediately started tingling and so did Chris' at A Hot Cup of Joe.

Turns out my finely honed archaeo-sense didn't lie to me. Chris Cunnyngham discusses the truly bizarre reality of the context of this find and finds it rather weak (go read the piece, you won't believe it!), concluding that

So, boiled down, this is what we have: A man buys an old building, pronounces it a nation, secedes from his country, proclaims himself Prince, conducts archaeological digs and claims to have found three Templar skeletons and a nail that may have been a venerated relic of a crucifixion. And if it was a crucifixion nail it was one of thousands available.

Sounds a little sketchy.

To make matters worse, yesterday Portuguese archaeologist Élvio Sousa, soundly debunked the whole report via a scathing statement on the CEAM (a Portuguese archaeological institute) web site, of which I reproduce the English component here:

The news published yesterday in England, on the assumed Roman relics found in archaeological excavations carried out at Fort São José, erected in the eighteenth century, at Funchal Port, Madeira, requires the following statement from the Scientific Council of CEAM:

1. Considering the scientific archaeological work done by CEAM at Fort São José (2004-2006), it is manifestly false, the news of the discovery of Roman objects, especially in an area (dig) that corresponds with the excavated area.

2. This dig identified, to the bedrock, objects dating from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although there are some traces that can date back to the seventeenth century.

3. The news of the findings of Romans relics is a “fantasy,” even more ridiculous by the sensationalist news of a wooden box (incredibly preserved, near the sea, over two thousand years), with three skeletons and three swords.

4. The nail that illustrates the news, if discovered inside the fort, is just an object used in residential constructions during the early Moderns times (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). Many nails like this were found in the excavations (2004-2006). Equally, the references to skeletons are also a creation, to give emphasis to the mythical theory.

5. This view is supported by the British archaeologist and expert in Roman archeology Brian Philp (Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit) who has been following the present study of archaeological materials in partnership with the Scientific Council of CEAM.

6. In conclusion: this is pure imagination, without accuracy and scientific credibility. We are not familiarized with Mr Christopher Macklin and Bryn Walters and we do not recognize in them, any authority in the findings within this Military construction.

Un-frikkin-believable!

Relics fail!

This exchange between William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, in The Name of the Rose seems pretty timely...

“Some time ago, in the Cathedral of Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve”

“Really?” I exclaimed, amazed. Then, seized by doubt, I added, “But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!”

“The other skull must be in another treasury,” William said, with a grave face.

I say timely because last week, a study reporting the results of genetic and radiocarbon assays on the putative skulls of St. Bridget (of Sweden) and her daughter Catherine was published (Nilsson et al. 2010). And, lo and behold, it turns out that the skulls apparently belong to unrelated female individuals. And because the genetic tests indicated that the two skulls displayed different degrees of DNA degradation, which suggested that they might be of significantly, radiocarbon dates were also obtained for them: the skull thought to be the saintly relic yielded a calibrated age of 1215–1270 AD, while the one thought to be the saintly daughter rung in at 1470–1670 AD. Since St. Bridget lived from 1303-1373, these dates essentially confirm that the skulls held at Vadstena Abbey are not those of the saints.

It's always better to have mutually reinforcing lines of evidence when trying to answer an archaeological question. This is an elegant demonstration of why. At first glance, it may appear that simply dating the skulls would have been sufficient to demonstrate that they did not belong to who they were claimed to belong to, but then again, issues of contamination could have been raised, so the results of both the genetic and the radiocarbon analyses complement one another nicely in this case.

I've always wondered why relics exert such fascination on believers, especially when the vast majority of them is unlikely to be real, as succinctly encapsulated by another great quote about relics from The Name of the Rose:"... don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest." As concerns specifically human remains used as relics, I've always wondered how some of the more observant faithful would feel about knowing that the similar practices of ritualized handling of bits of dead people have considerable antiquity stretching all the way back to the Pleistocene. As I summarized in a previous post, there's some suggestive evidence that at least as far back as the Middle Stone Age, in distinctly non-Christian contexts, people handled both human teeth and crania in a likely ritual manner.

References

Nilsson, M., Possnert, G., Edlund, H., Budowle, B., Kjellström, A., & Allen, M. (2010). Analysis of the Putative Remains of a European Patron Saint–St. Birgitta PLoS ONE, 5 (2) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008986