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are particles of blood on the Shroud,
so well preserved that they still show
the composition of t he bl ood.
Beyond doubt, the two figures on
the Shroud are the imprints of a
human body ... evidently that of a
man who was crucitied."
Yet here, too, modero exam–
ination tells a different story. A
board o f scientists appointed by the
diocese of Turin reported in 1976
tha t the coloring agent used does
no t appear to be blood, for there is
no penetration of the fibers, no su r–
face encrustation and no reaction to
benzidine tests.
According to Wilcox
(Shroud,
p.
45), twenty-one popes- from Sixtus
V in the 1470s to Pau l VI in the
1970s- have expressed confidence in
the authenticity of the shroud. Pope
Paul VI called it "the most impor–
ta nt relic in the history of Chri tian–
ity"
(U.S. Catholic,
May 1978, p.
48). Many individual church scho l–
ars have pronounced thcmselves
convinced. Yet even today the re is
"a st rong antishroud contingent in
the church, and the church has with–
held official j udgment"
(ibid.).
The Look of the Shroud
When actua lly seen today, the linen
of the shroud is ivory-colored. al–
most yellow. On it is the faint life–
sized double image of a huma n
figure- as if the cloth had been
draped over a man's head, allowed
to contact both his front and back,
and had somehow taken on the
characteristics of a photographic
nega tive. Darker-hued markin gs
seem to be but wrinkles. The most
prominent colorations are the burn
and water marks suffered in 1532
when the shroud's si lver reliquary
pa rtia lly melted in a building fire.
One corner of a fold is entirely
burned through.
But for all this, the cloth is very
clean-looking; the outline of a man
is rather obscure . l t does not a ppear
to the naked eye as the pictures
show it, with their considerable con–
trast, a maze of light and dark re–
versed and strengthened by modero
photography. Rather its ma rkings
a re only shadows that shade imper–
ceptibly into the background of the
cloth.
32
how? And whose body? And where
a nd when? T hese questions all re–
main a mystery-and subjects of
continuing controversy.
How Was the lmage Produced?
Other cloths have been found from
Egyptian tombs , and sorne sh rouds
"of known martyrs" (Wilson, p.
21 0), which have shown faint im–
pressions o f the high spots of the
face o r back of a corpse with which
they had been buried. But not one
has a ny thing like a clear image.
2
They a lso s how decomposi tion
~
stai ns from the decay of flesh rather
~
than exhibiting " photography," ac–
~
cording to Wilcox (pp. 54, 117).
~
Were other "holy sh rouds," such as
BACK ANO FRONT
images stand
were exhibited in the church of Ca-
head to head in the full-length Turin
douin in Perigord and in Sainte-
shroud.
Chapelle in París, exception a lly
"The closer one tries to examine it
(the image itself) the more it melts
away like mist. ... Except when
viewed from a distance, the image is
extremely difficu lt to distinguish"
(Wilson, p. 9).
The markings have been de–
scribed as carmine, carmine-mauve,
or carmine-rust. But pale brown or
sepia is closer to the fact, though the
alleged bloodstains are said to show
a tinge of red. Sorne have claimed to
detect faint blood marks even under
the hairline- from the crown of
thorns which was jammed down on
Christ's head, they say- and 100 or
so marks all over the body which
they attribute to the nagellation He
received from the Roman lictor. ·
In any case, wha t adds to the
mystery of the shroud image is that
its light and dark a rcas are actually
reversed , like a photographic nega–
tive. How could a ny deliberate for–
ger of the 14th century, having
never seen a nega tive (since pboto–
graphic negatives are a n invention
of the 19th century). have known to
reverse the shades? Or how it shou ld
look when done?
.
T his is but one ofseve ra l pieces of
evidence which ha ve led
m~ny
in–
vestigators to conclude the shroud
image could only have been
pro:
duced by sorne kind of clase contact
with a huma n body, probably of
one who had been cruci fied. But
good examples of this kind , with the
shroud ofT urin eclipsing them all?
Attempts to duplicate the pos–
tulated imprinting from the face of
a corpse by the use of powdered red
chalk and a cloth resulted ín failure.
A " negative" was produced, but
"the eyes, cheeks and mouth were
too low; the nose was flattened.
Jt
was at best a caricature, and nothing
a t a ll like the precise, well-propo r–
tioned face on the linen surface o f
the shroud" (Wilcox, p. 64).
Pe rha ps a chemical reaction in–
volving burial spices and ammonia
from the body (especially if the
body was buried unwashed) could
have produced such an image?
Pa u l Vignon, in the
Scientific
American
article of 1937 (translated
from the French by Edward Wuens–
chel), wrote: " J was able to dete r–
mine what kind of vapors had acted
on th e cloth- humid ammoniac va–
pors, resulting from the fe rmenta–
tion of urea, which is exceptionally
abundant in the sweat produced by
physical torture and by fever. We
also determined that the vapors had
reac ted wit h a toes, which were
spread on the cloth a nd sensitized it
to the action of the vapors. The de–
tail pho tographs show that the atoes
were in powder form." But other
scientists failed to verify such dog–
matica lly reported results.
A more recent exp'eriment, in
which a hand was placed in a glove
The
PLAIN TRUTH December 1978