Shroud of Turin

“Joseph took the body, 
wrapped it in a clean linen cloth”  
Matthew 27:59

The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud ( Italian: Sindone di Torino, Sacra Sindone or Santa Sindone ) is a length of linen cloth bearing the negative image of a man who is alleged to be Jesus of Nazareth. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Piedmont, Italy.

The cloth itself is believed by some to be the burial shroud that Jesus was wrapped in when he was buried after crucifixion.

Description

The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 by 1.1 metres (14 ft 5 in × 3 ft 7 in). The cloth is woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils

Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, brownish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and point in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth.

The image of the "Man of the Shroud" has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He is muscular and tall (various experts have measured him as from 1.70 to 1.88 m or 5 ft 7 in to 6 ft 2 in).  

Reddish-brown stains are found on the cloth, showing various wounds that, according to proponents, correlate with the yellowish image, the pathophysiology of crucifixion, and the Biblical description of the death of Jesus.

The shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532 in the chapel in Chambery, France. There are some burn holes and scorched areas down both sides of the linen, caused by contact with molten silver during the fire that burned through it in places while it was folded.  Fourteen large triangular patches and eight smaller ones were sewn onto the cloth by Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage.

In 1988, three radiocarbon dating tests dated a corner piece of the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390.

History

There are no definite historical records of the Turin Shroud prior to 1390.

A burial cloth was owned by the Byzantine emperors but disappeared during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.

Burial cloth bearing an image of a crucified man was allegedly existed in a small town of Lirey around the years 1353-1357, in the possession of a French Knight, Geoffroi de Charny.

There are no historical evidence that those cloth referred to the shroud currently at kept at Turin.

The presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wrote a memorandum to Pope Clement VII, stating that the shroud was a forgery and that the artist had confessed.

In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy.

In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in a chapel of Chambéry, capital of the Savoy region, where it was stored. A drop of molten silver from the reliquary produced a symmetrically placed mark through the layers of the folded cloth.  Clare Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches.

In 1578 Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy ordered the cloth to be brought from Chambéry to Turin and it has remained at Turin ever since.

Repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 by Sebastian Valfrè.   Further repairs were made in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy.

The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See.

In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view.  A faint part-image of the body was found on the back of the shroud in 2004.

Scientific Analysis

Sindonology (from the Greek σινδών—sindon, the word used in the Gospel of Mark to describe the type of the burial cloth of Jesus) is the formal study of the Shroud.

In 1902 Yves Delage, a French professor of comparative anatomy, published the first study on the subject : suggesting that the image anatomically flawless and argued that the features of rigor mortis, wounds, and blood flows were evidence that the image was formed by direct or indirect contact with a corpse.

In 1982, a Forensic pathologist Pier Luigi Baima Bollone identified the blood as the AB blood group.

In 1988, the Holy See commissioned a radiocarbon dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud. Independent test conducted  at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology concluded with 95% confidence that the shroud material dated to 1260–1390 AD.

In 2000, fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st century were discovered in a tomb near Jerusalem. The shroud was composed of a simple two-way weave, unlike the complex herringbone twill of the Turin Shroud. Based on this discovery, the researchers stated that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem

In 2013, Giulio Fanti performed new dating studies on fragments obtained from the shroud. He performed three different tests including ATR–FTIR and Raman spectroscopy. The date range from these tests date the shroud between 300 BC and 400 AD.

“Now, the origin and root of this evil has been, that,

Instead of discerning Jesus Christ

in his Word, his Sacraments, and his Spiritual Graces,

the world has, according to its custom,

 amused itself with his clothes, shirts, and sheets,

leaving thus the principal to follow the accessory.”

“In short, the desire for relics is never without superstition,

and what is worse, it is usually the parent of idolatry.”

A Treatise On Relics, 1543, John Calvin