one year ago...
New scientific tests conducted on the famous Shroud of Turin have revealed that the flax used to make the linen was grown in the Middle East.
The results of isotope tests provide new evidence that the shroud is the actual garment that was used to cover the body of Jesus Christ following his crucifixion – and is not a forgery that was created in medieval Europe.
Fragments of cloth taken from the shroud show that its flax originated in the western Levant, a swathe of land occupied today by Israel, Lebanon and western parts of Jordan and Syria.
read more here
It doesn't matter to me if the Shroud of Turin is authentic or if it was made in China in 1952. It's an icon of Holy Saturday, which is today.
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This is interesting evidence. I do not need a shroud to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, but it goes to show how science and religion can go well together. I almost want to discuss Eucharistic miracles, but that is for another post.
This is an article summary, for those who did not click on the news link:
The article by Simon Caldwell, published in March 2024, reports on new scientific tests conducted on the Shroud of Turin that provide evidence of its eastern origin. Fragments of cloth taken from the shroud were found to contain flax that grew in the Middle East, specifically in the western Levant region, which includes Israel, Lebanon, and parts of Jordan and Syria. This discovery raises new questions about the shroud's authenticity as a medieval forgery and strengthens the hypothesis that it is, in fact, the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
William Meacham, an American archaeologist and a member of the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association (STERA), commissioned the study and obtained permission to test five threads from the Raes piece, a sample removed in 1973 for textile research. The testing was conducted at the Stable Isotopes Laboratory of the University of Hong Kong, which can test very small samples.
The eastern origin of the shroud is important because it reinforces other features that point in that direction, such as pollen evidence and certain styles present on the cloth. Meacham also mentioned the helmet-style crown of thorns, the claim of coins on the eyes that matched a documented instance from a second-century burial in Judea, and the 1977 computer analysis that identified signs of coins on the eyes.
The Shroud of Turin, a length of linen cloth bearing an image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma consistent with crucifixion, has been held in Turin, Italy since 1578. It made its European intellectual debut in 1898 when the first photographs were published, showing a lifelike facial image in black and white photographic negative. The shroud was studied in the mid-20th century by Pierre Barbet, who wrote a book about the injuries of Christ's passion based on his research.
In 1978, American scientists were granted access to the cloth for a week-long examination and took sticky tape samples but could not explain what caused the image, leaving a mystery that persists today. In 1988, three laboratories dated a sample to between 1260 and 1390, casting doubt on the shroud's authenticity. However, studies conducted in 2012 and 2015 found that the linen sheet likely dates from the time of Jesus.
In 2017, a team led by Matteo Bevilacqua conducted a forensic study of the imprint and found it was of a person who suffered and died in the same manner as recorded in the Gospels. The team also saw signs of severe emotional stress and depression, hypovolemic-traumatic shock, acute respiratory failure, blunt trauma following a fall, right shoulder dislocation, pulmonary contusion with hemothorax, cardiac contusion, probable left ulnar proximal paralysis, and right foot dislocation.
The study inspired a 2022 paper by the Rev. Professor Patrick Pullicino, who proposed that the shoulder injury caused a huge internal bleed which resulted in the collapse of Jesus' circulatory system, causing him to lose up to three pints of blood when his side was speared by a Roman lance.
Despite these latest findings, there is still some mystery surrounding the shroud, as the carbon-dating results are yet to be resolved and there is slight overlap of a couple of samples from western Europe with those of Israel.
