The Shroud of Turin: Work of an Artist

Today marks the start of the exhibition of the Shroud of Turin. Three central pieces of evidence show it to be the work of a medieval artist. Each in itself is sufficient to refute the claim that is was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

1. Pierre d'Arcis, Bishop of Troyes, writes a letter to the pope in the year 1389 unequivocally stating that the cloth was "cunningly painted" and that the artist had attested to the fact. The letter is based on an investigation carried out by his predecessor, Henri de Poitiers, following the first exhibition of the Shroud around 1357. The whole affair was meticulously examined by the French priest and scholar Ulysse Chevalier at the end of the 19th century. The owners could not show where they had it from, and there is no claim in any of the 50 documents examined that this was supposed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
2. Leading forensic microanalyst Walter McCrone examined sticky tapes that had lift samples off the cloth. Using polarized light microscopy and X-ray diffraction, he could show that the samples had red ochre paint in the "body" areas and vermilion in the blood areas, which could not be identified in the non-body and non-blood areas. In addition, he identified the collagen tempera that is used as a paint medium. Various specific forensic tests for blood failed.
3. Carbon dating in 1988 by three independent labs showed that the material for the cloth was harvested in the 13th or 14th century. The whole story is well documented in the book by Harry Gove – „Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud". The book shows pictures of the shroud samples that were definitively identified as shroud material. All contamination were removed, quite in contrast to some wild claims about the contamination of the cloth.

The question remains why the Shroud legends are so persistent. It appears that the Shroud proponents have made up their minds based on their religious prejudices. There seems to be no lack of creativity in negating even the hardest pieces of evidence. It looks like the Shroud legends are here to stay and the work of scientists and skeptics will be a permanent one.

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