One of the Diocese of Lansing’s most public devotees of the Shroud of Turin has welcomed newly publicized research suggesting that the cloth – which many believe be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ – does, indeed, date back to the 1st century Palestine.
“The Shroud presents the most unusual image that defies scientific explanation yet is verifiably 2000 years old,” says Tony Cherniawski, pictured, whose Holy Face of Jesus Project raises funds to have images of the Shroud of Turin replicated on billboards across Michigan.
“For some people, the Holy Gospels are but words in a book; for others, they are even viewed as just a myth; but for many more, the Shroud of Turin makes it all real –- hence the huge interest in this latest research.”
The shroud has been kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of John the Baptist in Turin, in northern Italy, since 1578. While the Church neither formally endorses nor rejects the veracity of the shroud, it has long been a source of inspiration and site of pilgrimage with Pope Francis describing it in 2013 as an “icon of a man scourged and crucified”.
In 1988, though, an international team of scientists performed radiocarbon dating on snippets of the shroud and concluded it was a medieval forgery. Now a recently published study suggests those findings are wrong.
The newly publicized work has been undertaken by scientists at Italy's Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council and published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Heritage.
Their results were based on a new dating technique – wide-angle, X-ray scattering (WAXS), which measures the natural aging of flax cellulose, from which the Shroud is made. Then it compares the results to other samples which have a confirmed history and dating to find a match. Lead scientist, Dr. Liberato de Caro, a member of Italy’s National Research Council, insists WAXS is more reliable than carbon dating.
Dr. de Caro points out it is not affected by carbon-14 contamination, widely believed to be responsible for the misleading results from the 1988 carbon dating. He explains that it is difficult to know whether the radiocarbon tests measured the carbon 14 on the original fabric or additional carbon-14 that was added later.
The data profiles of the linen were fully compatible with analogous measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is 55-74 AD, found at Masada, Herod's famous fortress built on a limestone bedrock overlooking the Dead Sea. The team of scientists also compared the shroud with samples from linens manufactured between 1260 and 1390 AD, finding none were a match.
“There are also four other studies that validate the age of the Shroud at 2000 years,” explains Tony, “these include the Fourier Transform, Infrared Spectroscopy, Roman Laser Spectroscopy and a Mechanical Tension test that all give a weighted origin of the Shroud at about 90 AD – all of these give a more accurate dating than the Carbon 14 results.”
