The Mandylion would surface again around 525 when Edessa was flooded by the Daisan River. Workmen repairing one of the city's gates discovered a niche with the cloth inside; the mandylion was declared to be ''Acheiropoietos'' (Greek: Αχειροποίητος), "not made by hands", meaning that it was a miraculous image created supernaturally and not by man. The Mandylion stayed in Edessa as a means of protection for the city from harm until forcibly taken to [[Constantinople]] in 944, where it was received with great fanfare by Emperor Romanus I. Placed within the church of Saint Mary of Blachernae, it stayed there as a Christian relic until disappearing in the sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. One of the knights who participated in the sacking of Constantinople, Robert de Clari, left a detailed letter of what he observed at the time, and he referred to this relic as being more than a facial image: | The Mandylion would surface again around 525 when Edessa was flooded by the Daisan River. Workmen repairing one of the city's gates discovered a niche with the cloth inside; the mandylion was declared to be ''Acheiropoietos'' (Greek: Αχειροποίητος), "not made by hands", meaning that it was a miraculous image created supernaturally and not by man. The Mandylion stayed in Edessa as a means of protection for the city from harm until forcibly taken to [[Constantinople]] in 944, where it was received with great fanfare by Emperor Romanus I. Placed within the church of Saint Mary of Blachernae, it stayed there as a Christian relic until disappearing in the sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. One of the knights who participated in the sacking of Constantinople, Robert de Clari, left a detailed letter of what he observed at the time, and he referred to this relic as being more than a facial image: |