The picture above is of Ian Wilson and Max Frei in the Wilderness of Judea. It was taken in 1977 when I accompanied them on a research trip for The Silent Witness. Ian had just produced a theory that linked the Shroud with a well known cloth from history known as the Image of Edessa, or Mandylion meaning "made without hands". The cloth had come to light in southern Turkey and disappeared from Constantinople in 1204 about 150 years before the arrival of the Shroud in Europe. Max had, quite independently, just discovered pollens from Turkey on the Shroud. His work is shown in detail on the Pollens page. Thirty-five years on, Ian summarises where his theory stands.