SHROUD OF TURIN DNA EVIDENCE SERIES

These accounts recount what can be inferred from historical documents. Although the field is dominated by the so-called hard sciences, some authors have also dealt with the relic’s history. Over the past 120 years, sindonology has produced hundreds of books and articles dedicated to the relic, involving every possible field: chemistry, physics, forensic medicine, palynology, numismatics, and so on.

The Shroud was first photographed in 1898, and this year is commonly considered to mark the emergence of sindonology (from the Greek word sindōn, used in the Gospels to define Jesus’s burial cloth), that is, the science-or, rather, set of scientific disciplines-that set out to prove the authenticity of the Shroud. This damage is believed to have occurred due to ﬁre in 1532.

SHROUD OF TURIN DNA EVIDENCE SERIES

Two scorch marks, which appear as black lines, and a series of vaguely triangular holes caused by burns, run lengthwise down the fabric, on either side of the human figure. The human image is the result of a change in the color of the linen ﬁbers, but it remains to be fully understood how such coloration occurred. This figure appears to bear marks from ﬂagellation and cruciﬁxion as well as various red spots corresponding to the blows. 1 It is a linen sheet measuring about 14.5 by 3.5 feet and featuring a monochromatic image on the front and back of a naked male figure. Today many consider the Shroud of Turin-the alleged burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth-to be the most important relic of Christianity. It has been kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Turin.Ĭredit: Photo by Giuseppe Enrie, 1931, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Shroud of Turin is a linen sheet long claimed to feature the image of the tortured body of Jesus of Nazareth.

Shroud of turin dna evidence