c. 177

Events:

• Return of tolerance towards Christians in Edessa under Abgar VIII (177–212). For a time on coins an effigy of Abgar appears with him wearing a tiara with a Christian cross.
• The 'portrait,’ however, remains hidden and gradually falls into oblivion; legend centres around an apocryphal exchange of letters between Christ and Abgar.
• The end of Byzantine rule. The city experiences a series of floods (approximately one per century).

Comment:

For centuries no one knows of the existence of the Shroud, which rests in a hermetically sealed niche above the west gate.