I have a mystery that needs to be solved.

I visited the Chartres Cathedral 3 weeks ago. I was mainly interested in the stained glass windows, and while I knew the Veil of Virgin is also famous, I didn't really study it or look at many pictures beforehand.

What I saw inside the glass case is this: A horizontal wooden stick hanging from the case, and <b>a piece of square/rectangle cloth</b> that seems to be mounted to that stick and another horizontal one in the bottom.

That piece of cloth looks pretty old and the bottom right seems to have some stain or is frayed.

Without knowing much about it, I though that was it. All the standard description boards and signs in front of it.

After I've left, I read more about it and saw a lot of photos of it, and apparently what I saw was very different from those photos! It should be a long piece of veil loosely draped over a horizontal stick. Not mounted flat.

I did some search and couldn't find anything about what happened to the veil recently, or any photos that resemble what I saw.

Any idea from the Chartres, Veil of Virgin, or Catholic experts what I saw and why?

don't know what you saw but on Malcolm Miller's tour of the cathedral he said that in medieval days there was a big fire and most everything should have been destroyed - except lo and behold days later church officials miraculously discovered the veil intact - the only thing about to survive the fire - a true miracle that pilgrims took to even enhance the allure of Our Lady as a shrine at Chartres. Pilgrimage was a huge business then and having the veil intact was crucial to keeping them coming.

So what you see today is, according to Malcolm anyway, almost surely a medieval fake.

I am clearly no expert on this, but the veil is made of silk, which is quite resistant to fire. So, it could have survived. And I believe recent tests have shown that it's most likely of Middle Eastern origin from around the 1st Century.

So, while they could have just found a different piece of old silk after the fire, I think the original could very well have survived.

But of course, whether the veil belongs to Mary, that's much much less likely.

Bump... Has anybody been to Chartres recently?

I would just assume that they changed the manner in which the veil is displayed between the time of the photos and your visit.

I'll try to get a video screenshot of it posted tonight.

Here's a screen shot from my video. This is the closest I zoomed in to. If you google an image of the Chartres Veil of Virgin, you'll see something very different.

home.earthlink.net/~rkkwan/photos/misc/veil.jpg

<b>PLEASE HELP ME solve this mystery!</b>

Please type in or cut-and-paste the whole web address in the above post.

Fodors's software cut out the later part of clickable link.

Hmm..when I visited Chartres our guide told us the veil was kept in the church treasury and not shown on tours.

chelsea -

Thanks for the reply. That would explain it!