"These four rings are those that are left of the nine holy bishops. The rest disappeared."
"Through them, water was poured to heal the sick, and many were cured."
The study that we are carrying out on the rings, the bag they were found in
and the written witnesses, are to try to identify what are the materials,
where would these have been made, how would they have been used
and how did they come down to us from these centuries in the past.
One of the greatest difficulties that we're having to deal with is that
it's not so easy to come to a concrete answer.
And that's what people want - they'd like to know are these the bishops' rings or not.
But when they learn that what's more interesting is
how these rings respond to different moments of the past.
The way that this could have been used by people at different times.
The way that these have been treasured and come down to us,
in a way that's more satisfying, because if I just
give you a simple 'yes' or 'no', that's the end of the story.
It's a paradox really, if you think about it,
this using scientific methods to try to understand faith,
to understand something that is part of a belief system.
We seem to have such faith in science today that we think
it can tell us everything.
But science can't prove a miracle,
science can't prove whether a miracle-working ring actually worked.
But if you have faith that it did, that's where the miracle comes in.