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Reynaldo Lopez, Nathan Miller
Physical Methods in Art & Archaeology
Professor Collon
April 22, 2015
The Shroud of Turin: A Relic Covered in Mystery
The Shroud of Turin has been enveloped in controversy for centuries on end
since its discovery in Lirey, France in the 14​th​
century (Williams 26). Although the
ongoing debate about whether or not the Shroud is truly the cloth in which Jesus was
wrapped and buried after his crucifixion has had many scientific breakthroughs, the
mystery remains as new evidence and arguments arise.
While some argue that it is a fake and is actually a painting from medieval times,
others insist that the Shroud is proof of a miracle as they claim that the image on the
Shroud (not visible to the naked eye) was made by electromagnetic energy (Williams
29). This was impossible in the first century because the technology to do so had not
been invented yet.
To make things more complicated, another relic, the Sudarium of Oviedo or
Oviedo Cloth, surfaced in Oviedo, Spain in the 11​th​
century (Gucsin 11). The Sudarium
is allegedly a piece of cloth that, like the Turin Shroud, has a direct link to the death of
Jesus Christ after having been wrapped around his head when he was buried. The cloth
confirms some details about the Shroud but at the same time raises uncertainty about
others.

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As a brief summary of the alleged trajectory of the Shroud, before its official
discovery in Lirey, and also its travels after being discovered, Gian Maria Zaccone
provides a map in his book ​On the Trail of the Shroud ​(6). Based on his research and
assumptions, Zaccone traces the Shroud back to Jerusalem from Turin, stating that it
passed through Edessa (Syria), Constantinople (Istanbul), Athens, Lirey & Chambery
(France) on its way to Italy. This route was obviously constructed with the assumption
that the shroud is indeed genuine and that it somehow traveled from Jesus’s tomb in
Jerusalem to Lirey, where it was discovered.
In its confirmed history, reluctance to accept the shroud’s legitimacy sprung up
as early as the late 1390s by Pierre d’Arcis, Bishop of Troyes, but there were never any
scientific studies or evidence for or against the authenticity of the Shroud until 1898
(Zaccone 26). Starting with Secondo Pia’s photographing and analysis of its negatives,
a slew of scientific studies have been carried out on the Shroud of Turin to this day.
Among these studies are included radiocarbon dating (Atomic Mass Spectrometry),
pollen analysis, SEM (scanning electron microscopy), pigment analysis and carbon
fractionation.
Let’s begin with the results of Pia’s photographs. Taken in 1898, they revealed a
negative imprint on the cloth of the Shroud (Zaccone 28). The significance of this finding
is explained to better detail in a letter between Shroud academics Ian Wilson and Walter
McCrone in January of 1974,

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“What has made the Shroud an object of considerable scientific interest is
the phenomenon that, when photographed, a life­like positive image
appears on the negative plate, implying that the cloth itself is, in some
way, a photographic negative” (McCrone 49).
In other words, because there was proof that this shroud had been around since before
the development of photography and this image could have only been made
photographically, there was an added layer of mystery to the provenance of the image.
These observations heightened most people’s beliefs on the Shroud. Those who
believed in its legitimacy and sanctity saw the evidence from Pia’s negatives as proof of
a miracle (Zaccone 28). Others became even more skeptical as this was a hard thought
to grasp especially considering the relative age of photography. Overall, Pia’s
contributions seriously questioned the hypothesis that the Shroud is a fake.
33 years later and with more advanced photography, Giusseppe Enrie, who
unlike Secondo Pia, made a living from photography, also took photographs of the
Shroud and confirmed Pia’s findings. Keep in mind that Pia was by no means less
skilled or less reliable than Enrie, he simply wasn’t a photographer by profession.
Another significant form of analysis with the Shroud of Turin has been pigment
examination. Beginning in 1969 and throughout the early part of the 1970’s, the Turin
Commission sought to clarify the nature of the image depicted on the Shroud. Using
small pieces of thread from areas of image and blood, electron microscopic tests
revealed that the threads contained no heterogeneous coloring material or pigment. The
Commission could not find any material to have penetrated further than the top layer of

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fibers or stuck between pieces of fiber. This initial finding presented difficulties for the
idea that the image on the shroud was painted, yet at the same time also made it
difficult to assert that the apparent blood marks on the Shroud were real either.
(Meacham)
In 1978, Walter McCrone, an American chemist and leading expert in microscopy
working for the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), claimed that the image on
the Shroud was a painting. Specifically, he asserted from his analysis of the available
fibrils that the blood­looking stains on the cloth were actually comprised of red ochre
and vermillion tempera paint. While McCrone would strongly carry this opinion until his
death in 2002, he faced a heavy amount of peer opposition. Mark Anderson, who had
been working with McCrone as his Raman microscopy expert, observed that when
subjecting the shroud samples to a laser that they acted as organic material, a result
that would not occur if the material on hand was a pigment. In both a book by Ray
Rogers and an open letter to journalists by Daniel R. Porter, it has been asserted that
Walter McCrone purposely suppressed Anderson’s results in order to keep consistent
with his desired result. Other peers, John Heller and Alan Adler, disagreed with
McCrone as well but in a different manner. They agreed with McCrone’s assertion, after
examining the same samples, that the material in question contained iron oxide;
however, they did not believe that this was responsible for the image that can be seen
on the Shroud.
In consequent decades, the work of STURP, particularly by Heller and Adler in a
series of 12 tests during the 1980’s, seems to contend with reasonable certainty that the

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blood marks on the Shroud are indeed human blood. This came about after further
testing of the Shroud with photo microscopy to reveal results contrary to that of the
Turin Commission with the use of more sophisticated equipment. X­ray fluorescence
measurements helped reveal that the iron found in the Shroud fibers was restricted to
only the blood areas. Additionally, transmission and reflection spectroscopy yielded a
hemoglobin absorption pattern, further proving the presence of blood as opposed to
paint. (Meacham) While this is true, the researchers maintain that this does not
guarantee that it is the blood of Jesus Christ. It only rules out the painting theory in their
minds. In the opinion of STURP, "there are no chemical or physical methods . . . and no
combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances which explain
the image adequately" (Joan Janney – AP report 1981). Instead, they theorized the
image was either caused by a “photolysis effect” caused by an intense and almost
instantaneous heat scorch or a “latent image process” in which the Shroud was
sensitized by materials absorbed through direct contact with a corpse. (Meacham)
Up until 1988,the mystery of exactly how old the Shroud was, hadn’t been able to
be addressed. The main problem with using the obvious method, carbon 14 dating, had
been the size of the needed sample given that this was a destructive method. With such
a delicate and important relic, it just wasn’t realistic. However, thanks to advances in
technology that reduced the amount of cloth needed, approval was granted by the
Vatican to have testing done on the Shroud in 1988 (Iannone 161).
According to the 1988 testing, the Shroud was far from contemporary with Jesus
Christ. In the official report from the Vatican, the cloth was dated back to the year 1260

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at the earliest (Iannone 164). In response to these results, many scientists came out to
question the validity of the testing, given the levels of contamination present, including
sweat, ointments, blood, saliva, smoke, wax, pollen and dirt. Some prominent names
that questioned the carbon dating were Dr. Herbert Haas, William Meacham, and Father
Joseph Marino. According to Father Marino,
“the sample was taken from the lower left corner of the portion of the cloth
containing the frontal image; this corner is the most contaminated area of
the Shroud. This is the area that has been constantly handled whenever
the Shroud has been taken out for exhibits and private showings”
(Iannone 169).
Another paper that questioned the accuracy of the carbon dating on the Shroud
was written by Doctors Leonico Garza­Valdez and Faustino Cervantes. In it, they
reported that,
“a fungus and bacteria were introduced to the Shroud that formed a
symbiotic relationship creating a bio­plastic coating (a varnish or patina)
which coated the linen fibers and interfered with proper dating of the linen.
This coating or polymer rejuvenated the linen and made it appear than it is
believed to be” (Iannone 172).
Finally, there was also the added confusion stemming from the discovery of the
Sudarium of Oviedo. As mentioned earlier in the paper, the Sudarium produced a lot of

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consistent results with the Shroud in terms of appearance and image. However, the
Sudarium was discovered over 200 years earlier than the Shroud, in 1075.
While it is obvious that there are a lot of things that scientists disagree on when it
comes to the Shroud of Turin, one fact remains that each of them must undoubtedly
contend with – there is certainly an image on this cloth, and it had to get there
somehow. With that, much work has gone into identifying exactly how the image on the
Shroud was formed. In 1977, STURP focused its efforts on understanding the Shroud of
Turin by utilizing computer enhancements of images in order to analyze its properties.
Using a microdensitometer, lightness variations in image intensity were recorded,
indicating a correlation for varied cloth­to­body distances throughout the Shroud. With
the aid of a VP­8 Image Analyzer, which was developed by NASA to create
three­dimensional images of the moon, it was discovered that the image of the Shroud
contained three­dimensional information that could be converted into an undistorted
three­dimensional image. Furthermore, the Analyzer information suggested that
however the image was formed, the process occurred uniformly over the body and did
not require direct contact with the body in order to form the image at all points.
(Meacham)
While some contend that we will never know the true origin and formulation of the image
that appears on the Shroud, a host of theories have been devised to explain the fact.
One idea, painting, was discussed earlier and has been dismissed by many experts,
even though a handful of others stand by it. Another theory, proposed at length by art
historian Nicholas Allen in his PhD thesis as well as in other peer­reviewed sources, is

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that the image seen on the Shroud is the result of primitive medieval photography and
therefore constitutes the oldest surviving photograph in the world. To do this, he says,
would be a process of treating the linen beforehand and then utilizing techniques found
in the medieval ​Book of Optics to create the image. In response to this theory, others
have raised questions of why someone would make the picture a negative in the first
place, as well as problems the theory poses with what is known about the linen’s
contact with a human corpse. Still another hypothesis, which has been endorsed by a
number of scientists since the 1930’s, claims that the image must have been produced
by a flash­like irradiation that was able to produce the high definition image while acting
from the inside of the cloth. While there are several different theories on the nature of
the radiation within this idea, one important question this line of thought does not
answer is what the source of this necessary energy surge was. Scientific research has
been able to give this possibility, but the means by which it could have occurred
remains a mystery.
Certainly the image on the Shroud presents a great mystery, but another mystery
that goes along with it is the supposed presence of Greek and Latin letters around the
head of the figure that some claim to be Jesus’s “death certificate”. First, in 1978, an
amateur student named Piero Ugolotti noticed writings around the face on the Shroud
image. Since then, much work has been done to try and decipher to faint letters. In
1997, after years of research, Andre Marion and Anne Laure Courage reported the
letters said “you will go to death”, “Nazarene”, “Jesus”, and “Iesus Chrestus”. This was
then disputed by linguist Mark Guscin, who said that the letters do not appear on any of

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the slides and that the letters they deciphered, even if they did exist, make little
grammatical sense. In 2009, paleographer Barbara Frale, who worked for the Vatican
Secret Archives, made further claims about the text surrounding the head. Her claim is
that it reads “​In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene,
taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman
judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with
the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year." (Frale) While it
has conjured much more discussion on the topic, many disregard the text altogether,
saying it is too faint to see and a figment of imagination and computer manipulation.
In conclusion, while one can never say for certain what will happen with science,
it seems unlikely that a widely­accepted consensus will ever be reached on origins and
composition of the Shroud of Turin. After over a century of research, there appear to be
more mysteries than answers that have arisen as a result of all the work done.
However, with all the study that has been done, one can approach the body of research
and try to grapple with the question personally. While one may not have the same
expert knowledge, an educated person can take in what has been established and try to
figure out one’s general stance in the argument. In recent years, the Shroud of Turin
has become even more accessible to the general population with the introduction of a
Vatican approved app called “Shroud 2.0” in which users are able to personally examine
any part of the shroud in high definition and observe details beyond the unaided eye. In
2013, images of the Shroud were broadcast live for the first time in over 40 years, and
Pope Francis released a statement that stopped well short of affirming the Shroud’s

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authenticity, yet proclaimed the piece as a powerful reminder of Jesus Christ’s suffering.
In the scientific world, the debate rages on, with a surprisingly large amount of
researchers in favor of the Shroud’s authenticity as Jesus’s burial cloth while
maintaining that there still can be and is a scientific as opposed to miraculous
explanation for the presence of the image. Undoubtedly, the Shroud of Turin will remain
a piece of scientific and religious fixation for years to come.

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Works Cited
Bennett, Janice. ​Sacred Blood: Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence
for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. 1st ed.. ed. Littleton, Colo.: Libri de
Hispania, 2001. Print.
Bortin, Virginia. "Science and the Shroud of Turin." ​The Biblical archaeologist 43.2
(1980): 109­17. Print.
Bulst, Werner. ​The Shroud of Turin. Milwaukee, Bruce Pub. Co, 1957. Print.
Culliton, Barbara J. "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th­Century
Science." ​Science 201.4352 (1978): 235­9. Print.
Drews, Robert. ​In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on its History and Origins.
Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984. Print.
Gove, H. E. ​Relic, Icon, Or Hoax? : Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud. Bristol;
Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Pub, 1996. Print.
Guerrera, Vittorio. ​The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity. Rockford, IL: Tan
Books and Publishers, 2001. Print.
Guscin, Mark. ​The Oviedo Cloth. Cambridge, England: Lutterworth Press, 1998. Print.
Iannone, John C. ​The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence. New
York: Alba House, 1998. Print.

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Maher, Robert W. ​Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin. 1st ed.. ed. New York:
Vantage Press, 1986. Print.
McCrone, Walter C., and Walter C. McCrone. ​Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin.
Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1999. Print.
Meacham, William. "The Authentication of the Turin Shroud: An Issue in Archaeological
Epistemology." ​Current Anthropology Vol 24. Issue 3 (1983): n. pag.​University of
Chicago Press. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Scannerini, Silvano, and Alan Neame. ​Myrrh, Aloes, Pollen and Other Traces: Botanical
Research on the Shroud. London: St Pauls, 1998. Print.
Stevenson, Kenneth, Kenneth E. Stevenson, and Gary R. Habermas. ​Verdict on the
Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Servant Books, 1981. Print.
Williams, Robert Chadwell. ​The Forensic Historian: Using Science to Reexamine the
Past. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2013. Print.
Wilson, Ian. ​The Blood and the Shroud: The Passionate Controversy Still Enflaming the
World's most Famous Carbon­Dating Test. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998.
Print.
­­­. ​The Turin Shroud. London: V. Gollancz, 1978. Print.
Wuenschel, Edward A. ​The Holy Shroud of Turin. [Rev. ed.]. ed. Esopus, N.Y., Holy
Shroud Guild, 1953. Print.

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Zaccone, Gian Maria. ​On the Trail of the Shroud: Early and Recent History. London: St
Pauls, Ireland, 1998. Print.