Hat tip: From a comment by DaveB of Wellington, New Zealand:
I discovered a fascinating paper by Diana Fulbright: “Akeldama Repudiation of Turin Shroud omits evidence from the Judean desert”. by Diana Fulbright, 2010; Shroud of Turin Centre, Richmond VA. Paper can be found at:
http://www.acheiropoietos.info/proceedings/FulbrightAkeldamaWeb.pdf
It is possible to download the paper, but only as a “secure” pdf. The security means that it is not possible to copy any of the text or graphics from this paper. In December 2009, following the discovery of a sealed 1st c. Jewish tomb at Akeldama, when a “shrouded” body was discovered, it was widely proclaimed that the Turin Shroud could not be 1st c. as this single example was in simple weave. This inference is clearly an extremely weak deduction, with no statistical significance. It almost appears as if the body may not have been shrouded at all, but was merely wrapped in its own clothing, indeed with mixing of kinds, both wool and linen (apparently permitted for dead bodies under Mishna regs). The DFulbright paper is directed against the Akeldama assertions, citing several examples of herring-bone weave from ancient times, Even more complex patterns of weaving were found at Masada, including a diamond twill. The sash of Rameses III (1200 BCE) included a number of complex patterns, including a 3:1 herring-bone twill. It is apparent that weavers were quite capable of producing quite intricate patterns from ancient times.
