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Show that the date from this particular bone is about six centuries later than it ought to be. >> we've tested now two relics of john the baptist. we've had one date from the first century. we've had one date from the 7th or 8th century, and we're just starting now to get a feel for what there is out there, so it's very exciting. it gives us a new bit of information, and i'm hopeful that we'll go forward from here, and we'll ask more questions, and we'll test more relics. >> for tom and georges, the investigation goes on. with as many as 200 relics associated with john the baptist, they hope t...

Sample and through that determine the relic's age. >> using scientific techniques now, for the first time it's really possible to build up a template of scientific similarities between different individuals to understand more about the movements and the passage of relics across this part of the world during the first millennium ad. >> now, the scientists' work is done. they can only wait for a final answer. could this bone belong to john the baptist? new neutrogena® bright boost with dullness-fighting neoglucosamine. boosts cell turnover by 10 times for instantly brighter skin. bright boost n...

>> shall we get the bone out and have a look at it now? >> sitting in an elaborate gilt housing dating back to the 14th century, for the researchers, the challenge will be how to remove the bone from its precious casing. and when they try to extract the bone from its mount, there's a problem. >> the mount does not come off of the bone. >> oh, you mean that i can't actually take the bone out? >> no. >> and that means tom will struggle to reach the central part of the finger containing collagen, the most reliable material for carbon dating. >> it's very tricky in order to get a decent size sampl...

Accelerator mass spectrometer. the machine will analyze the amount of radiocarbon in the sample and through that determine the relic's age. >> using scientific techniques now, for the first time it's really possible to build up a template of scientific similarities between different individuals to understand more about the movements and the passage of relics across this part of the world during the first millennium ad. >> now, the scientists' work is done. they can only wait for a final answer. could this bone belong to john the baptist? to help them get th. thank you to everyone we rely on to...

How we go, i think. >> in kansas city, professor tom higham of oxford university is trying to figure out a way of drilling into a relic of john the baptist. >> because here is open already, i think it's probably best to go in here first and see how we go. >> he hopes to date the carbon inside the bone and perhaps even get a dna profile that can then be matched against the first-century relic he has already tested from bulgaria. >> it's the collagen part of the bone that we want to date. that's the protein part, and that, in modern people, is about 20 percent by weight, but of course in older m...