Shroud of Turin Story - Links and Credits

Links and Credits

Some of the Best Sites:

The Shroud of Turin Website This is a goldmine of information and published documents.

Of Special Interest: The 3rd International Dallas Conference: 11 new papers, news about a new History Channel documentary coming soon.
The Shroud of Turin Education Project Outstanding streaming video interviews.
The Holy Shroud of Turin at The Shadowlands
Shroud of Christ?" (A "Secrets of the Dead" episode on PBS) PBS Material
Collegamento pro Sindone English and Italian
Forensic Science CSI Examination of Pictures of Jesus on Shroud of Turin
Forensic Medicine and the Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin and the Skeptical Spectacle
Pictures of Jesus - The Second Face Picture
Science meets Religion
The Shroud of Turin Story — A Guide to the Facts (This site)

Addenda

John Shelby Spong on the Burial of Jesus

Bruce Chilton on the Burial of Jesus

N. T. Wright on the Resurrection

John Dominic Crossan on the Shroud

Thomas Cahill on the Shroud of Turin

Rowan Williams on the Nature of Resurrection

Lazarus & Jesus PDF & (PowerPoint)

Shroud of Turin for Journalists

Picture Credits

All of the pictures on this site are copyrighted and used with permission. I cannot authorize the use of any pictures for any use whatsoever.

Most of the pictures are provided by Barrie Schwortz, the owner and editor of the The Shroud of Turin Website. His generosity and kind permissions are deeply appreciated.

The Beginnings of a Glossary

1356 Second Face Vanillin

THE TOUGH SHROUD OF TURIN QUESTIONS

HISTORICAL SHROUD OF TURIN TOPICS

Until 1204 CE, when crusaders sacked Constantinople, there was in that city, a picture of Jesus on a piece of cloth. It had been moved there from the city of Edessa in 944 where it was discovered in the city walls in 544. Historians think that the Edessa Cloth, also known as the Mandylion, is what we now call the Shroud of Turin. MORE ON EDESSA

Since the eighth century, there has been in Oviedo, Spain, an ancient piece of linen known as the Sudarium. Blood stains and forensic analysis link it to the Shroud of Turin. MORE ABOUT THE SUDARIUM

Scholars have found an amazing connection between the Shroud of Turin and depictions of Christ. These depictions date back as far as the sixth century. PICTURES OF JESUS

If the Shroud of Turin is indeed the Edessa Cloth, as most shroud and many art scholars now believe, then what happened to it after the sack of Constantinople? MORE ON THE MISSING YEARS

The Shroud was displayed in Lirey, France in the 1350s. Later, moved to Chambery, France it was almost destroyed in a fire in 1532. It is now in Turin, Italy. Nothing in its later history has been more significant than a century of research since Secondo Pia's amazing discovery of its negative image properties in 1898. MORE ON THE SHROUD'S LATER HISTORY

FORENSIC SCIENCE TOPICS RELATING TO THE SHROUD OF TURIN

Twentieth century forensic medicine tells us that the image on the Shroud of Turin is an anatomically correct picture of man in a state of rigor mortis who was tortured and crucified. The bloodstains are realistic to the point that only modern-day pathologists would know how to explain them.MORE ON FORENSICS

The Shroud of Turin is an old, bloodstained piece of linen with traces of dirt. The historical nature of the cloth, the peculiarities of the bloodstains, and the particles of travertine aragonite limestone dirt that suggest an origin in Jerusalem, are all significant to understanding the Shroud of Turin's origins. MORE ABOUT THE CLOTH

The work of Dr. Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Uri Baruch, a pollen specialist at the Israel Antiquities Authority is highly significant. Pollen grains and flower images suggest that the Shroud of Turin was at one time in the Jerusalem environs as well as the Anatolia area of Turkey, that includes the cities of Constantinople and Edessa. MORE ABOUT POLLEN AND FLOWERS

Chemists and art scholars have ruled out the possibility that the Shroud of Turin is a painting or any other known form of art, including photography. MORE ON IT NOT BEING A WORK OF ART

IMAGE TOPICS

The images on the Shroud of Turin appear to be a 3D encoded chart of the front and back of a man that also happens to have the important characteristics of a photographic negative. This unique dual quality may help theoretical physicists understand how the images were created. MORE ON 3D

Different shades of yellow or brown in the Shroud of Turin images are achieved by the density and size of pixels in an area in very much the same way as half tone photographs are printed in newspapers. Pixels are only to be found in the topmost layers of the cloth. MORE ON THE PIXELS

It seems there is something over the eyes on the Shroud of Turin face. It is quite possible that coins were placed on the eyelids to keep the man's eyes closed. This was a common burial practice. There is some evidence that these may be coins that were struck about 30 CE. MORE ON THE COINS

Scientist do not know for sure how the images on the Shroud of Turin were created. Having ruled out a work of art, they also rule out many natural causes known to science at this time.MORE ON NATURAL CAUSE EXPLANATIONS

A TIMELINE FOR THE SHROUD

Please read:

Carbon 14 Dating: Bones, Cloth Fibers, etc.

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin

Shroud of Turin Facts Check

shroud topics

Home Page for Shroud of Turin Story.

New Analysis Confirms Second Face: Raises Questions About Other Images

New Tests Prove 1988 Carbon 14 Dating Invalid: Shroud of Turin Shown to be Much Older.

Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425 pp. 189-194, by Raymond N. Rogers, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California) - The article is available on Elsevier BV's ScienceDirect® online information site.

Carbon 14 Article Links

Associated Press - BBC - Reuters
New York Times - Discovery Channel
National Geographic News
Thermochimica Acta

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin: Why nothing makes sense.

What's Wrong with the Shadow Shroud? You can make a glass of nerve toxin look like lemonade. That doesn't make it lemonade. The Shadow Shroud is that much unlike the real Shroud of Turin.

The Ray Rogers FAQ Statements of fact that can be proved from the scientific observations.

The Shroud of Turin and the Skeptical Inquirer: "Imagine slicing a human hair lengthwise into 100 long thin slices, each slice one-tenth the width of a single red blood cell. The images on the Shroud of Turin, at their thickest, are this thin.

The Shroud of Caiaphas: A forensic science mystery

The Second Face What does an announcement by the Institute of Physics in London mean?

Mozarabic Rite What does a 6th century rite from the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain have to do with the Shroud of Turin? A summary of Shroud history.

Shroud of Turin Facts Gallery

Chemistry What do we know about the chemical nature of the images?

Carbon 14 Tests They conclude for a medieval provenance. Are they wrong? It seems so. According to National Geographic News, the Discovery Channel, the New York Times, UPI, etc. there is now definitive chemical evidence that the test samples were cut from a medieval repair patch.

Image Formation Were they created by 1) a faker of false relics, 2) a miraculous event, or 3) some perfectly natural phenomenon?

FAQ Facts and dubious claims.

what's the scoop on

If you read nothing else about the Shroud, read Ray Rogers FAQ - 2004. It is not an easy read for a non-scientist but it is worth it. If you don't know what hydroxymethylfurfural is, don't worry. You will get the gist of the idea from one careful reading of this 19 question FAQ..

Want more papers? Check out the The Shroud of Turin Web Site.

Shroud Description

The cloth

The Shroud of Turin is a single piece of linen cloth measuring about 14 feet by 3½ feet. The weave is a 3 over 1 herringbone weave. The Shroud is bloodstained and shows faint ventral and dorsal images of a man who, by the wounds that are visible, appears to have been crucified. He seems to be in burial repose.

The bloodstains

The bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin are composed of hemoglobin and give a positive test for serum albumin. Numerous tests confirm this.

The images

The Shroud of Turin's images are superficial and fully contained within a thin layer of starch fractions and saccharides that coats the outermost fibers of the Shroud. The color is a caramel-like substance, probably the product of an amino/carbonyl reaction. Where there is no image, the carbohydrate coating is clear. There is also a very faint image of the face on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin which lines up with the image on the front of the cloth. There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the images on the Shroud of Turin were produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the linen fibers. This is incorrect. The coating, whether imaged or clear, can be reduced with diimide or removed with adhesive leaving clear cellulose fiber.

The images as they appear on the Shroud of Turin are said to be negative because when photographed the resulting negative is a positive image.

The Turin Shroud was examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, lasermicroprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing. No evidence for pigments (paint, dye or stains) or artist's media was found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin.

More Stuff

updated 2005

New findings, recently published in respected, secular, peer-reviewed, scientific journals, suggest that the Shroud of Turin is indeed an archeological artifact of a first century burial. The images, thought by some to be miraculous, were probably formed by a natural amino/carbonyl process; a chemical reaction perhaps unique to and commonplace in Jewish tomb burials of the late-Second Temple era. Modern forensic science supports this hypothesis. If this is correct, then there are many good reasons for inferring that ghostlike images are of Jesus.

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and Evangelical Christians — conservative and liberal — are beginning to realize that there is something not easily understood about the Shroud of Turin.

The Shroud of Turin evidence is poignantly contrary to the expectations of believers and skeptics alike. But at the same time it is auspiciously not too fantastic for modern sensibilities.

Together, a conspectus of its history and valid scientific evidence suggest that the Shroud of Turin is a genuine burial cloth of a Roman-style crucifixion victim.

Valid is emphasized because much that is reported in polemic books and websites—by believers and skeptics alike—is junk science.

If the Shroud of Turin is a burial cloth, then historical records are sufficient to infer that the Shroud's enigmatic images of a naked, much wounded man are of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Shroud of Turin is certainly much older than the now discredited radiocarbon date of ca 1260-1390. This is supported by chemical evidence.

The superficial conjugated carbon bonds—the microscopic chromophores of the Shroud of Turin's images—possibly result from a Maillard reaction between reactive body amines and residual starch fractions and saccharides in natural soap. We need only turn to Pliny the Elder to see how ancient linen was made to find supporting evidence.

Science cannot rule out a miracle but it can and does rule out fakery.

If genuine, then the Shroud of Turin is unquestionably the oldest historical document pertaining to the life and death of Jesus. If genuine, it is pictorial and forensic evidence that gives credence to the the passion story.

And if genuine, this piece of ancient linen, the Shroud of Turin, offers new insights in the quest for the historical Jesus and new ways to scrutinize contemporary biblical exegesis.

Is the Shroud evidence of the resurrection? Possibly, but perhaps only indirectly. Clearly, if the Shroud of Turin is a burial cloth, the body it wrapped was separated from it soon after burial and before decomposition products could have ravaged the cloth. Forensic science, applied to the Shroud, argues against the polemics of swoon theory or a stolen body.

Ray Rogers, a Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a chemist who has scientifically examined the Shroud—in Turin—and studied the object for more than 27 years, wrote:

with some legitimacy, we might put up a strong case for a First Century shroud with an image best explained as being that of a crucified man. Isn't that enough? Remember that there weren't any Christians or Christian fanatics (e.g., Templars) in the First Century. There wasn't anyone around so warped that they would crucify a person to create a relic, and the technology did not exist to produce an adequate fake.

Perspective: My name is Dan Porter. I am the author of this website.

Biblical scholar and Anglican bishop, John A. T. Robinson wrote in Honest to God: "All I can do is try to be honest, honest to God and about God and to follow the argument wherever it leads." I have tried to make this my guiding principle in exploring the
Turin Shroud.

JOHN A. T. ROBINSON
SURPRISE »

I am a lifelong Episcopalian with one foot firmly planted in liberal theological views and the principles of Progressive Christianity and one foot planted in conservative thought and traditional orthodoxy. I am a member of:

St. John's Episcopal Church, Tuckahoe, Yonkers, NY

While I personally believe in the Resurrection of Christ, I have no opinion about its physical or spiritual nature. I don't interpret the Gospels as literal or linear accounts of the life of Jesus. I believe the Gospels were written to elicit faith and as such are truer than they could be as mere historical narratives. But the accounts, starting with Jesus' arrest and ending with the discovery of the empty tomb, seems very historical.

If the Shroud of Turin is real, as I have come to believe, it confirms the Passion story and lavishes new verisimilitude upon the Resurrection. It could be that we have a picture of Jesus.