The Messenger of At.

Anthony Feb 1998

Cover feature

The Man of the Shroud has

a name!
The imprint on the piece of cloth universally
known as the Shroud of Turin is truly the
face of Jesus of Nazareth! This is the
conclusion of Maria Grazia Siliato, a Swiss
archaeologist and expert on the Shroud, who
granted us an exclusive interview
By The Editorial Board

The Deposition from the Cross,

by Gerard Davis (end 15th century),
National Gallery, London

After its miraculous escape from a fire in Turin Cathedral last April,
the Shroud, venerated as a relic of Jesus, has started to reveal its
mysteries and they dont fail to astonish. Are you convinced that the
image is only a forgery? Do you doubt the identity of the man
portrayed? Do you think that the carbon-dating tests conducted in 1988
proved conclusively that the Shroud was an elaborate forgery dating
from the 14th century?
Then sit comfortably in your armchair, take a deep breath, and read
carefully what Dr. Maria Grazia Siliato, one of the worlds foremost
experts on the Shroud, had to tell us. There are many things which will
astound you, and much evidence which you have never heard
mentioned which may make you want to think again.

As a scientific researcher specialising in early Christian archaeology,

Dr. Siliato recently published a book, Shroud, which makes a thorough
examination of all the archaeological, historical and scientific research
which has to date been conducted into the worlds most famous burial
cloth. "I believe," she says, "that this extraordinary archaeological
document can be understood and accepted by believers and nonbelievers alike. But it needs to be studied with the necessary
impartiality, as if one were studying the toga worn by Julius Caesar on
the day of his assassination." Playing the part of the Devils advocate,
we confronted Dr. Siliato with the most common objections against the
authenticity of the Shroud.
Messenger: How can we be sure that the photograph which
shows a negative image of Christs face isnt just a fake?
Dr. Siliato: This is absolutely out of the question. No self-respecting
scientist would even call the authenticity of this photograph into
question any longer. The first photo was taken exactly a hundred years
ago, in 1898, by the lawyer, Secondo Pia. On the negative could be
seen the image of a man, with shoulder-length hair and a beard. He
was in a prone position, with his hands crossed over his chest.
Although covered with wounds and bruises, his expression in death is
that of one who is spiritually calm and composed.
At the time, some people insinuated that Pias photographs had been
doctored, suggestions which caused this man a great deal of
suffering. Scientific recognition of the photographs authenticity only
arrived in 1931, when another photographer, Giuseppe Enrie, was
authorised to take a second series of photographs. This time, the
photo session was official, and all the necessary checks made. On
Enries negatives, which were developed and printed on the same
night they were taken, there appears the same image of the Man of
the Shroud, thus conferring poor Mr. Pia with the recognition he
deserved.
The Shroud was subsequently photographed many times, right up to
the first colour shots taken by Judica-Cordiglia and the threedimensional images obtained with the Interpretation System VP8
Image Analyser. We are now completely sure of the images
authenticity.
How can we be sure that this image hadnt been drawn onto the
Shroud?

In 1978, some American scientists from the S.T.U.R.P. (Shroud of

Turin Research Project) examined the Shroud in Turin with all the most
modern and sophisticated equipment available, but they found no
evidence whatsoever that the image had been drawn on. The very faint
outline of the face and body could not possibly have been drawn
there are no traces of any kind of colouring. The imprint was left there
through physical contact. Furthermore, traces of human blood were
found on the Shroud...
In the past, some people have even suggested that the Shroud was
the work of Leonardo da Vinci. This is completely ludicrous. It is well
documented that the Shroud was brought to Turin by the House of
Savoy in 1453, whereas Leonardo was born only a year earlier... In
truth, no medieval painter would have understood the concept of a
photographic negative. As I have already stated, the Shroud only
revealed its secret in 1898, with Secondo Pias negative.
Could the traces of blood on the Shroud which you mentioned not
have come from an animal?
No. The tests carried out by the scientists John Heller and Alan Adler
have shown that it is blood from a human body in its death throes,
which was already coagulating on the skin. This is how it came to
leave traces on the Shroud. Only the wound on the thorax, which is 4
centimetres long and seems to have been caused by a spear-thrust,
could have come from an already-dead body, since the blood is not
coagulated. If the bloods serum and red corpuscles separate, then the
blood is that of a person who is already dead. It left a stain which
seems like blood and water, as Saint John the Evangelist himself
reported: "One of the soldiers thrust a lance into His side, and
immediately blood and water flowed out," (John, 19:34).
How can you explain the existence of other revered shrouds aside
from the one in Turin?
They are, basically, self-confessed copies of the true Shroud. The
House of Savoy used to send them as gifts to churches and
monasteries, in the same way as we send postcards or photographs
today. Often, they even wrote on these copies extractum ab originali,
that is, taken from the original. They are all hand-painted, and very
rough copies, showing how difficult it is to paint something which really
looks like the Shroud.
Dont you think the blood on the Shroud seems too red to be so old?

When a person is cruelly tortured, the blood undergoes a terrible

haemolysis, when the haemaglobin literally breaks up. In thirty
seconds, the reaction reaches the liver, which doesnt have time to deal
with it, and discharges a volume of bilirubin into the veins. Alan Adler
has discovered a very high quantity of this substance in the blood on the
Shroud. It is this substance that, when mixed with methemoglobin of a
certain type, produces that vivid red colour. The colour of the blood
belonging to the Man of the Shroud is chemical proof that, before
dying, he suffered terrible torture.

The words Jesus,

under the chin,and
Nazarene,to one
side,have been
highlighted in red

But on the imprints of the heels, one knee and the nose, traces of
iron-ore oxide have been found. Is this not proof that at least the
imprints of the wounds have been retouched with colouring?

No. Testing under the microscope has shown that this is soil
mixed with blood. We should not forget that the Man of the
Shroud had to walk barefoot over rocky ground, hence the
blood and soil around the feet. The other areas of soil mixed
with blood show that he fell to his knees, hitting his face on
the ground.
In 1988, three different, highly prestigious laboratories,
in Tucson, Oxford and Zurich, dated the Shroud from
the late Medieval period using the C14 radio-carbon
dating method, which allows one to date an
archaeological find by measuring how much
radioactivity it loses each year. How can you refute such
a precise test?

It was disproved by science itself, specifically by a Russian scientist,

Dimitri Kuznetsov, a Lenin prize-winner. He had no idea what the
Shroud represented, but he is one of the worlds foremost experts in
the dating of cloth. His starting-point was the precept that, at just 300
Centigrade, there is isotopic exchange between materials in close
proximity. And in 1532, the Shroud was only just saved from a fire in
the chapel in Chambry, in the Savoy region. There was some
damage; the triangular burns which can be seen clearly on the Shroud,
caused by the silver casket which contained it. But during the fire, the
molecules of the cloth were affected by isotopic discharges from the
silver, wood, silk and other materials of the casket. This increased the
quantity of radiocarbon in the cloth, thereby rejuvenating it.

To reinforce his theory, Kuznetsov took a piece of Jewish cloth, carbon

dated to two thousand years ago, and subjected it to the same heat
treatment: in subsequent C14 tests, it appeared to have come from a
much more recent period.
So the scientists from the three laboratories mentioned made a
mistake in their dating. But the margin of error was even greater
because the piece of the Shroud which they examined was from the
top left-hand corner, a portion which has been much-mended and
heavily worn by the elements over the centuries. The average weight
of the Shroud is 25 milligrams per square centimetre, but that of the
sample examined was 43 milligrams. Basically, they examined a piece
of cloth which had been mended many times. But in any case, even if
they had chosen a better sample, the quantity of radiocarbon in the
cloth had already been increased because of the fire, and so it would
have been impossible to date the cloth correctly using this method.
Who knows how much younger the Shroud will appear now, as a result
of the third fire last year in Turin Cathedral?
A third fire? We know of only two, the one last year and the one in
Chambry in 1532.
If you look carefully at the Shroud, you can see four small holes
distributed in an L shape, caused by a fire which occurred prior to the
one in Chambry and which in themselves are enough to destroy the
hypothesis proposed by radio-carbon dating. This is a discovery of
Jerome Lejeune, the scientist who discovered the Downs Syndrome
gene. He was an enthusiastic student of ancient codes and in
Budapest, he discovered a code dating from the end of the 12th
century (the Pray Code), at which time, tradition retains that the
Shroud was located in Constantinople. The emperor there had shown
it to a group of Hungarian
dignitaries, and one of them
made a sketch of it in which the
four holes in the shape of an L
can clearly be seen.
Some scientists have shown
that an imprint similar to that
on the Shroud can be
produced by placing a linen
cloth on a red-hot statue. Do
you think this is possible?

These scientists have not taken into consideration that the Shroud has
a number of burns due to the fires it has experienced. All these burn
marks appear fluorescent if subjected to Woods light also known as
black light, whereas the imprint of the Man of the Shroud does not,
and therefore cannot be the result of thermic effect. It is a natural
imprint caused by a chemical effect similar to that involved in flowerpressing. Jewish law prohibited that the bodies of those who died a
violent death be washed and perfumed. The scents aloe and myrrh,
mixed with sodium bicarbonate, were therefore sprinkled on and under
the cloth which wrapped Jesus. The linen thus acted as a kind of
blotting-paper. The image would not have been immediately imprinted,
it only appeared a few decades later when the cloth was being
preserved as a relic by the first Christians in their flight from the Roman
Legions, across the Dead Sea.
The first studies into this phenomenon were carried out by one
Professor Volkringer, whose cloth herbals produced in the 1940s are
only now beginning to develop the imprints made in those years.
How is it that the Shroud only first appeared in France in the
1300s, and that prior to that period, nothing was known about it?
The last few years have produced much evidence about the history of
the Shroud before the 1300s.
For example:
In a letter which Theodore di Comneno wrote to the pope asking the
Crusaders to return the Shroud which had been stolen from
Constantinople in 1204 and taken to France;

the remains of Blachernae Church, in Constantinople, where the Shroud

was said to have been on display until 1204;
the above-mentioned Pray Code, preserved in Budapest, in which an
anonymous but very alert observer from around 1150 reproduced those
famous four holes caused by the Shrouds first fire;
the writings of Gregory the Referendary who tells of the Shrouds arrival
in Constantinople in 944. The writings of some Arab historians mention a
huge price paid by the Byzantine emperor to obtain it;
a previously unknown fresco found in a mountainside church in the
Cappadocia region of Turkey which depicts both the imprint made by the
face of the Man of the Shroud and the Basilica built in Edessa, Turkey,
in the 6th century in order to house the Sacred Cloth;
the Laurentian Code, today in Florence, Italy, which reproduces the
Crux Mensuralis modelled by the emperor Justinian in 550 AD and
whose dimensions coincide with those of the Man of the Shroud;

the fact that many of the early pilgrims to the Orient said they had
actually seen the Shroud.

How can you prove that the Shroud comes from Palestine?
In 1970, Max Frei Sulder found on the Shroud various types of pollen
from plants that are typical to those regions through which the
traditional story tells us that the Shroud passed: the Dead Sea,
Edessa, Constantinople, Central Europe... These studies have recently
been confirmed by Avinoam Denim, the director of the Botanical
Institute in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
How can we be sure that the Man of the Shroud is Jesus?
The latest and most dramatic discoveries concern a piece of writing on
the Shroud itself. For years, people had been asking why below and to
the sides of the chin there are three clear and regular lines where no
imprint is present. The Paris-based organisation CIERT (Centre
International dEtudes sur le Linceul de Turin, The international centre
of studies on the Shroud of Turin), which I represent in Italy, has
conducted studies in the most advanced institute in Europe for image
analysis via computer, the Institut Optique dOrsay, whose director is
Professor Andr Marion. All official photographs of the Shroud were
divided into tens of thousands of squares which were then given a
corresponding optical density and transferred onto a visualisation
programme. By means of an extremely advanced programme, some
letters gradually began to emerge, in Latin and in Greek: under the
chin, we find written Jesus and on one side, Nazarene. What is the
explanation for this? The exactor mortis the centurion charged with
ensuring the execution of the condemned, had drawn strips of glue
onto the cloth on which he would write the name of the deceased with
a red liquid. Where these strips were drawn, the cloth was
impermeable and would not, therefore, be subject to the chemical
process which subsequently formed the imprint.
This is a sensational discovery!
Absolutely! I can add something else which I am sure will amaze you.
The wound on the wrist appears on the Shroud as a simple bloodstain. But if you pass an optical fibre between the cloth and the
protective lining which was stitched to the Shroud in Chambry in
1532, and photograph it from behind, the wound appears to be square.
Due to dehydration, Jesus blood was very dense. Only in the place
where the nail was removed was the blood sufficiently liquid to leave a
trace, on the back of the cloth. There is a church in Rome, the Holy

Cross of Jerusalem, where some objects of the Passion were donated

by Saint Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine. She had found
them at Golgotha, where her son had conducted the first
archaeological dig in history, thereby discovering Jesus tomb, over
which the emperor Hadrian had built a huge pagan temple. Only
centuries later was doubt first cast upon these relics which, up to then,
had always been considered authentic. One of these relics was a nail
said to have held Jesus to the cross.
I was overcome with emotion on discovering that the
wound inflicted upon the Man of the Shroud by the nail
planted in his wrist, exactly one centimetre square,
corresponds to the size of the nail found by Saint Helen.
What is more, one of the other relics kept in the Church
of the Holy Cross is a length of wood said to have been
placed over the Cross with the name of the condemned
man. On it, in Hebrew (written from right to left), Greek
and Latin, is Jesus the Nazarene. I sent a photograph of
these inscriptions to Andr Marion in Paris, and he has
already discovered many similarities with the style of the
writing only recently discovered on the Shroud.
The length of wood said to have
been placed over the Cross

THE DATING OF THE IMAGE

BY MEANS OF PALAEOGRAPHY
THE IMAGE DATED TO WITHIN TWO YEARS

Our historical investigation

finds striking confirmation
through palaeography, which
dates the image to within two
years. Our late lamented
friend, Father Filas, sent us
the complete file of this
discovery, which, to his
credit, he brought to
completion though not
having initiated it himself.
This fact needs to be
recalled, for it all began with
a consensus of American
scientists, vouched for by the
Father Francis Filas, SJ, mathematician, physicist and
preliminary work of the
theologian, professor of Loyola University, Chicago, recalled
STURP team at Albuquerque to God on the 15th February 1985, aged 69 years.
in 1977 and by Jumpers
communication to the Congress of Turin in 1978. But it all ended in such a
persecution of Father Filas starting from the meeting at Los Alamos in 1979,
that to this day his file is as good as banned worldwide.
Why? For one reason only, which is totally alien to science: because we have
here a dating of the image, and not just of the cloth, dating it to almost the
actual year of the Event itself. It is the stamp or seal of Pontius Pilate, giving a
date to which no scientist can raise any objection. Unless he maintains, as
does Laurentin, who wrote to me saying that he can see nothing! Might as
well deny the light of day in broad daylight. Judge for yourselves.
PILATES LEPTON
It is the three-dimensional analysis (figure 27) which gave birth to this
hypothesis, but even a look at an ordinary photograph will clearly reveal a
kind of disc placed over each eyelid, dark on the positive and light on the
negative.

Figure 28: The enlargement of the eyelid shows an imprint of

the same size (15mm) and the same cut as this coin (to its left)
stamped with the astrologer's staff, the emblem of Pontius
Pilate.

Figure 27: Close-up of the Face

and facial and dorsal images as
the appear on the video terminal
of the VP8 image analyser.

Figure 29:
The imprint
of the
astrologer's
staff
bordered
on its
curved side
with four
Greek
letters: Y
CAI.

An enlargement of this imprint, on the right eyelid (figure 28), enabled Father
Filas to recognise the imprint of a coin struck under Pontius Pilate: the same
size, same cut, the same effigy, the astrologers staff (figure 29), the same
inscription recognisable, from four quite legible letters, as a certain coin duly
catalogued for the years 16, 17 and 18 of Tiberius Caesar, which would be the
years 29, 30 and 31 of our era (figure 28).
Figure 30: Three types of coins corresponding to the cut, to the motif and to the
inscription of that which closed the eyes of Jesus. On the obverse side, all three
bear the staff in the centre with the inscription TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC round the
border.
a).On the reverse side of the first coin,
there is a crown of laurels surrounding
the inscription LIS which signifies the
year 16 of the reign of Tiberius, the
year 29 of our era.

b). On the reverse side of the second

coin, LIZ indicates the year 17 of the
reign of Tiberius, the year 30 of our
era.

b). On the reverse side of the third coin,

LIH indicates the year 18 of the reign of
Tiberius, the year 31 of our era.

AN ANOMALY THAT DOES NOT DECEIVE

Confirmed by three-dimensional analysis (figure 31), the discovery was found
to be definitively corroborated by its very fruitfulness, for it led to some
unexpected progress in numismatic science. Four Greek letters, Y CAI, are in
fact all that are needed to reconstruct the inscription TIBEPIO [Y KAI]
CAPOC, "of Tiberius Caesar". But there is an anomaly: on the Holy Shroud a
Latin C replaces the initial Greek K of KAICAPOC, which figures on all the
coin collections known up to 1980 (see figure 32).
Figure 32: above, a coin of
Pontius Pilate with the staff
surmounted by the letters
CAICAPOC, with a Latin
'C' instead of the Greek 'K'.
Below: the imprint
superimposed on a coin of
Pontius Pilate shows that
the letters Y CAI form the
visible part on the Holy
Shroud of the Greek
inscription:
Figure 31: Confirmation of the threedimensional analysis. The letters Y
CAI are clearly visible at the top left,
as well as the staff and even the outline
of the coin.

TIBEPIO [Y CAI] CAPOC,

"of Tiberius Caesar", with
the same anomaly: 'C'
instead of 'K'.

Thereafter, to those who accused Father Filas of letting his imagination run
away with him or of taking his desires for reality, he answered that, not being
a numismatist, he had so little desire to see a coin of Pilates that "before I
accidentally stumbled on this, he wrote to me, I would not have known a
Pilate coin from a hole in the wall". He was obliged, therefore, to consult the
numismatic specialists, and it was then that his discovery proved to be so little
the work of his imagination that it was responsible for a positive progress in
the study of numismatics itself. It revealed that the anomaly observed on the

Holy Shroud and already recognised as being of common usage in inscriptions

but hitherto unknown in numismatics, existed identically on other collection
coins struck under Pontius Pilate, which no one had noticed before.
We have here a document dated within a year or two by the express Will of
Him Who caused this Image to be imprinted on the cloth. For one would have
expected to see shards of broken pottery used for covering the eyes, as was the
Jewish custom, but it would not have been possible to read a date from them.
Whereas the little coin proclaims: it is "under Pontius Pilate" that this Man
suffered.

AMAZING PALAEOGRAPHIC
DISCOVERY?
Fifteen years ago, we published a supplement on the Holy Shroud,
under the above heading (CRC no 169, French edition, September
1981), devoted to a discovery by Piero Ugolotti and Father Aldo
Marastoni. Numerical treatment of the images seems to confirm this
discovery today (cf. Andr Marion and Anne-Laure
Courage, Nouvelles dcouvertes sur le Suaire de Turin, Albin Michel,
p. 172-230), although not decisively, in my opinion. Extreme prudence
is still necessary until such time as we can have access to the Relic, in
order to verify the real presence of these traces of writing on the
Object itself.
So, I remain reticent as before, and find nothing to alter in the report
you are about to re-read. I shall simply add an explanation suggested
by the Abb Georges de Nantes, all the more convincing in that it
coincides precisely with the hypothesis proposed by Grgoire Kaplan,
without any consultation between the two authors. We read in the
Gospel according to Saint Matthew that the high priests and the
Pharisees set seals on Christs tomb (Mt 27.65). IN
NECEM andNAZARENOS may have been written on the seals by the
official responsible for placing them, giving the name and state of the
deceased: the "Nazarene", condemned "to death". Kaplan stresses
the "legal character" of these inscriptions. If confirmed, they are
more like insulting graffiti hastily scrawled by the murderers, in a
cavalier manner expressing their total contempt for the "Nazarene"
whom they have just put "to death".

On the occasion
of the tests
performed on the
Relic by the
scientists of the
American team,
in October 1978,
Ray Rogers and
Ronald London
had pointed out
that there are
many strange
little marks on
the Shroud,
Figure 33: The three (or four?) Hebrew letters are
which can
recognisable: Taw, Waw (which, because of the uncertain
probably be
descending line, could be interpreted as a Yod), Tsad and
attributed to the
perhaps Lamed (photo Ugolotti).
molten silver of
the Chambry fire in 1532. "Shavings" and metallic products were
observed in the radiographic analysis.
At the same time, in Italy, Piero Ugolotti was researching into the
chemical composition of the imprint and made the same observation.
Thinking that he was dealing with traces of writing, he consulted Fr. Aldo
Marastoni, Professor of Ancient Literature at the Catholic University of
Milan. The report of this detailed expertise appeared in Sindon (no 29,
December 1980) written by Fr. Marastoni. I went to Milan to meet both of
them, and I brought back ample palaeographic photographic
documentation, some of which I have published here with their kind
permission.

Figure 34: The sentence delivered by Pilate could

immediately be enforced with no need for the imperial assent.
But sentence was passed in the name of the Emperor, whose
representative was the Procurator. This would explain the

Above the right

eyebrow, three
Hebrew letters
can be seen
followed by a sign which Fr.Marastoni interprets as a punctuation mark,
"indicating that the phrase ended with this word", since these two
languages are read from right to left (figure 33). The Abb Georges de
Nantes, however, tends to see this fourth sign as a lamed. Whatever the
case, these three (or four) letters form a word, or fragment of a word,
Aramaic or Hebrew.
presence of the name TIBERIUS CSAR in the titulus
damnationis. To the lower right, it is possible to distinguish
the final E of IN NECE (see figure 35 photo Ugolotti).

In the centre of the forehead, there are two fragments of words in lapidary
Latin characters, perhaps "a double printing of the same
signs" IB andIBER "with the final R, but very uncertain, out of line and
leaning towards the right", which it is very "tempting" to interpret as a
remnant ofTIBERIUS (figure 34).
On the left of the face, from the
bottom upwards, it is possible to
read "traced in 1st century AD
uncial characters that are
admirably clear, the words IN
NECE". That is IN NECEM, for
the final M was usually omitted
in the common language. It
signifies "TO DEATH" (figure
35).
The same expression, in an
identical handwriting, can be
read on a horizontal line below
the chin, but reversed, and
again, on the right of the face,
from top to bottom. These
words inescapably recall, not so
much the frenzied shouts of the Figure 35: The two Ns of IN NECE are
crowds thronging around
traced without interval and they share a
Pontius Pilates tribunal, as the common bar: INNECE (photo Ugolotti).
magistrates sentence
itself. "The words He delivered him up to be crucified (Mk 15.15)",
writes Blinzler, "must be interpreted as a paraphrase of the death
sentence. Had the Evangelists been interested in the legal side of the
action, they would have written: He condemned him to die on the
cross or else, in direct style: He proclaimed: IBIS IN CRUCEM." (Le
Procs de Jsus, p. 384)
Finally, the three-dimensional photo of the face shows up, on the left,
some Latin capital letters, juxtaposed to IN NECE, but of a different
writing. They are (figure 36), from top to bottom : "An S at the end of a

word, an empty space, an N, a space in which it is possible to make out

the traces of an E, which we have not transcribed, given the uncertainty of
the reading. There follow an A, a Z traced by an inexpert hand the
oblique line of the Z unfortunately goes from left to right , then the letters
ARE. These are unquestionably the remains of the word: NAZARENUS."
All this calls
for further
examination:
confirmation of
the reading
through new
photographs;
microscopic
and
microchemical
research into
the
pigmentation
of these letters.
Figure 36: Saint John is the only one of the four Evangelists to
But even now,
write that the titulus fixed to the Cross bore the name
with all due
"Nazarene" as applied to Jesus.: "And Pilate also wrote a title
reservation, it
and put it upon the cross; it read: Jesus the Nazarene, King of
the Jews." (Jn 19.19). But this disciple was the only one who was seems to me
an eyewitness to the scene of the crucifixion. He, therefore, adds that, with
precision to the account of the synoptics (photo Ugolotti).
Father
Marastoni, we
can "exclude [the hypothesis] that these are graphic signs due to a
fortuitous convergence of other factors".
As for the source of these inscriptions, the Professor remains
perplexed:"For practical reasons, I would exclude the possibility of their
being traced directly on the forehead of the condemned man. I am
thinking of a mitre of shame, made of some absorbent material (papyrus
or cloth), a makeshift improvisation, displaying on its front the polyglot
formula constituting the titulus damnationis. The transfer of some of these
letters on to the forehead would result from the sweat. The double
impression of IB - IBER is explained by the slight movements of
the mitre during the execution."

For INNECEM,one
can imagine"that
a fork(furca)
would have been
placed around the
face of the
condemned man,
and that its
extremities would
have been fixed to
the cross beam of
the patibulum". But
then, that
would "suppose...
that the shroud was
also in contact with
the patibulum or, at
least, in one of its
parts? When?
How?"Ugolotti has
constructed a
complete system of
explanation which
thoroughly upsets
the traditional
representation of the Figure 37: Framing the contours of the face, two
Crucifixion scene. I longitudinal lines (dark here) separate the hair from the
cheeks. A third line, a transversal line, separates the Face
am not sure that I
from the thorax. The three branches of the U have given
fully understood it
rise to different hypotheses, none of them particularly
satisfactory. Today, it seems that they bear the inscription
when reading the
report he addressed IN NECE repeated three times. In examining the best
photos, one can make out the characters discovered by
to the International
Piero Ugolotti and Father Aldo Marastoni.
Centre of
Sindonology, a copy of which he kindly offered me. The future will tell,
in the light of further research, how much can be retained of his
construction [which, today, in 1997, seems to me to be more than
doubtful].
It is sufficient for his glory to have been the first to have discovered these
venerable traces of writing and to have affirmed their existence. This
needs saying despite all opposition. The photographic documents exist,
and they are authentic. The research continues. Other traces of writing,
minuscule fragments of letters, perhaps Greek, can also be seen, but
Father Marastoni cuts short all investigation on this point: "The
photographic material I have does not allow me to make a worthwhile
reading." But one cannot fail to make the arousing connection yet
another one! with the testimony of Saint John, according to
which "Pilate wrote a title (...) and it was written in Hebrew, in Greek and
in Latin." (Jn 19.19-20).

At least, we can conclude, with Father Marastoni, that "the

inscriptionNAZARENUS may constitute proof of an historical order,
hitherto lacking, of the identity of the one who is called the man of the
Shroud,and who would be Jesus of Nazareth, whilst the
words TIBERIUS CSARwould corroborate this identification". That is
a conclusion which, in its very prudence, is absolutely amazing because it
corroborates and extends the conclusion of Father Filas.

Spring 1996

Science & the shroud

Microbiology meets archaeology in a renewed
quest for answers

High magnification close-up of a shroud

fiber (108k)

By Jim Barrett

Hoax or holy grail? The argument about the

Shroud of Turin spans centuries. No one has proven
it is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, but its
haunting image of a man's wounded body is proof
enough for true believers.

Researchers from the Health Science

Center now appear to have the clue to
resolve a scientific contradiction: If the
shroud is authentic, why does radiocarbon
dating indicate that the cloth is no more
than about 700 years old?
The shroud is unquestionably old. Its
history is known from the year 1357,
when it surfaced in the tiny village of
Lirey, France. Until recent reports from
San Antonio, most of the scientific world
accepted the findings of carbon dating
carried out in 1988. The results said the
shroud dated back to 1260-1390, and thus
is much too new to be Jesus' burial linen.
Now the date and other shroud
controversies are under intense scrutiny
because of discoveries by a team led by
Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes, MD, adjunct
professor of microbiology, and Stephen J.
Mattingly, PhD, professor of
microbiology. Dr. Garza is a pediatrician
from San Antonio, and an archaeologist
noted for expertise in pre-Columbian
artifacts. Dr. Mattingly, president of the
Texas branch of the American Society for
Microbiology, is widely respected for his research
on group B streptococci and neonatal disease.

After months examining microscopic samples, the

team concluded in January that the Shroud of Turin
is centuries older than its carbon date. Dr. Garza
said the shroud's fibers are coated with bacteria and
fungi that have grown for centuries. Carbon dating,
he said, had sampled the contaminants as well as
the fibers' cellulose.
Such startling findings ordinarily would be
published in a scientific journal, but the team has
waited. The shroud's ultimate custodian, the

Catholic Church, has declined to designate the San

Antonio fibers as an official sample. Dr. Garza
received them in Turin, Italy, in 1993 from
Giovanni Riggi di Numana, who took the official
shroud samples for the carbon dating in the '80s.
Dr. Garza's hypothesis, however, transcends the
shroud, and it is being taken seriously by
archaeologists, microbiologists, and even those
most
closely associated with carbon dating.
"This is not a crazy idea," said Harry E. Gove, PhD,
co-inventor of the use of accelerator mass
spectrometry for carbon dating. Dr. Gove is
professor emeritus of physics at the University of
Rochester in New York.
"A swing of 1,000 years would be a big change, but
it's not wildly out of the question, and the issue
needs to be resolved," he said.

Toward that end, the University of Arizona in

Tucson is preparing carbon dating procedures to
test the hypothesis on an ibis bird mummy that
stylistically would date back to about 330-30 BC.
Physicists will sample collagen from bone, which is
relatively unaffected by bacteria and fungi, and
compare its date to wrappings from the mummy.
Textiles contain large quantities of bacteria and
fungi because they have much more surface area by
volume than a smooth object of similar size,
therefore the mummy wrappings are important for
comparison.

Two samples of mummy wrapping

will be tested; one that is cleansed of
contaminants with conventional

methods, and another sample cleansed with a

method developed by Drs. Garza and Mattingly.
Dr. Garza has said the conventional method fails to
remove the bacteria and fungi.
"I'm a bit skeptical, but I don't want to dismiss the
theory. It is possible that contaminants could throw
off the dates somewhat, but by how much?" said
Douglas J. Donahue, PhD, physics professor at the
University of Arizona and principal investigator at
the National Science Foundation/Arizona's
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratories,
where the tests are planned in the coming months.
The site performed parts of the 1988 carbon dating
of the shroud.

The unfolding events have engrossed museum

curators, antiquities dealers, and scholars.
"This could be a great breakthrough in
understanding the ancient world," said A. Rosalie
David, PhD, keeper of Egyptology at
theManchester Museum in England.
"If the theory is correct, and there seems to be a lot
of evidence it is, this would be a spot check to tell
if artifacts in museums or for sale on the market are
genuine or fakes," Dr. David said. She has joined
the project, and supplied samples from a museum
mummy to the Arizona laboratories.

The San Antonio discovery goes back

to the '80s when Dr. Garza discovered
"biogenic varnishes" on an ancient
Mayan carved jade called the Itzamna
Tun. The artifact had been labeled a
fake by two art connoisseurs in New
York, he said. Carbon dating failed to
come close to the carved stone's true

age, and Dr. Garza identified masses of varnish that

prevented accurate dating, thus upholding the jade's
authenticity. The varnishes, he learned, are a
plastic-like coating that is a byproduct of bacteria
and fungi. In the Itzamna Tun's case, this bioplastic
coating threw off the carbon date of ancient blood
on the artifact by about 600 years.
Could this be true of the Shroud of Turin?

In May 1993, Dr. Garza traveled to Turin, and

examined a shroud sample with the approval of
Catholic authorities. "As soon as I looked at a
segment in the microscope, I knew it was heavily
contaminated," Dr. Garza said. "I knew that what
had been radiocarbon dated was a mixture of linen
and the bacteria and fungi and bioplastic coating
that had grown on the fibers for centuries. We had
not dated the linen itself."
Dr. Garza returned to San Antonio with a few
threads from the lower right corner of the shroud.
He enlisted Dr. Mattingly. Together they applied
the principles of microbiology to the evaluation of
several archaeological specimens.
"Archaeomicrobiology," as they describe their
discipline, had never been used before on the
shroud or almost any other artifact.
At the Health Science Center and elsewhere, they
examined samples using optical and electron
microscopes and sophisticated viewing techniques,
and photographed them under high magnification
using special dyes and lighting. The researchers
delicately sliced fibers to expose cross-sections of
the bioplastic coating, and are working with an
enzyme process to cleanse contaminated samples.

Because Egyptian mummies appear to have the

same contamination on their wrappings,
Egyptologists such as Dr. David are eager to learn
whether the mummies are correctly dated. The
Manchester Museum, for example, has supplied
samples from its mysterious mummy No. 1770 for

carbon testing using the Garza-Mattingly cleansing

technique. British experts cannot fully explain why
carbon dating of No. 1770's wrappings indicate
they are 1,000 years younger than the bones.
Until now, archeologists attributed the discrepancy
to the ancient Egyptians themselves. "The
suggestion was that the body was found in a very
damaged condition perhaps 500 years after it was
first wrapped. The thinking is that the embalmers
were uncertain who this was, but the spot where the
mummy was found indicated it might be somebody
of importance so they re-wrapped it to give it
another chance at eternity. And that is where it was
left until this discovery by Dr. Garza," she said.

In his discoveries about Mayan

artifacts, Dr. Garza challenged
orthodox thinking and
relentlessly pursued his theory,
which yielded significant
results, said a longtime
associate, George E. Harlow, PhD, curator of
minerals and gems at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York. "Many of us in
science wander down a low-energy trough,
studying the things we want to study, but Dr. Garza
doesn't know or regard conventional wisdom very
highly so it is stimulating to find out what he is
doing. He deserves much credit for his willingness
to challenge authority, pursue investigations and try
to be objective."

Practicing science with the Shroud of Turin puts

Drs. Garza and Mattingly in a charged atmosphere.
Moving the shroud's origin back several centuries
would place it closer to the time of Jesus' death, and

certainly energize debate about whether the cloth is

a hoax or holy grail.
Adding to the atmosphere, a third member of their
team has identified a part of the shroud's markings
as that of blood from a human male. No one has
conclusively determined how the markings got on
the linen, but they appear in bas relief in a perfect
negative image. Experts have entertained theories
that the markings came from paint, scorching, or
accelerated aging. Victor V. Tryon, PhD, assistant
professor in microbiology and director of the
university's Center for Advanced DNA
Technologies, examined the DNA of one so-called
"blood glob" from two separate microscopic shroud
samples. He reported isolating signals from three
different human genes by employing polymerase
chain reaction, which can detect pieces of doublestranded DNA.

Amid the debate, Drs. Garza and Mattingly cannot

escape the fundamental question of whether they
have real shroud fibers. A transfer of papal
authority in Turin and a turn of events three years
ago there further cloud the issue.
Turin's Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini has publicly
questioned the authenticity of the sample. On
Italian television in January, he was quoted as
saying: "There is no certainty that the material
belongs to the shroud so that the Holy See and the
custodian declare that they cannot recognize the
results of the claimed experiments."
Cardinal Saldarini rejected Dr. Garza's request in
April 1993 to perform tests on shroud fibers. But
his refusal came days after Dr. Garza had arrived in
Turin, and obtained a sample that remained from
the 1988 cutting for radiocarbon dating. He
received the sample from Riggi, a scientist
appointed by Saldarini's predecessor, Cardinal
Anastasio Ballestrero, to do the cutting. Ballestrero
retired in 1990.

Where the new testing and other events will lead is

uncertain, but few people deny the work of the
Health Science Center team has expanded the scope
of microbiology. In the process, the researchers
have developed methods that promise to enhance
the accuracy of radiocarbon dating. They also have
given archaeologists a new tool to evaluate
antiquities. And perhaps they have even opened a
path that leads to an explanation of the enduring
mysteries of the Shroud of Turin.

A SPECIAL EVENING LECTURE:

The Origin of the Shroud of Turin as evidenced by plant Images and by Pollen
grains
The Shroud of Turin, the traditional burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, has
been kept in the city of Turin (Torino), Italy, since 1578. It is made of fine
linen, 4.35 m long by 1.1 m wide, bearing the full-length front and back
images of a crucified man, along with many other less conspicuous images.
Re-examination of pollen grains collected in 1973 and 1978 from the shroud,
and investigations of plant images observed on several sets of photographs
and on the shroud itself, enabled Prof. Avinoam Danin (the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem) and Uri Baruch (Israel Antiquities Authority) to
discover a few indicator plants. The identification of these plants has
prompted the researchers to state the following:
o
o
o

The Shroud of Turin Existed before the 8th century

It originated from the vicinity of Jerusalem
The assemblage of plants became part of the Shroud in the spring
months of March-April

Scanning Electron Micrograph of a pollen grain

of Gundelia tournefortii (x1400). This species accounts
for 36.4 % of the 250 pollen grains derived from the
Shroud of Turin and studied by us.

Marked images of leaves, petioles, and a flower

of Zygophyllum dumosum observed on photos and
negatives of the Shroud of Turin from 1899, 1931, 1978,
and on the linen of the Shroud itself. (The illustration on
the right is

More links about the Pollens:

Floristic Indicators for the
Origin of the Shroud of Turin
Avinoam Danin and Uri
Baruch

The Origin of the Shroud of

Turin From the Near East as
Evidenced by Plant Images
And By Pollen Grains
Dr. Avinoam Danin
Council for Study of the
Shroud of Turin (CSST)
Website

Floral Images and Pollen

Grains on the Shroud of Turin:
An Interview with Dr. Alan
Whanger and Dr. Avinoam
Danin
John C. Iannone
Pressed Flowers: Where Did
the Shroud of Turin Originate?
A Botanical Quest
Avinoam Danin

Science gives hope to shroud believers

AM - Monday, July 5, 1999 8:22
HAMISH ROBERTSON: New evidence has come to light in Israel,
suggesting that the shroud of Turin really might have been Christ's burial
cloth after all.

MEGAN GOLDIN: For millions, the shroud of Turin is Jesus' burial cloth.
Kept in a medieval cathedral in the Italian city of Turin for centuries, monks
and nuns have carefully preserved the linen cloth that's imprinted with the
image of a crucified man with a remarkable resemblance to artistic depictions
of Jesus throughout the ages. But in 1988, carbon-dating tests denounced the
shroud as a 14th century fraud.
Israeli botanist Professor Avignon Danin disputes this. He is an expert on
Israel's plant life, and has discovered 25 new species of flora. But now he is in
the centre of a brewing storm that's put the shroud of Turin back in the
spotlight. Years of studying pollen particles taken from the shroud, and an
examination of the cloth itself, has convinced Professor Danin that the shroud
of Turin originated in Jerusalem, and was used as a burial cloth some time
during the months of March or April. For believers, that provides a direct link
both to the city where Jesus was crucified, and the time of the year when the
crucifixion took place.
But Professor Danin's first view of the shroud was anything but a religious
experience.
PROFESSOR DANIN: All that was interesting to me apart from seeing the
image of a person that I knew is there and I was surprised to see, yes, one can
see, but I was searching for the plant images, so a couple lent me their
binocular and I looked at the shroud and saw (inaudible) leaf. This was the
moment when my heart was beating twice or three times the normal speed I
had before.
MEGAN GOLDIN: And as a botanist, Professor Danin has identified the
pollen particles and imprints of three plants that are all found only in
Jerusalem. One of them, gondelia turnaforte, was present in extraordinary
numbers. It's the same plant that scholars believe may have been used as the
crown of thorns worn on Jesus' head.
PROFESSOR DANIN: As we saw image of this plant, gondelia turnaforte, on
the shroud, it is evident that people brought the plant, the thorny plant and put
it together with the person.
MEGAN GOLDIN: Professor Danin and another Israeli colleague, Uri
Baruch, a pollen expert, say pollen grains found on another Christian relic, the
sudarium of Oviedo, believed to be the cloth that covered Jesus' face, proves
the shroud of Turin dates back further than the fourteenth century, the date
concluded by the highly controversial carbon-dating tests. Professor Danin
says his findings can't prove the image on the shroud, of a man about six foot
tall with long hair, a beard and bloodstains from his hands and feet, was in

fact that of Jesus.

PROFESSOR DANIN: It's not a matter of belief. What I am saying is that
there are flowers and plants that come from the area of Jerusalem. It's not my
expertise believing. My expertise is botany, and this is what I am telling you.
MEGAN GOLDIN: Flower imprints and pollens may never prove the cloth
was Jesus' death shroud. But they could help bring back to repute, a religious
belief once dismissed by science as a fake. And for those who believe the
shroud of Turin is authentic, that may just be enough.

Jerusalem post

Local plant evidence supports authenticity of Shroud

of Turin
by JUDY SIEGEL
JERUSALEM (April 14) - Powerful evidence supporting the view that the
Shroud of Turin - the garment in which Jesus is said to have been wrapped
after his crucifixion - originated in the Land of Israel has been provided by
researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Duke University in
North Carolina.
The scientists have succeeded in identifying 28 species of plants that grow in
the Land of Israel among the images of flowers that appear on the shroud. All
of them grow in the area between Jerusalem and Jericho, and most are spring
flowers that apparently were picked during the period of the crucifixion and
placed on the 4.1 meter by 1.1 meter piece of linen.
On the shroud appears the negative image of a man with long hair and a
moustache who had been cruelly whipped, and a number of blood spots were
spattered on it. The human image is similar to drawings of Jesus that have
been seen since the fourth century CE. There are also hundreds of images of
flowers and other plants and objects on the shroud.
HU Prof. Avinoam Danin, an expert on the plant life of the Land of Israel,
was asked in 1995 by Dr. Alan Whanger - a Duke University medical lecturer
- and his wife Mary to study images of flowers on the shroud. They used a
special process of photography, along with negatives and ultraviolet light

scanning, to increase the contrast and make visible images that are not easily
seen by the naked eye.
The Whangers, who are believing Christians, found hundreds of images of
plants, particularly in the area of the human figure's head. They then matched
these images to drawings in the authoritative botanical work, Flora Palaestina,
and in this way identified 28 types of plants.
Danin verified their conclusions and was even able to determine that
additional images on the shroud could be associated with plants from the Land
of Israel.
"I can't say for certain that it was Jesus's shroud," said Danin, who disclosed
his findings in a lecture to biology students last week and is still "very
excited" about them. "But this evidence backs up the possibility that it is
genuine, and there is no doubt that it comes from the Land of Israel."
The researchers plan to study rock rose pollen grains removed from the shroud
in the 1970s and compare them with pollen from the same plants collected in
Israel. They will also study the images of other ossified objects found on the
burial cloth, including a nail, hammer, broom, rope, a ring of thorns, and a
sponge.

Shroud of Turin came from Jerusalem

By TRACI ANGEL -- The Associated Press

The Shroud of Turin is

shown in this 1979 file
photo. A new analysis of

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The Shroud of Turin is much

older than some scientists believe, according to
researchers who used pollen and plant images to
conclude it dates from Jerusalem before the eighth
century.

pollen grains and plant

images on the Shroud of
Turin places its origin to
Jerusalem before the 8th
Century. (AP Photo: Barrie
M. Schwortz)

The study gives a boost to those who believe the shroud is the burial cloth of
Jesus and contradicts a 1988 examination by scientists who said the shroud
was made between 1260 and 1390.
In June, the researchers said the cloth originated in the Jerusalem area, also
contradicting the 1988 study which concluded it came from Europe.
The shroud's age is implied by pollen grains found on it that match those on
another cloth associated with Jesus Christ, botany professor Avinoam Danin
of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem said Monday during the International
Botanical Congress here.
The other cloth has been kept in the same location since the eighth century,
and its known history is even longer, traceable to the first century.
The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth about 13 feet long and 3 feet wide that
has been kept in the city of Turin, Italy, since 1578. It bears the image of a
man with wounds similar to those suffered by Jesus.
The shroud also contains pollen grains and faint images of plants.
"We have identified by images and by pollen grains species on the shroud
restricted to the vicinity of Jerusalem," Danin said Monday, reiterating the
findings released in June. "The sayings that the shroud is from European
origin can't hold."
Analysis of the floral images and a separate analysis of the pollen grains by
botanist Uri Baruch identified a combination of plant species that could be
found only in March and April in the region of Jerusalem, Danin said.
Danin identified a high density of pollen of the tumbleweed Gundelia
tournefortii. The analysis also found the bean caper. The two species coexist
in a limited area, Danin said.
"This combination of flowers can be found in only one region of the world,"
he said. "The evidence clearly points to a floral grouping from the area
surrounding Jerusalem."
An image of the Gundelia tournefortii can be seen near the image of the

man's shoulder. Some experts have suggested that the plant was used for the
"crown of thorns."
Two pollen grains of the species were also found on the Sudarium of Oviedo,
believed to be the burial face cloth of Jesus.
Danin, who has done extensive study on plants in Jerusalem, said the pollen
grains are native to the Gaza Strip.
Since the Sudarium of Oviedo has resided in the Cathedral of Oviedo in
Spain since the eighth century, Danin said that the matching pollen grains
push the shroud's date to a similar age. Both cloths also carry type AB blood
stains in similar patterns, Danin said.
"The pollen association and the similarities in the blood stains in the two
cloths provide clear evidence that the shroud originated before the eighth
century," Danin said.
The location of the Sudarium of Oviedo has been documented since the first
century. If it is found that the two cloths are linked, then the shroud could be
even older, Danin said.
The 1988 study used carbon dating tests. Danin noted that the earlier study
looked at only a single sample, while he used the entire piece of fabric.

World: Europe
New 'evidence' in Turin Shroud mystery
Scientists have long argued over whether this is the face of Christ

The argument over the authenticity of the Turin Shroud has taken a new twist after researchers
say they may have found fresh evidence that the cloth bears the face of Christ.
A team carrying out work in some of Rome's ancient catacombs have discovered a ceiling
fresco which they believe shows the same man as the image on the holy relic.
They believe that the portrait dates from as early as 60AD, indicating it may have been painted
by someone who had actually seen Christ while he lived.
Rex Morgan, an author on books on the Shroud, said he believed there was sufficient evidence
to date the portrait to the first century.

"This painting looked to me to be very much the same features of the man on the Shroud of
Turin," said Mr Morgan.
"All the earliest portraits are all Romanesque figures, beardless and youthful, whereas this one
is very clearly a ... Jew with long black hair and a beard and other features you would associate
with the traditional likeness of Christ."
"If we are right and it was painted in, let's say, about 60AD, it could very well or would almost
certainly have been painted by an eye-witness, someone who had actually seen the man."
Mr Morgan suggested that St Mark may have commissioned the portrait but he added that it
could not conclusively prove the image on the shroud is that of Christ.
"What it does, is adds another link into the very many pieces of evidence which suggests that
the Shroud of Turin is a 2,000 year old item.
"You are never going to prove it's the shroud of Christ, but it's another link in this extraordinarily
mysterious chain of evidence."
Debate rages on authenticity
Scientific tests have cast doubt on the age of the Turin Shroud, indicating it might date from the
Middle Ages.
But other evidence suggests it is not a painting and the image could have been left by a corpse.
More intriguing still, computer analysis indicates the shroud has unusual three-dimensional
properties and scientists have also found traces of pollens from the Middle East.
The shroud recently went back on view at Turin Cathedral and thousands made a pilgrimage to
the city to see the relic.
Speaking during his visit, Pope John Paul II called on scientists to keep an open mind about the
shroud.

Shroud Questions from Shroud.com

Q: Could you give some insight as to the length of the hair the men wore
during the time of Christ? This question came up in light of the scripture
reference found in I Corinthians 11: 14, 15, where it indicates that nature
itself teaches us that it is a shame for a man to have long hair. The image
on the Shroud appears to have shoulder length or longer hair.. Therefore,
it does not seem feasible that Jesus would do something that he did not
want his followers to do and give them instruction on how to appear in
regards to the grooming of their hair if he wore his hair in direct
opposition of the instructions he gave to them.
Once again I asked Rev. Albert "Kim" Dreisbach, a biblical scholar,
theologian and Shroud historian to draft the response to this question. Here is
his reply:

A: Recently I had a very similar question posed by a young man from

Indiana. My response was as follows:
I'm afraid that your "Jewish authority" is mistaken with regard to the length of
hair for Jewish males in the first century C.E. (i.e. Common Era).
According to R.C. Dentan in an article written for The Interpreter's Bible
Dictionary:
"HAIR. The hair's capacity for constant growth has always made it seem an
important seat of life and, therefore, religiously significant. The most notable
example of this in the Bible is in the case of the NAZIRITE VOW (Num. 6:12
1; Judg. 13:5; 16:17; 1 Sam. 1: I 1), one aspect of which was to allow the hair
to grow long so that it might be presented to God as an offering (Num. 6: 18;
Acts 18:18; 21:23-24). Samson's hair, in the final form of the story (Judg.
13:5), appears to have been left long in fulfillment of such a vow, although
originally it had a more primitive significance as the repository of his strength
Judg. 16:19, 22). The shaving of the head in mourning (Job 1:20; Isa. 15:2;
Jer. 41:5; 47:5; 48:37; Ezek. 7:18) and the offering of the hair to the dead
were part of ancient religious practice, but forbidden to the Hebrews (Deut.
14: 1). Indeed, the complete shaving of the head was forbidden to them for
any purpose (Lev. 19:27; cf. Jer. 9:26; Ezek. 44:20). In the OT, long hair on
men was greatly admired (II Sam. 14:25-26; cf. Song of S. 5:2, 1 1), but in the
NT it is frowned upon as contrary to nature (I Cor. II: 14). Although women
wore their hair long (I Cor. 11:15), the biblical writers deplore the excessive
ornamentation of it (Isa. 3:24; 1 Pet. 3:3). The hair is a symbol of the fine
(Judg. 20:16), the small (Luke 21:18),and the numerous (Matt. 10:30)."
When it comes to the passage from I Cor. 11:14-15, one must remember that it
was written at least 20 years after the death of Jesus. Closer study will reveal
that it is simply Paul's personal opinion and certainly not a regulation which
would have applied to Jesus during his lifetime. Once again a quote from The
Interpreter's Bible volume devoted to I Corinthians may prove useful in this
case:
"[Today it would be] considered folly to argue, as Paul implies, that men are
likely to be less spiritually sensitive or alert because their hair is worn long, or
that a woman loses spiritual and social standing because her hair is short, or
because she appears in public with her head uncovered. The argument would
have been unconvincing, in some respects at least, even in Paul's day; for
Greek heroes often wore long hair, and many ancient philosophers, as well as
their modern counterparts, followed the same practice. Paul is entitled to his
opinion and to his adherence to social custom. He is not entitled to make his

personal opinion, or the prevalent social customs of his time, the basis of
a moral law or of a categorical imperative of the Kantian order. What is
permanent in all this discussion is that the conduct of church affairs, and
public worship in particular, should be marked by reverence and order, by
dignity and decency. Nothing should be permitted that attracts undue attention
to itself." [Emphasis added.]
A careful study of the Shroud of Turin will reveal that not only did this man
have shoulder length hair and a beard, but if you study the dorsal or back side
you can also detect an unplaited ponytail - a hairstyle favored by young men
at that time. Logic alone would seem to indicate that one wouldn't have
enough hair for a ponytail unless at least that hair on the back of the head was
long.
Though Jesus was not a Nazarite, this group is defined by the Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church as:
A body of Israelites specially consecrated to the service of God who were
under vows to abstain from drinking the produce of the vine, to let their hair
grow and to avoid defilement by contact with the dead (Num. 6).
Once again we have evidence that at least some Jewish males wore long hair.
If you study art from the Byzantine to Western European, Jesus is traditionally
portrayed with long (i.e. shoulder length) hair. The objection to this style is
relatively modern and is probably based on a bias to its making the wearer
appear too feminine.
The Rev. Albert R. Dreisbach, Jr

Q: In the Bible (John 19:38-42), it says that Jesus was wrapped in linen
cloths (plural). There was also another cloth that was wrapped around
his head. The Shroud is only one piece of cloth. I was wondering if there
was any explanation.
I asked Rev. Albert "Kim" Dreisbach, a biblical scholar, theologian and
Shroud historian to draft the response to this question. Here is his reply:

A: The Shroud and Other "Cloths" Used in Jesus' Burial

Students new to the study to the Shroud are sometimes confused by apparent
inconsistencies in the description of Jesus' burial cloth or cloths. In truth, the
Bible - when read in Greek - uses a variety of terms to describe them.

The Synoptic Gospels use the word sindon in the singular to designate the
Shroud (Matt. 27:59; Mk. 15:46 (twice); Lk. 23:53). Sindon appears only six
times in all of the New Testament. In an anecdote unique to Mark, it is
used twice in 14: 51-52 to describe the linen cloth left by an unnamed young
man when he fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane.
In Jn. 19:40, the Fourth Gospeller uses the word othonia [Gk.] (plural) to
describe the linen cloths used in the Burial. Othonia, a word of uncertain
meaning, but probably best translated as a generic plural for grave clothes.
The same word is used by Luke or his scribe in Lk.24:12 what had previously
been described as thesindon in Lk. 23:53. Note: vs. l2 (But Peter rose and ran
to the tomb, stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths (plural) by
themselves; and he went home wondering what happened.) does not appear in
the most ancient manuscripts, but is added by later ancient authorities.
Next we discover (keirias) [Gk.] translated by the RSV as bandages in Jn.
11:44's description of the raising of Lazarus. In actuality, linen strips used to
bind the wrists and ankles and probably also used on the outside at the neck,
waist and ankles to secure the Shroud to the body.
Finally we come to the word sudarion [Gk.] which is found in the canonical
texts solely in John (11:44. 20:7) and Luke (l9:20; Acts l9:12). It is translated
by theRSV as "the napkin which had been on his head" (Jn. 20:7) and earlier in
11:44 as the cloth with which Lazarus' face was wrapped. Scholars like the
late Dr. John A.T Robinson ( "The Shroud of Turin and the Grave Cloths of
the Gospels") and J.N. Sanders regard it as a chin band going around the
face/head for the purpose of keeping the corpse's jaws closed. Certainly this
appears to be the intent of the artist who drew the manuscript illustration for
the Hungarian Pray mss, Fol. 27v, Budapest of 1192-95 which clearly
illustrates that the Shroud's full length image(s) were known in the 12th
century. (See Ian Wilson, 1986, The Mysterious Shroud, Garden City, NY;
Doubleday & Company, p.115. See also Bercovits, I. 1969, Dublin: Irish
University Press. Illuminated Manuscripts in Hungary, pl. III.) .
Rev. Albert "Kim" Dreisbach
Editor's Note: For more information on a related subject, see the Centro
Espanol de Sindonologia's (CES) Website page on the Sudarium of Oviedo,
a Spanish cloth said to be related to the Shroud and suspected by some to be
the missing facecloth. The CES Website provides both English and Spanish
language pages and can be accessed directly from the "Links To More
Information" page of this website.

ANALYSIS OF THE CARBON 14 DATING: WHAT

IS RIGHT AND WRONG
Breaking News
A January 20, 2005 article in the scholarly, peer-reviewed scientific journal
Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425, pages 189-194, by Raymond N. Rogers, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, University of California) makes it perfectly clear: the carbon 14
dating sample cut from the Shroud in 1988 was not valid. In fact, the Shroud is much
older than the carbon 14 tests suggested.

No matter what any one of us may believe about the Shrouds authenticity, we can no
longer say that carbon 14 dating proves medieval origins; for the tests in 1988 were
botched. For those who after 1988 continued to believe that the Shroud was the genuine
burial cloth of Jesus, a winter of ridicule and doubts has ended. For all who use carbon
14 dating to study all manner of ancient objects, a period of careful reassessment is just
beginning.
There are, in understanding what went wrong, important lessons that will ripple through
archeology, anthropology, forensics and science lecture halls whenever and wherever
carbon 14 dating is discussed. Students will ask why a single sample from a suspect
corner was used. They will wonder why protestations from experts in the Shroud's
chemistry were ignored. The will ask why documented data was not considered. They
will talk about the clues of material intrusion that were simply ignored.
Material intrusion is well known in the application of carbon 14 dating. A classic
example is to be found in the dating of peat bogs. Very old bogs often contain miniscule
roots from newer plants that grew in the peat. The roots of these plants, sometimes
having decomposed, are nearly indistinguishable from the older peat. What ends up
being tested is a mixture of old and new material which produces an average,
meaningless carbon 14 age. No one seemed to consider, in 1988, that material intrusion
might be a serious problem with the Shroud of Turin carbon 14 dating even though
clues were there.
The 1988 carbon 14 dating failure will not be ignored; for how does one ignore such a
famous example. It should not be ignored because of the lessons to be learned. It cannot
be ignored so long students raise hands and Google-check lecture notes. It should not
be ignored when journalists and authors write about carbon 14 dating. There are
textbooks, encyclopedias and many websites to be updated.
This is not a condemnation of carbon 14 dating. It is an extraordinary technology that
with uncanny precision can count the approximately one in a trillion carbon 14 isotopes
that exist compared to the more common carbon 12 and carbon 13 isotopes; isotopes
that exist in all living material and material that once was living. In the case of the
Shroud it was the fibers of flax plants from which linen thread is made. When a plant or
animal dies it no longer absorbs carbon. And so begins a process that can be measured.
Because carbon 14 is radioactive, it decays. And because scientists know the rate of

decay, measured in half-lifes, they can calculate how old something is. The current state
of the technology is useful for dating things younger than 50,000 years. For material
that is only a few thousand years old, carbon 14 dating is very accurate and very
reliable.
Because of the carbon 14 dating, the Shroud of Turin, a religious object important to
Christians of many traditions (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and
Evangelical; conservative and liberal alike) has been cast into the spotlight of secular
science. It is not because the Shroud is famous, although it is. It is because the 1988
carbon 14 dating was made famous. And because it was made famous, and because it
will now be discussed, the related science of the Shroud will also get attention:

the peculiar nano-scale carbohydrate film that coats some of the fibers, a coating
that holds within its chemical makeup the conjugated complex carbon bonds of
the images;
the forensics of the blood that, because it is ancient, should be black but is red
for good chemical reasons;
the ancillary age-related data about the depletion of vanillin from the lignin of
the flax (cellulose) fibers, the depletion that indicates that the Shroud is much
older than the carbon 14 assigned date range of 1260 to 1390.

Average Storage
Temperature
Equating to Constant
in Celsius

Average Storage
Temperature Equating
to Constant in
Fahrenheit

Age Indicated by a
conservative 95%
loss of Vanillin

25 C

77 F

1319 Years

23 C

73 F

1845 Years

20 C

68 F

3095 Years

From the article in Thermochimica Acta: "A linen produced

in A.D. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978.
The Raes threads, the Holland cloth [shroud's backing cloth], and all
other medieval linens gave the test for vanillin wherever lignin could
be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of
vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than
the radiocarbon laboratories reported."

Famous Carbon 14 Dating

The carbon 14 dating of the Shroud is famous because those who had difficulty
accepting the results were ridiculed and called fanatics by tough-minded skeptics. On
public television, a prominent Oxford scientist, Edward (Teddy) P. Hall, who played a

significant role in exposing the Piltdown man hoax and who participated in the carbon
14 dating of the Shroud, expressed his views openly: We have shown the Shroud to be
a fake. Anyone who disagrees with us ought to belong to the Flat Earth Society.
The carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin is famous because it spawned so many
conspiracy theories posing as history. John Dominic Crossan, the famed Jesus Seminar
scholar, proposed that someone in medieval times was crucified by a crafter of fake
relics in order to produce the Shroud. Others proposed that Leonardo da Vinci created it
even though the Shroud was well known in Europe a century before Leonardo was born.
Walter McCrone, a renowned microscopist who examined some borrowed fibers from
the Shroud, claimed that the images were painted, just as a medieval bishop, Pierre
dArcis, had claimed in 1389. The painting claims are preposterous because other
unimpeachable chemical studies prove otherwise.
The carbon 14 dating of the Shroud is famous because Nature, the prestigious
international weekly journal of science, published an article about the tests. It was
coauthored by no less than twenty-one scientists from the University of Oxford, the
University of Arizona, the Institut fr Mittelenergiephysik in Zurich, Columbia
University, and the British Museum. The conclusion in Nature was clear:
The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a
calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the
Shroud of Turin of AD 1260 - 1390 (rounded down/up to nearest 10 yr). These
results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of
Turin is mediaeval.
The carbon 14 dating of the Shroud is famous because so many people doubted the
results, doubted such prestigious scholarly, scientific authority? Partly, it was because
the Shroud of Turin is a religious object; millions believe it is the real thing, the burial
cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Partly, it was because there was a lot of other evidence that
argued that the Shroud was plausibly real. And partly, it was because there were
persistent clues that the tests were invalid. The faithful believers, the scientists and the
historians who were weighing other evidence were arguing that something seemed
wrong. They would, in the years following 1988, try to figure out what that was.

Why Might the Carbon 14 Dating Be Wrong

Various theories bubbled up, were exposed to scrutiny, and burst. Some suggested that
the snippet cut from the shroud for testing was from a section of the shroud that had
been damaged and rewoven. Others suggested that the sample was contaminated with
residue from a damaging fire in 1532. But the scientists who conducted the carbon 14
tests refuted these suggestions. They denied that the sample was taken from a damaged
area and they argued that any residue from the fire would have been removed during the
sophisticated cleaning process that precedes actual testing.
Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a Texas pediatrician and amateur archeologist, and Stephen
Mattingly of the University of Texas offered another suggestion. They claimed that they

found an organic bioplastic contamination on the Shroud that would not have been
removed with the cleaning process that the labs had used.
The bioplastic idea gained traction among many Shroud researchers when Harry E.
Gove, a nuclear physicist at the University of Rochester who designed the carbon-dating
methods used on the Shroud, gave tentative support to Garza-Valdes and Mattingly.
Jeffery L. Sheler, writing in the July 24, 2000, issue of U.S. News & World Report,
quotes Gove:
"There is a bioplastic coating on some threads, maybe most." Gove goes on to
say that if there is a sufficient quantity of bioplastic it "would make the fabric
sample seem younger than it should be" in the carbon 14 dating.
But the bioplastic idea came up short. Garza-Valdes had said: "With a scanning electron
microscope, I found the fibers were completely covered by the bioplastic coating
(polyhydroxyalkanoate) and by many colonies of fungi which usually thrive on this
polymer..." But other scientists find this statement flawed and this probably explains
why the bioplastic idea was not be published in a peer reviewed journal. For one thing,
there is no way to determine the definitive composition of an organic material by
scanning electron microscope. Garza-Valdes' provided photomicrograph showing
a "filamentous
cell" that turned out to be an ultimate cell from the flax
structure. Furthermore, it is well known that such polymers obtain their carbon

material from the host (fibers in this case) and not from the atmosphere, hence they
would not significantly alter the carbon 14 dating. Even if they could alter the date, the
amount of material needed would to be significant. On this point, Gove took exception
with the bioplastic theory by explaining that the quantity of biological material would
be very significant.
Ray Rogers explains:
Even assuming that the coating formed all at once in the 20th Century during a
highfallout time, when bomb-produced 14C was high, an observable error in the
age determination would require the addition of a significant amount of material
to the surface of the Shroud.
Because significant material could be easily detected, fibers from the Shroud were
examined at the National Science Foundation Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence
at the University of Nebraska. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry examination failed to detect
any form of bioplastic polymer on fibers from either non-image or image areas of the
Shroud. Additionally, laser-microprobe Raman analysis at Instruments SA, Inc. in
Metachin, NJ, also failed to detect any bioplastic polymer.
As it turns out, those who suggested that the carbon 14 samples were from a rewoven
area were right. This is what was reported in Thermochimica Acta on January 20, 2005.
Thermochimica Acta is not the sort of journal you will find in the reading room of
public libraries. Its a journal about thermoanalytical and calorimetric science. It is
mainly for chemists. It is a peer reviewed journal which means that articles are carefully
examined by other scientists to ensure that the science is true, methods are sound, and

all explanations and conclusions are completely free of logical fallacies. Peer review, an
exacting process of challenge and correction, is the normal way that scientists announce
their findings. Rogers findings were that the samples were invalid and indeed the
Shroud is significantly older than the carbon 14 dating suggested.

Carbon 14 Dating Scientists Fooled

When the Piltdown man hoax was uncovered in 1953, sophisticated chemical analysis
techniques, developed in part by Teddy Hall, showed that skull fragments and other
bone pieces had been expertly dyed to look older and match each other. This was done
to fool people into thinking the bones were very old. People were fooled and many
thought that the Piltdown man might be the missing link.
In the case of the Shroud of Turin, it was threads were dyed to look older and to match
other threads. But it wasnt the threads of the Shroud itself that were dyed. It was a
small area in one corner of the Shroud where some mending threads had been dyed to
look like the rest of the age-yellowed Shroud. Chemical analysis proves this. There is
absolutely no doubt about that.
In the case of the Shroud it was the carbon 14 testers that were fooled. And they should
not have been fooled. There were clues that warranted investigation:
In 1973, Gilbert Raes of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology was given
permission to remove a small sample from a corner of the Shroud. In the sample he
found cotton fibers. It might have been that the cotton was leftover fibers from a
loom that was used for weaving both cotton and linen cloth. It might have been that
the Shroud was exposed to cotton much later, even from the gloves used by
scientists. However, when later he examined some of the carbon 14 samples, he
noticed that cotton fibers, where found, were contained inside threads, twisted in as
part of the thread. It is important to note that cotton fiber is not found anywhere
else on the Shroud.
P.H South, while examining threads from the sample on behalf of the Oxford
University Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory found similar indication of cotton. To him it
seemed like material intrusion. In an article entitled "Rogue Fibers Found in Shroud,"
published in Textile Horizons in 1988, South write of his discovery of "a fine dark
yellow strand [of cotton] possibly of Egyptian origin, and quite old . . . it may have
been used for repairs at some time in the past, or simply bound in when the linen
fabric was woven."

Teddy Hall, of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, also noticed fibers that
looked out of place.
Giovanni Riggi, the person who actually cut the carbon 14 sample from the Shroud
stated: "I was authorized to cut approximately 8 square centimetres of cloth from the
ShroudThis was then reduced to about 7 cm because fibres of other origins had
become mixed up with the original fabric " (italics mine)
Giorgio Tessiore, who documented the sampling, wrote: 1 cm of the new sample
had to be discarded because of the presence of different color threads. (italics
mine)

Al Adler of Western Connecticut State University found large amounts of aluminum in

yarn segments from the radiocarbon sample area, up to 2%, by energy-dispersive x-ray
analysis. The question should have been asked: why aluminum? It is not found
elsewhere on the Shroud.

In the years following the carbon 14 dating, in the years when careful reexamination
seemed warranted, other compelling reasons to be suspicious emerged:

Chemical analysis of the lignin of the flax fibers did not test positive
for vanillin. If the Shroud was medieval, it should have. Vanillin
disappears slowly from the lignin in flax fibers and all of it has
disappeared except in the immediate vicinity of the carbon 14 sample.
This indicated that the cloth was much older than the carbon 14 dating
suggested and that the carbon 14 sample area was certainly chemically
different.

Average Storage
Temperature
Equating to Constant
in Celsius

Average Storage
Temperature Equating
to Constant in
Fahrenheit

Age Indicated by a
conservative 95%
loss of Vanillin

25 C

77 F

1319 Years

23 C

73 F

1845 Years

20 C

68 F

3095 Years

From the article in Thermochimica Acta: "A linen produced

in A.D. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978.
The Raes threads, the Holland cloth [shroud's backing cloth], and all
other medieval linens gave the test for vanillin wherever lignin could
be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of
vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than
the radiocarbon laboratories reported."

In 1973, Gilbert Raes, of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology,

had cut a small piece from a corner of the Shroud. One part of it
contained cotton fibers among the flax fibers while another part of it
did not. Rogers, following up on Raes examination of the 1973
sample, also found cotton. Moreover, Rogers found dyestuff and
spliced threads that were not found elsewhere on the Shroud. It is
significant to note that the carbon 14 sample was taken from a spot
adjacent to the Raes sample.

 In 2000, M. Sue Benford and Joseph G. Marino, working with a

number of textile experts, examined documenting photographs of the
carbon 14 sample and found evidence of expert reweaving that joined
disparate materials almost at the middle of the sample. The consensus
was that there was about 60% new material and 40% original material
in the sample. If that is the case, and if the repair was made in the early
1500s as history suggests, then according to Ron Hatfield of Beta
Analytic, a first century date for the cloth is reasonable.

In 1997, Remi Van Haelst, a Belgium chemist, conducted a series of

statistical analyses that strongly challenged the veracity of the
conclusions of the carbon 14 dating. Significantly, he found serious
disparities in measurements between the three laboratories and between
the sub-samples (various tests and observations performed by the labs).
Bryan Walsh, a statistician and physicist, examined Van Haelsts work
and further studied the measurements. The essential conclusions were
that the samples, and indeed the divided samples used in multiple tests,
contained different levels of the carbon 14 isotope. The differences
were sufficient to concluce that the sample were non-homogeneous and
thus of questionable validity. Walsh found a significant relationship
between various sub-samples and their distance from the edge of the
cloth. If indeed a patch was rewoven into the cloth and if the joining of
old and new material ran at an angle through the sample cuttings (as it
appears to do so) then all this makes sense.

Carbon 14 Dating Samples Studied

In December 2003, Rogers was able to obtain material from the actual carbon 14 sample
cutting used for testing in 1988. This material had been saved from the center of the
carbon 14 samples before they were distributed to the carbon 14 laboratories. What
Rogers found proved that the sample was bad. He found threads encrusted with a plant
gum containing alizarin dye; a dye that is extracted from Madder root. Some of the dye
was complexed with a common mordant, alum (hydrous aluminum oxide). He found
cotton fibers. And he found spliced threads. The dyestuffs, the cotton fibers and spliced
threads are not found elsewhere on the Shroud.
In Thermochimica Acta, Rogers wrote:
The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton
content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of
the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon
sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the
age of the shroud.

Rogers doesnt simply prove that the sample was invalid. Rogers provides alternative
ways to understand that the Shroud was certainly older than the 1988 carbon 14 dating
debacle implied.

Here is an article from John Jackson, co-founder of the 1978 STURP team
and founder of the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado, and discusses his new
hypothesis regarding the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, based on
possible c14 enrichment of linen due to the CO (carbon monoxide) in the
atmosphere. According to Jackson, a 2% contamination could skew the
resulting date by as much as 1400 years. Rather than attempt to describe
Jackson's theory myself, I asked John to write a short article to describe it in
his own words. You can find it at this link: A New Radiocarbon Hypothesis
by John Jackson.

Physical Examination of the Shroud by Jack Kilmon

FACT: The shroud is a linen cloth measuring 4.6 x 1.1 meters corresponding
to a standard measurement of 8 x 2 Philetaric cubits in use in Palestine during
the first century. (see Whiston, W., Life and Works of Flavius Josephus,
Winston. Chicago, p. 1008-1009)
FACT: The shroud is a herringbone twill with a 3:1 weave, of probably
1st century Syrian design. The flax fibrils contain entwisted cotton fibrils from
a previous work of the loom. The cotton is Gossypium herbaceum, a Middle
Eastern species not found in Europe. (Raes, G.: La Sindone, 1976; Tyrer, J.
Textile Horizons, Dec, 1981)
FACT: The shroud contains pollen grains from 58 species of plants, 17
indigenous to Europe where the artifact has been for 7 centuries and the
majority being plants indigenous, some exclusively, to the area of the Dead
Sea and Turkey. These include Nyoscyamus aureus, Artemisia herba-alba and
Onosma syriacum. (Frei, M., La Sindone, Scienza e Fide, Bologna, 1983;
Frei, M., Shroud Spectrum International 3, 1982)
Conclusion: The linen of the shroud was manufactured and woven in the
Middle East, most probably Syria, and is a design used in the 1st century,
albeit uncommon and expensive.
Image on the Shroud

The shadowy image on the shroud is, of course, its most unique and enigmatic
feature. It displays the complete dorsal and frontal image of a severely abused
and crucified individual of Semitic characteristics who was laid on the
proximal portion of the cloth with the distal portion folded over the head and
extended over the body thus creating, through some as yet unexplained
chemical or physical process, two "head to head" images of the back and
front. The ghostly, sepia colored image is nearly imperceptable close-up but
discernable at a distance. It was not until the first photographs were taken of
the shroud in 1898 by Turin Councillor Secondo Pia that the negative plates
revealed the startling "positive" of the clear picture of the "man in the shroud."
The image is of a male, almost 6 tall, bearded, severely abused and scourged
with the distinctive "dumbell" markings of a Roman flagrum. Bloodstains are
evident from wounds in the wrists, feet, about the head and brow, and the left
thoracic area with pooling under the small of the back and under the feet. The
image of the "man in the shroud" also displays signs of beating about the face,
swelling under the eye and shocks of his beard having been ripped from his
face (a common form of abuse to Jews by Romans). The debate on the
authenticity of the shroud focuses on whether this image was transferred to the
linen by some means from a real corpse or whether it was artificed by a clever
forger.
Chief among the proponents of the image as a "painting" was W. C. McCrone,
one of the most respected names in particle analysis. McCrone reliably
detected iron-oxide particles throughout the shroud using only optical
technique and attributed it to the base of artists paint. (McCrone, W. C., The
Microscope, 29, 1981, p. 19-38; McCrone, W. C., Skirius, C., The
Microscope, 28, 1980, pp 1-13.) Particular attention in this regard was given
to the purported "bloodstains" of the image.
FACT: The shroud linen contains particles of iron-oxide.
The debate on the authenticity of the shroud became centered on whether the
reliable presence of iron oxide was relevent to the shroud image and the
"bloodstains" on the cloth and the precise nature and origin of the iron oxide.
A part of the answer to this was provided by x-ray fluorescent analysis
performed by STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) scientists R. A
Morris, L. A. Schwalbe and J. R. London which determined there was no
relevence between concentrations of iron oxide particles and the varying
densities of the image. (Morris, R. A., Schwalbe, L. A., London, R. J., X-Ray
Spectrometry, Vol 9, no. 2, 1980, pp 40-47; Schwalbe, L. A., Rogers, R. N.,
Analytica Chimica Acta 135, 1982, pp 3-19)
FACT: Iron Oxide is not responsible for the image on the cloth.

These findings stimulated additional attention to the bloodstains on the cloth.

Were these genuine bloodstains or were they "painted" with some form of
iron-oxide containing red pigment? This issue was addressed by experts in
blood analysis, Dr. John Heller of the New England Institute and Dr. Alam
Adler of Western Connecticut State University. Drs. Heller and Adler went far
beyond the mere optical examination of McCrone. Applying pleochroism,
birefringence and chemical analysis, they determined that, unlike artists
pigment which contains iron oxide contaminated with manganese, nickel and
cobalt, the iron oxide on the shroud was relatively pure. They discovered,
through research into the procedures of flax preparation and linen
manufacture, that pure iron oxide is normal to the process of fermenting
(retting) the flax in large outdoor vats of water.
FACT: The iron oxide, abundant on the linen of the shroud is not the remnant
of artists pigment.
Dr. Adler then proceeded to apply microspectrophotometric analysis of a
"blood particle" from one of the fibrils of the shroud and unmistakeably
identified hemoglobin in the acid methemoglobin form due to great age and
denaturation. Further tests by Heller and Adler established, within scientific
certainty, the presence of porphyrin, bilirubin, albumin and protein. In fact,
when proteases were applied to the fibril containing the "blood," the blood
dissolved from the fibril leaving an imageless fibril. (Heller, J. H., Adler, A.
D., Applied Optics, 19, 1980, pp 2742-4; Heller, J. H., and Adler, A. D.,
Canadian Forensic Society Sci, Journal 14, 1981, pp 81-103)
FACT: The bloodstains on the cloth are not artists pigment but are real
blood.
FACT: The bloodstains were applied to the cloth prior to the formation of the
image.
Working independantly with a larger sample of blood containing fibrils,
pathologist Pier Baima Bollone, using immunochemistry, confirms Heller and
Adlers findings and identifies the blood of the AB blood group. (Baima
Bollone, P., La Sindone-Scienza e Fide 1981, 169-179; Baime Bollone, P.,
Jorio, M., Massaro, A. L., Sindon 23, 5, 1981; Baima Bollone, Jorio, M.,
Massaro, A. L., Sindon 24, 31, 1982, pp 5-9; Baima Bollone, P., Gaglio, A.
Sindon 26, 33, 1984, pp 9-13; Baima Bollone, P., Massaro, A. L. Shroud
Spectrum 6, 1983, pp 3-6.)
It is significant that analysis of the blood of the cloth demonstrated high levels
of bilirubin consistent with the severe concussive beating suggested by the
image of the "man of the shroud.

Shroud of Turin's age miscalculated?

Questions raised over 'faulty' carbon-dating tests
Posted: May 20, 2008
9:20 pm Eastern
2008 WorldNetDaily

The mystery of the Shroud of Turin, a 14-foot-long cloth that many thought may have
been the burial cloth of Jesus until scientists reported radiocarbon dating established it
as no older than Medieval times, is being resurrected.
John Jackson, a physics lecturer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, has
convinced scientists who performed the age tests on the cloth housed in Turin, Italy,
since the 1500s to consider his suggestion that those tests may have been faulty,
according to a report in the Denver Post.
The cloth long has posed mysteries because of its age and its negative image of a
bloodstained and battered man who had been crucified. Believers claim it to be the
miraculous image of Jesus, formed as he rose from the dead.
That theory, however, took a serious blow in the late 1980s when scientists including
those at an Oxford University laboratory performed the age-dating process on a fragment
of the material and came up with the results that it was no older than the 13th or 14th
century, more than a millennium after New Testament times.
(Story continues below)

But now Jackson, who runs the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado, a research
organization, reports he has convinced Prof. Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford
University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, to test Jackson's hypothesis
that carbon monoxide contamination could have skewed the test results by more than 1,000
years, the Post said.
The new tests will not involve actual portions of the shroud, but similar samples of
linen, and are to determine whether the various conditions to which the shroud has been
exposed, including outdoor exhibitions and the extreme heat of a 1532 fire that left the
material scorched, would have changed the results, the Post report said.
Jackson told the newspaper that even nominal contamination from environmental
carbon monoxide could have affected the dating results.
"Science still has much to tell us about the shroud," Jackson told the newspaper. "If we are
dealing with the burial cloth of Christ, it is the witness to the birth of Christianity. But

my faith doesn't depend on that outcome."

Ramsey said there simply are questions that need to be answered about the cloth.
David Rolfe, the director of a new documentary called "Shroud of Turin" told the
newspaper that it either is authentic or a centuries-old hoax that today's state-of-the art
science cannot decipher.
The cloth is in the custody of the Vatican, which stores it in a protective chamber of
inert gases in Turin's Cathedral of St. John. History reveals it was exhibited in France
about 1360 by Georrfrey de Charney, a French knight who owned it then. It last was
shown in 2000.
Jackson led a research team in 1978 given access to the shroud and tests showed it was
not painted, dyed or stained. The source of the faint brown discolorations that make up
the negative image of a man never yet has been identified, he told the Post.
It wasn't until the invention of photography centuries after the early exhibitions that a
clearer positive image was revealed.
The original carbon dating at Oxford was duplicated at the same time in Zurich and at
the University of Arizona in Tucson, officials said. Yet the newspaper reported Jackson
has assembled evidence contradicting an age of only 800 years or so.
Among the findings he cites:

Bloodstains on the shroud are real, and the blood has not been degraded by heat.

Historians say the stains are consistent with crucifixion, including puncture
wounds from thorns and scourge marks from a Roman whip.

A puncture wound in the man's side is consistent with a Roman spear. And the
wound marks showing nail holes through the wrists and heels are consistent with
Roman crucifixion.

A textile restorer, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, in 2002 announced the stitching

found in the material had been seen in material from only one other source: the
ruins of Masada, a Jewish settlement destroyed in A.D. 74. And the herringbone
weave was common in the First Century but rare in Middle Ages.

Further, the newspaper reported, historians note the shroud's onetime owner, de
Charney, was married to a direct descendant of a crusader from France who participated
in the sacking of Constantinople.
On Jackson's website, he also notes that tests have revealed pollens on the shroud from
plants that grow only in the Middle East. He also addresses the carbon-dating issue.

"We presently think that the most fruitful avenue of research is that inspired by some
scientists in Russia who have reported seeing major shifts in the radiocarbon date of
linen samples that have been incubated at modest temperatures This research is
interesting because we know that the shroud endured a significant thermal event during
a fire in 1532 while in Chambrey, France. The entire cloth has yellowed and in some
places scorched and burnt."
The research site continued, "Thus, based on the Russian studies, it is logical to suspect
that the 1532 fire altered, perhaps significantly, the radiocarbon date of the shroud."
WND reported in 2000 that evidence already was appearing calling into question the
process of carbon dating on certain materials textiles in particular

Amazing Article on the Authenticity of the Shroud here with video

Turin Shroud made by flash of light

December 21 2011 at 09:08am
By DAVID WILKES
London - The image on the Turin Shroud could not be the work of medieval
forgers but was instead caused by a supernatural flash of light, according to
scientists.
Italian scientists have found evidence that casts doubt on claims that the relic said to be the burial cloth of Jesus - is a fake and they suggest that it could,
after all, be authentic.
Sceptics have long argued that the shroud, a rectangular sheet measuring
about 14ft by 3ft, is a forgery dating to medieval times.
Researchers from Italys National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and
Sustainable Economic Development spent years trying to replicate the
shrouds markings.
They have concluded only something akin to ultraviolet lasers - far beyond the
capability of medieval forgers - could have created them.
This has led to fresh suggestions that the imprint was indeed created by a huge
burst of energy accompanying the Resurrection of Christ.

The results show a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can
colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of
the body image on the Shroud of Turin, the scientists said.
The image of the bearded man on the shroud must therefore have been created
by some form electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short
wavelength), their report concludes. But it stops short of offering a nonscientific explanation. Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro, who led the study, said:
When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in
the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things such as
miracles.
But as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes.
We hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate.
For centuries, people have argued about the authenticity of the shroud, which
is kept in a climate-controlled case in Turin cathedral. One of the most
controversial relics in the Christian world, it bears the faint image of a man
whose body appears to have nail wounds to the wrists and feet.

Shroud, a documentary raises the

opposition to the tests C14
The authors have made the investigation to examine chemical and
statistical raw data. Among them, the professor of statistics Pierluigi
Conti, University La Sapienza
Marco Tosatti
Rome
Its the greatest scientific cheat of all times. So Franco Faia, the man who
with Luigi Gonella and Giovanni Riggi di Numana was one of the workers,
and witness of the operation of the dating of the Holy Shroud, describes what
happened then. Faia gives his opinion in La notte della Sindone, a
documentary movie by Francesca Saracino, produced by Paolo Monaci
Freguglia for Polifemo, a co-production with Rai, distributed in Italy by
Medusa Home Entertainment.
The movie offers a very accurate reconstruction, with documents and
witnesses both new, of a real patchwork of secrets, manoeuvres and mysteries:
the controversial exam with the C14, a thriller not yet clear at this moment,
with many questions unanswered.

Vatican Insider has had in preview the entire DVD, and specially the special
contents, never revealed up to now, of the puzzle. It seems particularly
interesting a fresh document, which sheds a clear light on the C14 question,
and on the statement according to which the Holy Shroud would be a
medieval object.
Lets remind briefly the story. The laboratories (Tucson, Zurich and Oxford)
received some tiny fragments of the Holy Shroud to date using the C14. The
result of the exams, made in a continuous and persistent violation of the fixed
procedures, (a circumstance which cast a dark shadow on the seriousness of
the coordinating agency, the British Museum) said: from 1290 to 1360. But
the raw data, the basic numbers used to prepare the report were never made
known.
Francesca Saracino e Paolo Monaci happen to own a copy of the raw data of
the Arizona laboratory, and of the partial raw data of the other two
laboratories. Turin Archdiocese in the past asked repeatedly the raw data, to
be able to verify the correctness of the procedures, without success.
The authors of the movie submitted their data to several University scholars,
both in Statistic and Chemistry. Between them the prof. Pierluigi Conti, from
the Stae-owned roman university la Sapienza.
Conti says that in the Nature magazine report, coherent with the raw data he
examined, there is an arithmetic mistake. We leave apart any comment on
the possibility and the existence of an arithmetic mistake in a report written by
scientists, with the supervision of the British Museum and published by
Nature. But maybe its not just a mistake. Its a very simple mistake, and I
was not the first to notice it. A little arithmetic mistake, but a crucial one;
because leads to think that the material examined by the three laoboratories is
homogeneous.
When you correct this mistake, says Conti, you arrive the contrary
conclusion: that means that the age of the Holy Shroud fragments dated by
Arizona laboratory is different 50, 60, 70 years from the fragments of the
other two laboratories. Conti says categorically: This invalidates completely
the statistic results in the article published by Nature. Prof. Riani, from
Parma State university, using different calculation systems from Conti, arrived
to the same conclusion.
This is very important, because if you find in such a tiny fragment (few
centimetres of tissue) such a strong not-homogeneity, when you come to
consider the whole Holy Shroud four meters of linen we might have
variations of hundreds and even thousands of years. Prof. Conti gives his
verdict, that form a strictly scientific point of observation there is not enough

evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the Holy Shroud is medieval

exhibit.
If this is true, why the laboratories, the British Museum and
other protagonists more or less famous backed the greatest scientific cheat of
all times? The Notte della Sindone offers many cues and hints, and
everybody may come to his own answer; thats why we will not give any
solution. Its important, anyway, to underline which is the scientists opinion,
backed by the numbers.

Turin Shroud 'is not a

medieval forgery'
The Telegraph
By Nick Squires

The Turin Shroud is not a medieval forgery,

as has long been claimed, but could in fact
date from the time of Christ's death, a new
book claims.
Experiments conducted by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy
have dated the shroud to ancient times, a few centuries before and after the life
of Christ.
Many Catholics believe that the 14ft-long linen cloth, which bears the imprint of
the face and body of a bearded man, was used to bury Christ's body when he
was lifted down from the cross after being crucified 2,000 years ago.
The analysis is published in a new book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" or The
Mystery of the Shroud, by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal
measurement at Padua University, and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist.
The tests will revive the debate about the true origins of one of Christianity's
most prized but mysterious relics and are likely to be hotly contested by
sceptics.
Scientists, including Prof Fanti, used infra-red light and spectroscopy the
measurement of radiation intensity through wavelengths to analyse fibres
from the shroud, which is kept in a special climate-controlled case in Turin.
The tests dated the age of the shroud to between 300 BC and 400AD.
The experiments were carried out on fibres taken from the Shroud during a
previous study, in 1988, when they were subjected to carbon-14 dating.

Those tests, conducted by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona, appeared

to back up the theory that the shroud was a clever medieval fake, suggesting
that it dated from 1260 to 1390.

But those results were in turn disputed on the basis that they may have
been skewed by contamination by fibres from cloth that was used to
repair the relic when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages.
Mr Fanti, a Catholic, said his results were the fruit of 15 years of
research.
He said the carbon-14 dating tests carried out in 1988 were false
because of laboratory contamination.
The mystery of the shroud has baffled people for centuries and has
spawned not only religious devotion but also books, documentaries
and conspiracy theories.
The linen cloth appears to show the imprint of a man with long hair and
a beard whose body bears wounds consistent with having been
crucified.
Each year it lures hundreds of thousands of faithful to Turin Cathedral,
where it is kept in a specially designed, climate-controlled case.
Scientists have never been able to explain how the image of a man's
body, complete with nail wounds to his wrists and feet, pinpricks from
thorns around his forehead and a spear wound to his chest, could have
formed on the cloth. Mr Fanti said the imprint was caused by a blast of
exceptional radiation, although he stopped short of describing it as a
miracle.
He said his tests backed up earlier results which claimed to have found
on the shroud traces of dust and pollen which could only have come
from the Holy Land.
Mr Gaeta is also a committed Catholic - he worked for LOsservatore
Romano, the Vatican newspaper, and now works for Famiglia
Cristiana, a Catholic weekly.
The Vatican has never said whether it believes the shroud to be
authentic or not, although Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once said that
the enigmatic image imprinted on the cloth "reminds us always" of
Christ's suffering.
His newly-elected successor, Pope Francis, will provide an introduction
when images of the shroud appear on television on Saturday, the day
before Easter Sunday, which commemorates the resurrection.
The Pope has recorded a voice-over introduction for the broadcast on
RAI, the state television channel.

"It will be a message of intense spiritual scope, charged with positivity,

which will help (people) never to lose hope," said Cesare Nosiglia, the
Archbishop of Turin, who also has the title "pontifical custodian of the
shroud".
"The display of the shroud on a day as special as Holy Saturday
means that it represents a very important testimony to the Passion and
the resurrection of the Lord," he said.
For the first time, an app has been created to enable people to explore
the holy relic in detail on their smart phones and tablets.
The app, sanctioned by the Catholic Church and called "Shroud 2.0",
features high definition photographs of the cloth and enables users to
see details that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.
"For the first time in history the most detailed image of the shroud ever
achieved becomes available to the whole world, thanks to a streaming
system which allows a close-up view of the cloth. Each detail of the
cloth can be magnified and visualised in a way which would otherwise
not be possible," Haltadefinizione, the makers of the app, said.

More articles will be added soon

N CLAIM
BY ROSSELLA LORENZI

Nov. 24, 2009 -- The latest claim by Vatican researcher Barbara Frale that faint writing
on the Shroud of Turin proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus has roots which date back
30 years.
The first person who said to have seen faint letters on the controversial linen was the
Italian Piero Ugolotti in 1979. Using digital image processing, he reported the existence
of Greek and Latin letters written near the face.
Ugolotti's findings were further studied in 1997 by the late Andre Marion, director of
the Institut d'Optique Theorique et Appliquee d'Orsay, France and his student Anne
Laure Courage.

"My research begins where that of the French researchers ends," Frale, a researcher in
the Vatican secret archives, told Discovery News. "Marion and Courage were not
paleographists [experts in ancient scripts] and could not make much sense out of those
words."
According to Frale, who has published her findings in the book La Sindone di Gesu
Nazareno ("The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth"), the letters scattered on the shroud are
basically the burial certificate of a man named "Yeshua Nazarani."
"At the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, Jewish burial practices
established that a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the
family after been purified for a year in a common grave," Frale said. A death certificate
stuck to the cloth around the face was thus necessary for later retrieval of the corpse.
As with a puzzle, Frale reconstructed the death certificate by deciphering fragments of
Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing. These could be explained with the polyglot nature of
Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony, according to Frale.
Here is her interpretation of the letters appearing in Marion's image above:
1. (I)esou(s) "Jesus"
2. Nnazarennos "Nazarene"
3. (o)pse kia(tho) "taken down in the early evening"
4. in nece(m) "to death"
5. pez(o) "I execute"
There are apparently more letters on the linen, such as the word "iber," which Frale
identified as referring to Emperor Tiberius, who reigned at the time of Jesus'
crucifixion.
Piecing together the ancient multilingual puzzle, Frale came to this final reconstruction:
"In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in
the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he
was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of
being consigned to his family only after one full year."
The certificate ends with a sort of signature: "I execute".
Shroud skeptics already dismissed Marion and Courage's claim when it was presented
at a conference in 1997. They argued that the existence of the letters wasn't proven and
even if real, those letters did not make enough grammatical sense.
Meanwhile, a harsh debate has opened up over Frale's theory.

"There is no evidence that those letters do exist. Many have seen faint writings on the
cloth. Rather than a shroud it looks like an encyclopedia," Bruno Barberis, director of
the International Center for Shroud Studies of Turin, told Avvenire, a daily Catholic
newspaper.
Image: Courtesy of Barbara Frale, from her book "La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno,"
published by Il Mulino.

Historian touts Shroud of Turin inscription

Sunday, November 22, 2009 3:48 AM
By Ariel David
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROME -- A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the
Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the
burial cloth of Jesus.
Experts say the historian might be reading too much into the markings,
and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud's being a
medieval forgery.
Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that
she used computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly
written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.
She asserts that the words include the name "(J)esu(s) Nazarene" -- or
Jesus of Nazareth -- in Greek. That, she said, proves the text could not be
of medieval origin because no Christian at the time, even a forger, would
have mentioned Jesus without referring to his divinity. Failing to do so
would risk branding the writer a heretic.
"Even someone intent on forging a relic would have had all the reasons to
place the signs of divinity on this object," Frale said Friday. "Had we
found 'Christ' or 'Son of God' we could have considered it a hoax, or a
devotional inscription."
The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood
seeping from his hands and feet, and believers say that Christ's image was
recorded on the linen's fibers at the time of his Resurrection.
The fragile artifact, owned by the Vatican, is kept locked in a protective
chamber in a Turin cathedral and is rarely shown. The shroud, which
measures 13 feet long and 3 feet wide, has suffered severe damage
through the centuries, including from fire. The Catholic Church makes no
claims about the cloth's authenticity.
Although faint letters scattered around the face on the shroud were seen
decades ago, serious researchers dismissed them because of the results of

the radiocarbon-dating test in 1988 that showed the cloth was made in the
13th or 14th century, Frale said.
But when she cut out the words from enhanced photos of the shroud and
showed them to experts, they concurred that the writing style was typical
of the Middle East in the first cen