- UK- Christ's head 'in Scottish chapel'
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- The Turin shroud - the most famous image
of the Messiah's head
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- Christ's head is buried under a chapel
in Scotland, a controversial anthropologist has claimed.
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- Dr Keith Laidler says the head is at
the 15th century Rosslyn chapel in Midlothian.
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- He became interested in the possibility
after reading a book which claimed the Knights Templar had a head which
they worshipped.
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- One theory is the head was carried to
Scotland by Mary Magdalene via France.
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- But another has it that the Knights Templar,
a religious military order born out of the first crusade, dug it up in
Jerusalem and carried it through France to Scotland.
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- Dr Laidler, who lays out his ideas in
his book The Head of God - the Lost Treasure of the Templars says there
was a cult of heads in the Middle Ages.
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- Scottish Catholics - no faith in head
theory
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- But Father Danny McLoughlin, a spokesman
for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, branded the idea outrageous
and impossible to believe.
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- ''The Templars disappeared in Scotland
in the 13th century and that chapel was not built until 300 years later
so there seems to be a slight problem there to say nothing of the other
problems we would see,'' he said.
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- ''The head that the doctor is talking
about has yet to appear and perhaps what I should say is bring me that
head and let's run some tests on it, and if you can prove that head sat
on the shoulders of Jesus Christ then maybe we will take it a bit more
seriously.''
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- But Dr Laidler says producing the physical
evidence is difficult as Rosslyn is a listed building and even the use
of metal detectors is banned.
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- ''I have actually pushed very hard to
have excavations done, but I have been told it will not be done in the
near future,'' he added.
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