( A PDF Version of the following guest posting )
FLASH ILLUSTRATIVE REPLY
By Max Patrick HAMON
DOES THE TURIN SHROUD PREDATE
MORE THAN HALF-A-MILLENNIUM AT LEAST
THE RADIOCARBON DATE (1325±65 CE)?
The flogging of Christ, Carolingian iconography, early 9th c. CE, Stuttgart Psalter, fol. 43v, Wurttenmbergische Landesbibliothek, Germany Click Here
A Shroud-like dorsal image of Christ?
In 1998-2000, Pr. Heinrich Pfeiffer was the first to draw attention to the ca 800-814 CE
Stuggart Psalter miniature-Turin Shroud dorsal image connection. In a passing comment he
just wrote: “Le numerose piccole piaghe che furono causate dalla flagellazione si trovano già
[…] su una raffigurazione della flagellazione di Gesù nel salterio di Stoccarda che data agli
inizi del secolo IX.. Questa […] miniatura mostra chiaramente tutta l’immagine dorsale della
Sindone. ” (The numerous small wounds resulting from the flogging are already to be found
[…] in a representation of the flogging of Jesus in the Stuggart Psalter of the early 9th century.
The […] miniature clearly shows the whole dorsal image of the Shroud.). See Il Gran Libro
della Sindone, p. 193, ed. Paolo, 2000 (Translation mine).
Could the ca. 800-814 CE Stuggart Psalter stark naked flogged Christ back view really predate the carbon 14 dating result of 1325 ± 65 calendar years by no less than 510-515 years; more than half a millennium?
Reminder: The fact is, for both the Emperor of the East (Byzantium) and the Emperor of the
West (The Holy Germanic Empire), the Sindon Munda and/or Sudarium Domini in connection with Yeshua’s Resurrection were the attributes par excellence of the Vicar of Christ. How could Charlemagne have ignored their very existence and not tried to learn as much as possible about them? How could he not have tried to get them or their brandea (substitute relics) at least? Actually, as early as 797 CE, Charlemagne/Charles the Great caused relics of Christ’s Passion and Saints to be searched for at Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople and Baghdad. Why not as far as Edessa then regarded as the Medieval Rome of the East?
Re the Stuggart Psalter miniature of the Flogging of Christ-Turin Shroud (TS hereafter) man’s
dorsal image connection, to the astute observer:
●Both men are stark naked with long flow of hair in the back. Part of the hair tied up like a
pigtail at the back of the head can be made out.
●Both have arm(s) bound/crossed in front. Had both no scourge marks on the inner side
arms? This cannot be checked today any longer.
●Both have bloodied furrows/scourged marks in conjunction with two whips with lashes each
fitted with doubled (metal) pellets implying two executioners.
●Both have almost feminine curved left hip & thigh (to be called later “the Byzantine curve”).
●Both are/were tied at tibiofibural level with left leg in front of right leg (TS man accurate
Forensic description: left leg in front of right leg with rope-mark in the tibiofibular fleshes).
●Both show a most unnatural/awkward feet position.
●And last but not least, by means of a very curious tailed-Epsilon hand sign each time, the
executioner on the left seem to point with his left hand index finger to his own head while the executioner on the right does point to Christ’s head with his left hand index finger too. Both left hand signs cryptically echoe the tailed-Epsilon-shaped like small blood rivulet we can observe on TS man’s forehead, just above his left eyebrow.
All these pieces of evidence piled up into a crucial evidence: the bloodied body burial cloth now kept in Turin was already in existence early in the 9th CE. The Stuggart Psalter miniature Shroudlike Christ does predate the radiocarbon date by no less than half-a-millennium.
What really may be not that obvious to the layman’s eyes can just stare in the face of an old (yet not so old) Archaeological Image Cryptanalyst…
End notes:
- Absent the Baptism of Christ iconography, the depiction of a stark naked Christ is very rare as far as Christological iconography is concerned prior to the 12th c. CE. From 1200 to 1350 CE, it is still rather uncommon.
- Iconographically speaking, most likely the early 9th c. CE Carolingian miniaturist-monk
(from the Saint-Germain-des Prés or Reims monastery that was under the Benedictine rule
then), did not copy the Shroud dorsal image directly in situ but visually stored it and painted it back onto the painting surface at the risk of interpreting it. Less likely he copied it from nother MS miniature.