Could you please give a short summary of the answer to my brief specific question. I assume you read the book and know the facts of the situation.
Good bye folks. Have a good one.
30 A.D. the likeliest year of the crucifixion during Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judaea. Probably Friday, April 7. Joseph of Arimathea, a secret follower of Jesus asked for the body, bought a clean sindon, wraps the body and lays it in his own stone-hewn tomb (limestone from the tomb has been found on the cloth). April 9, Peter & John find the body gone, but the burial wrappings loeft behind. John describes what he calls a "sudarion" rolled up and in a place by itself. Thismay have been the Shroud.
According to later tradition, possibly in the same year, a disciple of Jesus called Thaddaeus travels to Edessa (today Urfa, in Eastern Turkey)(Recorded by Clement of Alexandria), at the invitation of the city ruler, Abgar V, with whom Jesus had been in correspondence. All accounts describe Thaddaeus healing Abgar of a disease and converting a proportion of Edessan citizens to Christianity. According to some tradtions, however, he also brings with him a cloth miraculously imprinted with Jesus' likeness. This is called the cloth of Edessa.
50 A.D. Death of Abgar; succeeded by his brothere Ma'nu V bar Abgar. Ma'mu dies; succeeded by his brother Ma'mu VI. This son of Abgar who reverted to paganism and persecuted early Christians. These would appear to have hidden the Christ-imprinted cloth inside a niche above one of the city's gates as a desperate measure to ensure its safety. Then there is a period of obvious ignorance as to where the cloth was.
There are several changes of rulers of course, with hints concerning the cloth of Edessa. The city experienced floods requiring repair of structures in 201 and again in 303. Edessa comes under Roman rule & Diocletian orders the destruction of Christian Scriptures and churches. In 313 Constantine became Emperor. We all know that he Christianized the Roman world. Edessa was the site for many Christian pilgrimages (why?). Pre 500A.D. Georgian manuscript says Joseph of Arimathea colected the blood of Jesus in the linen cloth that wrapped his body. "But I (Joseph) climbed Holy Golgotha, where the Lord's cross stood, and collected in a headband and a large sheet the precious blood that had flowed from his holy side."
A.D. 502 Edessa's walls are repaired and the city gates stopped up with stone. This is a possible date of the Shroud's discovery as the cloth of Edessa. A.D. 503. Persian attack on Edessa. Defenders repulsed them claiming, "Christ stands before our city."
A.D. 525. Another great flood at Edessa. Emperor Justinian orders reconstruction of city and walls. This is probably when the hiddden Edessa Cloth was found. A.D. 544. Another unsuccessful seige by the Persians. According to Evagrius,writing a generation later reported that when all seemed lost, the bishop had discovered the hiding place of cloth with "the divinely wrought likeness which human hands have not made".
In 569, one of the earliest reports of the Edessa cloth as an extant historical object. "its Christ likeness is not by the hand of an artist"(Evagrius)
Before 600 a version of the story of how Edessa was evangelized describes Jesus wiping his face on a tetradiplon, a cloth 'doubled in four', and leaving his image on this, which again suggests the Edessa cloth was of substantial length leading to it's folding.
A.D.692, Judtinian II issues gold coins bearing portrait of christ enthroned, the first ever proper likeness of Jesus to appear on any coin. Thought to be based on the Edessa cloth, the likeness exhibits strking similarities to the vace on the Turin Shroud.
Other mentions in history during 700s. A.D. 943 Spring. The elderly Byzantine Emperor Romanus, sends an army to Edessa to negotiate with the Moslems for possession of the Edessa cloth imprinted with Jesus' likeness.Romanus' general makes the promise that providing the cloth is safely handed over he will not harm Edessa. After protracted negotiations the Moslems agree and a bishop enters Edessa to receive the cloth on the emperor's behalf. The bishop is eventually satisfied that he has the original and travels with it across Anatollia back to Constantinople. In (44, the cloth arrives in Constantinople, resting at the Church of St Mary at Blachernae where it is viewed by the imperial family. Then taken by galley to the Imperial Palace and placed overnight in the chapel of the Pharos. Aug. 16th, the cloth is carried aroiund the walls of Constantinople in its casket, then taken to Hagia Sophia and placed on the 'throne of mercy'. In the sermon given that day there are words that indicate that the image was full body, not just a face. There are numerous mentions of religious use of the cloth, and it is well established that it was in Constantinople up to 1203, when the Crusaders breached the walls and sent the Byzantine Emperor fleeing. They installed their own ruller and while they wait for payment for their services they become "tourists", Robert de Clari, A Crusader from Picardy, describes seeing in the Church of St Mary, the "sydoines" in which our Lord had been wrapped" adding tht one could see the figure of our Lord on it. Angry at not being paid, the Crusaders loot the city, but they safeguard all relics found in the Imperial Chapel. So who took the Shroud?
If the cloth of Edessa was one and the same os the Turin Shroud, we are therefor faced with a second and much more mysterious period of disappearance. There are clues through the Templars writings and stories.
It would seem that perhaps the mystery has been solved. This is a very condensed version of events. One has to read "The Blood and the Shroud" by Ian Wilson. It is a detective story not to be missed. His is the best documented history of the Shroud that I have read. Whew. I have to run soon. Church calls. Please overlook any typos. I don't have time to proof.