This event has been postponed.
Wed 10th June 2020, 8pm
David Phillips
Evesham Arts Theatre
We look at three fascinating objects that are either of unrivalled world importance or are laughable fakes – the experts cannot agree. The Turin Shroud is a simply fascinating object whatever your take on it. Much evidence suggests origins as a fourteenth century forgery, but it’s not conclusive, and if it is fake, how were those images done? The Voynich Manuscript in Yale is known as the most mysterious book in the world. It looks fifteenth century, that’s what the science suggests, and the contents appear medical, alchemical and cosmological – or are they a spoof? It’s in a script and language that not even America’s top defense cryptologists have ever been able to decipher. The Getty Museum have taken off display a 6th century BC Greek Kouros they bought in the 1980’s, because they just don’t know if it’s genuine. Serves the museum right, some say, because they rode roughshod over heritage protection laws to get it, in days when some curators socialized happily with gangsters.
David Phillips studied History at Oxford, and from 1968-82 worked for Nottingham Castle Museum. From 1982-98, Lecturer in Museum Studies and Art History at University of Manchester. Published a book about museum practice with Manchester University Press, Exhibiting Authenticity 1997.