Interesting guest posting by journalist Paul MacLeod over at Australia Incognita: Signs and symbols: why we need devotions:

The Pope quoted the ancient Easter hymn, Victimae Paschali Laudes, which addresses to Mary Magdalen the question: “What did you see?” It has her reply: “the angelic witnesses, the sudarium and the gravecloths.”

These the Pope described as “signs”.

imageResearch by the German historian and journalist Paul Badde [pictured left]  in recent years has established the identity of the sudarium and the gravecloths, which all still exist, and are indeed signs, just as a sacrament is a physical sign of a spiritual truth.