The Holy Shroud (Italian: Sacra Sindone), sometimes called the Shroud of Turin (Italian: Sindone di Torino), is a piece of linen cloth that faintly depicts the front and back of a man. For generations, the real burial shroud that was used to wrap the body of Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion and on which his miraculously imprinted physical image has been revered, particularly by Catholics.
When the shroud is shown in black and white instead of its original sepia tone, it makes the human image on it easier to see. This effect was initially noticed in 1898 by Secondo Pia, who took the first images of the shroud. This unfavorable perception is linked to a common Catholic devotion to Jesus’s Holy Face.
The shroud’s history is recorded beginning in 1354 when it was displayed in the newly constructed college church in the north-central French commune of Lirey. In 1389, Pierre d’Arcis, the bishop of Troyes, declared the shroud to be a fake. After being purchased by the House of Savoy in 1453, it was placed in a church in Chambéry until a fire destroyed it in 1532. The shroud was transferred by the Savoys to Turin, their new city, in 1578, and it has been there ever since.
It has been maintained since 1683 in the Holy Shroud Chapel, which architect Guarino Guarini created specifically for that use, and is attached to the cathedral and royal palace in Turin. Following the passing of the previous king Umberto II in 1983, ownership of the shroud was transferred from the House of Savoy to the Catholic Church.
Based on his analysis of samples collected in 1978 from the shroud’s surface using adhesive tape, the microscopist Walter McCrone concluded that the picture had been painted using a diluted solution of red ochre pigment in a gelatin medium. McCrone discovered that the apparent bloodstains were created in a gelatin media using a vermilion dye. Other researchers challenged McCrone’s conclusions, and the nature of the picture on the shroud is still up for discussion.
According to radiocarbon analysis, the shroud is not from the time of Jesus but rather from the medieval era. This is consistent with its 1354 first-documented occurrence. This result has been contested by those who maintain the shroud’s authenticity, mainly on the grounds that the examined samples may have been tainted or obtained from a repair to the original cloth.
Experts in carbon dating and other researchers have disproved these fanciful notions using data directly from the shroud. The carbon monoxide idea, the biocontamination theory, and the medieval repair theory are among the debunked hypotheses. Experts acknowledge the shroud’s carbon dating as legitimate, but the issue still sparks a lot of public discussion.
In both the academic literature and the general press, there have been protracted debates on the nature and history of the shroud. As of right now, the Catholic Church does neither affirm nor deny the shroud’s legitimacy as a relic of Jesus.
An Explanation
The shroud is rectangular, with dimensions about equal to 4.4 by 1.1 meters (14 feet 5 inches by 3 feet 7 inches). The fabric is made of flax fibrils and woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill. The dim, brownish image of a front and rear view of a naked guy with his hands wrapped across his crotch is what makes it stand out the most. The two perspectives point in different directions and are oriented along the body’s midplane. At the center of the fabric, the front and back perspectives of the head almost exactly coincide.
A guy with a beard, a mustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the center appears to be shown in the faint straw-yellow picture on the fabric fibers’ crown. He is tall and strong; different experts have given him heights between 1.70 and 1.88 meters, or 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet 2 inches. The fabric has reddish-brown stains that match the wounds described in the Bible as having occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion.
A fire that occurred in the church in Chambéry, France in 1532 caused damage to the shroud. Due to contact with molten silver during the fire, which burnt through the linen in certain spots as it was being folded, there were some burn holes and charred patches down both sides of the linen. The Poor Clares nuns repaired the damage by sewing eight smaller and fourteen big triangular patches onto the fabric.
Italian photographer Secondo Pia was granted permission to take pictures of the shroud in May 1898. On May 28, 1898, he snapped the shroud’s first photo. Giuseppe Enrie, another photographer, took pictures of the shroud in 1931 and produced images that resembled Pia’s. Ultraviolet photos of the shroud were obtained in 1978.
Past Events
Before the fourteenth century, there were no conclusive historical documents pertaining to the specific shroud that is presently housed at Turin Cathedral. The Byzantine emperors possessed a burial fabric that some historians believe to be the Shroud, but it vanished at the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. There is no historical proof that the many accounts of Jesus’s burial shroud, or a representation of his head of unknown provenance, being revered in different places prior to the 14th century, relate to the shroud that is presently housed in Turin.
A tiny college church was added to the north-central French town of Lirey in 1353. Robert de Caillac, the dean of the Lirey canons, started displaying a long cloth depicting the mutilated body of Jesus in the cathedral sometime around 1355. The owner of this item was Geoffroi de Charny, a French knight who perished in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.
The church in Lirey was under the jurisdiction of Pierre d’Arcis, the Bishop of Troyes, who wrote a long memorandum to Antipope Clement VII in 1390, claiming that the shroud was a fake and that Henri de Poitiers, the previous Bishop of Troyes, had identified the artist who had created it. As long as it was made clear that the Shroud was an artistic picture of Jesus’s agony and not a genuine relic, Clement’s bull permitted the Lirey canons to carry on displaying the relic.
The Shroud was seized from the Lirey chapel and placed in the fortress of Montfort for protection in 1415, during the Hundred Years’ War. Later on, Margaret de Charny declined to give Lirey the Shroud back, which sparked legal disputes between her and the canons. Margaret gave the Shroud to the House of Savoy in 1453.
Pope Julius II approved the Shroud’s devotion in 1506, recognizing it as a genuine relic. The Shroud was held in a chapel in Chambéry, the capital of Savoy, where it was damaged in a fire in 1532. Through the layers of the folded material, a symmetrically positioned mark was created by a droplet of molten silver from the reliquary. Poor Clare Nuns tried using patches to undo this harm. The fabric was carried from Chambéry to Turin by command of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy in 1578, and it has been in Turin ever since.
The shroud has been on display at the chapel that Guarino Guarini constructed specifically for that purpose since the 17th century. Sebastian Valfrè repaired the shroud in 1694 in an effort to enhance the Poor Clare sisters’ previous restorations. Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy conducted more repairs in 1868. In 1898, the shroud was first captured on camera for a public display. The shroud was owned by the House of Savoy until 1983 when it was given to the Holy See by the former Italian monarch Umberto II in accordance with the conditions of his will.
On April 11, 1997, a fire that was likely started by arson put the shroud in danger. The Holy See had the shroud restored in 2002. The reverse side of the material, which had been concealed from view, could now be photographed and scanned thanks to the removal of the textile backing and thirty patches. On the back of the shroud, a faint partial picture of the body was discovered in 2004. From April 10–May 23, 2010, the Shroud was reexhibited to the public for the eighteenth time in its existence in Turin. Over two million people saw it there, according to Church authorities.
For the first time in forty years, photographs of the shroud were shown on television and many websites on Holy Saturday, 30 March 2013. According to Roberto Gottardo of the Turin diocese, high-quality photos of the shroud have never before been made public.
These images may be enlarged on tablet computers to reveal intricacies that are invisible to the unaided eye. Pope Francis, like most of his predecessors, “stopped firmly short of asserting its authenticity” but released a carefully worded statement encouraging the faithful to observe the shroud with awe as this unusual exposition took place. From 19 April to 24 June 2015, the Shroud was once more on display at the Turin cathedral. It was free to view, but you had to make an appointment.
Preservation
The shroud has undergone many repairs and preservation measures have been implemented to prevent additional harm and pollution. It is stored in an airtight case underneath laminated bulletproof glass. To keep chemical reactions from occurring, argon (99.5%) and oxygen (0.5%) are placed inside a temperature- and humidity-controlled container. The shroud is flattened and housed within the case on an aluminum support that slides on runners.
Religious Perspectives
According to the accounts found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Joseph of Arimathea covered Jesus’s body in a linen shroud known as “London” and buried it in a new tomb. According to the Gospel of John, he dressed in linen (or “othonia”).
The Gospel of John records what happened after the resurrection: “Simon Peter followed him and entered the tomb directly. He noticed the garment that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head and the linen cloths, or Lithonia, lying nearby. The cloth remained where it belonged, except from the linen. According to Luke’s Gospel, Peter, on the other hand, got up and hurried to the tomb. He leaned forward and noticed the linen sheets by themselves.”
John Calvin outlined the following in his 1543 book Treatise on Relics as to why the Shroud is not authentic:
- The figure presented is that of a whole body since at every location where they feign to have the graveclothes, they display a sizable piece of linen that covers the full body, including the head. Yet according to the Evangelist John, Christ was interred “as is the manner of the Jews to bury.” The Jews, who continue to observe it, may teach us about that style, as can their texts, which describe the nature of the old custom. It looked like this: The head was bound around with a napkin knotted at the four corners into a knot, and the body was wrapped up by itself up to the shoulders.
- This is further explained by the Evangelist, who reports that Peter observed the napkin that had been wrapped around the head resting in one location and the linen garments in which the corpse had been wrapped lying in another. The word “napkin” might refer to a shawl or a handkerchief used for wiping the face, but it never refers to a wide piece of linen that can be used to cover the entire body. Nonetheless, I have employed the phrase in the incorrect meaning that they assign to it.
- Overall, it appears that Evangelist John provided an inaccurate narrative or that each of them was found to have told lies, indicating that they had inappropriately forced their beliefs on the ignorant.
While at least four churches in France and three in Italy possess fragments purported to be Jesus’ burial cloths, none have attracted as much religious fervor as the Shroud of Turin. The Catholic Church has never declared the shroud to be legitimate, but the religious activities and beliefs surrounding it predate historical and scientific debates and have persisted until the twenty-first century.
One such is the Holy Face Medal that certain Catholics wear, which features the picture from the shroud. Indeed, Christians from a variety of faiths, such as Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Orthodox, Pentecostals, and Presbyterians, revere the Shroud of Turin. Replicas of the Shroud of Turin have been shown at a number of Lutheran churches for devotional and educational purposes.
Devotions
The Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus are linked to the shroud picture, but the devotions themselves date back to Secondo Pia’s 1898 portrait. Leo Dupont, also known as the Apostle of the Holy Face, encouraged these devotions, which were first founded in 1844 by the Carmelite nun Marie of St. Peter and based on “pre-crucifixion” imagery connected to the Veil of Veronica. Long before Secondo Pia took the shroud shot, in 1851, Dupont founded the “Archconfraternity of the Holy Face” in Tours, France.
Miraculous image
In Christianity, the idea of the miraculous acheiropoieton—Greek for “made without hands”—has a lengthy history that dates at least to the sixth century. The picture of Camuliana and the Mandylion, also known as the Image of Edessa, are two of the most well-known portable early acheiropoieta.
Both painted icons of Christ were owned by the Byzantine Empire and are now usually believed to be lost or destroyed, along with the Virgin Mary picture from Hodegetria. Due to the Shroud’s prominence, other ancient pictures from Italy—all painstakingly and regrettably restored—that were once considered acheiropoieta are now comparatively less popular.
Vatican Stance
Declaring that the fabric had been “artificially painted in an ingenious way” and that “it was also proved by the artist who had painted it that it was made by human work, not miraculously produced,” the bishop of Troyes addressed a memorial to Antipope Clement VII in 1389. As a result, in 1390, Pope Clement VII issued four papal bulls approving the exposition but directing the statement that the aforementioned representation is a painting or panel intended to imitate the Shroud rather than the genuine Shroud of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in order to put an end to all fraud. Pope Julius II, however, changed his mind in 1506, recognizing the Shroud as genuine and approving its public adoration complete with a mass and office.
The tale of Secondo Pia’s 28 May 1898 photograph was reported by the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano in its edition of June 15, 1898, but the article was left unanswered, and Church authorities thereafter typically abstained from making any public comments about the photograph for over fifty years.
When Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli formally requested permission from the Milan curia to create a medal featuring the picture, the first known connection between the image on the Shroud and the Catholic Church was established in 1940. After permission was given, the first medal with the artwork was presented to Pope Pius XII, who gave his approval. Later, the picture appeared on a medal that many Catholics wore during World War II, which became known as the Holy Face Medal.
Pope Pius XII approved of the picture in 1958 and proclaimed its feast day to be observed annually on the day before Ash Wednesday, in honor of the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus have virtually entirely been linked to the picture on the shroud since Pope Pius XII gave his blessing.
Pope Pius XII praised the Shroud as a “holy thing perhaps like nothing else” in 1936 and expressed agreement with the veneration it receives as the sacred Face of Jesus.
Pope John Paul II referred to the Shroud as “a mirror of the Gospel” and a “distinguished relic” in 1998. It was described as an “icon written with the blood of a whipped man, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced on his right side” by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. It was described as an “icon of a man scourged and crucified” by Pope Francis in 2013.
Other Christians, like Methodists and Anglicans, have also demonstrated devotion to the Shroud of Turin.
The House of Savoy donated the Shroud to the Holy See in 1983. The Roman Catholic Church, as with other relics of this type, did not, however, declare it to be legitimate. The topic has been left to the individual choice of the faithful, just like with other approved Catholic devotions, provided that the Church does not issue a notification in the future to the contrary. The legitimacy of what Jesus taught and the atoning power of his death and resurrection, in the opinion of the Church, are unaffected by the authenticity of the cloth.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II declared, “The Church has no particular capacity to remark on these problems as it is not a matter of faith. She gives scientists the responsibility to carry out further research in order to find suitable solutions to the concerns related to this sheet.” The picture of the Shroud touched Pope John Paul II so much that he organized public viewings in 1998 and 2000.
During the 100th anniversary of Secondo Pia’s 28 May 1898 photograph, he gave a speech at the Turin Cathedral on Sunday, May 24, 1998. He stated: “The Shroud is a symbol of God’s love as well as of human guilt… The mark left by the crucified one’s tormented body serves as a symbol of the misery endured by the defenseless throughout history and attests to the incredible power of humankind to inflict suffering and even death on one another.”
The shroud was on display in Turin’s Cathedral on March 30, 2013, as part of the Easter celebrations. In a video message specially produced for the event, Pope Francis referred to the picture on the shroud as “this Icon of a man” and said, “The Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth.” Pope Francis “stopped firmly short of asserting its authenticity” but encouraged the faithful to consider the shroud with awe in his carefully worded speech.
On June 21, 2015, Pope Francis traveled to Turin to celebrate the bicentennial of St. John Bosco’s birth, pray before and revere the Holy Shroud, and pay tribute to him.
Scientific analysis
The formal study of the Shroud is called sinonology, derived from the Greek term σιvδών—sindon, which is used in the Gospel of Mark to describe the sort of burial garment of Jesus. “The investigation… assumed the stature of a separate discipline and was given a name, sindonology,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which also notes that the terms “sindonological” and “sindonologist” were used in 1950 and 1953, respectively.
Science was able to start studying the shroud because of Secondo Pia’s 1898 photos of it. Since then, several scientific ideas based on fields as diverse as chemistry, biology, medical forensics, and optical image analysis have been put forth in relation to the shroud. Three categories comprise the scientific methods used to examine the Shroud: image analysis, biology, and medical forensics, and material analysis (chemical and historical).
Early studies
In order to provide guidance on the preservation of the shroud and specify testing procedures, a scientific team conducted the first direct inspection of the shroud between 1969 and 1973. As a result, the 11-member Turin Commission was established to provide recommendations on the relic’s maintenance and particular testing. Preliminary investigations of fabric samples were carried out in 1973, and five members of the panel were scientists.
Scientists John P. Jackson of physics, Eric Jumper of thermodynamics, and William Mottern of photography examined the Shroud’s photos in 1976 using image analysis tools developed in aerospace science. The Shroud of Turin Research Project was established in 1977 by these three scientists together with more than thirty additional specialists in other professions. This group—often referred to as STURP—was granted direct access to the Shroud in 1978.
In 1978, Giovanni Tamburelli acquired a 3D elaboration from the Shroud at CSELT, independently of the STURP investigation, with a greater resolution than Jumper and Mottern. The electronic removal of the blood that appears to cover the face from the photograph was Tamburelli’s second outcome.
Tests for pigments
Using sticky tape, a group of scientists connected to STURP collected thirty-two samples from the Shroud’s surface in October 1978. Of those samples, fourteen were collected from non-image parts of the Shroud and eighteen were taken from locations that displayed an image of a person or blood. Using polarized light microscopy and other physical and chemical techniques, Walter McCrone, a renowned specialist in the forensic authenticity of historical documents and pieces of art, analyzed the cassettes.
McCrone came to the conclusion that the body image on the Shroud had been painted using a method like to the grisaille used in the fourteenth century by European artists such as Simone Martini, utilizing a diluted pigment of red ochre, a kind of iron oxide, in a collagen tempera (i.e., gelatin) medium.
McCrone also discovered that vermilion, a vivid crimson pigment derived from mercury sulfide, had been used to accentuate the “bloodstains” in the picture inside a collagen tempera media. According to McCrone, the samples retrieved from the Shroud contained no real blood.
Other STURP members disagreed with McCrone’s findings and came to the same conclusion based on their own analysis of the Shroud and the tape samples: pigments could not have produced the picture of the Shroud. The Shroud samples were examined by McCrone employee Mark Anderson.
Anderson, McCrone’s Raman microscopy specialist, came to the conclusion that the samples behaved like organic material when he exposed them to the laser, according to Ray Rogers’ book. In June 1980, McCrone handed up all of the tape samples he had been holding to Ray Rogers and announced his resignation from STURP.
After looking at the same samples, John Heller and Alan Adler concurred with McCrone’s conclusion that iron oxide was present in the fabric. They countered that although retting flax selectively absorbs iron, the picture on the shroud was not created by the iron itself because of the chemical’s extraordinary purity and similarities with other ancient fabrics.
Following the publication of his analysis of the Shroud in 1980, McCrone persisted in arguing that the Shroud was painted in the 14th century and that it contained no real blood traces in journal articles, speeches given in public, and his book Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (published in 1996).
Additionally, he maintained that the STURP members’ lack of proficiency in the chemical microanalysis of historical artworks was a crucial factor and that their failure to find pigment in the picture of the Shroud was “consistent with the sensitivity of the instruments and techniques they used.” In 2000, McCrone received the National Award in Analytical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society for his work on the Shroud.
Radiocarbon dating
The shroud is medieval, not from the time of Jesus, as proven by radiocarbon dating.
After years of negotiations to secure approval from the Holy See, independent radiocarbon dating experiments were conducted in 1988 at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. With a 95% confidence level, the tests conducted on a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud revealed that the material belonged to the 1260–1390 AD timeframe.
The date corresponds with the shroud’s historical debut in the chapel. This chronology is also somewhat closer to the estimate provided by art historian W. S. A. Dale, who conjectured—based mostly on aesthetic considerations—that the shroud is an icon from the eleventh century intended for use in religious ceremonies.
Rather than focusing on the image-bearing cloth, some supporters of the shroud’s authenticity have tried to cast doubt on the radiocarbon dating finding by suggesting that the sample may really be a medieval “invisible” repair piece. All of the theories, including the carbon monoxide, biocontamination, and medieval repair theories, that were used to dispute radiocarbon dating have been scientifically disproven.
In an effort to determine the validity of the C14 dating by analyzing the data rather than the shroud itself, the radiocarbon dating results have been statistically analyzed several times in recent years. All of the research has come to the conclusion that the findings are not homogeneous. This might be because various laboratories utilized different pre-testing cleaning procedures or because there were undiscovered irregularities in the fabric that was examined.
According to the most current analysis (2020), “All of the results would agree within the observed uncertainty if the Tucson and Zurich data were displaced upward by 88 RCY as shown in the figure.” In fact, the χ2 analysis would support statistical homogeneity if the “correction” was as modest as ~10 RCY, providing that the uncertainties in the data remained unchanged.”
Material historical analysis
Historical fabrics
According to a 1998 study by shroud expert Joe Nickell, there are no documented instances of herringbone weave from the time of Jesus. The few known examples of burial cloths from that era are woven in a simple weave. Fragments of a first-century burial shroud, said to have belonged to a Jewish high priest or member of the nobility, were found in a tomb close to Jerusalem in 2000. The researchers deduced that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jerusalem during the time of Jesus based on this result.
Biological and medical forensics
Blood stains
Blood appears to have been spilled on the shroud in many crimson stains, however, it’s unclear if they were created concurrently with the picture or after. Iron oxide was found in them, as demonstrated by McCrone (see painting theory), who postulated that the presence of this iron oxide was probably caused by the crude pigment ingredients utilized in medieval periods.
The authenticity of the Shroud is disputed by skeptics who provide the findings of forensic blood testing, suggesting that the blood may have come from someone who handled the shroud and that the blood flows on the shroud are too tidy.
Flowers and pollen
Two images of the shroud, one of which was a replica of the photographic negative shot by Giuseppe Enrie in 1931, were subjected to extensive contemporary digital image processing in research published in 2011 by Salvatore Lorusso of the University of Bologna and others. Neither picture had any depictions of flowers, currency, or anything else.
A recent study by Italian researchers Barcaccia et al. was published in Scientific Reports in 2015. When the shroud and its backing material were vacuumed in 1977 and 1988, they discovered DNA, both human and non-human. They studied this DNA. Nineteen distinct plant species were discovered, with remnants of them found in the Americas, the Middle East, Eastern Asia (China), Central Europe, North Africa, and Mediterranean nations.
Sequences from the human mtDNA were discovered to correspond to haplogroups that are representative of a number of different racial and geographical groupings, including Europe, the Middle East, North and East Africa, and India. A few non-plant and non-human sequences were also found, one of which was linked to a marine worm that is prevalent in the Northern Pacific Ocean, which is next to Canada, and the other to a variety of birds.
It was established that a large number of people from a wide range of locations came into touch with the shroud after some DNA from pollen and dust discovered on it was sequenced. The experts state that “such diversity would not rule out a medieval origin in Europe, but it would also be consistent with the historical trajectory the Turin Shroud is thought to have taken on its presumed journey from the Near East.” Additionally, the findings suggest that the linen cloth may be manufactured in India.”
Anatomical forensics
After Yves Delage’s original research in 1902, further investigations have been conducted on the anatomical consistency of the picture on the shroud and the type of wounds on it. Although Delage pronounced the picture to be anatomically perfect, there have been claims made for both authenticity and falsification by others.
An examination of a crucified Roman unearthed in the vicinity of Venice in 2007 reveals heel marks that match Jehohanan’s wounds but do not match those on the shroud. Furthermore, there is no proof of wrist wounds on any of the two crucifixion victims that archeology is aware of.
According to Joe Nickell (1983) and Gregory S. Paul (2010), the image’s dimensions are unrealistic. Paul said that the figure could not be a representation of a real person, that the stance was uneven, and that the face and dimensions of the shroud picture are impossible. They contended that the arms are too lengthy and uneven in length, the forehead on the shroud is too narrow, and the space between the eyebrows and the top of the head is not representative. They came to the conclusion that if the shroud is the creation of a Gothic artist, the peculiarities may be explained.
A body in the relaxed attitude depicted on the shroud could not be placed such that its hand covers its genitalia as Raymond E. Brown observed. To enable this, the right arm and hand in the picture seem to have been extended.
In 2018, an experimental Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) was conducted to examine how a crucified person’s blood flowed from their wounds and to compare the results with the Turin Shroud. The blood patterns on the forearms and the back of the hand are unrelated and would have needed to happen at separate times as a result of a highly particular set of actions, as shown by the comparison of the results of several tests.
Even if there were distinct bleeding events that occurred at separate times, the rivulets on the front of the picture do not match the lines on the lumbar region. These contradictions point to the Turin linen’s artistic or “didactic” portrayal as opposed to its authenticity as a funeral shroud.
Text and image analysis
Image analysis
The shroud photos have been processed using both analog and art-historical digital methods.
Scientists decrypted a snapshot of the shroud image into a three-dimensional image in 1976 using NASA imaging technology. John Dee German, an optical scientist and former member of STURP, has observed that creating an image with 3D effects is not hard. Less light will reach and reflect back from the parts of the object that are farther from the lens if the object being photographed is lit from the front and there is some kind of non-reflective “fog” in between the camera and the object. This will result in a contrast that is dependent on distance.
The front picture on the shroud measures 1.95 meters (6 feet 5 inches) in length, and it is somewhat larger than the back image, which measures 2.02 meters (6 feet 8 inches) in length. The photos, when analyzed, were determined to be consistent with the shroud having been used to cover a body that was 1.75 meters (5 feet 9 inches) in length.
The picture could be likened to the Japanese art tradition of oshiguma, which is the creation of face prints. Moreover, the physical attributes of the subject align with Byzantine iconography.
The Shroud fabric is made up of linen fibers that have a diameter of around 10–20 μm stitched together with threads that have a nominal diameter of 0.15 mm.
The transparent and discontinuous yellow staining of the fibers is what causes the Shroud image, which is a weak and superficial picture. Only two or three of the fibers on the uppermost portion of the cloth’s threads are discolored in the areas where the picture is apparent. The yellow discoloration hardly reaches 200 nm into the outer cell layer of each fiber.
While a fiber’s coloration may not extend the whole length of it, in the areas where it does, it has the characteristic of having color throughout its cylindrical surface.
The picture is absent underneath the weaving’s intersecting strands.
The discoloration appears to be the result of a dehydrative oxidation process that has chemically changed and discolored certain surface fibrils.
The Shroud image is an example of an areal density image, meaning that the amount of darkness is determined by differences in the number of yellowed fibers per unit area rather than by color fluctuations, which are roughly consistent throughout the image. As a result, it qualifies as a halftone picture. Moreover, the distribution of fiber colors and maximum densities in the front and back of the picture are the same.
The body picture could not have resulted from a touch mechanism, but the blood images might. The mapping that exists even in situations when it does not appear conceivable for the cloth to be in contact with the body, between body-only image densities and predicted cloth-body distances, is inconsistent with the image having been generated by direct contact with a body.
Hypotheses on image origin
Painting
Walter McCrone suggests that the process employed to create the picture on the shroud may have been identical to a medieval grisaille approach as documented in Sir Charles Lock Eastlake’s 1847 book Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters. McCrone relates the picture on the shroud to the unique translucent qualities that Eastlake’s description of a specific tempera paint technique for painting on linen in the chapter “Practice of Painting Generally During the XIVth Century” produced.
Furthermore, McCrone contended that after handling and displaying the cloth for several centuries, the ochre pigment on the tips of the exposed linen strands may have worn off, leaving the current picture on the shroud perhaps fainter than the original painting.
Acid pigmentation
Professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia Luigi Garlaschelli claimed in 2009 to have created a full-size replica of the Shroud of Turin with only tools from the Middle Ages. Garlaschelli covered a volunteer with a linen sheet and applied an acidic pigment to it. After that, the shroud was aged in an oven and cleaned to get rid of the pigment. In order to mimic the original, he then added bloodstains, scorches, and watermarks. The University of Padua’s Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermometric measurements, observed that “the technique itself seems unable to produce an image having the most critical Turin Shroud image characteristics”.
The replica created by Garlaschelli was featured in a 2010 National Geographic program. The bas-relief method (explained below) was part of Garlaschelli’s style, although it was limited to the facial picture. Though it lacked the consistency and detail of the original, the resulting image was clearly similar to the Turin Shroud.
Medieval photography
According to art historian Nicholas Allen, methods from the 1011 Book of Optics might have been used as early as the 13th century to create the picture on the shroud. But chemist and photographer historian Mike Ware says Allen’s idea “encounters serious obstacles with regard to the technical history of the lens.”
These claimants often use the benefit of hindsight to present a skewed historical picture, basing their cases on a specific sequence of events that is incredibly unlikely. Their “proofs” are limited to showing (not too accurately) that it was not entirely impossible.” In addition to other challenges, Allen’s theoretical procedure would have needed months of the patient (a corpse) being exposed to sunshine.
Dust-transfer technique
Researchers Emily Craig and Randall Bresee have tried to replicate the shroud’s likenesses using the dust-transfer method, which was conceivably accomplished by medieval artists. Using collagen dust, they first created a carbon-dust drawing of a Jesus-like face on a wood pulp newspaper, which resembles paper from the 13th and 14th centuries.
After that, they covered the artwork with a piece of cloth and set it on a table. The linen was then forcefully rubbed on the newsprint using the flat edge of a wooden spoon. By doing this, they were able to produce a reddish-brown picture that had no brushstrokes and a genuine, positive resemblance of a human in three dimensions.
Bas-relief
Joe Nickell observed in 1978 that the Shroud picture was three-dimensional and speculated that a sculpture of some kind may have been used in its construction. He proposed and attempted to prove the theory that the picture was created by rubbing in a manner similar to that of the Middle Ages. While putting a cloth around a sculpture with regular contours would, he saw, produce a distorted picture, Nickell thought that wrapping a cloth over a bas-relief would remove the wraparound distortions and provide an image similar to the one on the shroud. In order to demonstrate, Nickell covered a bas-relief sculpture with a damp towel and let it dry. Then, in order to keep the paint from soaking into the threads, he used powdered pigment rather than wet paint.
Using a dauber, the color was applied in a manner analogous to wiping off stone. The end product was a picture with realistically placed light and dark areas. In a step-by-step photo essay published in Popular Photography magazine, Nickell explained how to use this method. Later, this procedure was repeated by other researchers.
In 2005, the scholar Jacques di Costanzo created a bas-relief featuring a face like Jesus and covered it with damp linen. He applied a gelatin and ferric oxide combination to the linen after it had dried. The outcome was a picture like the face on the Shroud. The imprinted picture proved to be wash-resistant, resistant to temperatures as high as 250 °C (482 °F), and unaffected by exposure to a variety of harsh chemicals, such as bisulfite, which ordinarily breaks down ferric oxide into ferrous oxide in the absence of gelatine.
It has also been suggested that the bas-relief may be heated and utilized to burn an image onto the fabric in place of the painting. However, after conducting several tests with the scorching of linen, researcher Thibault Heimburger discovered that a scorch mark can only be created by direct contact with the hot item; as a result, the color degradation is all or nothing and does not graduate as does the shroud.
Maillard reaction
One type of non-enzymatic browning that involves an amino acid and a reducing sugar is called the Maillard reaction. A thin coating of starch fractions, different sugars, and other contaminants is mixed with carbohydrates and adheres to the cellulose fibers of the shroud. There are no indications of decomposition on the Shroud, despite the fact that a rotting body is the probable source of the amines needed for the reaction. Rogers adds that their investigations showed no biological fluids or proteins in the picture regions. Furthermore, a process involving diffusion does not seem to be compatible with the picture resolution or the uniform hue of the linen resolution.
Fringe theories
Pictures of money, flowers, and text
Many have reported seeing pictures on the shroud, including writing, coins covering the image’s eyes, and flowers among other items. But in a 2011 investigation, Lorusso and colleagues carefully processed two images of the shroud using contemporary digital image processing techniques; one of the images was a clone of the negative that Giuseppe Enrie had shot in 1931.
They noted that the faint images were “only visible by incrementing the photographic contrast” and came to the conclusion that these signs might be connected to protuberances in the yarn as well as the modification and influence of the texture of the Enrie photographic negative during its development in 1931. They did not find any images of flowers, coins, writing, or any other additional objects on the shroud in either photograph. It is not documented that in first-century Judea, coins were used to occlude the eyes of the deceased. The majority of scientists deny the existence of the coin pictures.
Pray Codex
A picture found in the medieval Pray Codex manuscript (c. 1192–1195) has caused some Christians to disagree since 1978. Despite the fact that the Pray Codex existed before the Shroud of Turin, various presumed characteristics of the drawing—such as the four L-shaped openings on the coffin lid—have led some individuals to believe that the linen fabric may have been tried to represent.
Nevertheless, the Pray Codex picture lacks an image of Jesus and features crosses on what seems to be one side of the purported shroud and an interlocking step pyramid design on the other. Critics point out that, based on other religious symbols, it could not even be a shroud but rather a rectangular gravestone. There is a rumpled fabric on the coffin, and there is no mention of a miraculous picture on the codex shroud in the codex text.
Radiation processes
Advocates of the Shroud of Turin’s veracity have contended that radiation emissions during the “moment of resurrection” produced the picture on the shroud. Though he agrees that exposure to light may have caused the fabric to darken, STURP member Alan Adler has stated that this theory is not generally accepted as scientific because it defies the laws of physics (and he predicts that even though the Shroud is typically stored in darkness and is rarely displayed, it will eventually become darker in the future). “It is clear that a corona discharge (plasma) in the air will cause easily observable changes in a linen sample,” stated Raymond Rogers, who also questioned the hypothesis.
Image fibers from the Shroud of Turin show no signs of these kinds of impacts. Images were not formed in any way by corona discharges or plasmas.” It is impossible to establish that the picture was not naturally produced when sunlight was applied unevenly to the prepared material. This is especially true if UV radiation was shown to have formed the image.
Top 20 Facts about the Shroud of Turin
- What It Is: The Shroud of Turin is a long linen cloth bearing the faint image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma consistent with crucifixion. It is believed by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
- Dimensions: The Shroud measures approximately 4.4 meters (14.3 feet) long and 1.1 meters (3.6 feet) wide.
- Material: The cloth is made of herringbone-twill linen, a common type of weaving in ancient times, but also consistent with medieval textiles.
- First Historical Mention: The Shroud’s documented history begins in 1354 when it was reportedly displayed by a French knight, Geoffroi de Charny, in the town of Lirey, France.
- The Image: The Shroud depicts the front and back images of a man. The image appears to have been created by some form of surface discoloration, but no pigments, dyes, or paints have been definitively found on the cloth.
- Bloodstains: Numerous bloodstains are visible on the Shroud, corresponding to wounds on the man’s head, hands, feet, and side. The blood has been identified as type AB, which is rare but found more frequently in the Middle East.
- Debate over Authenticity: The Shroud has been a subject of intense debate for centuries. Some believe it is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ, while others argue it is a medieval forgery.
- Carbon-14 Dating: In 1988, carbon dating tests conducted by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich, and Tucson dated the Shroud to between 1260 and 1390 AD, suggesting it is a medieval artifact rather than a 1st-century relic.
- Skeptics’ View: Skeptics often point to the Carbon-14 results, along with historical records that do not mention the Shroud before the 14th century, as evidence that it is not authentic.
- Counterclaims: Proponents of the Shroud’s authenticity argue that the Carbon-14 tests may have been skewed by contamination from repairs or by centuries of exposure to various environmental conditions, including fires.
- Fires and Damage: The Shroud has survived multiple fires, most notably one in 1532 in Chambéry, France, which left noticeable burn marks and water stains on the cloth.
- Holes and Patches: After the 1532 fire, the Shroud was damaged and repaired by nuns, who sewed patches to cover burn holes, creating additional alterations to the original fabric.
- The Negative Image: The Shroud’s image is often described as a negative, meaning its full details become more visible when viewed in reverse, such as in a photographic negative. This was first discovered by Italian photographer Secondo Pia in 1898.
- Scientific Studies: The Shroud has been the subject of numerous scientific investigations, including STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) in 1978, which examined the cloth and concluded that the image was not created by paint, heat, or other known artistic methods.
- Theories on Image Formation: Various theories have been proposed about how the image was formed, including natural processes like oxidation and dehydration of the linen fibers, and even more speculative ideas such as a burst of radiation at the moment of resurrection.
- Religious Importance: For many Christians, particularly Catholics, the Shroud is a deeply revered object, though the Catholic Church has not officially declared it to be the burial cloth of Christ. Pope John Paul II referred to it as a “mirror of the Gospel” in 1998.
- Location: The Shroud is kept in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, where it has been housed since 1578.
- Public Display: The Shroud is rarely displayed publicly. One of the most recent public exhibitions was in 2015, attracting millions of visitors from around the world.
- Pollen Evidence: Research has identified pollen grains on the Shroud that are native to the Middle East, particularly around Jerusalem, which some consider evidence supporting its authenticity as a 1st-century artifact.
- Vatican Custodianship: Although the Shroud is housed in Turin, the Vatican technically owns it. It was bequeathed to the Church by King Umberto II of Italy in 1983.
