© 2002, Archdiocese of Turin. Courtesy of The Holy Shroud - Official Site.
The Shroud of Turin takes its name from the city in which it has been kept since September 14, 1578. It is a linen cloth about 14 feet 3 inches long and 3 feet 7 inches wide (437 cm x 111 cm). This measurement corresponds with the measurement of common burial shrouds in Palestine in the 1st century which was 8 x 2 Philaeterian cubits.1
The shroud is a herringbone twill with a 3:1 weave, of probable 1st century Syrian manufacture closely resembling 1st century textile fragments found at Masada. The flax fibrils also contain entwisted cotton fibrils from a previous work of the loom identified as Gossypium herbaceum, a Middle Eastern species not found in Europe.2
Burial shrouds have been used since ancient times and were wrapped lengthwise around the body as shown in the painting below, an aquatint attributed to Giovanni Battista della Rovere (1561-1630).3
La Santa Sindone, Galleria Sabauda, Turin.
Image courtesy of TIME 151: 15 (April 20, 1998): 52.
What is unique about the Turin Shroud is that it is the only burial shroud that bears the front and back images of a man who was beaten, scourged, and crucified.4
In 1978 a group of scientists, The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), studied the Shroud intensively for 120 hours. They concluded that the image is not formed by paint, and that the image is caused by oxidation, dehydration, and conjugation of the cellulose in the linen.5 The image is quite faint and found only on the very outer surface of the linen fibers.
In 1898 an attorney named Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the Shroud for the first time. He was amazed to discover while developing the film that on the negative he was actually seeing a positive image (see below B/W negative of the Shroud ventral image rotated to a vertical position)6 and that the details on the Shroud could be seen much more clearly.
Image ©1978, Barrie M. Schwortz.
Courtesy of The Shroud of Turin Website.
Some of the notable features are the side wound, the blood flow down the arm, the nail wounds in the wrist and feet, various creases, and fold marks, scorch marks, and water stains. The patches sewn on by the Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage from the 1532 fire can be seen in older photographs. They were removed during the restoration in July 2002.
Tests on samples from the blood areas indicate that it is actual blood7 of human type AB.8 Forensic specialists have determined that the angle of the blood flows and the appearance of the wounds are accurate.9 Further on the areas where there is blood, the blood has saturated all the way through the fibers and there is no body image under the blood.10
The Shroud of Turin takes its name from the city in which it has been kept since September 14, 1578. It is a linen cloth about 14 feet 3 inches long and 3 feet 7 inches wide (437 cm x 111 cm). This measurement corresponds with the measurement of common burial shrouds in Palestine in the 1st century which was 8 x 2 Philaeterian cubits.1
The shroud is a herringbone twill with a 3:1 weave, of probable 1st century Syrian manufacture closely resembling 1st century textile fragments found at Masada. The flax fibrils also contain entwisted cotton fibrils from a previous work of the loom identified as Gossypium herbaceum, a Middle Eastern species not found in Europe.2
Burial shrouds have been used since ancient times and were wrapped lengthwise around the body as shown in the painting below, an aquatint attributed to Giovanni Battista della Rovere (1561-1630).3
La Santa Sindone, Galleria Sabauda, Turin.
Image courtesy of TIME 151: 15 (April 20, 1998): 52.
What is unique about the Turin Shroud is that it is the only burial shroud that bears the front and back images of a man who was beaten, scourged, and crucified.4
In 1978 a group of scientists, The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), studied the Shroud intensively for 120 hours. They concluded that the image is not formed by paint, and that the image is caused by oxidation, dehydration, and conjugation of the cellulose in the linen.5 The image is quite faint and found only on the very outer surface of the linen fibers.
In 1898 an attorney named Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the Shroud for the first time. He was amazed to discover while developing the film that on the negative he was actually seeing a positive image (see below B/W negative of the Shroud ventral image rotated to a vertical position)6 and that the details on the Shroud could be seen much more clearly.
Image ©1978, Barrie M. Schwortz.
Courtesy of The Shroud of Turin Website.
Some of the notable features are the side wound, the blood flow down the arm, the nail wounds in the wrist and feet, various creases, and fold marks, scorch marks, and water stains. The patches sewn on by the Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage from the 1532 fire can be seen in older photographs. They were removed during the restoration in July 2002.
Tests on samples from the blood areas indicate that it is actual blood7 of human type AB.8 Forensic specialists have determined that the angle of the blood flows and the appearance of the wounds are accurate.9 Further on the areas where there is blood, the blood has saturated all the way through the fibers and there is no body image under the blood.10
Pollen from the Jerusalem area, Turkey, and Europe has been found on the Shroud.11 In addition, there appears to be an image of a coin over the right eye that has been identified as a lepton from the time of Pontius Pilate. Further scientific studies are needed, however, to confirm this finding.
Debate on whether the Shroud could be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth has been heated, especially since the 1988 Carbon-14 dating indicated the Shroud was from the medieval period (1260-1390).12 The painting above which is from the late 16th century shows how an even later artist was not able to convincingly duplicate the features of the Shroud.
On January 20, 2005, Los Alamos chemist Raymond Rogers published a scientific paper proving that "the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin,"13 and thus reopened the question of its age.
____________
NOTES
1. Ian Wilson and Barrie Schwortz, The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence, (London: Michael O'Mara, 2000), p. 42.
2. D. Barag, et al. (eds.), Masada IV: Lamps, Textiles, Basket, Wood, and Ballista Balls, v. 4 of the Reports of the Masada Excavations, Jerusalem (1994). See also Gilbert Raes, La Sindone, 1976; and J. Tyrer, Textile Horizons (Dec. 1981).
3. There are also two similar paintings: (1) Gerolamo della Rovere's (1605-1637) Descent from the Cross, from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin can be seen at The Holy Shroud - Official Site; and (2) Jean Gaspard Baldoino's (1590-1669) Entombment of the Body of Christ in the Shroud, is in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in Nice. Image courtesy of CRET: Le Saint Suaire.
4. Pierre Barbet, A Doctor at Calvary (NY: 1953); Robert Bucklin, "The Medical Aspects of the Crucifixion of Christ," Sindon (December 1961), pp. 5-11; Frederick T. Zugibe, The Cross and the Shroud: A Medical Examiner Interprets the Turin Shroud (NY: Angelus, 1982).
5. E.J. Jumper, A.D. Adler, J.P. Jackson, S.F. Pellicori, J.H. Heller, & J.R. Druzik, "A Comprehensive Examination of the Various Stains and Images on the Shroud of Turin," ACS Advances in Chemistry 205: Archaeological Chemistry III (American Chemical Soc., 1984), pp. 447-476.
6. ©1978, Barrie M. Schwortz. Courtesy of The Shroud of Turin Website.
7. John Heller & Alan Adler, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society for Forensic Science Journal 14:3 (1981), p. 92.
8. P. Baima-Bollone, M. Jorio, & A.L. Massaro, "Identification of the Group of the Traces of Human Blood on the Shroud, Shroud Spectrum International 6 (March 1983), pp. 3-6.
9. Barbet, Bucklin, and Zugibe, op.cit.
10. Jumper et al., op cit.
11. Max Frei, "Nine Years of Palinological Studies on the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International 3 (June 1982), pp. 3-7; A. Danin, A. Whanger, U. Baruch, & M. Whanger, Flora of the Shroud of Turin (St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 1999), pp. 14-15, 22.
12. P. E. Damon, et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature 337:6208 (February 16, 1989): 611-615.
13. Raymond N. Rogers, "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin," Thermochimica Acta 425/1-2 (January 20, 2005): 189-194.
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