Shroud of Turin Not Jesus, Discovery Suggests

[JGolomb]

This is going to be an interesting story and will have tentacles that reach across a number of news categories.

 

First up is the basic story from National Geographic News:

Shroud of Turin Not Jesus', Tomb Discovery Suggests

From a long-sealed cave tomb, archaeologists have excavated the only known Jesus-era burial shroud in Jerusalem, a new study says.

 

The discovery adds to evidence that the controversial Shroud of Turin did not wrap the body of Christ, researchers say.

 

What's more, the remains of the man wrapped in the shroud are said to hold DNA evidence of leprosy

[Melvadius]

This is going to be an interesting story and will have tentacles that reach across a number of news categories.

<SNIP>

There is no question on that point The Daily Mail has a well illustrated article on the questionable authenticity of the Turin shroud which may also be worth a look.

 

As far as twill and 'weave analysis' is concerned this is a well trodden route c/f any work by Dr John Peter Wild (such as 'Textiles in Archaeology') or for other types of possible analysis try ancient textiles. The issue of weave analysis however basically boils down to how large a weaving frame would have been used in the period and area being studied (including whether it was floor or wall mounted and how long a length of cloth could be woven with a particular technology). From analysis of scraps of cloth, which can be found in both arid areas or in aenorobic conditions such as those which also preserved the tablets at Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall, it is possible under microscope imagery to deconstruct not just how large (width off of the loom) original pieces of cloth may have been or how they were sewn together but also whether the original threads were spun left or right handed.

 

The problem as I understand it with the Turin shroud is both the width of cloth which has been woven as well as the type of weave which was used, neither of which fit with what is currently known of how cloth was woven in Palestine in the period - the 'recent' Palestinian shroud discovery does however fit with the suspected 'local' weaving methodology.

Edited December 17, 2009 by Melvadius

[sylla]

First up is the basic story from National Geographic News:

Shroud of Turin Not Jesus', Tomb Discovery Suggests

From a long-sealed cave tomb, archaeologists have excavated the only known Jesus-era burial shroud in Jerusalem, a new study says.

The discovery adds to evidence that the controversial Shroud of Turin did not wrap the body of Christ, researchers say...

This must be a really bad joke.

Either the identification of the 2000 years-old textile or the isolation of the bacterial DNA were by themselves notable archaeological deeds; the uncalled pretension to connect this findings to the Shroud of Turin as an obvious cheap maneuver for additional publicity is just utterly absurd.

 

For many years the Shroud has already been the epitome of absurdity in vrtually any possible aspect (archaeology, physics, chemistry, biology and so on), even a huge mess for the Christian theology itself; its discovery and study (

Edited December 18, 2009 by sylla

[Hus]

I saw a documentary which gained permission to cut a small snippet of the shroud and examine it with carbon dating, which revealed a medieval date. The materials and shroud match this era.

 

Also, if one unfolds the shroud, it doesn't open in the realistic manner as if a human had been wrapped inside it - the measurements of a human head would ensure that if one unwound a blanket/shroud after encasing a person, the fully opened image, at 180

Edited March 7, 2011 by Hus

[Viggen]

...if it is a medieval work, how did pollen from judaea end up there? the carbondating is sketchy at best because it has been burned in medieval times, till today as far as i know there is no known technique how to make a linnen like this, not saying its the real deal, just saying it is not that easy to dismiss...

 

cheers

viggen

[Hus]

Thanks, Viggen, the doc gathered experts from all fields- even rivals, and went with rare special permission to experiment with it, performing several extensive tests (which archaeological programmes like Time Team etc rely on) and much heated debate, but came to the medieval conclusion.

 

Shroud- DaVinci and the Savoys

 

Examine the shroud

Edited March 7, 2011 by Hus

[Viggen]

...the thing is, this is the most researched piece of textil in the history of mankind, and for every expert that says this you can draw another expert that says something else, its a fascinating item indeed,

 

for example:

Due to the heterogeneity of the data and the evidence of a strong linear trend the twelve measurements of the age of the TS cannot be considered as repeated measurements of a single unknown quantity. The statement of Damon, Donahue, Gore, and eighteen others (1989) that

[CiceroD]

 

Also, if one unfolds the shroud, it doesn't open in the realistic manner as if a human had been wrapped inside it - the measurements of a human head would ensure that if one unwound a blanket/shroud after encasing a person, the fully opened image, at 180

[P.Clodius]

...It certainly seems plausible since there were enough attested "pieces of the true cross" to frame a house!

Well he did feed 5000 people with the ancient equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal..!

[wallstreeter43]

http://www.acheiropoietos.info/proceedings/FulbrightAkeldamaWeb.pdf

This article totally blows Professor Gibsons false assertions of the shroud out of the water.

The claim by Gibson that akadelma tombs site in jerusalem disprove the authenticity of the shroud is completely refuted on the basis of ancient textile evidence from the judean desert and elsewhere.

 

Pietro Savio published a cloth woven in a herringbone pattern dated to 130C.E. Discovered in the excavations of the necropolis at Antinoe. Plus there pre-dynasty burials described by Petrie and Mackay involving large textiles with the characteristic selvedge fringe. In one example a long cloth lay below the body and was folded over it in the same manner as the shroud of turin.

 

 

Twill-weave textiles of shroud fragments and nearly intact shrouds have been found at various excavation sites in the judean desert and all around in egypt to europe from even before the era of Jesus that have shown this type of weave.

 

Could it be that because Professor Gibson is jewish that he could have a biased here, if not then the alternative exp[lanation is that he ignored the facts and evidences and tried to get some publicity, but the truth is this could have been refuted by the media by just asking a few unbiased experts in the art of ancient weaving.

 

 

The evidence for authenticity is now more solid then when they started hard research (150k man hours) on the shroud

[Melvadius]

....

Twill-weave textiles of shroud fragments and nearly intact shrouds have been found at various excavation sites in the judean desert and all around in egypt to europe from even before the era of Jesus that have shown this type of weave.

 

Could it be that because Professor Gibson is jewish that he could have a biased here, if not then the alternative exp[lanation is that he ignored the facts and evidences and tried to get some publicity, but the truth is this could have been refuted by the media by just asking a few unbiased experts in the art of ancient weaving.

 

 

The evidence for authenticity is now more solid then when they started hard research (150k man hours) on the shroud

 

I am not certain that I would classify anyone who has been involved in long term research into the Turin Shroud as an 'unbiased source' (including Pietro Savio involved sincve at least 1995) irrespective of which side of the 'Acheiropoietos' divide they stood on.

 

The references you have provided look on the face of it to be worth pursuing and I would hope that somone, who from what I have read of his work I suspect is a truly 'unbiased' textile researcher like Peter Wild, could be persuaded to lend his weight to onme side or the other.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

...if it is a medieval work, how did pollen from judaea end up there? the carbondating is sketchy at best because it has been burned in medieval times, till today as far as i know there is no known technique how to make a linnen like this, not saying its the real deal, just saying it is not that easy to dismiss...

 

cheers

viggen

Simple it was made there. The selling of religious artifacts to the gullible was common. Nails from the cross, pieces of the cross and the ark, fingers, feet, and other bones of one saint or another. Pilgrims were always traveling to the holy land. Someone once remarked that enough pieces of the Cross had been sold to make up many crosses. The shroud probably originated there but was a medieval fake.

[Hrodebert]

 

...if it is a medieval work, how did pollen from judaea end up there? the carbondating is sketchy at best because it has been burned in medieval times, till today as far as i know there is no known technique how to make a linnen like this, not saying its the real deal, just saying it is not that easy to dismiss...

 

cheers

viggen

Simple it was made there. The selling of religious artifacts to the gullible was common. Nails from the cross, pieces of the cross and the ark, fingers, feet, and other bones of one saint or another. Pilgrims were always traveling to the holy land. Someone once remarked that enough pieces of the Cross had been sold to make up many crosses. The shroud probably originated there but was a medieval fake.

 

I'm not so sure it was made there, the first reported instance puts it in France, so I would guess either a European origin, or in Constantinople.  Europe because in 1390 it was claimed to have been forged in France, or Constantinople because the city was famous for the manufacture of religious icons.

 

As to the pollen, from the few plants mentioned on Wikipedia that I checked, the range was Mediterranean, not just Judean.  The article also claims that the sample could have been deliberately contaminated.

 

Items like pollen and blood stains do not help us, as these could have been introduced since the shroud was manufactured.  For example, genetic material recovered from the shroud came from both men and women.

 

Having compared the image on the shroud to Christian art from 800 to 1600, the proportion of the head matches artistic representations of people, Jesus included.  It is not an anatomically correct image according to the quick test I have done on myself.

[indianasmith]

I've always been skeptical of the Shroud for a simple, Scriptural reason:  It does not match the description of Jesus' grave clothes recorded in John's Gospel.  John was composed in the mid 90's AD, and if one supports traditional authorship (which I do) then the author was one of the few men who actually set foot inside the tomb immediately after the body of Jesus disappeared.  He described the grave clothes lying their empty, but the cloth that covered Jesus' face as folded and lying separately from the rest.  That strongly implies several pieces of cloth, not one larger than a bedsheet wrapping that covered the whole body and head in one piece, like the Shroud of Turin.