The Shroud of Turin has drawn controversy for centuries – but a new breakthrough suggests it could be authentic after all.
The linen cloth is said to be the cloth that Jesus was buried in after his crucifixion, and features a faint image on the front and back of a bearded man.
Many believers think Jesus’s body somehow imprinted onto the fabric, but there are plenty of skeptics who have questioned the Shroud’s legitimacy since it was first put on display in the 1350s.
Scientific analysis of the cloth back in the 1980s seemed to debunk the claim that the Shroud of Turin was actually used to cover Jesus’s body.
The fabric was carbon dated to somewhere between 1260 and 1390AD, hundreds of years after Christ’s death.
But now Italian researchers have used a new technique involving x-rays to date the material – and their findings show it was manufactured about 2,000 years ago, around the time Jesus lived and died.
Scientists at Italy’s Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council conducted a recent study using wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), MailOnline reports.
The method measures the natural aging of flax cellulose and converts it to time since manufacture.
They say the timings add up and lend credibility to the theory that the faint bloodstain of a bearded man with his arms folded in front were left behind by Christ’s dead body.
The Bible says Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus’s corpse in a linen shroud before placing him in a tomb, rolling a large stone to cover the entrance.
The Shroud has been preserved since 1578 in the royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin, Italy.
The cloth appears to show faint, brownish images on the front and back, depicting a gaunt man with sunken eyes who was about 5ft 7 to 6ft tall.
Markings on the body also correspond with crucifixion wounds of Jesus mentioned in the Bible, including thorn marks on the head, cuts to his back and bruises on his shoulders.
Researchers compared their findings with the results from analysis of other linens found in Israel which dated back to the first century.
The study, published in the journal Heritage, said: ‘The data profiles were fully compatible with analogous measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is 55-74 AD, found at Masada, Israel [Herod’s famous fortress built on a limestone bedrock overlooking the Dead Sea].’
Lead author Dr Liberato De Caro said in a statement that the 1988 test should be deemed as incorrect because ‘Fabric samples are usually subject to all kinds of contamination, which cannot be completely removed from the dated specimen.
‘If the cleaning procedure of the sample is not thoroughly performed, carbon-14 dating is not reliable.
‘This may have been the case in 1988, as confirmed by experimental evidence showing that when moving from the periphery towards the center of the sheet, along the longest side, there is a significant increase in carbon-14.’
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