Granada’s forged relics were planted in a mosque-era tower to manufacture ancient credibility

Evidence

A preliminary lesser discovery had helped to build up expectations. In March 1588, as part of building works carried out in the Cathedral of Granada, an old tower had been knocked down. As they worked, the demolition crew came across objects that were interpreted as ancient relics dating back to pre-Islamic times: a fragment of the Virgin Mary’s veil; the bones of the protomartyr Stephen; a parchment. (How relics from the days of the original evangelization of the Iberian Peninsula came to be in a structure that had formed part of the mosque complex in Nasrid times is one of the many unexplained aspects of this affair. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1248

Categorization

• QUESTION: How could forgers plausibly claim relics from the first-century evangelization ended up in a Nasrid mosque tower — and why did contemporaries accept the leap?