The Shroud of Turin
Jesus died quickly on the cross. Mark, the earliest Gospel, says that his body was wrapped in a linen cloth before burial in a rock-tomb. Its door was closed with a stone.
The possibility that this linen cloth may have survived (and may be preserved in Turin Cathedral) is derived from a number of ancient references. St. Nino, an Armenian Christian princess who died in 339 CE, mentions "shrouds of Christ" as existing in Jerusalem. The fourth-century historian, Nicephorus Callistus, records that the Empress Pulcheria (399-453) recovered certain sacred linen cloths from the Empress Eudokia and placed them in the new basilica of St. Maria of the Blackernae in Constantinople. The French bishop Aroulf and St. John Damascene, refer to shrouds called sudarium in Constantinople in the seventh and eight centuries.
Robert of Clari, the chronicler of the Fourth Crusade, which captured Constantinople, states that in 1203 he saw the shroud in the Blackernae Church where it was exhibited every Friday. The figure of Christ was easily discernible. He says that the shroud disappeared from the church during the sack of the city by the Crusaders and nobody knew what had become of it. Robert of Clari’s statement that the "figure of Christ was easily discernible" is the only link between the linen cloth which appears to have been exhibited prior to 1204 and the one bearing the image of Christ which seems to have made its appearance in France after the return of the Crusaders.
There are two versions of the shroud’s arrival in France. In one, it fell as loot from Constantinople to Otto de la Roche. He sent it to his father. He gave it in 1206 to Amaedus, bishop of Besancon, in whose cathedral it was exhibited every Sunday until 1349, when the cathedral was destroyed by fire. In the other version, the shroud was given to the Lords of Charny by Bishop Garnier. According to documents in the Library of Paris, this gift probably occurred in 1349. A shroud appears to have been in existence in the church at Lirey in 1350.
The possibly true history of the shroud now preserved in Turin Cathedral commences in 1355. In that year, Bishop Henri of Poitiers forbade the canons of Lirey to expose the shroud for public veneration. Geoffrey de Charny, it seems, in 1353 circumvented the bishop by dealing directly with the schismatic pope at Avignon, who gave his permission for the church at Lirey to house the shroud.
When in 1389 Peter D’Arcis, the bishop in whose diocese lay, threatened the canons of Lirey with excommunication if they did not withdraw the shroud from exposition, they implored the king of France and the papal legate to intervene. Both men gave permission for exposition. When the bishop protested, the pope upheld the validity of the legate’s approval.
Peter then addressed a memorandum to the pope. He accused the canons of obtaining papal permission by underhanded methods. He declared that the shroud was a painting, a fraud exposed thirty-four years before by Henri of Poitiers, who had conducted an investigation. The canons, he said, had kept the cloth in hiding when he had tried to secure it.
Peter’s words about the alleged deception are of considerable importance in respect to the history of the Turin shroud. He states, "And lastly, after painstaking study and exploration of the matter, he [Henri of Poitiers] found the deception, and how the cloth had been artificially painted, a fact confirmed by the very man who had painted it; that it was the work of a human being and had not been miraculously made or bestowed."
As a result of this objection, the king of France withdrew his permission for exposition of the shroud, but the canons continued to venerate it. They were ordered to state that the cloth was only a copy of the true shroud.
The history of the shroud after 1390 is clearer. During the Hundred Years’ War it was moved from one place of safety to another. In the fifteenth century, it was bequeathed by the last of the de Charny family to the wife of the Duke of Savoy, in whose family its ownership has since remained. Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Duke to build a chapel at Chambery to house it. In 1516 the shroud appears to have been at Lierre in Belgium, for the artist Albrecht Durer made a copy of it.
The shroud was returned to Chambery where, on the night of December 4, 1532, it was damaged by a fire. The historian Pingonium says that it was removed by four men who broke open the silver shrine containing it, but not before it had become marked by eight symmetrical burns from the molten silver and by the water used to cool the shrine. It was mended by nuns and transferred to Turin in 1572.
In 1898, an amateur photographer was given permission to photograph the shroud in daylight. The results were intriguing. However, the implications were not clear until 1931, when the shroud was photographed by professional photographer Giuseppe Enrie. The photographs were developed and printed, they disclosed the full figure of a man -- in negative image. The photographic negative had all the characteristics of a positive, and the print of a negative. It showed that the image on the cloth had all the characteristics of a photographic negative. The light values were reversed.
These photographs threw doubt on the long-accepted theory that the image had been painted. What ancient or medieval artist, it was asked, could have conceived and executed a negative image, a painting in reverse which conformed accurately to anatomical detail.
Taken by artificial light, Enrie’s photos show the tiniest details. They depict the image of a man of 5 foot 11 inches (1.8 meters) tall, longhaired, bearded, narrow-faced and completely naked. Marks on the body prove that the man had died by crucifixion. The body is marked by lacerations, contusions, swellings, punctures, perforations, by bloodstains in which the blood has both run and coagulated, and by nails driven through the wrists and feet. Even more striking are the rivulets of coagulated blood on the forehead and the deep wound in the side. The shroud, when extended to its full 14 foot 3 inches (4.3 meters), shows the front and back of a man just as if he had been laid on one half with the other half drawn up over his head and extended to his feet.
Source: Ancient Mysteries by Rupert Furneaux
From: Science News Vol. 147 Microbes Muddle Shroud of Turin's Age
In the interplay between science and religion, science usually sides with the skeptics. But now a bit of microbial science suggests that skeptics have too quickly dismissed the possibility that the Shroud of Turin might indeed be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, as many believe. In the 1980s, researchers examined samples from the shroud for the presence of carbon-14, a radioactive atom that decays over time. The amount found, they concluded, pegged the linen cloth as medieval, less than 700 years old. But microbes may have interfered with those dating results, making the shroud appear younger than it actually is, asserts a research team led by Stephen J. Mattingly and Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes of the University of Texas at San Antonio. The group has for years studied how various microbes can coat artifacts and natural objects with "biogenic varnishes," plastic like coatings synthesized by bacteria or fungi. From microscopic examination of small samples of the shroud, they recently concluded that some of these same varnishes coat the linen fibers. Further examination of bits of fabric by two techniques, infrared spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy, indicated that the samples were not pure cellulose, linen's main constituent. The Texas team next found that their samples harbored a number of microbes -- specifically, ones that have been found to grow in natron, a bleaching agent that may have been used on the cloth in the past.
Past radiocarbon dating, suggest Mattingly and Garza-Valdes, could not distinguish between the linen's cellulose and the microbes and their coating, which may be of much more recent origin. "What you are reporting is the age of the mixture, not the age of the linen," says Garza-Valdes. To resolve the shroud's true age, the researchers hope to obtain another sample and process it with an enzyme that breaks down cellulose -- and no other suspected contaminant -- into glucose. They could then date the glucose by carbon-14 analysis. "If we can isolate the glucose, that will be the answer," says Mattingly.
Further Resources
Inquest on the Shroud of Turin:
Latest Scientific Findings
by Joe NickellMystery of the Shroud of Turin
New Scientific Evidence
by John C. IannoneUnlocking the Secrets of the Shroud
by Gilbert LavoieRelic, Icon or Hoax?
Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud
by H.E. GoveJudgement Day for the Shroud of Turin
by Walter C. McCroneThe Second Messiah: Templars, the Turin Shroud and
the Great Secret of Freemasonry
by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas
Links
The Shroud: Physical EvidenceShrouds, Shrouds, and More Shrouds
Information on the Photo-Negative Images
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