The Shroud of Turin: Proof of the Resurrection

Various Articles and Sources

homepage www.british-israel.ca

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 don’t 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 world’s 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 world’s most famous burial cloth. "I believe," she says, "that this extraordinary archaeological document can be understood and accepted by believers and non-believers 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 ‘Devil’s 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 Christ’s face isn’t 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 Pia’s 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 Enrie’s 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 three-dimensional images obtained with the Interpretation System VP8 Image Analyser. We are now completely sure of the image’s authenticity.

How can we be sure that this image hadn’t 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 Pia’s 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 blood’s 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.

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?

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 world’s 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 Chambéry, 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 Chambéry 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 Chambéry 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 Down’s 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 ‘Wood’s 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 flower-pressing. 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 Shroud’s first fire;
• the writings of Gregory the Referendary who tells of the Shroud’s 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 d’Etudes 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 d’Orsay, whose director is Professor André 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 blood-stain. But if you pass an optical fibre between the cloth and the protective lining which was stitched to the Shroud in Chambéry 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.

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 preliminary work of the STURP team at Albuquerque in 1977 and by Jumper’s 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.

PILATE’S 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.

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 astrologer’s 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).

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).

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 Pilate’s 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.

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 the Manchester 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 double-stranded 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:

• 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

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

 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.

 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.

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.

 What about hair?

The Apostle Paul writes about men, " Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (2 Corinth 11:14). Does this not contradict the scriptures that show the Israelites had long hair?

Notice what the International Standard Bible Dictionary says, "...the Hebrew people, like their Babylonian neighbors (Herod. i.195), affected long and well-cared-for, bushy curls of hair as emblems of manly beauty. Proofs thereof are not infrequent in the Scriptures and elsewhere. Samson's (Jdg 16:13, Jdg 16:19) and Absalom's (2Sam 14:26) long luxuriant hair is specially mentioned, and the Shulammite sings of the locks of her beloved which are 'bushy' (the Revised Version, margin 'curling'), and 'black as a raven' (Song 5:11). Josephus (Ant., VIII, vii, 3 (185)) reports that Solomon's body-guard was distinguished by youthful beauty and 'luxuriant heads of hair.' In the history of Samson we read of 'the seven locks of his head' (Jdg 16:19). It is likely that the expression signifies the plaits of hair which are even now often worn by the young Bedouin warrior of the desert." (article "Hair," emphasis added).

 Only the Priests were to cut their hair often so it would grow long (see Ezekiel 44:20) keep it in moderate size.

 Even beards, this same source says, "The mustache (Hebrew sāphām, 'beard'), according to 2Sam 19:24, received regular 'trimming' (Thus English Versions of the Bible after the Vulgate, but the Hebrew is generic, not specific: 'He had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard').

(4) In one case (1Sam 21:13, 1Sam 21:14) the neglect of the beard is set down as a sign of madness: '(He) let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish,... Lo, ye see the man is mad.'''(article "Beard" emphasis added). The Hebrews had neatly trimmed beards groomed and kept regularly.

 So what of Paul? What is the context of what he wrote? One must remember that it was written at least 20 years after the death of Jesus. "Hair was worn in different fashions by the Orientals of Biblical times, and not always in the same way among the same people in different epochs." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, under article "hair" emphasis added). Styles change with the trend setters.

 The Hellenistic Jews-a large segment of the Jewish population was Greek-speaking and Hellenistic in outlook. (See John 12:20; Acts 6:1.) The Greek Hellenistic style for men was to wear the hair short (Cornfeld, pp. 15, 146). On page 146 of Daniel to Paul is a picture of a "marble statuette of an unidentified man of the Hellenistic period - a time of close contacts between the Jewish and Hellenistic civilizations in thought, art, and everyday life. Whether Jewish or Gentile, he evokes his age and environment." The Roman Emperor and other people of great influence set the styles for the entire empire, and the Hellenistic Jews followed those trends.

 What about the non-Hellenistic Jews? Did they wear their hair short or long? Some did, some did not. Others followed the Biblical examples cited above. Some even had a "unplaited ponytail - a hairstyle favored by young men at that time." (Albert "Kim" Dreisbach, a biblical scholar, theologian).

 Part of the problem in discussing hair length is how long is long? We know from archeological materials such as Middle Eastern carvings and Egyptian tomb paintings that Jews wore what we would consider today as long hair and beards. Hair reached down to the shoulders on men. Women wore hair down to the waist.

 Paul was telling Corinthian men that wearing hair down to the waist as women did would be effeminate and contrary to what natural law would suggest, especially considering the physical demands of many first-century male occupations. It is easy for us today to assume the length and cut of a Jewish man’s hair in the first century to be as it is for most men today, but that’s a misconception that can result in our misreading Paul.

So did Paul means we should carry our hair short like the Romans? No! He meant men should groom their hair a lot shorter than women, who had their hair down to their waist. Men kept their hair short like the Romans or shoulder length like the men in the Bible and this is how we men should keep their hair; short enough to differentiate "between men and women." (see Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, p.133, Markus Bockmuehl). This is the primary point Paul is trying to make.

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 1^st 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 1^st 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 artist’s 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 artist’s 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 artist’s 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 artist’s 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 Adler’s 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.

Amazing Article on the Authenticity of the Shroud here with video

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.

 More articles will be added soon