Post by Yona Maro on Aug 30, 2005 11:32:00 GMT -5
The Shroud of Turin is reputedly Christ's burial cloth. It has been a religious relic since the Middle Ages. To believers it was divine proof the Christ was resurrected from the grave, to doubters it was evidence of human gullibility and one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of art. No one has been able to prove that 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
The Shroud of Turin, as seen by the naked eye, is a negative image of a man with his hands folded. The linen is 14 feet, 3 inches long and 3 feet, 7 inches wide. The shroud bears the image of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Jesus. The shroud is wrapped in red silk and kept in a silver chest in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy since 1578.
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.
If the marks we perceive were caused by human body, it is clear that the body (supine) was laid lengthwise along one half of the shroud while the other half was doubled back over the head to cover the whole front of the body from the face to the feet. The arrangement is well illustrated in the miniature of Giulio Clovio, which also gives a good representation of what was seen upon the shroud about the year 1540.
The cloth now at Turin can be clearly traced back to the Lirey in the Diocese of Troyes, where we first hear of it about the year 1360. In 1453 it was at Chamb鲹 in Savoy, and there in 1532 it narrowly escaped being consumed by a fire which by charring the corners of the folds has left a uniform series of marks on either side of the image. Since 1578 it has remained at Turin where it is now only exposed for veneration at long intervals.
That the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is taken for granted, in various pronouncements of the Holy See cannot be disputed. An Office and Mass "de Sancta Sindone" was formerly approved by Julius II in the Bull "Romanus Pontifex" of 25 April, 1506, in the course of which the Pope speaks of "that most famous Shroud (proeclarissima sindone) in which our Savior was wrapped when he lay in the tomb and which is now honorably and devoutly preserved in a silver casket."
Moreover, the same Pontiff speaks of the treaties upon the precious blood. Composed by his predecessor, Sixtus IV, in which Sixtus states that in the Shroud "men may look upon the true blood and portrait of Jesus Christ himself." A certain difficulty was caused by the existence elsewhere of other Shrouds similarly impressed with the figure of Jesus Christ and some of these cloths, notably those of Besan篮, Cadouin, Champi觮e, Xabregas, etc., also claimed to be the authentic linen sindon provided by Joseph of Arimathea, but until the close of the last century no great attack was made upon the genuineness of the Turin relic.
In 1898 when the Shroud was solemnly exposed, permission was given to photograph it and a sensation was caused by the discovery that the image upon the linen was apparently a negative -- in other words that the photographic negative taken from this offered a more recognizable picture of a human face than the cloth itself or any positive print. In the photographic negative, the lights and the shadows were natural, in the linen or the print, they were inverted.
Three years afterwards, Dr. Paul Vignon read a remarkable paper before the Acad魩e des Sciences in which he maintained that the impression upon the Shroud was a "vaporigraph" caused by the ammoniacal emanations radiating from the surface of Christ's body after so violent a death. Such vapours, as he professed to have proved experimentally, were capable of producing a deep reddish brown stain, varying in intensity with the distance, upon a cloth impregnated with oil and aloes. The image upon the Shroud was therefore a natural negative and as such completely beyond the comprehension or the skill of any medieval forger.
Plausible as this contention appeared, a most serious historical difficulty had meanwhile been brought to light. Owing mainly to the researches of Canon Ulysse Chevalier a series of documents was discovered which clearly proved that in 1389 the Bishop of Troyes appealed to Clement VII, the Avignon Pope then recognized in France, to put a stop to the scandals connected to the Shroud preserved at Lirey.
It was, the Bishop declared, the work of an artist who some years before had confessed to having painted it but it was then being exhibited by the Canons of Lirey in such a way that the populace believed that it was the authentic shroud of Jesus Christ. The pope, without absolutely prohibiting the exhibition of the Shroud, decided after full examination that in the future when it was shown to the people, the priest should declare in a loud voice that it was not the real shroud of Christ, but only a picture made to represent it.
The authenticity of the documents connected with this appeal is not disputed. Moreover, the grave suspicion thus thrown upon the relic is immensely strengthened by the fact that no intelligible account, beyond wild conjecture, can be given of the previous history of the Shroud or its coming to Lirey.
An animated controversy followed and it must be admitted that though the immense preponderance of opinion among learned Catholics (see the statement by P.M. Baumgarten in the "Historiches Jarbuch", 1903, pp. 319-43) was adverse to the authenticity of the relic, still the violence of many of its assailants prejudiced their own cause. In particular the suggestion made of blundering or bad faith on the part of those who photographed were quite without excuse. From the scientific point of view, however, the difficulty of the "negative" impression on the cloth is not so serious as it seems.
This Shroud like the others was probably painted without fraudulent intent to aid the dramatic setting of the Easter sequence:
Die nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via
Angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes.
As the word sudarium suggested, it was painted to represent the impression made by the sweat of Christ, i.e. probably in a yellowish tint upon unbrilliant red. This yellow stain would turn brown in the course of centuries, the darkening process being aided by the effects of fire and sun. Thus, the lights of the original picture would become the shadow of Paleotto's reproduction of the images on the shroud is printed in two colours, pale yellow and red. As for the good proportions and 泴hetic effect, two things may be noted. First, that it is highly probable that the artist used a model to determine the length and position of the limbs, etc.; the representation no doubt was made exactly life size. Secondly, the impressions are only known to us in photographs so reduced, as compared with the original, that the crudenesses, aided by the softening effects of time, entirely disappear.
Lastly, the difficulty must be noticed that while the witnesses of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries speak of the image as being then so vivid that the blood seemed freshly shed, it is now darkened and hardly recognizable without minute attention. On the supposition that this is an authentic relic dating from the year A.D. 30, why should it have retained its brilliance through countless journeys and changes of climate for fifteen centuries, and then in four centuries more have become almost invisible? On the other hand if it be a fabrication of the fifteenth century this is exactly what we should expect.
The Shroud of Turin
Wikipedia
The Shroud of Turin is a centuries-old linen cloth with the image of an apparently crucified man. Many people believe it to be the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth when he was placed in his tomb, and that his image was somehow recorded within its fibrils. Skeptics contend it is a medieval hoax, or a similar forgery. There is ongoing debate within and between the scientific and theological communities as to where, when and how the shroud and its embedded image were created. The shroud is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin.
General observations
The shroud is a rectangle measuring 4.4 m by 1.1 m. The material is woven in a herringbone twill, composed of flax fibrils entwisted with cotton fibrils. It bears an image showing a front view and a dorsal view of a naked man, with hands folded across the groin. The views are aligned along the midplane of the body, pointing in opposite directions, with the heads nearly meeting in the middle of the cloth. The views are consistent with vertical projection of a human body.
The man shown in the shroud had a beard, mustache, and long hair, and was well-proportioned and muscular. What appear to be bloodstains are found on the cloth, indicating that the man was wounded:
- on at least one wrist, apparently by piercing. (The second wrist is hidden behind the first.)
- on his side, apparently from piercing.
- around his forehead.
- scores of times on his torso and legs, apparently from scourging.
At approximately 175 cm (5' 9"), the physical stature of the man is quite large—both for the 1st century, the time the shroud is purported to be from, and for the Middle Ages, the time of its purported fabrication.
On May 28, 1898 an amateur Italian photographer, Secondo Pia, photographed the shroud and was startled by the resulting undeveloped negative. The negative gave the appearance of a positive image, seemingly indicating that the shroud image itself is a negative (perhaps, wondered the faithful, produced upon the cloth by some luminous event at the moment of resurrection?). The detail and heft of the man on the shroud was greatly enhanced in the photographic negative, leading to renewed speculation on its miraculous origin. The realistically rendered three-dimensionality of the man and his anatomically perfect depiction have inspired believers and fascinated critics, for no known artist, ancient, medieval or even later up to the advent of photography, approached this degree of fidelity to life, with the possible exception of a few ancient Greek and Italian renaissance sculptors. Even then, the transference of the image of a masterwork sculpture or a human model onto a flat surface while retaining its three-dimensional characteristics seems beyond any pre-20th-century process.
History
Early reports
Reports of Jesus's burial shroud have been circulating since the 14th century, and attempts have been made since then to connect the "Shroud of Turin" with the "Image of Edessa" though no connection can be substantiated.
14th century
This artifact has no known history for the thirteen centuries following the death of Jesus. The first documented appearance of the cloth now stored in Turin was in 1357, when the widow of French knight Geoffroy de Charny had it displayed in a church in Lirey. Both coats of arms are to be seen in a pilgrim medallion in the Museum Cluny in Paris, which shows accurately the Shroud of Turin.
During these years, the Shroud was publicly exposed, even if not continuously, since that the bishop of Troyes had prohibited this cult practice. But after 32 years the cult started again. Its property was contested by King Charles VI of France, who vainly ordered his sheriffs to obtain it and bring it to Troyes. By the end of 1389, the bishop of Troyes asked for silence on the matter, in order to placate the faithfuls' excitement. But in the following month, antipope Clement VII prescribed indulgences for those who celebrated the Shroud, and the cult continued.
15th century
In 1418, Humbert of Villersexel, Count de la Roche, Lord of Saint-Hippolyte-sur-Doubs, who had married the grand-daughter of Geoffroy de Charny, moved the Shroud to his castle at Montfort, officially to protect it from criminal bands.
It was later moved again, to Saint-Hippolyte-sur-Doubs. After the death of Humbert, a judicial battle was fought by Lirey canons, who wanted the widow to return the cloth, but the parlement of Dole, and later the Court of Besan篮, both left it to the widow. She travelled with the Shroud, for several expositions (like in Liege and in Geneva).
In 1453 the widow sold it (for a castle in Varambon) to Ludwig Duke of Savoy, who stored it in the castle of Chambery (capital town of the Duchy), in a newly-built Sainte-Chapelle, which pope Paul II soon after elevated to the dignity of collegiate church. In 1464, the duke had to recognize an annual rent to the Lirey canons, and on their side these formally recognized the cloth as his property.
In 1471 the Shroud was moved to Vercelli, and in the following years it was in Turin, Ivrea, Susa, Chambery, Avigliano, Rivoli, and Pinerolo. In 1483 the cloth was described by two sacrists of the Sainte-Chapelle as "enveloped in a red silk drape, and kept in a case covered with crimson velours, decorated with silver-gilt nails, and locked with a golden key".
16th century to present
In 1532, a fire broke out in the chapel. The folded shroud was damaged by a drop of molten silver from the reliquary it was stored in, and (possibly) by water used to douse the fire. It was rewoven and patched by the Poor Clare Nuns.
The shroud was moved in 1578 to Turin, where it remains to this day. It remained the property of the House of Savoy until it was bequeathed to the Holy See in 1983.
In 1988, a sliver was cut from a corner the shroud for analysis.
In 1997, the shroud was again threatened by fire, perhaps due to arson. Fireman Mario Trematore smashed its display case and saved it from harm.
The shroud was restored in 2002. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed. The usually hidden reverse side of the shroud was scanned and photographed.
Sindonology - The study of the Shroud is called Sindonology (from Greek sind��the word used for the Shroud and also for a cloth worn by someone in the Gospel of Mark).
Theories of image formation
A recent BBC documentary proposed that the shroud is perhaps the first ever example of photography, showing the portrait of its maker Leonardo da Vinci. According to this theory, he produced the image with the aid of a Laterna Magica, a simple projecting apparatus, and light-sensitive silver compounds which were available at the time. However, Leonardo da Vinci was born one hundred years after the first documented appearance of the cloth.
It has also been proposed that the image may have been formed as the shroud began to fall through Jesus' miraculously transmuted body during the Resurrection.
Analysis of the Shroud
Radiocarbon dating
In 1988 the Shroud was independently examined by Oxford University, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Using the technique of radiocarbon dating, they all agreed that the cloth dated to the 13th or 14th century (1260 to 1390).
However, some argue that the results may have been distorted by such factors as the fire of 1532, bacteria and bacterial residue that would not have been cleaned by the testing team's methods, or even neutrons released at the time of the Resurrection. The bacterial "bioplastic coating" argument is the strongest, as there have been cases in which ancient textiles have yielded radiocarbon dates much younger than other artifacts in the same sites—most notably in the instance of mummy 1770 in the British Museum, whose bones dated 800 to 1,000 years older, according to the radiocarbon tests, than the textile in which they were wrapped. The portion of the shroud used for the radiocarbon dating was from a corner, which would have been handled often, increasing the likelihood of contamination. Bacteria and bacterial residue carry additional carbon and would skew the radiocarbon date toward the present. This theory gained considerable force when Harry E. Gove, the nuclear physicist at the University of Rochester who designed the carbon-dating technique used on the shroud, stated, ³There is a bioplastic coating on some threads, maybe most.² If the coating is of a great enough thickness, according to Gove, it "would make the fabric sample seem younger than it should be" to the radiocarbon method. Skeptics have countered that, to shift the date by thirteen centuries, the contamination would have had to weigh twice as much as the entire Shroud.
Material historical analysis
The latest research has investigated the implications of the burn holes and water marks. The shroud was damaged in 1532 by a fire in the Chapel of Chambery Castle, in France, where it was kept before being brought to Turin. The burn marks date from that time and it was believed that this was also when it was damaged by being dowsed with water. However, a fabrics historian has now suggested that the water damage occurred earlier, since the pattern indicates that the cloth would have been folded in the same way as treasured fabrics that were kept in clay jars, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. These date from the 1st century AD, around the time of Jesus, which may indicate that the shroud is of a similar age.
Another piece of evidence fits this theory. A seam in the cloth is of a particular type that has only ever been seen in fabric from the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, which dated from the same period. Also, the weaving pattern and size of the cloth are consistent with 1st century Syrian design. Master textile restorer Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of Hamburg, Germany states, "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the 1st century."
Biological and medical forensics
Avinoam Danin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem claimed to have identified pollen grains originating from around Jerusalem. Danin also compared the Shroud with the Sudarium of Oviedo, which has a detailed provenance to the 1st century, determining from the pattern of blood-colored stains that they could have both covered the same head.
The piercing of the wrists, rather than the palms, is not consistent with most medieval depictions of the crucifixion. However, it has been conjectured by Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a noted shroud researcher, that the nails may have been hammered in on an angle, entering in the palm, and exiting in the wrist. This would have tended to better support the body, and would explain the apparent contradiction with the traditional conception that the nails were "in the palm".
Whether the red-tinged stains on the shroud are actually blood has been questioned. Chemist Walter McCrone identified the substance as a combination of red ochre and vermilion tempera paint; others have specifically identified it as type AB blood, with no evidence of any artificial pigments. Only fibrils lifted from the shroud on sticky tape were tested for blood. Skeptics point out that the color is still an unfaded red, which would be expected of tempera paint but not of real blood.
Microscopy
Through the use of microscopy, it has been determined that the image is a result of discoloration of only the outermost fibers of the fabric, which suggests that the image may have been created through a radiative process. Painting appears to be ruled out.
Digital image processing Even more remarkable features are said to be noticeable when the image is digitally processed (although such claims are highly criticized):
Coins placed on both eyes, the right one identified as a type of Roman copper coins produced in 29 and 30 AD in Jerusalem. In 1997, Andr頍arion and Anne-Laure Courage claimed to be able to make out Greek and Latin letters near the face: on the right side:
In 2004, researchers from the University of Padua announced the discovery of a very faint and much less detailed image on the reverse side of the shroud, consisting of the face and hands. No details from the dorsal view are evident. Like the image on the obverse side, the newly discovered image is also the result of discoloration of only the outermost fibers of the fabric, and its features are aligned precisely with the features in the image on the obverse side. The discovery is the result of sophistocated processing of photographs taken in 2002, when the reverse side was exposed during the restoration.
Criticism by Gospel reference
Many Protestants contend that evidence the shroud is a hoax may be found in the Gospel of John in which the Christian biblical narrative identifies the wrappings of Jesus as two separate objects: "Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself" (John 20:6, 7; King James Version).
Conclusions
Does all this add up to definite answers on the origins of the Shroud of Turin? The question remains open until the authorities allow further dating tests to be done. However, for Christians, who state that their faith is independent of the authenticity of any relic, the results of the research would be irrelevant for their faith. Moreover, many believe the marks on this piece of linen to be a miraculous image of Jesus Christ, or at least something comparable to an icon, so its veneration need not diminish.
The Shroud of Turin, as seen by the naked eye, is a negative image of a man with his hands folded. The linen is 14 feet, 3 inches long and 3 feet, 7 inches wide. The shroud bears the image of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Jesus. The shroud is wrapped in red silk and kept in a silver chest in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy since 1578.
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.
If the marks we perceive were caused by human body, it is clear that the body (supine) was laid lengthwise along one half of the shroud while the other half was doubled back over the head to cover the whole front of the body from the face to the feet. The arrangement is well illustrated in the miniature of Giulio Clovio, which also gives a good representation of what was seen upon the shroud about the year 1540.
The cloth now at Turin can be clearly traced back to the Lirey in the Diocese of Troyes, where we first hear of it about the year 1360. In 1453 it was at Chamb鲹 in Savoy, and there in 1532 it narrowly escaped being consumed by a fire which by charring the corners of the folds has left a uniform series of marks on either side of the image. Since 1578 it has remained at Turin where it is now only exposed for veneration at long intervals.
That the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is taken for granted, in various pronouncements of the Holy See cannot be disputed. An Office and Mass "de Sancta Sindone" was formerly approved by Julius II in the Bull "Romanus Pontifex" of 25 April, 1506, in the course of which the Pope speaks of "that most famous Shroud (proeclarissima sindone) in which our Savior was wrapped when he lay in the tomb and which is now honorably and devoutly preserved in a silver casket."
Moreover, the same Pontiff speaks of the treaties upon the precious blood. Composed by his predecessor, Sixtus IV, in which Sixtus states that in the Shroud "men may look upon the true blood and portrait of Jesus Christ himself." A certain difficulty was caused by the existence elsewhere of other Shrouds similarly impressed with the figure of Jesus Christ and some of these cloths, notably those of Besan篮, Cadouin, Champi觮e, Xabregas, etc., also claimed to be the authentic linen sindon provided by Joseph of Arimathea, but until the close of the last century no great attack was made upon the genuineness of the Turin relic.
In 1898 when the Shroud was solemnly exposed, permission was given to photograph it and a sensation was caused by the discovery that the image upon the linen was apparently a negative -- in other words that the photographic negative taken from this offered a more recognizable picture of a human face than the cloth itself or any positive print. In the photographic negative, the lights and the shadows were natural, in the linen or the print, they were inverted.
Three years afterwards, Dr. Paul Vignon read a remarkable paper before the Acad魩e des Sciences in which he maintained that the impression upon the Shroud was a "vaporigraph" caused by the ammoniacal emanations radiating from the surface of Christ's body after so violent a death. Such vapours, as he professed to have proved experimentally, were capable of producing a deep reddish brown stain, varying in intensity with the distance, upon a cloth impregnated with oil and aloes. The image upon the Shroud was therefore a natural negative and as such completely beyond the comprehension or the skill of any medieval forger.
Plausible as this contention appeared, a most serious historical difficulty had meanwhile been brought to light. Owing mainly to the researches of Canon Ulysse Chevalier a series of documents was discovered which clearly proved that in 1389 the Bishop of Troyes appealed to Clement VII, the Avignon Pope then recognized in France, to put a stop to the scandals connected to the Shroud preserved at Lirey.
It was, the Bishop declared, the work of an artist who some years before had confessed to having painted it but it was then being exhibited by the Canons of Lirey in such a way that the populace believed that it was the authentic shroud of Jesus Christ. The pope, without absolutely prohibiting the exhibition of the Shroud, decided after full examination that in the future when it was shown to the people, the priest should declare in a loud voice that it was not the real shroud of Christ, but only a picture made to represent it.
The authenticity of the documents connected with this appeal is not disputed. Moreover, the grave suspicion thus thrown upon the relic is immensely strengthened by the fact that no intelligible account, beyond wild conjecture, can be given of the previous history of the Shroud or its coming to Lirey.
An animated controversy followed and it must be admitted that though the immense preponderance of opinion among learned Catholics (see the statement by P.M. Baumgarten in the "Historiches Jarbuch", 1903, pp. 319-43) was adverse to the authenticity of the relic, still the violence of many of its assailants prejudiced their own cause. In particular the suggestion made of blundering or bad faith on the part of those who photographed were quite without excuse. From the scientific point of view, however, the difficulty of the "negative" impression on the cloth is not so serious as it seems.
This Shroud like the others was probably painted without fraudulent intent to aid the dramatic setting of the Easter sequence:
Die nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via
Angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes.
As the word sudarium suggested, it was painted to represent the impression made by the sweat of Christ, i.e. probably in a yellowish tint upon unbrilliant red. This yellow stain would turn brown in the course of centuries, the darkening process being aided by the effects of fire and sun. Thus, the lights of the original picture would become the shadow of Paleotto's reproduction of the images on the shroud is printed in two colours, pale yellow and red. As for the good proportions and 泴hetic effect, two things may be noted. First, that it is highly probable that the artist used a model to determine the length and position of the limbs, etc.; the representation no doubt was made exactly life size. Secondly, the impressions are only known to us in photographs so reduced, as compared with the original, that the crudenesses, aided by the softening effects of time, entirely disappear.
Lastly, the difficulty must be noticed that while the witnesses of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries speak of the image as being then so vivid that the blood seemed freshly shed, it is now darkened and hardly recognizable without minute attention. On the supposition that this is an authentic relic dating from the year A.D. 30, why should it have retained its brilliance through countless journeys and changes of climate for fifteen centuries, and then in four centuries more have become almost invisible? On the other hand if it be a fabrication of the fifteenth century this is exactly what we should expect.
The Shroud of Turin
Wikipedia
The Shroud of Turin is a centuries-old linen cloth with the image of an apparently crucified man. Many people believe it to be the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth when he was placed in his tomb, and that his image was somehow recorded within its fibrils. Skeptics contend it is a medieval hoax, or a similar forgery. There is ongoing debate within and between the scientific and theological communities as to where, when and how the shroud and its embedded image were created. The shroud is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin.
General observations
The shroud is a rectangle measuring 4.4 m by 1.1 m. The material is woven in a herringbone twill, composed of flax fibrils entwisted with cotton fibrils. It bears an image showing a front view and a dorsal view of a naked man, with hands folded across the groin. The views are aligned along the midplane of the body, pointing in opposite directions, with the heads nearly meeting in the middle of the cloth. The views are consistent with vertical projection of a human body.
The man shown in the shroud had a beard, mustache, and long hair, and was well-proportioned and muscular. What appear to be bloodstains are found on the cloth, indicating that the man was wounded:
- on at least one wrist, apparently by piercing. (The second wrist is hidden behind the first.)
- on his side, apparently from piercing.
- around his forehead.
- scores of times on his torso and legs, apparently from scourging.
At approximately 175 cm (5' 9"), the physical stature of the man is quite large—both for the 1st century, the time the shroud is purported to be from, and for the Middle Ages, the time of its purported fabrication.
On May 28, 1898 an amateur Italian photographer, Secondo Pia, photographed the shroud and was startled by the resulting undeveloped negative. The negative gave the appearance of a positive image, seemingly indicating that the shroud image itself is a negative (perhaps, wondered the faithful, produced upon the cloth by some luminous event at the moment of resurrection?). The detail and heft of the man on the shroud was greatly enhanced in the photographic negative, leading to renewed speculation on its miraculous origin. The realistically rendered three-dimensionality of the man and his anatomically perfect depiction have inspired believers and fascinated critics, for no known artist, ancient, medieval or even later up to the advent of photography, approached this degree of fidelity to life, with the possible exception of a few ancient Greek and Italian renaissance sculptors. Even then, the transference of the image of a masterwork sculpture or a human model onto a flat surface while retaining its three-dimensional characteristics seems beyond any pre-20th-century process.
History
Early reports
Reports of Jesus's burial shroud have been circulating since the 14th century, and attempts have been made since then to connect the "Shroud of Turin" with the "Image of Edessa" though no connection can be substantiated.
14th century
This artifact has no known history for the thirteen centuries following the death of Jesus. The first documented appearance of the cloth now stored in Turin was in 1357, when the widow of French knight Geoffroy de Charny had it displayed in a church in Lirey. Both coats of arms are to be seen in a pilgrim medallion in the Museum Cluny in Paris, which shows accurately the Shroud of Turin.
During these years, the Shroud was publicly exposed, even if not continuously, since that the bishop of Troyes had prohibited this cult practice. But after 32 years the cult started again. Its property was contested by King Charles VI of France, who vainly ordered his sheriffs to obtain it and bring it to Troyes. By the end of 1389, the bishop of Troyes asked for silence on the matter, in order to placate the faithfuls' excitement. But in the following month, antipope Clement VII prescribed indulgences for those who celebrated the Shroud, and the cult continued.
15th century
In 1418, Humbert of Villersexel, Count de la Roche, Lord of Saint-Hippolyte-sur-Doubs, who had married the grand-daughter of Geoffroy de Charny, moved the Shroud to his castle at Montfort, officially to protect it from criminal bands.
It was later moved again, to Saint-Hippolyte-sur-Doubs. After the death of Humbert, a judicial battle was fought by Lirey canons, who wanted the widow to return the cloth, but the parlement of Dole, and later the Court of Besan篮, both left it to the widow. She travelled with the Shroud, for several expositions (like in Liege and in Geneva).
In 1453 the widow sold it (for a castle in Varambon) to Ludwig Duke of Savoy, who stored it in the castle of Chambery (capital town of the Duchy), in a newly-built Sainte-Chapelle, which pope Paul II soon after elevated to the dignity of collegiate church. In 1464, the duke had to recognize an annual rent to the Lirey canons, and on their side these formally recognized the cloth as his property.
In 1471 the Shroud was moved to Vercelli, and in the following years it was in Turin, Ivrea, Susa, Chambery, Avigliano, Rivoli, and Pinerolo. In 1483 the cloth was described by two sacrists of the Sainte-Chapelle as "enveloped in a red silk drape, and kept in a case covered with crimson velours, decorated with silver-gilt nails, and locked with a golden key".
16th century to present
In 1532, a fire broke out in the chapel. The folded shroud was damaged by a drop of molten silver from the reliquary it was stored in, and (possibly) by water used to douse the fire. It was rewoven and patched by the Poor Clare Nuns.
The shroud was moved in 1578 to Turin, where it remains to this day. It remained the property of the House of Savoy until it was bequeathed to the Holy See in 1983.
In 1988, a sliver was cut from a corner the shroud for analysis.
In 1997, the shroud was again threatened by fire, perhaps due to arson. Fireman Mario Trematore smashed its display case and saved it from harm.
The shroud was restored in 2002. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed. The usually hidden reverse side of the shroud was scanned and photographed.
Sindonology - The study of the Shroud is called Sindonology (from Greek sind��the word used for the Shroud and also for a cloth worn by someone in the Gospel of Mark).
Theories of image formation
A recent BBC documentary proposed that the shroud is perhaps the first ever example of photography, showing the portrait of its maker Leonardo da Vinci. According to this theory, he produced the image with the aid of a Laterna Magica, a simple projecting apparatus, and light-sensitive silver compounds which were available at the time. However, Leonardo da Vinci was born one hundred years after the first documented appearance of the cloth.
It has also been proposed that the image may have been formed as the shroud began to fall through Jesus' miraculously transmuted body during the Resurrection.
Analysis of the Shroud
Radiocarbon dating
In 1988 the Shroud was independently examined by Oxford University, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Using the technique of radiocarbon dating, they all agreed that the cloth dated to the 13th or 14th century (1260 to 1390).
However, some argue that the results may have been distorted by such factors as the fire of 1532, bacteria and bacterial residue that would not have been cleaned by the testing team's methods, or even neutrons released at the time of the Resurrection. The bacterial "bioplastic coating" argument is the strongest, as there have been cases in which ancient textiles have yielded radiocarbon dates much younger than other artifacts in the same sites—most notably in the instance of mummy 1770 in the British Museum, whose bones dated 800 to 1,000 years older, according to the radiocarbon tests, than the textile in which they were wrapped. The portion of the shroud used for the radiocarbon dating was from a corner, which would have been handled often, increasing the likelihood of contamination. Bacteria and bacterial residue carry additional carbon and would skew the radiocarbon date toward the present. This theory gained considerable force when Harry E. Gove, the nuclear physicist at the University of Rochester who designed the carbon-dating technique used on the shroud, stated, ³There is a bioplastic coating on some threads, maybe most.² If the coating is of a great enough thickness, according to Gove, it "would make the fabric sample seem younger than it should be" to the radiocarbon method. Skeptics have countered that, to shift the date by thirteen centuries, the contamination would have had to weigh twice as much as the entire Shroud.
Material historical analysis
The latest research has investigated the implications of the burn holes and water marks. The shroud was damaged in 1532 by a fire in the Chapel of Chambery Castle, in France, where it was kept before being brought to Turin. The burn marks date from that time and it was believed that this was also when it was damaged by being dowsed with water. However, a fabrics historian has now suggested that the water damage occurred earlier, since the pattern indicates that the cloth would have been folded in the same way as treasured fabrics that were kept in clay jars, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. These date from the 1st century AD, around the time of Jesus, which may indicate that the shroud is of a similar age.
Another piece of evidence fits this theory. A seam in the cloth is of a particular type that has only ever been seen in fabric from the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, which dated from the same period. Also, the weaving pattern and size of the cloth are consistent with 1st century Syrian design. Master textile restorer Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of Hamburg, Germany states, "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the 1st century."
Biological and medical forensics
Avinoam Danin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem claimed to have identified pollen grains originating from around Jerusalem. Danin also compared the Shroud with the Sudarium of Oviedo, which has a detailed provenance to the 1st century, determining from the pattern of blood-colored stains that they could have both covered the same head.
The piercing of the wrists, rather than the palms, is not consistent with most medieval depictions of the crucifixion. However, it has been conjectured by Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a noted shroud researcher, that the nails may have been hammered in on an angle, entering in the palm, and exiting in the wrist. This would have tended to better support the body, and would explain the apparent contradiction with the traditional conception that the nails were "in the palm".
Whether the red-tinged stains on the shroud are actually blood has been questioned. Chemist Walter McCrone identified the substance as a combination of red ochre and vermilion tempera paint; others have specifically identified it as type AB blood, with no evidence of any artificial pigments. Only fibrils lifted from the shroud on sticky tape were tested for blood. Skeptics point out that the color is still an unfaded red, which would be expected of tempera paint but not of real blood.
Microscopy
Through the use of microscopy, it has been determined that the image is a result of discoloration of only the outermost fibers of the fabric, which suggests that the image may have been created through a radiative process. Painting appears to be ruled out.
Digital image processing Even more remarkable features are said to be noticeable when the image is digitally processed (although such claims are highly criticized):
Coins placed on both eyes, the right one identified as a type of Roman copper coins produced in 29 and 30 AD in Jerusalem. In 1997, Andr頍arion and Anne-Laure Courage claimed to be able to make out Greek and Latin letters near the face: on the right side:
In 2004, researchers from the University of Padua announced the discovery of a very faint and much less detailed image on the reverse side of the shroud, consisting of the face and hands. No details from the dorsal view are evident. Like the image on the obverse side, the newly discovered image is also the result of discoloration of only the outermost fibers of the fabric, and its features are aligned precisely with the features in the image on the obverse side. The discovery is the result of sophistocated processing of photographs taken in 2002, when the reverse side was exposed during the restoration.
Criticism by Gospel reference
Many Protestants contend that evidence the shroud is a hoax may be found in the Gospel of John in which the Christian biblical narrative identifies the wrappings of Jesus as two separate objects: "Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself" (John 20:6, 7; King James Version).
Conclusions
Does all this add up to definite answers on the origins of the Shroud of Turin? The question remains open until the authorities allow further dating tests to be done. However, for Christians, who state that their faith is independent of the authenticity of any relic, the results of the research would be irrelevant for their faith. Moreover, many believe the marks on this piece of linen to be a miraculous image of Jesus Christ, or at least something comparable to an icon, so its veneration need not diminish.