30. May 2021
Shroud of Turin
Scienctic Evidence on the Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin is the most famous and studied relic of all religions in the World. The Shroud is believed to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. It is a linen cloth woven in a 3-over 1 herringbone pattern measuring 14 ft. 3 inches in length by 3 ft. 7 inches in width. It apparently covered a man who suffered the wounds of crucifixion in a way very similar to Jesus of Nazareth.
The cloth has a certifiable history from 1349 when it surfaced in Lirey, France, in the hands of a French nobleman – Geoffrey de Charny. It also has a somewhat sketchy traceable history from Jerusalem to Lirey, France – through Edessa, Turkey, and Constantinople.
Due to the lack of a certifiable history of the cloth past 1349, many claim that the Shroud of Turin is a fake produced in the 13th Century. The main characteristics of the Shroud are deposits of blood and a very faint negative image of a man on the Shroud. The blood deposits on the Shroud are real and of an AB type. Researchers have found that male DNA are also present on the cloth.
The image on the Shroud is anatomically perfect and a perfect photographic negative. Photography was not invented until the 19th Century so a 13th Century forger would have no concept of a negative photographic. The fact that the image is a photographic negative was not discovered until 1890.
The image was formed after the blood stains congealed on the cloth, and the image and blood stains, relative to one another, are anatomically correct. The odds of a 13th Century forger being able to place blood in a precise way on the cloth without an existing image is highly unlikely – making the forgery hypothesis somewhat dubious from the outset.
The image was not produced by any paint, dye, powder, or other artistic chemical or biological agent and has no brush strokes. Multiple scientic tests have confirmed this. As of 2021 the image on the Shroud has not been able to be scientifically recreated. The cloth is suppose to be a fake, yet modern science cannot reproduce it.
Analysis has been done on pollen from the Shroud Turin. This analysis traces the path of the Shroud all the way back to Jerusalem. The presence of pollen grains dating back to First Century Palestine was found on the Shroud. Importantly, 13 of the pollen types are unique to Israel, and are found at the bottom of both the Sea of Galilee and The Dead Sea. Forgers in the 13th Century had no ability to foresee that in the future pollen would be used to forensically tie an object to a certain location.
Recent examination and research have determined the presence of Roman coins minted in Judea in 29 AD on Jesus’ eyes in the Shroud. The presence of coins on the eyes of Jesus was first identified via the photographs of Enrie (1931) and Secundo Pia (1898). The four raised letters “UCAI” on coins that identified them as the Jewish lepta, “widow’s mite” coins, copper coins minted by Pontius Pilate in 29 AD in Judea. Once again, a 13th Century European forger would not have knowledge of 1st Century Judean coins.
There is an excellent video on The Shroud of Turin
Read the following paper for more details regarding Science and the Shroud of Turin
It is the negative image of the Shroud that most people will recognize as the form of Jesus Christ.
Negative of the image on the Shroud
