UK will see Bulgaria's resting place of St John the baptist tonight on TV

St Ivan Island, Bulgaria,
final resting place for St John the Baptist

On Thursday last week a team of scholars from Oxford university announced they have provided scientific evidence to support the extraordinary claim that the authentic mortal remains of St. John the Baptist have been discovered in a monastery built in the 5th century, here in Bulgaria. The findings are to be presented in a documentary to be aired on The National Geographic channel in Britain today, Sunday 17th June. The remains - small fragments of a skull, bones from a jaw and an arm, and a tooth - were discovered embedded in an altar in the ruins of the ancient monastery, on the St. Ivan island in the Black Sea. But after the find two years ago was met with universal scepticism Oxford University archaeologists undertook carbon dating tests. The research team dated the right-handed knuckle bone to the first century AD, when John is believed to have lived until his beheading ordered by king Herod. Scientists from the University of Copenhagen analysed the DNA of the bones, finding they came from a single individual, probably a man, from a family in the modern-day Middle East, where John would have lived.