The Shroud of Turin : the burial cloth of Jesus Christ?

I have decided to read Ian Wilson's books on the Shroud of Turin in order, to see how his views have changed over time and how he has influenced the study of sindonolgy. Wilson's writing is easy-to-understand and his grasp of all the research (in a time before internet research) is astounding. And,

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here, in all its glory is Wilson's hypothesis that the Shroud of Turin was, in fact, the Mandylion (or Image of Edessa), that was removed from Edessa to Constantinople and then looted by the Latin Knights in 1204, where it ended up in France (via the Knights Templar) as the Shroud of Turin. His hypothesis makes good sense. His comparison of Jesus images after the Mandylion's display and comparisons to the face on the Shroud of Turin are compelling (the Vignon markings). It is a good case, and pretty much all books on the Shroud written after this must deal with Wilson's hypotheses. Knowing what is going to happen a few years after this book's 1978 publication, it is interesting to see Wilson praise Walter McCrone (pp. 202ff.), who would later be a Shroud skeptic, and hear Wilson enthusiastically recommend radiocarbon dating (pp. 203ff.), knowing Wilson will later discount the AD 1260–1390 carbon dating as mistaken. Endpaper map, black-and-white plates, appendices (the most interesting of which is the "Reconstructed Chronology of the Turin Shroud"), endnotes. Unfortunately, no bibliography and no index.

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