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Whereas Romanesque reliquaries were in the shape of chests or churches protecting their sacred contents, Gothic reliquaries became like shop-windows, allowing one to gaze on the most priceless commodities in the culture. The Three Towers Reliquary places the relics on the exterior of the Gothic structure and the statues within. Transparent tubes of rock crystal, which make up the spires, display fragments of St John the Baptist's hair-shirt, Christ's sweat-rag from the crucifixion and the rod from his flagellation, as well as part of a rib of St Stephen, each identified by a written label. Inside are three figures, St John the Baptist, Christ, and a donor dressed in the vestments of a deacon, who kneels toward the standing Saviour at the centre.
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