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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in July 2008. See copyright conditions at end.
2008: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
15/07/2008
"Ian Wilson proposes an intriguing theory to link the Mandylion with the Shroud. He suggests that from
1204 to the early 1300s, the Shroud-Mandylion was in the possession of one of the most exotic and
mysterious groups in the medieval church-the Knights Templars. [Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin,"
Doubleday: New York, 1979, pp.172-191] The Knights Templars were a religious order of knights founded
about eighty years before the sack of Constantinople for the purpose of defending the crusader territories in
the Holy Land. The Templars attracted powerful friends and noble members because they combined the two
great passions of the Middle Ages-religious fervor and martial prowess. The members of the order took
vows of poverty, chastity, and absolute obedience, and their courage in battle was legendary. They vowed
never to retreat under attack, and they defended crusader territories in the Holy Land with resourcefulness
and great bravery. By the time of the sack of Constantinople, the Templars had grown very powerful. They
built impregnable fortresses in the Holy Land and in Europe, and princes and nobles in those unsettled
times often entrusted their valuables to the Templars for safekeeping. Among these valuables were many
relics. The Templars surely had the strength and the motive to safeguard a relic as fabulous as the
Mandylion- Shroud. As one of the principal traders of relics from the Fourth Crusade, the Templars would
have been in a position to acquire it, and their wealth would have protected them from the common
temptation to sell relics for much needed cash. They would have been able to keep its location secret in their
network of fortresses and castles." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for
the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, pp.20-21).
15/07/2008
"Granite is a normal, geological source of radiation in the natural environment. Granite contains around 10 to
20 parts per million of uranium. By contrast, more mafic rocks such as tonalite, gabbro or diorite have 1 to 5
ppm uranium, and limestones and sedimentary rocks usually have equally low amounts. Many large granite
plutons are the sources for palaeochannel-hosted or roll front uranium ore deposits, where the uranium
washes into the sediments from the granite uplands and associated, often highly radioactive, pegmatites.
Granite could be considered a potential natural radiological hazard as, for instance, villages located over
granite may be susceptible to higher doses of radiation than other communities. Cellars and basements sunk
into soils formed over or from particularly uraniferous granites can become a trap for radon gas, which is
heavier than air. However, in the majority of cases, although granite is a significant source of natural
radiation as compared to other rocks it is not thought an acute health threat or significant risk factor.
Various resources from national geological survey organisations are accessible online to assist in assessing
the risk factors in granite country and design rules relating, in particular, to preventing accumulation of
radon gas in enclosed basements and dwellings." ("Granite: Natural Radiation," Wikipedia, 2 July 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite#Natural_Radiation)
15/07/2008
"Sample Location and the Radiocarbon Date There have been several researchers who have conducted
experiments that appear to show an enhancement in radiocarbon measurement by exposing linen to heat
under a variety of different conditions. While these experiments have been suggestive, they have not been
widely accepted by the scientific community for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, there does appear to be a
reasonable theoretical rationale to conclude that such an enhancement in radiocarbon measurement is
possible 15. If the underlying process of differential radiocarbon distribution suggested by the 1988
radiocarbon measurements is related to thermal exposure or to some other exogenous physical or chemical
process, then it is probable that some combination of kinetic and equilibrium isotopic fractionation may be
involved in creating the differential radiocarbon distribution. If kinetic isotopic fractionation effects are
present, then the lighter isotopic compounds will diffuse faster and further than compounds containing the
heaver isotope. ... In this example, the lighter 12C isotopic carbon dioxide molecule can diffuse about 2.2%
further in a given amount of time than the 14C carbon dioxide molecule, all other things being equal."
(Walsh, B.J., "The 1988 Shroud of Turin Radiocarbon Tests Reconsidered," in Walsh, B.J., ed.,
"Proceedings of the 1999 Shroud of Turin International Research Conference, Richmond, Virginia,"
Magisterium Press: Glen Allen VA, 2000, pp.336-337. Emphasis original.
http://members.aol.com/turin99/radiocarbon-b.htm)
15/07/2008
"In the case of the Shroud of Turin, the linen fibrils exposed to higher temperatures would be expected to
have a lower level of reaction-related isotopic fractionation than the areas of the cloth more insulated from
the elevated temperatures of the 1532 fire. This would appear to imply the existence of a carbon isotopic
gradient on the Shroud cloth in areas exposed to large differential temperatures. In addition, isotopic
fractionation theory states that bonds involving heavier isotopes will be stronger and thus be more difficult
to break for a given level of temperature than lighter isotopic bonds. Moreover, at equilibrium, the heavier
isotopes will tend to occupy the site with the stronger bonds. As a result, because bonds involving lighter
isotopes are weaker and more easily broken, lighter isotopes participate more readily in a given chemical
reaction. The combined result of these effects is to diffuse light-isotope reaction products further from the
source of a reaction. If these light isotope elements vacate a stronger bond location, then the heavier
isotopes are more likely to be able to attach themselves to that site. This would leave a relatively enriched
heavier isotope concentration wherever the lighter products had taken part in an exogenous chemical
reaction. The fire to which the Shroud was exposed in 1532 appears to be a reasonable candidate for
inducing both kinetic isotopic reactions and, also, potentially incomplete equilibrium reactions that may
have resulted from the rapid temperature drop and water vapor environment associated with the quenching
of the heated Shroud reliquary with water. This isotopic fractionation process could lead to areas of relative
enrichment and depletion of various carbon isotopes if the reactions occurred in a confined environment. If
the lighter isotopic reaction products were free to move away from the fibers, then the isotopic effects noted
above could cause the Shroud to be left relatively enriched in heavier isotopic products as the result of the
isotopic exchanges noted above. It would then radiocarbon date younger than its actual age at sites
affected by this process." (Walsh, B.J., "The 1988 Shroud of Turin Radiocarbon Tests Reconsidered," in
Walsh, B.J., ed., "Proceedings of the 1999 Shroud of Turin International Research Conference, Richmond,
Virginia," Magisterium Press: Glen Allen VA, 2000, p.338. http://members.aol.com/turin99/radiocarbon-b.htm)
15/07/2008
"So far as Dr. Frei's surveys of the tapes are concerned, the evidence indicates that he made a kind of
random analysis of the contents of each tape, circling items of interest which came to light at low power
(probably 10x). Those experienced in microscopy know that the higher power the more time consuming
it is to do survey work. Dr. Frei once told Dr. Walter McCrone that he (Frei) was finding approximately 1
to 2 pollen per square centimeter on the tapes. Projecting this figure onto the Shroud it would imply
that there are between 47,000 and 94,000 pollen grains on the cloth. I have used a. different approach.
Beginning at the upper right hand corner of the tape I surveyed down, moved over one tenth of a
millimeter and continued upward. Following that pattern I have nearly completed my survey of pollen
on at least 3 of the 27 sticky tapes. But quick preliminary analysis of the remainder of the tapes have
proven that on every single tape taken directly from the Shroud, there are apparently many times the
figure given by Frei. For example, on the tape which Frei took from the blood flow from the heel I have
made a quick count of at least seven pollen. And seven were found in a quick count of the tape from
the blood flow across the back. But such quick counts do not really tell the story. My nearly complete
photo-inventory of a tape from the dorsal `side-strip' shows a count of more than 80, and the one from
the blood flow down the anatomical left arm holds more than 160, while the one from beside the face of
the man of the Shroud exhibits more than 275 pollen, all of these concentrated in the approximate two
square centimeters of the lead end of the tape! 12 These findings imply that there are incredible
amounts of pollen on the Shroud. One need only find 21.1 pollen per square centimeter to project a
million on the cloth. (Maloney, P.C., "The Current Status of Pollen Research and Prospects for the
Future," ASSIST Newsletter, Vol. 2., No. 1, June 1990, pp.1-7, pp.4-5. Emphasis original)
15/07/2008
"Dr. Frei was not interested in the statistics of pollen grains on the Shroud. His goal was to identify
individual plant types he found in the representing pollen on the Shroud cloth. Thus, Frei apparently used
the `random walk' approach to his examination of his tapes. He told Dr. McCrone that he had been finding,
on average, one to two pollen per square centimeter. At the 1988 exam of the 1978 tapes, Dr. McCrone told
our group that he confirmed Frei's observation. McCrone's approach at that exam was also the use of the
`random walk' - zig-zagging around the slide to locate and view each item of interest. There is another
method one can use to determine the actual number of pollen grains that may be on the Shroud. When one
examines the 1978 tapes using an `actual count' approach (and photographing each to create a photo-
inventory) as I did, one gains not only an idea of the extant grains on the tape, but one can also extrapolate
to develop some idea of the statistical presence of pollen on the Shroud in general and, indeed, the
distribution and statistical presence of pollen types on the Shroud. In my 1989 paper (Maloney, 1990) I
noted that the count I did on tapes 10/9 Aa from the side-strip produced a result of 88 in two square
centimeters of space-i.e. 44 per square centimeter; the count on 4 B/d from the left anatomical arm showed
163 pollen grains in two centimeters-i.e. approximately 81 pollen per square centimeter, the count on 6 B/d
taken from relatively close to the face stood at more than 275 grains in two centimeters space-i.e.
approximately 137 grains per square centimeter." (Maloney, P.C., "A Contribution toward a History of
Botanical Research on the Shroud of Turin," in Walsh, B., ed., Proceedings of the 1999 Shroud of Turin
International Research Conference, Richmond, Virginia, 1999, pp.241-266, p.250. Emphasis original)
21/07/2008
"There are very few references to the sudarium after this until its appearance in Oviedo a thousand years
later. These references are often confusing because as Latin had no word of its own for the Greek `sindon' of
the synoptic gospels (i.e. the Shroud), the word `sudarium' was often used to mean this larger cloth that
covered the whole body. In the Vulgate, the official Latin translation of the Bible, the sudarium that John
speaks of is clearly that face cloth, whereas for the linen cloths or wrappings the neuter plural `linteamina' is
used. This confusion of vocabulary is evident in a letter of Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza, in the seventh
century. The exact dates of his life, career and death are not known, but he probably lived from c. 590 to 646,
being bishop approximately the last twenty years of his life. He was a disciple of Isidore of Seville, and it
was Braulio who encouraged Isidore to finish his Etymologies and who gave them their titles and divisions.
More than forty of Braulio's letters have survived, providing useful information about the Visigoth kingdom
in Spain. In one of these letters, dated 631 [San Braulio de Zaragoza, Letter no. 42, in Patrologia Latina,
Vol. XXX, de. J-P. Migne, Paris, col. 689-690], he speaks of the existence of the linteamina and the sudarium,
but says that their whereabouts is unknown. This detail fits in with other historical testimonies, as will be
seen below. Braulio uses the same words as in the Latin text of John, linteamina and sudarium, both in the
ablative case, but seems to confuse their use. ... Perhaps he understood John's words, `the cloth that had
been over his head', as referring to the larger cloth that had also covered the body." (Guscin, M., "The
Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.11-12)
21/07/2008
"For the history of how the cloth reached Oviedo, we depend on the chronicles of Pelayo, bishop of Oviedo
[1101- 30 & 1142-43] and local historian. He lived in the twelfth century, and his historical works are The
Book of the Testaments of Oviedo and the Chronicon Regum Legionensium, which describe events
during the period from 986 to 1109. He tells us that the sudarium was taken from Jerusalem when the
Christians fled the Persian invasion in the seventh century, was brought to Toledo in Spain through the
north of Africa, and when the Muslims invaded Spain in the eighth century it was taken to the relatively safe
north of the country." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.13-14)
21/07/2008
"Chosroes II was king of Persia from 590 to 628. On the death of his father, he had to fight the usurper
Bahram VI. He did this with the support of the Byzantine emperor Mauritius, in return for certain lands. He
later returned the favour, when Mauritius was dethroned by Phocas in 602, declaring war on the Byzantine
Empire. He attacked and occupied Damascus, Antioch and Jerusalem in 614, and Alexandria in 616. Phocas
was succeeded by Heraclius, who restored the strength of Byzantium, and Chosroes was defeated at
Nineveh in 628. He was imprisoned by one of his sons and assassinated. This account would mean that the
sudarium had been in Jerusalem, or at least Palestine, from the death of Jesus until this time, and was taken
away shortly before Chosroes attacked the area. From Jerusalem, the sudarium was taken first to Alexandria
by the presbyter, Philip. However, Chosroes and the Persians were going in the same direction, and they
conquered Alexandria two years later. By this time, the sudarium was travelling again, escaping destruction
at the Persians' hands." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, p.14)
21/07/2008
"After crossing the north of Africa, the sudarium came to Spain, entering the Iberian Peninsula at Cartagena,
in the company of people who were fleeing from the Persians. The bishop of Ecija, Saint Fulgentius [c.550-
630], welcomed the refugees and the relics, and surrendered the oaken chest or ark, in which the sudarium
was kept, to Saint Leandro [c.534-600], who was bishop at Seville. He took it with him to Seville, where it
spent some years. Saint Isidore [c.560-636] then became bishop of Seville. Isidore was the teacher of San
Ildefonso, who was appointed bishop of Toledo in 657 AD. When he left Seville to take up his post there, he
took the ark with him. It stayed in Toledo until the year 718. The Muslims had invaded Spain at the
beginning of the eighth century and met with very little resistance in almost all the peninsula. This invasion
was the reason for the ark's being taken further north. According to Pelayo, from Toledo the chest was taken
directly to Oviedo. This detail in his account cannot be strictly true, because Oviedo was not founded until
761 AD, and after destruction by the Arabs, again in 795 AD. The relics were first taken to a cave which is
now called Monsacro, ten kilometres from Oviedo. The sudarium was in the cave until King Alfonso II (791-
842) built a special place for it, the `Camara Santa' in the cathedral. This was in 840, towards the end of his
reign." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.14-15)
21/07/2008
"A slightly different year for the departure from Toledo is given in the Chronicum. Mundi written by Lucas
de Tuy, who was Bishop of Tuy (a Spanish town that is on the border with the north of Portugal) from 1239-
1240. Lucas says that the relics left Toledo the same year that the Arabs invaded Spain (i.e. 711), and that
they had been there for ninety-five years (i.e. since 616). 616 seems too early - this was the same year that
Alexandria fell to Chosroes and the Persians, only two years after the fall of Jerusalem. The relics had yet to
travel all across the north of Africa, enter Spain and spend some time in Seville before reaching Toledo.
However, they do seem to have been in Spain in 631 when Braulio wrote about the two burial cloths."
(Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.14-15)
21/07/2008
"Another relevant text is the History and Description of Spain by Abunbenque Mohamat Rasis [c.977]. In
a description of the Arab invasion, he says that many Christians left the cities and fled to the mountains of
Asturias (Oviedo is in Asturias), taking relics with them and hiding them underground. Abunbenque does
not specifically mention the sudarium, but his description fits in exactly with what we know from other
sources." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.15-16)
21/07/2008
"There are other versions of the sudarium's stay in Spain before being taken to Asturias in the north. It is
strange that Braulio, writing when the chest was supposedly in Toledo, does not know exactly where it is.
Some have doubted that it was in Seville, but it does seem clear that Leandro was connected with the
sudarium, and possibly even knew about the Shroud. In the Mozarabic Liturgy for Easter Saturday, a liturgy
intimately associated with and possibly even partly rewritten by Leandro, we read the following ... Peter ran
to the tomb with John and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen one on the cloths ... Leandro had
lived in Constantinople from 579 to 582, and visited the city again in 595 (he died in 600 or 601 AD). This was
only fifty-four years after the Shroud/Mandylion's rediscovery in Edessa, so he could very well have heard
about it and even seen it. ... It has even been suggested that the chest with the sudarium was in
Constantinople and Leandro brought it back to Spain with him. Leandro could certainly not have seen the
sudarium in Spain if Pelayo's account is to be believed, because he died 13 or 14 years before Chosroes
invaded Jerusalem. Whichever version is true, the chest was in Spain at the beginning of the seventh
century." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, p.16)
21/07/2008
"The early manuscripts mentioned all agree in the following details concerning the history of the relic and its
flight to Spain: a) that the relic was present in Jerusalem until the Persian invasion in the year 614, b) that it
was briefly taken in a chest along with many other relics to a city in the north of Africa, most probably
Alexandria, which was taken by the Persians in 616, c) that it was taken by sea to Cartagena on the
southeastern coast of Spain, d) that it went directly to Seville during the time of St. Isidore, e) that after the
death of St. Isidore in 636, Toledo became the most important city of Christianity, and the relic was taken
there where it remained for 75 years, until the Muslim invasion in 711, f) that the Christians fled to the north
with the relics at the time of this invasion, hiding the chest of relics for approximately fifty years in the
mountains of Asturias, among them Monsacro, and g) that the chest has been in Oviedo since the city was
founded in 761. All of these facts are also supported by logic and historical circumstances, as will be
discussed." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the
Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, pp.28-29)
21/07/2008
"Chosroes II, sometimes written as Khosrow II Parvis (the Victorious) was proclaimed king of Persia (Iran) in
the turbulent times of 590 AD. ... In the year 614 the Persians, accompanied by Jewish warriors, advanced
toward Jerusalem, which fell in the month of July. ... As many as 90,000 Christians were killed, the Church of
the Holy Sepulcher was razed to the ground, and the relic of the True Gross was seized by the Persians and
carried off to their capital of Ctesiphon. The Cross, which was always spoken of as the pieces of the wood
of the True Cross by the original writers, was returned years later by the Emperor Heraclius in 627, an event
that brought about the institution of the feast of the Holy Cross on September 14th. Nothing is mentioned of
the capture or destruction of other relics, and one can assume that they were safeguarded." (Bennett, J.,
"Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of
Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, pp.29-30)
21/07/2008
"The Sudarium, in its coffer along with many other relics, was safely removed from Jerusalem before its
destruction, and it is believed that it was taken to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, accompanied by many
of the Christians who were fleeing from the invasion. Khosrow's armies went in the same direction, however,
conquering Alexandria only two years later, in the year 616. By this time the chest of relics was traveling by
sea from Alexandria to Spain, possibly stopping briefly in Carthage on the northern coast of what is today
Tunisia." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the
Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, p.30)
21/07/2008
"After its journey across the Mediterranean Sea, it is believed that the chest of relics entered Spain at
Cartagena. At this time Cartagena was an extremely important metropolitan diocese of the Byzantine Empire,
and maintained close relations with the other Christian-Byzantine communities, among them Jerusalem and
Alexandria. The relics went directly to Seville, the religious capital of the peninsula, and were placed in the
custody of St. Isidore. Politician, bibliophile, historian, theologian, doctor of the church, and the last of the
Western Latin Fathers, Isidore was an impressive figure under whom Seville reached an apogee in this late
Visigothic period. He had many eminent disciples, among them St. Braulio (585-651) and St. Ildephonsus,
who became the bishops of Zaragoza and Toledo respectively. The fame of Isidore spread along the routes
of Byzantium; he was a person held in extremely high esteem for his erudition. Isidore also spent a
considerable amount of time in Toledo, having been there for at least three extensive periods of time
between the years 631 and 633." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New
Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, pp.30-31)
21/07/2008
"St. Ildephonsus, who had possibly been educated in Seville under Isidore, became bishop of Toledo in 657.
It was previously thought that when he left for the capital of the Visigoth kingdom to assume his duties, the
chest of relics possibly accompanied him, but now it is believed that the relics were taken to Toledo
immediately after the death of St. Isidore. Toledo had been the site of numerous famous councils, one of the
greatest being the Fourth Council of Toledo (633), headed by Isidore, which decreed union between church
and state, toleration of Jews, and uniformity in the Spanish Mass. After the death of Braulio in 651, and
under the direction of Ildephonsus, the city of Toledo was established as the most important Christian and
intellectual center in Spain, and it is logical that Spain would seek to dignify this new metropolitan see with
some relics that were considered to be the most important of Christianity. They remained in Toledo for 75
years, until the invasion of the Muslims in 711 AD, an event that provoked the flight of massive numbers of
Christians toward the north of Spain." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo:
New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, p.31)
21/07/2008
"It is thought that the chest was opened at least once during its permanence in Toledo, because in the
subsequent inventory of Alfonso VI, the relics of St. Ildephonsus 12 are cited. Another reference appears to
corroborate this belief because Canon VI of the Council of Braga in 675 makes a rather strange reference to a
Chest of God that contained many relics, criticizing the fact that some bishops placed them on
themselves, `as if they were the chest of the relics.' Due to the very real threat of the Muslim invasion of
Spain at the beginning of the eighth century, the Visigoths fled in the direction of the Asturian kingdom,
bringing their relics with them, but the actual route is not certain. Concerning the invasion of Spain, it is
known that Musa ibn Nusayr, the Arab governor of Ifrikiya (the New Arab North Africa), sent an expedition
of 1,700 men into Spain under the command of his former slave Tarik. King Roderic, who had just begun his
reign in 710, was in a vulnerable position, possibly also due to controversy over the succession. It is
believed that many deserted him in the course of the decisive battle in the Guadalquivir valley that ended his
reign and the Visigothic kingdom. In the aftermath of the victory, Tarik immediately proceeded to Toledo,
encountering no resistance en route. Musa then brought in a large army, either later in 711 or in 712, and
took Seville. Musa and Tarik together continued the northern thrust of the conquest in 714; Musa advanced
into Asturias, while Tarik conquered Leon and Astorga." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The
Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San
Francisco CA, 2001, pp.31-32)
21/07/2008
"According to some versions, the chest was taken from Toledo to the coast, and placed in a boat that
carried it to Subsalas. Another legend, which I will relate a bit later, relates that it was carried in a boat to
Luarca (Lugar del Arca, or place of the chest). Still another version says that the chest crossed Castile,
passed through Babias, stopped in Torrebario, entered through the Port of Ventana and through Quiros in
Asturias. From Mt. Aramo they were probably taken to Monsacro (monte .sagrado or sacred mountain). The
Libro Gotico, Cronica Alfonsina and the Silense confirm only its continual transport through caves
and churches, and the chronicle of Alfonso (1465) relates that when they arrived in the mountains of
Asturias, the relics were placed on top of a mountain that they call Monsacro, ten kilometers from the
present city of Oviedo. Another version confuses these relics with those brought from Jerusalem by St.
Toribio in the fifth century, and says that the saint arrived in Aviles with his divine cargo, and then placed
the chest of the relics on the peak of a high mountain called Monsacro, inside a cave, which he barricaded
with timbers and covered with earth." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo:
New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, pp.32-
33)
21/07/2008
"The legends in favor of a route to Oviedo by sea undoubtedly originated in the medieval era when
Santiago was already an important pilgrimage destination, and it is possible that they may have been
attempting to reinforce the importance of the relics of Oviedo, seeking a similarity with those of Santiago
that were said to have arrived by sea. It may also be a case of confusing the initial arrival of the relics at
Cartagena, after having followed a maritime route from Africa, with their subsequent flight to Oviedo.
Nevertheless, it is known that they were hidden, either until the founding of the city of Oviedo in 761, or
until King Alfonso II the Chaste (791-842) built the Camara Santa or Holy Chamber to house the relics. It is
believed that this room was initially the chapel of his palace, incorporated into the Gothic cathedral that was
subsequently built in the fourteenth century." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of
Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001,
p.33)
21/07/2008
"A particularly important testimony has been found which corroborates the facts concerning the flight of
the coffer from Toledo, previously referred to. It is the mention made by the Moorish historian Abunbenque
Mohamat Rasis in his `History and Description of Spain,' finished in the year 977. He writes that `many [of
the Christians], having left the cities, were fleeing to the mountains of Asturias and were bringing with
them whatever relics they could, or were hiding them in subterranean places.' This reference supports the
belief that the relics were hidden for a period of time in Monsacro, where it is thought that they were hidden
underground in a site known as the `Well of St. Toribio.'" (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The
Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San
Francisco CA, 2001, p.33. Emphasis original)
21/07/2008
"Another interesting historical reference is contained in a letter of the Bishop Braulio of Zaragoza, in which
he makes a reference to the preservation of the sepulchral linens of Christ. Braulio is a saint who was the
disciple of St. Isidore. He was elected bishop in 631, and died in 651. His entire collection of letters only
survives in one manuscript, number 20 of the Chapter Archives of Leon, a codex that was discovered in the
18th century. In letter number XLII, there is a mention of linteamina (linens) and sudarium. The text
says: `... but in those times, it is known that many things occurred that are not written, as for example the
linens and the sudarium in which the body of the Lord was wrapped. We read that it was found, but we do
not read that it was preserved. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the relics would have been disregarded,
but preserved for future times. Braulio refers to the fact that one does not read in the Gospels that the burial
linens were preserved, but says that he believes that they would have been safeguarded by the
Apostles." (Bennett, J., "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the
Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, 2001, pp.33-34)
21/07/2008
"A little-known relic in Oviedo, Spain, called the Sudarium, the cloth said to have covered Jesus' face after
He was crucified, may be the key to unveiling the mystery of the Shroud of Turin. The history and scientific
findings respecting the Sudarium, often called the `Cloth of Oviedo,' provide an unfolding story that
rivals the most pious fiction. As debates have intensified about the Shroud, the 14-foot swath of linen
enshrined in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy, that is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Christ, it appears
that the Sudarium may be evidence of the authenticity of the Shroud. Hidden from public view for more
than a millennium, the Sudarium of Oviedo is thrusting into the modern world fresh testimony about the
suffering and death of a man crucified many centuries ago. New investigations of the two burial cloths have
compared blood types, patterns of stains, facial geometry, and pollen in an effort to find scientific data from
the Cloth of Oviedo that might prove whether it covered the same man whose tortured image is preserved on
the Shroud." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Debates about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin focus on two stumbling blocks: Carbon-14 dating
tests in 1988, which placed the origin of the Shroud in the 14th century; and lack of documentation to
support theories about what happened to Christ's shroud after the resurrection. Those who doubt the
authenticity of the Shroud reject all evidence other than the Carbon-14 results, which coincide with the date
of the first recorded exhibition of the Shroud in 1357 in Lirey, France. Clearly, if the Shroud of Turin is a
14thcentury artifact, it cannot be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Some Shroud doubters go further;
they attempt to speculate on the identity of the man so cruelly crucified to achieve the `fraudulent' image.
While historians sift through lurid alternative theories about crucified Templars and a Masonic Grail,
ongoing artistic studies and forensic pathology research on the Shroud of Turin still suggest it may truly be
an artifact of first-century Palestine. Thus, the various methodologies of investigation have yielded
conflicting conclusions, and the mystery remains. To many skeptics, the Shroud is at best a pious icon and
at worst a medieval hoax." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"However, the Cloth of Oviedo, venerated in its own right for centuries in this city in Asturias, in north-
central Spain, without reference to the Shroud of Turin, stirs far less controversy over its provenance. The
documented whereabouts of the Sudarium have been undisputed since at least 718 A.D., which explains
its tremendous significance: If forensic evidence can prove that the Shroud and the Sudarium were in
contact with the same body at the time of death, it would tend to invalidate the Carbon-14 results that date
the Shroud only to the 14th century." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine,
April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"While the assumed chronology of the Shroud is veiled in the mists of medieval history, the Sudarium is a
revered relic that could well have been preserved from the days of Christ's crucifixion. In Latin, Sudarium
means `face cloth.' The Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates Sudarium as `napkin,' a clear
indication that this smaller cloth was not identical to the longer burial shroud called the sindon in the New
Testament's Greek. The smaller cloth was used to cover the face of the body immediately following death, a
Jewish practice of respect and compassion for the family of the dead." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud
of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"According to Liber Testamentorum (Book of Testaments), written by Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo in the
twelfth century, a `holy ark' made out of oak by followers of the twelve apostles was said to contain the
Sudarium, along with several relics of the Virgin Mary and the apostles and a piece of the cross on which
Jesus was crucified. According to Pelayo, the ark remained in Jerusalem for the first 500 years following the
resurrection. Philip `the Presbyter,' a leader of the Christian community in Palestine, fled Jerusalem with the
oak chest when Chosroes II, king of Persia, sacked the holy city in 614 A.D., according to Pelayo's chronicle.
John the Almoner, bishop of Alexandria, welcomed Philip and his precious cargo. When the Persian
invasion continued into Egypt, the chest was said to have accompanied the faithful into Spain, where St.
Fulgentius received it and sent it to Seville. In 657, according to Pelayo, the ark traveled north to Toledo
where it was protected until 718. Citing slightly different dates from those in Pelayo's chronicle, Lucas, the
bishop of Tuy, wrote in his 13th-century Chronicum Mundi (Chronicle of the World) that the ark was
taken north from Toledo to Monte Sacro in Asturias in 711, to escape the advancing Moors. History and
Description of Spain, a text completed in 977, corroborates this move, at least obliquely, with a description of
Christians fleeing the Muslims to the mountains of Asturias and burying their relics underground."
(Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"From atop Monte Sacro, Alfonso II, king of Asturias, turned back Spain's Moorish invaders and
established his court at Oviedo. The 800-year Reconquista, or reconquering of Spain from the Moors,
began with Alfonso's victory. He built a Camara Santa (holy chamber) in 840 A.D. to shelter the relics in
the ark. Later kings built Oviedo's cathedral of San Salvador (Holy Savior) around this tiny chapel. A record
from the year 1030 reports that some hapless clerics opened the reliquary in the Camara Santa without prayer
or fasting and were struck blind. This account is dismissed by historians as legend. Rev. Rafael Somoano,
the current dean of the cathedral, summarizes the contents of a document recording a second opening of the
reliquary at Easter in 1075 by King Alfonso VI, his sister, Do-a Urraca, and Rodrigo D’az de Vivar, popularly
known as El Cid, the Spanish hero: They prepared all 40 days of Lent with prayer, fasting and penance. The
chest was opened with great fear because of the story from the time of Alfonso III, which told of unprepared
priests blinded by the holy light emanating from the ark. The date was March 1075, and here in the Camara
Santa, in the company of bishops, the king and El Cid examined the contents of the chest. There is a
document in the cathedral archive that describes the ceremony. But for our day, we find what is most
important: the official court record of what the king found inside. The document names each relic seen by
the king and El Cid and Do-a Urraca in the presence of the bishops. The Sudarium is there! The king
ordered the chest to be encased in this resplendent silver coffer, and the inscription on the outside lists all
that was found. It invites all Christians to kneel and revere the Holy Blood." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other
Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Other references to the sudarium are scattered throughout medieval European literature. Among the
most intriguing are a mention of a mysterious ark in Spain in the documents of the Third Council of Braga, in
Portugal, in 675, and the following reference to Oviedo in a ditty recited by pilgrims to Santiago de
Compostela, the site of St. James the Apostle's shrine not far from Asturias ... `Who has been to St. James,
And not to San Salvador. Visits the servant and Neglects the master.' ... Fascinating evidence of early
veneration of the Sudarium also appears in this eleventh-century Spanish poem: "Tell us Mary, what did
you see on the road? I saw the tomb of the living Christ, and His glory as He rose,...the Sudarium and the
linen cloths [emphasis added]." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1,
2001)
21/07/2008
"Since the relic was brought to the Camara Santa in the ninth century, it has remained undisturbed in
Oviedo. Skeptics willing to concede its relative antiquity still question its authenticity as the sudarium of
Christ described in John's gospel (John 20:6-7). Can it be proved that this cloth was used in the burial
preparations for Jesus? This question and the related one of proving a correlation between the Sudarium
and the Shroud of Turin are the object of ongoing scientific investigations by a team from the Spanish
Center for Sindonology, an organization that studies the Shroud of Turin. The secret of the Sudarium's
preservation, notes Father Somoano, is that its reliquary was rarely opened. Father Somoano himself knew
nothing about the Sudarium when he was growing up, even though he was raised in a village near
Oviedo. `I never saw the Camara Santa until after I became a priest, because it was always closed,' he recalls.
He first learned about the Sudarium while studying in Rome and `was astounded.'" (Anderson, M.J., "The
Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Formal testing of the Sudarium began 15 years ago. The first to study it was the late Msgr. Giulio Ricci,
president of the Roman Center for Sindonology. Father Somoano reports that when Ricci viewed the
Sudarium for the first time, he exclaimed, `It's authentic,' and decided it was a complement to the Shroud of
Turin. Ricci concluded that the simplest explanation for certain symmetrical stains on the Sudarium was
that they were made by someone holding the cloth against a bloodied face. He also suggested that a Swiss
pollen expert, Max Frei, be given an opportunity to search for botanical evidence. Frei found two species of
pollen typical of Palestine; significantly, these same pollens were found on the Shroud. However, he also
found pollen from North Africa, which is consistent with the Sudarium's legendary travels. While this
African pollen is not present in the Shroud, the Shroud contains pollen from species found in Turkey and
France that were not found on the Cloth of Oviedo. Advocates of the authenticity of both the Sudarium
and the Shroud contend that the two cloths exhibit pollen evidence consistent with their differing routes
into Europe." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"In the late 1980s, Ricci urged a systematic study of the Cloth of Oviedo that would compare it with the
Shroud. Early investigations included a photographic study of ultraviolet and infrared images of the cloth.
This preliminary study confirmed that there is no underlying image of a face on the Sudarium-unlike the
Shroud, which contains a bodily image that looks like a photographic negative. The Sudarium presents
only a pattern of successive stains from perspiration, blood, and lymph. In the testing, video images were
digitized so that the images on the two cloths could be highlighted and compared." (Anderson, M.J., "The
Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"The First International Congress on the Sudarium of Oviedo, held in 1994, sponsored further testing.
The findings indicated that the Sudarium had been placed against the face of a man who had been beaten
on the front and back of the head. Although there is no facial image on the Sudarium, it does contain a
distinct facial impression, the 1994 study showed. The cloth is impregnated with blood and lymph that
match the AB blood type on the Shroud. (This was a crucial test, for had the blood types not matched, any
subsequent testing would be pointless.) The pattern and measurements of the stains indicate a placement of
the cloth over a face. Measurements of facial features were also made. These patterns were extensively
mapped to enable researchers to compare the markings and measurements with those on the Shroud."
(Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of medicine at Duke University, found similarities in the blood stains on
the two cloths by using a polarized image overlay technique. He noted 70 congruent patterns on the face
and more than 50 on the back of the head and neck. Furthermore, when the image on the Shroud was placed
over the stains on the Sudarium, there was an exact correlation between the stains on the Sudarium and
the image of the beard of the man on the Shroud." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis
Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"According to the gospels, at the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pontius Pilate for permission
to remove His body from the cross. Following the custom of the time, the Sudarium would have been
placed over Jesus' head at that time. The pattern of stains suggests that it was then wrapped back on itself,
because the victim's head seemed to have been lying at an acute angle against his right arm. Author Mark
Guscin explains in his book The Oviedo Cloth (Lutterworth Press, 2000) how the effects of a crucifixion
are recorded on the Sudarium: `The main stains consist of one part blood and six parts pulmonary oedema
fluid. This is very significant because it helps confirm that Jesus died from asphyxiation. It is the generally
accepted opinion that people who were crucified died from asphyxiation.... When a person dies this way his
lungs are filled with fluid from the oedema. If the body is moved or jostled, this fluid can come out through
the nostrils.' It is precisely this kind of stain that forms the central group of stains on the Sudarium. The
stains were superimposed on each other, i.e. after the first stain was formed, enough time passed for it to dry
before the cloth was stained again, leaving the borders of each stain clearly visible." (Anderson, M.J., "The
Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"The first set of stains on the Sudarium indicates that the victim's body was in a vertical position with the
head at an angle. There are also stains from deep puncture wounds on the portion of the cloth covering the
back of the head that are consistent with similar marks found on the Shroud, presumably made by Jesus'
crown of thorns. A separate set of stains, superimposed on the first set, was made when the crucified man
was laid down horizontally and lymph flowed out from his nostrils. Scientists are able to calculate the time
that elapsed between each new set of stains based on the pattern of stains and the measurements of a model
head used in the experiments. According to Guscin, `the third stain was made when the body was lifted from
the ground about forty-five minutes later.... The marks (not fingerprints) of the fingers that held the cloth to
the nose are also visible.'" (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Once the body was in the tomb, the Sudarium, stained and bloody, would have been set aside. The
victim was then placed face-up on one-half of the long linen (presumably the Shroud of Turin) that Joseph
of Arimathea had purchased (Mark 15:46). The linen was folded longitudinally over the body, which was
only cursorily prepared for burial because the Sabbath was near, according to the gospels. The women
planned to return after the Sabbath to prepare the body properly." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of
Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"A comparison of the two cloths reveals an important difference between them. While the blood types
match, the wound marks match, the facial features and measurements coincide, and pollen studies help
confirm the cloths' histories, researchers point out that the Sudarium does not have the `scorched' fibers
present on the Shroud. Those who believe that both cloths are genuine attribute this difference to a
powerful event that later took place in the body and hence in the Shroud, but not in the Sudarium, which
was `rolled up by itself' (John 20: 6-7). Christian believers maintain that this event was the resurrection."
(Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Despite all the evidence, the question remains: What about the Carbon-14 data? The answer is partly to be
found in the complex methodological and technical considerations with which reputable scientists on both
sides of the issue are still grappling. The controversy over the carbon-dating evidence with respect to the
Shroud centers on the validity of tests performed on three samples snipped from it in April 1988. When the
results of testing by the three international laboratories selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass
spectrometry method of carbon-dating were made public, all three labs concurred: The Shroud dates
sometime between 1260 and 1390 A.D." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine,
April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Many in the academic and scientific communities were stunned. The great preponderance of other data
suggests that the Shroud is a relic from first-century Palestine. Some even called into question the integrity
of the samples: Had they been cut from an area charred during a fire in 1532, thus compromising the carbon-
testing? Similarly, carbon-testing on the Sudarium sets its origin in the seventh century, but those who
contend it is older say the test results were distorted by the effects of a terrorist bombing inside the
cathedral in 1934. Reams of paper have been devoted to trying to invalidate carbon-dating and its use on
textiles. Shroud advocate Ian Wilson reported in his 1998 book, The Blood and the Shroud, that
Egyptologists have produced Carbon-14 test results that date the wrappings of mummies as 1,000 years later
than they are known to be. Some even question the quasi-religious belief of some scientists in the
infallibility of carbon-dating. They cite famous and often hilarious examples suggesting that carbon-dating
may be among the least accurate methodologies for assessing the age of the Shroud. For example, the head
of the Swiss laboratory that participated in the Carbon-14 tests on the Shroud also ran a Carbon-14 test on
his mother-in-law's 50-year-old tablecloth. The results of the test set the age of the textile at 350 years. He
theorized that soaps used to wash the tablecloth were the compromising factor." (Anderson, M.J., "The
Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Complicating the Carbon-14 question is the problem of the Shroud's chronology. The Carbon-14 date of the
Shroud closely corresponds to its first documented appearance. There is, however, a possible earlier history
for the Shroud that awaits further research before it can provide the chronological documentation that
accompanies the Cloth of Oviedo. According to some theorists, including Wilson, the Shroud of Turin is
actually the precious piece of cloth known in the Byzantine world as the Mandylion. Early Christian
iconography brims with images of Jesus' face on the Mandylion that closely resemble the image of the man
on the Shroud-an image that was not revealed until the age of photography. Where did these ancient artists
find their model?" (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Tradition holds that Jesus' disciple Thaddeus took the Mandylion-perhaps the Shroud-with him to Edessa
in Mesopotamia at the invitation of King Abgar V of Edessa (the Church historian Eusebius chronicles a
supposed exchange between Jesus Himself and Abgar that is probably apocryphal). Later, Christians were
persecuted in Edessa, and the `Cloth of Edessa,' as the Mandylion was called, was hidden in the city walls.
By 550 A.D., the Mandylion had reportedly been recovered, and it was brought to Constantinople in 944. It
was described as `the divinely wrought likeness which human hands have not made.' Travelogues, diaries,
liturgies, hymns, and even coins attest to the existence of a mysterious image of Christ in the Near East.
Shroud advocates believe this cloth was pirated during the infamous Fourth Crusade of the 13th century,
when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, and brought to France by the Knights Templar. Scant solid
evidence has been found to support this theory, however." (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of Christ,"
Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"Naysayers scoff at such suppositions as fanciful. But Shroud devotees point to an equally vexing
question: How is it that science and technology cannot provide a method to duplicate the Shroud, if it is in
fact a hoax? What is the explanation for the most studied holy relic in history? Juan Ignacio Moreno, a
magistrate in Burgos, Spain, and a leading advocate of the Sudarium's authenticity, offers this answer to
the mystery of both the Shroud and the Cloth of Oviedo: `The Sudarium is a relic rediscovered for
Christians fighting a new fight. It is a love letter to our time from God: a tantalizing puzzle saved for the
minds of men that have made science and knowledge their god.'" (Anderson, M.J., "The Other Shroud of
Christ," Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2001)
21/07/2008
"An important reference to the possible existence of the Shroud within a few centuries of the lifetime of
Jesus comes from the famous theologian and Church Father St. Jerome, from a work written in Bethlehem in
A.D. 392 called Lives of Illustrious Men. This is a series of very brief biographical sketches of the various
early leaders of the Christian Church. One of the most important leaders was St. James, the Lord's `brother.'
... A devout and pious man all his life, James ... scrupulously lived by the Law of Moses until the day of his
death, led the Church in Jerusalem until his martyrdom at the hands of hostile Jews in A.D. 62. Jerome, in his
Lives, cited the apocryphal Gospel According to the Hebrews (of which no copies have survived), in
which it was stated that Jesus, after His Resurrection but before He appeared to James (Paul, in 1
Corinthians 15, tells us that the Lord did in fact appear to James), gave His graveclothes "to the servant of
the priest." In other words, Jesus gave His Shroud to James' servant. No mention, however, is made of an
image on the graveclothes." (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the
Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, pp.52-53.
Emphasis original)
21/07/2008
"St. Nino (sometimes called St. Nina) was a Greek Christian girl, born in Cappadocia (in what is now Turkey)
around A.D. 296. Her parents moved to Jerusalem when she was twelve. Later, as a captive, she was taken to
what is now Georgia (in southeastern Europe), where she introduced the Christian faith. Shortly before she
died in A.D. 338, she dictated her life story to her friend Salome of Ujarma. In the earliest version preserved,
which dates to the fifth century, Nino mentions the Shroud. Reminiscing about her early life in Jerusalem,
Nino recounted, `And they taught me that the things written by the prophet were fulfilled in the Lord, and
that he was crucified and went up into heaven and is to come again. And the [grave] clothes the wife of
Pilate asked for ... and believed in Christ, and deported to Pontus [in what is now Turkey] to her home. And
after a time it fell to Luke the Evangelist, and he knows what he did with them. As to the napkin, Peter, they
say, took it with him' [Wardrop, M. & J.O., "Life of St. Nino," Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, Vol. V., Pt. I.,
Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1900, p.72] It is significant that Nino distinguished between the graveclothes and
the napkin, or cloth, that covered or went around Jesus' head. It is also noteworthy that she was ignorant of
their location at the time she dictated her memoirs." (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-
Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington
IN, 1999, p.53)
21/07/2008
"St. Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, Spain, from 631 until his death twenty years later, mentioned in a letter
that the physical `relics' of Jesus were still to be seen in Jerusalem, and were `left to us as a testimony of His
passion.' Among these was the column to which Jesus was tied while he was being scourged. Braulio went
on to state that `the linens and Shroud, in which Our Lord was wrapped, may well have been saved by the
Apostles as relics. The fame of such relics alone would assure a good Christian that they were preserved
carefully, though dispersed throughout the world.' [Lynch, C.H., ed., "Saint Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa
(631-651)," Catholic University of America: Washington DC, 1938, pp.96-97] It is evident that Braulio had
neither actually seen the Shroud nor was absolutely certain of its survival. They were not in Jerusalem in
the 600s. Braulio simply stated that the burial clothes might have been saved." (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud
of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our
Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, p.53. Emphasis original)
24/07/2008
"A study to examine the artistic depictions of Christ through the centuries was first undertaken by Paul
Vignon, and then others, in the earlier part of this century ... These researchers found that the standard and
conventional likeness of Christ we know today was not always the way in which Jesus was depicted. The
image so familiar to us now did not begin to appear until the sixth century. Prior to this, depictions of Christ
varied greatly. Nowhere in the New Testament is there a description of Christ's physical appearance.
Throughout the first five centuries A.D. Jesus was usually portrayed as young, clean-shaven, and with
short hair. ... Beginning in the sixth century, this likeness abruptly changes. The likeness of Christ takes on
the form of long hair parted in the middle and falling to the shoulders. He has a forked beard, with a thin
mustache that droops to join the beard. His face is longer and more refined. His nose is longer and more
pronounced, and his eyes are more deeply set. His whole countenance is also set in a rigidly front-facing
attitude." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological
Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.124)
24/07/2008
"A consistent pattern of anomalies or oddities in the depictions of Christ also emerged in the sixth century.
These anomalies include a three-sided square between the eyebrows, a V shape at the bridge of the nose, a
second V within the three-sided square, a raised right eyebrow, accentuated cheeks, enlarged left nostril, an
accentuated line between the nose and upper lip, a heavy line under the lower lip, a hairless area between
the lower lip and beard, heavily accentuated owlish eyes, and a transverse line across the throat. These
features appear regularly in pictures of Christ and are apparent in the negative image visible on the Shroud
of Turin. ... What is most intriguing is that many of these oddities appear with no apparent artistic purpose.
In fact, many of them are irrelevant to, or detract from, the naturalness of the face. While each feature does
not appear in every representation, the consistent pattern of their appearances indicates that artists through
the centuries were studying and interpreting the various features found from a similar source. We know
artists used the Mandylion as just such a primary source. The fact that all these features appear on the
Shroud makes a good case for declaring the Shroud and the Mandylion to be one and the same. This is
called the `iconographic theory,' which was first developed by Vignon to assert that the Shroud had a
definite existence and influence on artists well before the 1300s, and that the similarity in imitations of Jesus'
features could not be explained any other way. The artists would have been working with the negative
image on the cloth. They would not have had the well-focused and highly resolved positive image revealed
by the photographic negative. As a result, the features on the cloth would be vague and somewhat
indefinite. The eyes of the Shroud image appear on the cloth to be open and staring; however the
photographic negative reveals they are actually closed. It seems the early artists attempted to incorporate
the Shroud image's facial features into their work by interpreting and composing them into the best
representation they could. It was as if the artists were studiously attempting to follow a definitive and
superior representation of Christ." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical,
and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, pp.124,128)
24/07/2008
"According to Wilson, it is possible to analyze statistically the frequency with which these anomalous
features occur in various works of art. Wilson took a half dozen samples from the sixth, eighth, tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth centuries and found between eight and fourteen of these odd features on each of
them, which yields an impressive average of 80 percent incidence." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the
Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.128)
24/07/2008
"The similarities of features in artistic representations of Jesus are not limited to portraits. Dr. Alan D.
Whanger of Duke University has also discovered them on Byzantine coins, particularly on Justinian II coins
minted between A.D. 692 and 695 and a gold solidus of Constantine VII struck in A.D. 945. Whanger has
also worked with some very early portraits of the sixth century. Using his `polarized image overlay
technique,' whereby one image is superimposed over another to identify points of similarity Whanger has
identified from thirty-three to more than one hundred points of congruence when these various images are
matched to the Shroud face. [Whanger, A. & M., "Polarized image overlay technique: a new image
comparison method and its applications," Applied Optics, 24.6, March 15, 1985, pp.766-72] ... Dr.
Whanger has found so many points of congruence between the Byzantine icon and the Justinian II coin and
the Shroud image, that he concludes the artists of the artifacts must have copied from the Shroud.
[Whanger, M. & A., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers:
Franklin TN, 1998]" (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and
Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.128)
24/07/2008
"When the Justinian II coin images are superimposed over the Shroud face, all three images have a
transverse line in the exact same spot. This is artistically represented as a wrinkle line on the Justinian coin
figures' garments, a totally unnecessary feature in and of itself. If Whanger is correct, the image on the
Shroud must date far earlier than the 1350s, specifically, prior to A.D. 695, when the Justinian II coins were
minted." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological
Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.128)
24/07/2008
"All versions of the portrait show a bearded face, but the style of the beard and hair differs slightly, which
can be explained by the blurred nature of the face on the Shroud, and, presumably, also on the Soudarion
face which we have lost. There is yet another way in which these images can be related to the Shroud.
Artists have copied certain characteristic details, technically known as Vignon markings, after the scientist
who analysed fifteen of them, such as a transverse streak across the forehead of the Shroud image, a V-
shape at the bridge of the nose, two curling strands of hair in the middle of the forehead, a hairless area
between the lower lip and the beard, and so forth. In some of the earliest copies - those painted before 1260
as many as thirteen of the fifteen details are discernible, which strongly indicates that these earliest artists
were working from the Shroud." (Currer-Briggs, N., "The Shroud and the Grail: A Modern Quest for the True
Grail," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, 1987, p.58)
24/07/2008
"I mentioned a little while back that the face of the man on the Shroud had been analysed and a number of
so-called Vignon characteristics had been detected. The Laon icon contains more of them than any other
known icon. This, taken together with the artist's unequivocal statement that the portrait is that of the Lord
`on the cloth', must mean that he was working from the `life'." (Currer-Briggs, N., "The Shroud and the Grail:
A Modern Quest for the True Grail," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, 1987, pp.67-68)
24/07/2008
"The Sainte Face corresponds more closely to the face on the Shroud than any other icon: was it a copy of
the Shroud, or was the Shroud copied from the Sainte Face? If, as all the experts agree, the Sainte Face dates
from the beginning of the thirteenth century or the end of the twelfth, and it is a copy of the Shroud image,
then the Shroud must be dated before 1200. On the other hand, if the Shroud is a copy of the Sainte Face,
then it follows that it must have been fabricated after the beginning of the thirteenth century. Since the
Sainte Face reached France in 1249, and was housed at Montreuil only sixty miles from Troyes, might not
the Shroud have been painted soon afterwards?" (Currer-Briggs, N., "Shroud Mafia: The Creation of a
Relic?," Book Guild: Sussex UK, 1995, p.56)
24/07/2008
"In 1900, Paul Vignon, sometime professor of biology at the Institut Catholique of Paris, drew the public's
attention to fifteen characteristic marks on the face of the man on the Shroud. These included a transverse
streak across the forehead, a three-sided `square' between the brows, a V-shape at the bridge of the nose, a
raised right eyebrow, accentuated left cheek, enlarged left nostril, a hairless area between the lower lip and
the beard and two strands of hair descending from the middle parting, and so on. In some of the earliest
icons (those painted before 1260) many of these fifteen details are discernible, and the Sainte Face is one of
those icons that has all but two of them." (Currer-Briggs, N., "Shroud Mafia: The Creation of a Relic?," Book
Guild: Sussex UK, 1995, p.56)
24/07/2008
"To sum up: if the Sainte Face de Laon is, as it explicitly claims to be, a portrait of Christ as depicted on a
cloth, then that cloth must pre-exist the painting of the icon, which all experts agree to date from the end of
the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century. If the Shroud dates from 1260, as the C-14 dating asserts,
it, too must be a faithful copy of an earlier cloth that has since disappeared. But Vignon claimed that the
Sainte Face de Laon is a faithful copy of the image of the man on the Shroud of Turin. The view that the
Sainte Face de Laon is a copy of the existing Shroud cannot be reconciled with the 1260-1390 dating. Of
course, the C-14 dating could be wrong, and the existing cloth could be somewhat older than 1260, but if it
is, it does not follow that it is twelve hundred years older, only that the dating process is not as accurate as
its protagonists would have us believe. This is an important point that must be considered further.
Regardless of the evidence of icon experts, the Sainte Face de Laon cannot date from after 1249, because it
was in that year that Jacques Pantaleon sent it to France, so it must have been painted several years, if not
decades, before. Thus if it was copied from the existing Shroud, then that, too, must predate 1249.." (Currer-
Briggs, N., "Shroud Mafia: The Creation of a Relic?," Book Guild: Sussex UK, 1995, pp.56-57)
24/07/2008
"Several sindonologists, and especially Paul Vignon, had long ago called attention to some striking
similarities between the face on the Shroud and the face of Jesus as depicted in the Byzantine world and in
certain traditions in western Europe (especially in Italy) from the seventh century to the twelfth. Everyone
can see that the Man of the Shroud, like the Christ in most Christian art, is bearded and has long hair, parted
down the middle of the head and falling to the shoulders. Such similarities mean nothing, since even if the
Shroud were a fourteenth-century forgery it would presumably portray Christ in that way. More interesting
were the subtler similarities, ranging from the two wisps of hair at the top of the forehead, to the fork of the
beard. Most important, however, were those characteristics of the Christ face in Byzantine and early
medieval art that were paralleled by a fortuitous mark on the Shroud: a `wrinkle-line' in the cloth, for
example, or an imperfection in the weave, or an apparent blemish. Here, clearly, one could not argue that the
image on the Shroud was copied from earlier Christian art, and the alternative was that the face on the
Shroud had been the source of certain medieval and Byzantine traditions of Christ-portraits. In a 1939 book
Vignon itemized what he thought were the salient peculiarities, and others followed his lead. An American
priest, Father Edward Wuenschel, and an English Benedictine, Fr. Maurus Green, extended the list. On
Wilson's tabulation, no less than fifteen `peculiarities' can be explained only by derivation from the Shroud.
[Vignon, Le Saint Suaire de Turin; Wuenschel, Self-Portrait of Christ; Maurus Green, `Enshrouded in
Silence,' Ampleforth Journal, 74, 1969, pp.319-45; Wilson, Shroud, pp. 104-105]" (Drews, R., " In Search
of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, 1984,
pp.33-34. Emphasis original)
24/07/2008
"Sacred Scripture does not provide us with any physical description of Jesus. People of the first century
were more concerned with His message than with what He looked like. Representations of Christ prior to the
sixth century varied. Most often He was portrayed as a young beardless man with short hair. Around the
sixth century, a common representation of the face of Christ with long hair, mustache and beard began to
emerge and has been a standard depiction ever since. Perhaps the first person to notice this gradual change
was Paul Vignon in the 1930s. He was later followed by Fr. Wuenschel. These researchers noticed a number
of similarities between the face on the Shroud and early paintings and icons of Christ, particularly in the
Byzantine tradition. They identified about twenty unusual details. Some of the most notable are the two
strands of hair at the top of the forehead. Particularly noteworthy is the directionality of the wisps of hair,
which is to the right, just like the bloodstain on the Shroud in the form of the Greek letter epsilon when
viewed with the naked eye. The bloodstain only appears as the number `3' on a negative photo of the
Shroud. Other parallels include a three-sided `square' between the brows (believed by some to be caused by
a phylactery, a small leather box containing Scripture parchments worn around the forehead by Jewish men-
cf. Deut. 6:8); an enlarged left nostril; a `V' shape at the bridge of the nose; one eyebrow higher than the
other; a transverse line across the throat (perhaps a crease from the way the Shroud was folded); and a
forked beard. [Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin," Image Books: New York, 1979, pp.104-105] These facial
characteristics found on the Shroud appear in most images of the face of Christ as early as the sixth century.
Another interesting point is that artists who painted copies of the image usually depicted the face in a frame
surrounded by an ornamental trellis. This may very well have been the way in which the face on the Shroud
was displayed for veneration. Ian Wilson surmises that there must have been an official `portrait' which was
used by artists as a model for their paintings." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for
Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, pp.100-101)
24/07/2008
"Dr. Whanger and his wife used their polarized image overlay technique to compare the face on the Shroud
with that on two Byzantine gold solidi coins minted between 692 and 695 A.D. under the reign of Justinian
II. This was the first coin which bore the portrait of Jesus. The Shroud face and the coins were
photographed with the same proportions on transparencies and then projected upon one another. The face
on the coins measured between eight and nine millimeters in height from the crown of the head to the tip of
the beard. On the first coin, the Whangers found approximately 145 points of congruence, including minute
details such as bloodstains, small markings and even wrinkles on the Shroud that were replicated on the
coin. The second coin had 105 points of congruence. [Whanger, A. & M., "A Quantitative Optical
Technique for Analyzing and Authenticating the Images on the Shroud of Turin," History, Science,
Theology and the Shroud," Symposium, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, pp.303-324, p.308] This is a
significant discovery given that in a court of law, only 14 points of congruence are needed to establish the
same fingerprints, and between 45 and 60 points of congruence are sufficient to determine the same face.
[Whanger, 1991, p.307]" (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL,
2000, pp.101-102)
24/07/2008
"In 1979, a colleague of Dr. Whanger who was doing research at the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai
brought back photos of icons in the monastery. One of them was of Christ the Pantocrator (Almighty),
dating back to the sixth century. When Whanger's friend asked a monk about the origin of the image, the
monk replied that it had been copied from the Shroud of Turin. [Whanger, A. & M., "A Quantitative Optical
Technique for Analyzing and Authenticating the Images on the Shroud of Turin," History, Science,
Theology and the Shroud," Symposium, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, pp.303-324, p.306] Whanger's
interest in this icon was piqued, and he decided to use his polarized image overlay technique to compare the
face of the icon with that of the Shroud. He found over 200 points of congruence between the two,
`including such features as a tear running down from the left eye, small irregular areas on the lips, and
configurations of lines in the halo or nimbus... . This astonishing fidelity between the Pantocrator icon and
the Shroud would indicate that the artist had direct access to the Shroud image when the icon was
produced.' [Whanger, 1991, p.306] Given that early portraits of Christ depicted the face only, and the cloth
known as the Mandylion was in all probability the Shroud framed in such a manner as to expose the face
alone, artists may have been actually inspired by the Shroud for their paintings. It is only around the
eleventh century that a full-length frontal and dorsal representation of Christ began to appear." (Guerrera,
V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.102)
25/07/2008
"In the earliest years of Christianity the Church appears to have followed Jewish thinking and shunned the
idea of physical portraits of Jesus-a view that recurred many times in succeeding centuries. ... Ironically, the
earliest known example of a portrait of Jesus, albeit a poor one, occurs in a provincial Jewish setting, Dura-
Europos on the Euphrates, where interpretations of the second commandment were clearly less severe. It is
a fresco of the mid-third century and depicts Jesus young, beardless, and with short hair, in a scene of the
healing of the paralytic. The same type of youthful, beardless likeness occurred in the fourth century in
locations as far apart as Rome's cemetery of Massimus and St. Felicity, and the mosaic floor of a Roman
country house excavated at Hinton St. Mary, Dorset, England, this latter being the earliest portrait of Christ
found in Britain. The same type was also found in the fifth century-in a Good Shepherd mosaic from
Ravenna's Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and in a well-known ivory diptych of the scenes from the miracles.
There could be no doubt from these that in the centuries closest to Christ many of those in the civilized
Roman world envisaged their Savior more as the Apollo of their forefathers than as a bearded Jew." (Wilson,
I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.80-81)
25/07/2008
"There were exceptions. A mid-third-century Christ as Shepherd Innn Rome's Hypogeum of the
Aurelians certainly gave a vague impression of a bearded, long-haired man. A fourth-century Christ
from the Catacomb of Commodilla, Rome, was similarly of the Semitic type-long, undulating hair, a long
beard, large eyes and nose. These seemed to be attempts at representing what Jesus actually might
have looked like, perhaps from some distant memory that he was a long-haired, long-nosed, bearded
man. All these different concepts were possible because of sheer ignorance of any authority for the
human likeness of Jesus. As St. Augustine wrote in the early fifth century, the portraits in his time were
`innumerable in concept and design,' and for one very good reason: `We do not know of his external
appearance, nor that of his mother.' [Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 4, 5, in Migne, J-P., Patrologia
Latina, Vol. 42, 1801]" (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.81)
25/07/2008
"So how and when did knowledge of what we now recognize as the human likeness of Jesus occur? If one
scours artbooks, one realizes that no one has really tackled the issue directly because no one has seriously
considered that there might have been one specific source. It would be necessary to do the tracking from
examples in art, scrupulously using the datings of modern art experts, and rejecting any work where later
restoration might have altered the resemblance." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates:
London, 1978, pp.81-82)
25/07/2008
"Paul Vignon, an art historian as well as a biologist, was the first to note, in 1902, that many paintings,
frescoes, mosaics, tapestries, and icons of Christ included markings similar to those found on the facial
image of the Shroud. No pictures of Jesus are known to have been made during his lifetime. There also are
no descriptions of Jesus' appearance in the New Testament. Saint Augustine wrote in the fifth century: `We
know not his earthly appearance, nor that of his mother.' [Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 4, 5] Christians
began to create images of Jesus as early as the third century A.D. and perhaps earlier, particularly in the
catacombs of Rome. The early artists did not know what Jesus looked like, and consequently there was
considerable variation in his appearance from artist to artist. Artists, therefore, rendered Jesus in many
ways, particularly until the middle of the sixth century. They usually depicted Christ as an innocent-looking,
young, beardless man with short hair. ... These early renderings were generally dissimilar to one another and
often looked more like the pagan god Apollo than a bearded Jew." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the
Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, 1986, p.73)
25/07/2008
"A few years after A.D. 525, the year in which the Mandylion/Shroud was rediscovered, Jesus began to be
pictured as a mature, Semitic-looking man with long hair, a full, forked beard, a long nose, and deep-set eyes
with large pupils. The whole countenance is usually set in a rigid posture and faces front. It was also noted
that the renditions began to resemble one another, although some artists, then as now, may have merely
copied the works of others. These changes in the way Christ was depicted occurred particularly in
Byzantine art, although the same tendencies can be found in art produced in western Europe. Paul Vignon
noted these changes particularly because of his interest in the similarities between the image on the Shroud
and many of the paintings, mosaics, and other artworks produced in the latter part of the sixth century and
later. It is well known that artists visited Edessa to view the Mandylion, with some coming from as far as
1,000 miles away." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY,
1986, p.76)
25/07/2008
"Vignon, with his scientific training, attempted to find specific similarities between the Shroud image and
works of art, as clues to the possible existence of the Shroud prior to the fourteenth century. He found many
similarities between the Shroud and works of art, of which a few did not make pictorial sense, i.e., they arose
from such sources as creases in the cloth or imperfections in the weave. In total, Vignon listed twenty
markings, of which fifteen are generally accepted as being quite obvious (the others being questionable).
The fifteen Vignon markings are: 1. A transverse streak across the forehead. 2. A rectangle with one side
missing on the forehead. 3. A v shape at the bridge of the nose. 4. A second v shape within the rectangle
with one side missing (2 above). 5. A raised right eyebrow. 6. An accentuated left cheek. 7. An accentuated
right cheek. 8. An enlarged left nostril. 9. An accentuated line between nose and upper lip. 10. A heavy line
under lower lip. 11. A hairless area between lip and beard. 12. A forked beard. 13. A transverse line across
the throat. 14. Heavily accentuated, owlish eyes. 15. Loose strands of hair falling from the apex of the
forehead. These features were incorporated in many works of art beginning in the sixth century, but not
before. All of these markings were not included in all works of art, but their persistent appearance makes it
appear as though many artists were working from a common blueprint." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History,
and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, 1986, pp.76-77)
25/07/2008
"The well-known eleventh-century mosaic of Christ Pantocrator in the dome of the monastery church in
Daphni near Athens, Greece, includes thirteen of the fifteen Vignon markings. ... Two early (sixth-century)
examples are the mosaic of Christ enthroned, in the Sant'Apollinare Nuovo Church in Ravenna, Italy (which
includes eight Vignon markings ...), and a medallion portrait on a silver vase from Syria. There is an eighth-
century example in a painting in the catacomb of Saint Pontianus in Rome that has eight Vignon markings. In
the South Gallery of the Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, there is a thirteenth-century mosaic of Christ
enthroned with eleven Vignon markings. ... There is also another mosaic of Christ with Vignon markings in
the South Gallery of the Hagia Sophia." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage
Press: New York NY, 1986, pp.76-77)
25/07/2008
"One of the finest examples of a mosaic with fifteen Vignon markings can be found in the apse of the
Norman-Byzantine church in Cefalu, Sicily. ... It dates back to the twelfth century A.D. There are many other
examples of images of Christ with Vignon markings. Some artists have used one or perhaps several Vignon
markings when depicting a saint or other holy person. An example of this can be seen in ... a twentieth-
century painting by Georges Rouault, who titled it Holy Face. The history of art has indicated that the
Shroud has been in existence at least since the sixth century A.D. because otherwise there is no known
explanation for the large amount of artwork traceable to the Shroud/Mandylion beginning in the mid-sixth
century but not before. The Shroud, of course, was sealed in an Edessan wall from circa A.D. 60 until A.D.
525." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, 1986, p.82)
25/07/2008
"In A.D. 544, the Persians laid siege to Edessa. The Mandylion was brought out to aid the Edessans in
repulsing the enemy. Because the Edessans were successful, many of the surrounding towns wanted copies
that had been in contact with the Mandylion and had thereby acquired miraculous powers, according to
common belief. Edward Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote: `Before the end of the
sixth century, these images made without hands were propagated in the camps and cities of the Eastern
Empire; they were the objects of worship and the instruments of miracles, and in the hour of danger or
tumult their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the courage, or repress the fury of the
Roman legions.' [Gibbon, E., "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Vol. 3, Heritage Press: New York, NY,
1946, p.1672]" (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY,
1986, p.82)
25/07/2008
"There are no known copies of the Mandylion from the Edessan period that have survived, but some copies
made in the tenth century, after the transfer of the cloth to Constantinople (A.D. 944), and later are still
extant. An early-tenth-century fresco (now destroyed) of the Mandylion was located in Spas Nereditsa,
Russia. It included nine of the fifteen Vignon markings. ... The head was in a circular area, and surrounding
the circular area was trelliswork similar to that used to embellish the headdress of Parthian kings (probably
copied from the golden box). The Eastern Orthodox church continues to make copies of the Mandylion. ...
The Russian branch of orthodoxy provided cloth copies of the Mandylion that were used as battle
standards as late as World War I. Under the Marxist-Leninist government, this practice is not sanctioned.
Many of these standards are labeled `Acheiropoietos.' There is a picture of World War I Russian troops
with a Mandylion flag in the Imperial War Museum, in London. The face of Christ is in the middle, and
around. it is depicted a frame of trelliswork. A Mandylion was also used as a battle standard by Ivan the
Terrible, as can be seen in the Museum of Arms, in Moscow." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the
Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, 1986, pp.82,85)
25/07/2008
"The Mandylion tradition lives on in the Orthodox church, although the Mandylion itself passed from
history in 1204, when Constantinople was sacked by the armies of the Fourth Crusade. Prior to the sack of
Constantinople, the Byzantines removed the Shroud from its golden box or frame, and thereby the
Mandylion became again the Shroud that we know today. When the unpinning occurred, in the late tenth or
early eleventh century, the Doctrine of Addai and the Mandylion tradition were well established in Eastern
Orthodoxy. The church authorities probably retained the golden box and did not choose to explain that what
had been believed for centuries, i.e., that the cloth contained only a face image, needed to be updated. The
Shroud was put back into its Mandylion box from time to time for display purposes, but after the sack of
Constantinople in 1204, the golden box was not heard of again. Nevertheless, the Byzantines rigidly
maintained the old Abgar story in both art and literature. Scenes of the Mandylion's history incorporated in
icons produced in more modern times always end with the tenth century, when the cloth came to
Constantinople." (Maher, R.W., "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY,
1986, p.85)
25/07/2008
"A resemblance that is not fortuitous The resemblance between the image of the Man of the Shroud and
most of the artistic representations of Christ, both in the East and in the West, is evident. This resemblance
cannot be attributed to a mere coincidence; it must result from a dependence, direct or indirect, of one image
from the other, and of all of them from one common source. A number of past authors have theorized upon
the dependence of the image of the Shroud on the classical and most diffused manner of depicting Christ in
art; such an image must have been made by a printing process, carried out in the Middle Ages by means of
a wooden or cloth cliche. The traces of the wounds would be retouches by painting. Anyway, this thesis
cannot be maintained today because all the researches and the experiments that have been carried out have
excluded, with absolute certainty, any idea of the fabrication of the image by artistic means." (Petrosillo, O.
& Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers
Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.188. Emphasis original)
25/07/2008
"The opposite thesis, formulated for the first time by Paul Vignon at the beginning of this century, holds
that the image of Christ, as presented in art, must derive from the Shroud; there is, therefore, a resemblance
between the classical representation of the face of Christ with a beard and the image of the Shroud. One has
to remember that the Holy Scripture does not include any physical description of Jesus of Nazareth, while
the prohibition of the ancient law (Exodus 20:4, Deuteronomy 5:8) did not allow the first disciples to depict
physiognomy in pictures or statues, although the legend attributes a few of such representations to St Luke
or to Nicodemus." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science,"
Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.188)
25/07/2008
"Later, the human figures of a young man, of the `good shepherd', the `thaumaturgist doctor', and the
`master and judge' were introduced usually on the classical model. Similar to this type is the Christ Who
heals the woman, suffering from a haemorrhage, painted in the catacombs of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, in
Rome, which dates back to the end of the third century. By depicting a beardless Christ with youthful
features it was intended to stress the divine nature of the Lord. Christ is the son of God, and this sonship
did not happen as a temporal birth, as was affirmed in 325 by the Council of Nicaea against the Arian heresy.
Eternity was then often expressed by means of an image of a young man or even that of a small boy. The
representation of a youthful Christ that stresses his eternal divine nature, prescinds, therefore, from any
intention to make a portrait with the semblance of the man Jesus of Nazareth." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E.,
"The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group:
Malta, 1996, p.189)
25/07/2008
"The first works that show a different representation of the face of Jesus are to be found on some
sarcophagi of the time of Theodosius (c.370-410). Christ is characterized by a beard of medium length,
moustache, a narrow, high and majestic face, long hair, that falls on the shoulders and that sometimes has a
central parting. This type of figure is distinguished from that of the youthful beardless Christ, often with
babyish features, that is to be found on almost all the other sarcophagi of earlier times and on most of the
paintings in the catacombs before the fourth century; but it is a representation of Jesus that is still inspired
by that of Jupiter. Examples of sarcophagi with the image of a majestic bearded Christ can be seen, amongst
others, in the Lateran Museum, at St Sebastian-outside-the-Walls, in Rome (c.370), Arles (before 370) and St
Ambrose, in Milan (380-390)." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to
Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, pp.189-190)
25/07/2008
"Following the victory of Christianity decreed by Constantine with the edict of Milan (313) until the time of
Theodosius (395), a cult of Christ developed it gradually replaced that which, in pagan times, used to be
given to the emperor, whose representation was one of the most important objects of veneration. This
function could not be performed by any other image than that of the deified emperor. When, in the new
religion, the effigy of the emperor was substituted by that of Christ, even this had to be presented as a true
and proper portrait. A century later, the wooden doors of Saint Sabina basilica in Rome, show a bearded
Christ in scenes from the Passion; in all the other scenes of His earlier life, He is shown without a beard.
This characteristic distinction can also be seen in the mosaics of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna."
(Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl.,
Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.190)
25/07/2008
"Prototype of the Icons Beginning from the sixth century, however, in concomitance with the rediscovery
of the Mandylion at Edessa, a particular type of portrait of Christ starts to assert itself in the East. It is the
majestic Christ, with beard and moustache; that would be represented in various forms as the Pantocrator
even in post Byzantine times, and whose features are still substantially repeated to the present times. In the
East this image would become the only one for all figurative art and even in the West it would always
dominate. For the eastern Church the true portrait of Christ is based on the image of Edessa, the Mandylion,
that can today be identified with the Shroud of Turin. The most recent studies have confirmed this ancient
tradition. There still exist two panels that were inspired by the authentic Edessene image: one is in the
Sancta Sanctorum in Rome and the other in the Church of St Bartholomew of the Armenians in Genoa.
Moreover, there also was at St Peter's, in Rome, an effigy which was said to be that of Veronica. The name
`Veronica', as it is known, is derived from the words vera icon which mean true image. Careful studies
have proved that all these representations are copies of the image of the Shroud." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli,
E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group:
Malta, 1996, pp.190-191. Emphasis original)
25/07/2008
"On the other hand it is rather easy to link the classical effigies of Christ to that of the Shroud as possible
representations of it. There are elements in common between the legend of the Mandylion and that of
Veronica. These are: a) the representation of the face of Christ is on cloth instead of on a panel; b) the image
was produced through direct contact with the face of Christ, soaked in water, sweat or perspiration of blood;
c) different versions of both legends refer to an image on a linen sheet that included all the body of Christ.
These legends seek to explain the mysterious character of the effigy on a piece of cloth that was evidently
not painted but appears as the direct imprint of a human face. In their successive versions they want to
account for the extraordinary character of the image whose story they narrate. Such rewordings of theories
approach all the more the reality of the Shroud." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A
Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.191)
25/07/2008
"Various artistic currents contribute to the formation of the definitive portrait of Christ. Originally, Christian
art, as has already been stated, did not concern itself with providing a concrete image of Christ, but rather to
render God's words of salvation in picture form. Moreover, the influence of the various representations of
the pagan deities on the image of Christ was held to constitute a strong danger of a return to idolatry. There
must have existed, therefore, another model that notably contributed to the affirmation of the most common
image of Christ: the Shroud's face." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge
to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.191)
25/07/2008
"At least five elements can be identified on the Shroud that help us to understand how the representation of
the face of Christ is dependent upon it: 1) quite a large area between the cheeks and the hair of the Man of
the Shroud has not been imprinted so that the sides of the hair appear too detached from the face; 2) the
forked beard, slightly displaced to one side; 3) the moustache asymmetrically arranged, extending beyond
the lips at a different angle on each side; 4) the imprint on the forehead that resembles a reversed 3, which is
a trickle of blood from a hole made by the thorn; 5) one very swollen cheek as a result of the injuries
received, to the extent that the face does not appear symmetrical. The works referring to the Shroud are
basically inspired by these five elements." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A
Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, pp.191-192)
25/07/2008
"Almost an identikit from the sixth century Starting from the sixth century, the representation of the face
of Christ presents some asymmetric and irregular characteristics that can hardly be attributed to the
imagination of the artists. In particular the following details can be noted: long hair, parted in two at each
side of the face; a tuft of short hair, with a number of strands, on the forehead; pronounced eyebrows and a
triangular mark at the bridge of the nose; large profound eyes that are wide open, with huge irises and large
rings under the eyes; a long and straight nose; very pronounced cheek bones, sometimes with stains;
concave cheeks; small mouth that is not hidden by the moustache that are often sloping; a beardless area
below the lower lip; a beard that is not too long and parted in two and sometimes three." (Petrosillo, O. &
Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises
Group: Malta, 1996, p.192. Emphasis original)
25/07/2008
"Since the `writing of the icon' necessitates, according to the eastern concept, the exact reproduction of the
subject without allowing the artist to exercise his imagination, those `successions' of works derived from
one another can easily be identified, and hence, enabling one to go back to the `original model' from which
they were taken. Naturally the modern idea of a `copy' does not correspond at all with the mentality of those
times, therefore the `name' given to the prototype would pass by right to the copies and to the copies of the
copies, even if they were more or less imperfect. Going back along these successions of icons, whatever
their names, Pantocrator or Mandylion, Veronica or Acheiropoietos, one can, however, identify ever more
pronounced those particular characters that are common to the `model' that inspired them: the Shroud of
Turin." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J.,
transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.192)
25/07/2008
"One of the most beautiful examples of the Pantocrator is the sixth century icon in the monastery of St
Catherine on Mount Sinai. However, unfortunately, few are the icons that managed to survive the terrible
storm unleashed by the fury of the iconoclasts. Another interesting Pantocrator, this time a fresco, dated
back to the twelfth century and can be found in the church of St Nicholas of Casalrotto, at Mottola
(Taranto). One notices the triangle between the nose and the eyebrows which can also be seen on the face
of the Shroud. The inspiration from the Shroud is even more evident in the marks between the eyebrows and
on the forehead of the face of Christ in the catacombs of St Pontianus, in Rome, which dates back to the
sixth or seventh century. One can observe on the forehead a square mark open on the upper side which is
surmounted by a semi-circular line. Identical markings can be seen on the face of the Man of the Shroud.
Concave cheeks and asymmetrical and pronounced cheekbones can also be seen in the Pantocrator of St
Saviour in Chora, in Istanbul. As for the detail in the middle of the forehead, which can sometimes be a tuft
or a double tuft of hair, or some line or stain coloured red or white, and sometimes even a vertical wrinkle, it
is always painted in the middle. Its content changes but never its essential form in the various images over
the centuries. This betrays, even in its different interpretations, a unique source: the characteristic trickle of
blood on the forehead of the Man of the Shroud. In the mosaics of Saint Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna of
the fifth or sixth century, this detail is depicted as a tuft of hair, either single or double. The same
interpretation is to be found in the Pantocrator of the Triumphal Arch of Saint Apollinare in Classe, in the
twelfth century Christ at Cefalu, near Palermo; in the twelfth century Pantocrator of Sant'Angelo in Formis at
Capua near Caserta and in many others. All these images demonstrate the growing influence of the face of
the Man of the Shroud in figurative art." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A
Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.193)
25/07/2008
"A Shroud-head on coins The observation of the Shroud face has conditioned even the representation of
Christ on Byzantine coins from the seventh century onwards, as demonstrated by the numismatist Mario
Moroni. The first emperor to coin money with the face of Jesus was Justinian II (685-695). On the coinage of
the tremissis and on the solidus there is a Christ Pantocrator that has features very similar to the face
of the Man of the Shroud: long wavy hair that falls behind the shoulders, a long beard, moustache, and the
typical small tuft on the forehead. After 843, following the cessation of the outburst of iconoclasm, the face
of Christ as shown on the Shroud reappears on coins again and again. An expressive Christ Pantocrator,
with large eyes and flowing hair and beard, is reproduced on the gold coins of Michael III (842-867). Moroni
gives special prominence to the lack of the ears of the Pantocrator on all the coins of the "solidus", like on
the Shroud; ears that, on the contrary, the icons always brought." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The
Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta,
1996, pp.193-194. Emphasis original)
25/07/2008
"As further confirmation of the relationship between the Shroud and the images of Christ impressed on
these coins, Alan D. Whanger, a professor, at the Duke University Medical Centre of Durham, North
Carolina, using superimposition technique and polarized light has demonstrated that the face of the Man of
the Shroud matches in many points with the face, appositely enlarged, of Christ Pantocrator as represented
on the coins. There are more than 145 points of congruence; this amply satisfies the American forensic
criterion that requires at least 60 points of congruence to establish identity or similarity between two images.
Similarly, when superimposed upon the face of the Man of the Shroud, the icon of Christ Pantocrator of
Mount Sinai presented no less than 250 points of congruence. Yet another comparison between the face of
the Shroud and the Christ Pantocrator of the coins was carried out by Robert M. Haralick of Virginia
Polytechnic Institute by means of digital elaboration. It resulted that the outlines of the face of the Man of
the Shroud can be superimposed on the outlines of the image of the face of Christ impressed on the
Byzantine coins mentioned above." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge
to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.194)
25/07/2008
"As has already been said, when the Mandylion arrived in Constantinople it was described by Gregory the
Referendary as an image of the face impressed by drops of blood but in which even the blood that gushed
out from the side can be seen. Evidently, at that time, the Shroud was folded in such a way as to show not
only the face but also part of the torso. Thus the origin of the imago pietatis in Constantinople in the
twelfth century can be explained. It consisted of a representation of the dead Christ rising upright out of the
Sepulchre down to the waist, with His hands crossed in front. Only reference to the Shroud can furnish an
explanation; the representation of a dead person in an erect position would not otherwise be justifiable. In
these images Christ's head always leans to the right and if the folds of the Shroud are followed down to the
level of the neck, we can observe an inclination of the head precisely to that side." (Petrosillo, O. &
Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises
Group: Malta, 1996, p.194-195)
25/07/2008
"Another figure which was being more widely reproduced was painted or embroidered on liturgical veils
known as epitkphioi, which were used on Good Friday to represent the lament of the Virgin, the disciples,
and the holy women. In these images, of which splendid examples can still be admired dating from the
fourteenth century onwards, one sees Christ's complete body, stiff and often with the arms crossed in front,
and lying on a sheet. The inspiration from the Shroud is very obvious: evidently by then the entire figure of
the Shroud had become known, which was already reproduced in images that were called threnos. A
magnificent example of these representations is the fresco in the church of Saint Pantaleimon at Nerezi in
Macedonia which was painted in 1164, in which Jesus is figured lying on a large sheet with geometrical
patterns similar to those that accompany the reproduction of the image of Edessa." (Petrosillo, O. &
Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises
Group: Malta, 1996, p.195)
25/07/2008
"It wasn't until 1931 and again in 1933 that the Shroud was publicly shown to all who traveled to Turin to
see it. In 1931 it was photographed a second time, on this occasion by Giuseppe Enrie, a professional
photographer. His pictures were much clearer than Pia's and led to another breakthrough in the study of the
Shroud: Paul Vignon, the Shroud investigator, was able to show from these new photos that the Shroud may
very well have been the `original' for all portraits of Jesus' face. If so, it would have been used by artists long
before 1350. ... Vignon studied the numerous artists' portraits of Jesus in churches and museums. Many of
them were made much earlier than 1350. Yet, strangely, they bore a strong resemblance to the face of the
man on the Shroud. In fact, Vignon was able to point out about fifteen details found on many of the early
portraits which could only be explained if the Shroud face was the model. Some of the Vignon markings. 1.
Reverse `3' bloodstain becomes strands of hair. 2. `Box' without a lid in cloth weave. 3. Rounded `v' below
box in cloth weave. 4. Cleavage in beard. 5. Half-moon shaped bruise. 6. One eyebrow is higher than the
other. 7. Swollen cheek bone." (Scavone, D.C., "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven
Press: San Diego CA, 1989, pp.23-24)
25/07/2008
"The most noticeable of these details are the following: 1. Almost all portraits of Jesus show two or three
strands of hair in the middle of the forehead. These could be an artist's rendering of the reverse `figure 3'
bloodstain on the Shroud man's forehead. What other reason would there be for artists consistently to paint
in the strands of hair? 2. Many portraits of Jesus show one eyebrow higher than the other, as on the Shroud
face. 3. Most intriguing of all is the fact that many portraits have a strange shape that looks like a box
without a lid over a `v' at the bridge of the nose. This box is clearly visible in the weave of the cloth on the
Shroud just above the nose. The resemblance of Christ-portraits to the face of the Shroud man is one of the
most persuasive reasons for believing that the Shroud of Turin was used by early artists. The Shroud would
thus be very old and may be our original source for what Jesus looked like." (Scavone, D.C., "The Shroud of
Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, 1989, pp.24-25)
26/07/2008
"Hints from Art History Our historical inquiry can begin with the image of the face of the man buried in
the Shroud. The face-bearded, long-haired, with Semitic features-closely resembles the standard artistic
rendition of the face of Christ. ... The Shroud face either reflects or has influenced the way most artists have
portrayed Jesus for centuries. Why is this so? Skeptics argue that the similarity betrays forgery: the forger,
presumably working in the fourteenth century, painted the face according to the standard artists' rendition
of the face of Christ at the time. But if the Shroud is more than 700 years old, the same similarity would then
argue for its authenticity. If it existed before the fourteenth century, the Shroud may have influenced or even
determined the standard portrayal of Christ in art." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the
Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, p.15. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"A French biologist and artist named Paul Vignon was probably the first person to note the similarities
between the Shroud face and artistic renderings of the face of Jesus. Later researchers, most notably Edward
Wuenschel, Maurus Green, and most recently, the British historian Ian Wilson, have done an exhaustive
comparison of the Shroud face with ancient images, particularly Byzantine icons. [Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-
Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Esopus: New York, 1954; Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin,"
Doubleday: New York, 1979] They have developed evidence for what has become known as the
`iconographic theory,' the theory that the Shroud was known to artists as early as the sixth century, and that
it inspired the conventional likeness of Christ. These art detectives have been diligent. Vignon and
Wuenschel thought they could find twenty `oddities' in Byzantine frescos, paintings, and mosaics which
resembled peculiarities of the Shroud image." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the
Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, p.15. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"Wilson decided that fifteen of these are substantial enough to offer evidence in support of the theory.
[Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin," Doubleday: New York, 1979, pp. 104-105] A close study of the face of
the Shroud image, for example, reveals a transverse streak across the forehead, a three-sided `square'
between the brows, a `V' shape at the bridge of the nose, a raised right eyebrow, an enlarged left nostril, a
transverse line across the throat, and two strands of hair at the top of the forehead. These appear in
Byzantine icons. The most unusual of the markings, a combination rectangle and `V' at the bridge of the
nose, was found in eighty percent of all the icons examined. Wilson found almost equally high percentages
for all of the markings over a representative group of icons. This high frequency of similarities suggests a
relationship between the Shroud face and Byzantine depictions of Jesus." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas,
G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.15-16)
26/07/2008
"Why would a competent artist include these peculiarities in his art? The obvious answer is that, for some
reason, he believed they belonged there. Wilson and others suggest that artists were copying one image, a
holy likeness of Jesus that was revered as genuine, and hence definitive. This image, if it existed, seems to
have begun to influence Christian art around the sixth century A.D. The appearance of Christ in portraits
shifted dramatically around this time. Before the sixth century, there was little similarity among pictures of
Christ; the earliest portraits show him as a beardless, short-haired youth. [Wilson, I., "The Shroud's History
Before the 14th Century," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference on the
Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, pp. 31-49.] The gospels give no information about his
appearance, and Jews, the earliest Christians, probably shunned portraits of the Lord because Jewish law
prohibited religious images." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy,"
Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, p.16)
26/07/2008
"Around the sixth century, however, a conventional likeness of Jesus began to emerge. The majority of
these representations display at least some of the telltale peculiarities which are also visible in the ethereal,
mysterious, image of the face of the dead man on the Shroud of Turin. Christ is bearded, even fork-bearded
like the man in the Shroud. Often his right eyebrow is raised, sometimes his left, as if the artist understood
that an image produced by contact with his body would be reversed when viewed. Many of the Byzantine
icons show a streak across the forehead and another across the throat, corresponding to fold marks on the
Shroud face. Most of these icons have a peculiar box and "V" feature at the bridge of the nose. ... How can
this be explained? Did the Shroud image influence Christian art from the sixth century onward?" (Stevenson,
K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, p.16)
26/07/2008
"The particular issue that intrigued me was the face on the Shroud and it's reminiscence of two things: 1.
The likeness of Christ in art which, displaying a strong resemblance to the Shroud, could be traced back
long before the 14th century. 2. The tradition of Christ imprinting his face on cloth, as in stories such as that
of Veronica's veil. ... As there is no record in the gospels of Christ's earthly appearance, nor is there an
unbroken artistic tradition from the 1st century A.D. of what Christ looked like, it seemed to me that if the
Shroud was genuine it must somewhere, somehow have been an influence on both of these. A viable
method of research seemed to be to try to trace back likeness and cloth traditions to see what they led to,
whether there was some known common source that could be identified which might not at first sight appear
to be the Shroud." (Wilson, I., "The Shroud's History Before the 14th Century," in Stevenson, K.E., ed.,
"Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud
Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, p.37)
26/07/2008
"The first aspect I tackled was the Christ likeness in art ... On these examples of Medieval and Renaissance
likenesses, note the compatibility with the face on the Shroud. The type of Christ portrait I was particularly
interested in was this bearded, rigidly front face example ... and although Jan van Eyck painted this in the
15th century he is known to have derived the likeness not from the Shroud (at least directly), but from similar
rigidly front facing examples in Byzantine art going back to the 11th century ... even as far back as the 6th
century ... as in this Byzantine vase portrait from Syria. Compare the 6th century vase and the face on the
Shroud and it looks very, very strongly as if whoever created this knew of the Shroud. Now an important
discovery was that this type of likeness did not extend further back than the 6th century ... When one
looked at earlier likenesses such as this 4th century example from a mosaic pavement in England, Christ was
represented as Apollo-like and beardless, and yet we know it is Christ from the monogram. There were many
similar examples of this type ... together with some vague bearded examples which had nothing of the
definition of the 6th century and post-6th century likenesses. It all seemed as if no-one was sure what Jesus
had looked like before the 6th century (except of course in the time of the apostles), and this is confirmed by
a passage from St. Augustine in the 5th century who said quite bluntly `we know not his earthly
appearance, nor that of his mother.' [St. Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 4, 5] (Wilson, I., "The Shroud's
History Before the 14th Century," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States
Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, pp.36-37)
26/07/2008
"As mysterious as the shroud was, the face it displayed was remarkably similar to the traditional Christ-type
seen on many ancient icons, the religious paintings of early Eastern Christianity. The first depictions of
Jesus were highly idealized; he was shown as a clean-shaven, innocent youth. Around the sixth century,
however, that image changed. He suddenly became a grown man with long hair, beard, and eyes that were
abnormally large and ovate. If someone had copied the shroud face, the eyes would have appeared exactly
that way. Art historians don't know exactly why Jesus was depicted in these two contrasting ways.
Nowhere in Scripture is there any physical description of Jesus; several apocryphal works do contain some
random and contradictory descriptions. Could the shroud, then, have caused the change in the way artists
portrayed Jesus? Could it even have been the model upon which the virile icons were based?" (Wilcox, R.K.,
"Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, pp.84-85)
26/07/2008
"It was an intriguing idea, one that was first expounded by Paul Vignon in 1902 and developed by him at
book-length in 1939. Checking the icons in the museums and libraries of Paris, Vignon discovered dramatic
evidence that the shroud face and the face on the icons had more than a casual link. Not only did the eyes,
nose, and mustache seem the same; but strange marks that were not facial features also appeared on both
the shroud and the icons. The most unusual of these is a mark between the eyes, just above the top of the
nose. It resembled a V with a rectangular box resting on top of it; the box appears to have one of its sides,
the side nearest the hairline, missing. This unusual, nonanatomical mark appeared in several different forms.
On the earliest icons, such as the one in the St. Pontianus catacomb in Rome, which dates back to the sixth
or seventh century, it appears as the rectangle with one side missing, but it does not have the V. On the
icons made in the eleventh century, such as the Christ of Daphni in Greece, the mark is more stylized: the
rectangular lines have become a teardrop or a pendant. Of the hundreds of Byzantine icons Vignon
examined, 80 percent had the identifying mark between the eyes." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New
York NY, 1977, p.85)
26/07/2008
"Among other points of similarity, Vignon listed the following: no ears; no neck; no shoulders; a `forked'
beard; a `truncated' mustache; straight nose; enlarged nostrils; one raised eyebrow; a line across the throat
(which is really a wrinkle on the shroud); bruised forehead; abnormally shaded or swollen cheeks. No icon
had all these similarities, but all had at least a few. The earliest icons that Vignon found with shroudlike
similarities were copies of the `Image of Edessa,' a portrait of Jesus on cloth which was discovered in 544
bricked up in a wall in Edessa, the center of Syrian Christianity. After its discovery, the `true likeness' of
Christ, as it came to be known, was the object of great veneration in Byzantium." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud,"
Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, p.85)
26/07/2008
"From the sixth to the thirteenth centuries, according to Rev. Maurus Green, O.S.B., certain features in the
representations of Jesus seem to indicate that the artists drew their inspiration directly or indirectly from the
features on the shroud. Green particularly points to (A) the bruise across the forehead; (B) three sides of a
square between the eyebrows; (C) V-shape to the bridge of the nose; (D) one raised eyebrow; (E) enlarged
nostrils; (F) divided moustache; (G) heavy line under lower lip; (H) gap between this line and the beard; and
(I) the line across the throat. Compare these features on the shroud image (opposite) with the corresponding
ones on the icons on the following ... Daphni, Greece; eleventh century ... St. Pontianus Catacomb, Rome;
seventh century ... St. Bartholomew's Genoa; thirteenth century ... Holy Face of Laon, France, by a Slav
artist; 1200 ..." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, p.86)
26/07/2008
"Prior to the 1350s, artists, especially those working from the Image of Edessa/Mandylion or copies of
it, knew instinctively that there was a supernatural factor in their subject and that at the same time there
was a mysterious lack of naturalness (because it was a photographic negative), which of course they
couldn't understand at all. Yet their strong reverence for their subject resulted in a slavish precision
respecting detail, as they saw it. The result was a group of anomalies found in a dozen or so of the
better portraits of Jesus that come to us from that period. Over the years, researchers Paul Vignon,
Edward Wuenschel, and Ian Wilson have noted fifteen to twenty nonartistic oddities in the mosaics,
paintings, and icons that are suspected of having been copied from the Image/Mandylion/Shroud.
These oddities resulted from portraying the cloth weave, wrinkles in the cloth, blood rivulets, or
imperfections in the image. In each of these cases, the artist, wishing to be totally faithful to the
original, incorporated these oddities even though they are irrelevant to or detract from the naturalness
of the face. The correlation of these repeated oddities on various early pictures of Jesus and their
relationship to the Shroud Face has come to be known as Vignon's iconographic thesis. Typically, the
pictures (like the Shroud) show an absence of ears, neck, and shoulders. Two blood rivulets on the
forehead at the hairline are incorporated as curls. A cloth wrinkle across the middle of the forehead is
included as if it were a scar. A bruised left eyebrow is shown with twice the vertical dimension as the
right eyebrow. From nine to fourteen of these oddities in each of various pictures are too much for
coincidence. All these artists must have copied from the same original, and all of them misunderstood
the nature of these imperfections. They also made the eyes far too large, not realizing that the lids were
closed by a coin-that their pattern was in fact a `death mask.' Because they must have copied from the
same `source,' that original must have been the Shroud of Turin itself, even though custodians of it at
various times were unaware of its true nature." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of
the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, pp.249,251)
26/07/2008
"1. A transverse streak across the forehead 2. The three-sided `square' on the forehead 3. A V-shape at the
bridge of the nose 4. A second V-shape, inside the three-sided square 5. A raised right eyebrow 6. An
accentuated left cheek 7. An accentuated right cheek 8. An enlarged left nostril 9. An accentuated line
between the nose and the upper lip 10. A heavy line under the lower lip 11. A hairless area between the lip
and the beard 12. The forked beard 13. A transverse line across the throat 14. Heavily accentuated, owlish
eyes 15. Two loose strands of hair falling from the apex of the forehead ... Dr. Paul Vignon's Iconography
Face analysis, with Wilson's modifications. Many of the icons, mosaics, and paintings of Jesus created
under Byzantine influence and dated roughly to the sixth through the thirteenth centuries were found by
sindonologists Paul Vignon and Edward Wuenschel to contain up to twenty similar oddities that were
unattractive and unartistic. More recently, historian Ian Wilson has made a similar evaluation and has
identified an aggregate of fifteen such peculiarities ..." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story
of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, p.250)
26/07/2008
"Some of these distinctive features are definitely unartistic, as well as unnatural. For instance, between the
brows is the troughlike marking of a three-sided square; attached just below it is a triangle, pointed
downward. These features do appear on the Shroud face, though faintly; it is likely that these are blood
traces that accidentally make that pattern. Also, many of the portraits show a space about three-quarters of
an inch wide under the nose, between the two halves of the mustache-and in that bare space, the artists
have put a dark, heavy, vertical line. It seems clear, with our present knowledge, that this was created by a
rivulet of blood dripping onto the mustache from the septum of the nose. We notice that neither of these
oddities are as noticeable on a photographic negative, but that was not an advantage the early artists had."
(Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House
Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, p.252)
26/07/2008
"General features of many portraits of Jesus painted in the early centuries are largely consistent with each
other and with the Shroud Face as well. These include an oval-shaped face, a prominent nose, deep-set
eyes, long hair parted in the middle, and a forked beard. Uncommon features frequently involve overly large
eyes, which one can speculate may have resulted from duplicating the swelling the Shroud exhibits from
bruises and other injuries, or from the coins on the eyelids." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated
Story of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, p.252)
26/07/2008
"The work of Vignon, Wuenschel, and Wilson in pursuance of the iconographic thesis of identity has
obviously been a laborious one of measurement and comparison to find the commonalities in more than a
score of early faces of Jesus, which now appear to have been copied from the Shroud. They have doubtless
painstakingly considered and rejected twice that many. Consequently, it is fascinating to reflect upon the
impact that Dr. Whanger's "polarized image overlay" technique can have on these comparison studies ...
since the comparisons he has made have detected from 33 to 74 points of congruence when matched with
the Shroud Face. He concludes that the Byzantine icon face and the face on the Justinian II coin are so
nearly identical to the Face of the Shroud that they must have been based on a copying from the Shroud
by artists. Whanger believes that this overlay comparison is so accurate that the procedure should be
considered as reliable as fingerprint identification." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of
the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, p.253. Emphasis
original)
26/07/2008
"Considering the logistical problems early artists faced, we must be truly amazed at the fidelity and accuracy
they achieved. For instance, take the icon face (a painting in a monastery on a mountaintop at the southern
tip of the Sinai Peninsula), and the Justinian II coin (minted in Constantinople). During the four-hundred-
year period from about 550 to 944, the Image of Edessa was kept and frequently venerated in a church (and
later a cathedral) in Edessa (which is situated between the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers,
150 miles east of the nearest Mediterranean port. Constantinople is approximately 600 miles northwest of
Edessa and Mount Sinai about 600 miles southwest). When an artist reached Edessa, we can suppose he
spent many days (or even weeks) taking careful and precise measurements of the Image and making many
sketches, doubtless using a variety of lighting arrangements to bring more image definition to the Shroud
Face. He must have been exceptionally talented, for each resulting work of art now has scores of points of
congruence when overlaid with the Face of the Shroud in a photographic negative, which he could
neither see nor understand!" (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin,"
[1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, pp.253. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"It is typical of some of the earliest copies of the Image of Edessa that the eyes are closed. Interestingly, in
the Genoa Church of St. Bartholomew is an Edessa image copy with eyes open. When x-rayed at successive
depths (a process called tomography), it was found that the original icon had had closed eyes, but it was
overpainted to show open eyes." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of
Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, 2006, pp.253-254)
26/07/2008
"Thomas Heaphy, a prominent English painter, accompanied scientists in the mid-nineteenth century in
reopening and exploring the Roman catacombs. Heaphy found a number of paintings of Jesus on the walls
and ceilings of some of the rooms and passageways and made careful copies of them by candlelight, which
he later published in the form of etchings that are preserved in the British Museum Library London. There
they lay untouched for more than a century. His work was rediscovered by Rex Morgan, a Shroud of Turin
researcher/author, and photographs of the Heaphy material were included in Morgan's The Holy Shroud
and the Earliest Paintings of Christ, 1985. Morgan later made photographs of the originals during a 1993
visit to the catacombs ... The full-face Heaphy copies of the Jesus face have been found by Alan and Mary
Whanger to be overwhelmingly accurate (152 points of congruence) when compared with the Shroud Face.
This Face, from the Domitilla Catacomb, has been dated to A.D. 40 to 60 and may well have been based on a
Shroud face copy made in Edessa during its public period there, A.D. 33 to 57. In May 1996, Morgan again
visited the Domitilla Catacomb (specifically the Orpheus Cubiculum chamber of same), together with his son,
Christopher, a photographer, and Isabel Piczek, world-renowned artist and art expert. Of the several
catacomb faces of Jesus, the one in this chamber is considered to be the best." (Tribbe, F.C., "Portrait of
Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second
edition, 2006, p.255)
26/07/2008
"The Iconography of the Holy Face From a minute study of hundreds of paintings, frescoes and mosaics,
Vignon discovered that many of them reproduce certain peculiarities of the imprint of the face on the
Shroud. The artists eliminated the marks of wounds and blood, and attempted to translate the stain image
into a living face. They naturally made many mistakes in constructing a positive picture from the negative
imprint, which was completely beyond their comprehension; but they faithfully copied certain details of the
imprint, although these appear to be anomalies which no artist would ever introduce into a picture of the
human countenance unless he had a compelling reason." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The
Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954, Third printing, 1961, p.58. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"Among these oddities of the imprint are the following: the absence of ears, neck and shoulders; the two-
pointed beard and the two long strands of hair, each differently formed; a large capital T formed of the
frontal arches and the nose, and more minute peculiarities of the cross-bar and the stem of the T; the
distorted appearance of the nose, swollen at the bridge, with the lower part bent to the right; above the nose
a square open at the top, and above this a curved transverse stain and a shadow due to a bruise; the
abnormal shading of the swollen right cheek; on the left cheek a sheaf of demi-tints in the form of a fan; the
pronounced slanting furrow at the right of the nose; the mustache truncated at both ends and at different
angles; the groove between the two halves of the mustache; the formation of the mouth and the shape of
the shadow on the bare upper part of the chin." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud
of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954, Third printing, 1961, p.58. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"There is no single art work in which all these peculiarities of the imprint of the face are to be seen together.
Different details appear in different works, some more frequently than others. Many of these works were not
derived directly from the Shroud, but indirectly through an earlier copy. Some of them are particularly
notable for the minute exactness with which they reproduce some of the anomalies of the Shroud-an
exactness which would have been impossible unless the artists had the imprint of the face before their eyes.
One of these is the Holy Face of Laon in France-a glazed panel painted at Constantinople between 1201 and
1204, the period when `the Shroud in which Our Lord was enveloped' was kept at Our Lady of Blachernes,
and was shown to the public every Friday `so that all could clearly see the figure of Our Lord.' [de Clari, R.,
"The Conquest of Constantinople," McNeal, E.H., transl., Columbia University Press: New York NY, 1936]
The Holy Face of Laon is at hand to complete the account of Robert de Clary. Though neither Greek nor
Frank knew what became of the Shroud which vanished in the pillage of Constantinople in 1204, we know
now that it appeared again at Lirey about 1354, and that it is now enshrined in the Royal Chapel in Turin."
(Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954,
Third printing, 1961, pp.58-59)
26/07/2008
"Vignon traces the artistic lineage of the Shroud back to the fifth century, where he finds the Holy Face of
Edessa as the first work in which distinctive peculiarities of the imprint of the face appeared. Venerated as an
achiropoeton the image of Edessa was ceded by Baudouin II to St. Louis, who deposited it in the Sainte
Chapelle at Paris in 1247. It was no longer to be found after the riotings of the French Revolution in 1790, but
there remain many copies and adaptations in which details of the Shroud are reproduced." (Wuenschel,
E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954, Third
printing, 1961, p.59)
26/07/2008
"Vignon's iconographic thesis has been severely criticized. This was to be expected. The thesis is entirely
new and unfamiliar even to students of the history of Christian Art. It is rather complicated and not easily
understood, and it demands careful study of minute details and constant comparison between the stain
image on the Shroud and the many art works reproduced by Vignon. It is not likely that the opponents
would take that much trouble if they were already convinced that the Shroud is a painting of the fourteenth
century, and that the photographs of the Shroud are scientifically worthless. They have not even grasped
Vignon's aim and method. They think he has tried to show that the features of the Holy Faces in art are
the same as the positive image of the face revealed by the photograph of the Shroud! With such a
grotesque misconception, it is easy for them to scoff at his efforts and to ridicule his conclusions. One critic
who has tried to be more objective, discards Vignon's whole thesis because, he says, not all the peculiarities
of the imprint of the face are to be found in any one art work. Neither has he understood the nature of the
argument. Vignon's point is that each one of these details is distinctive of the imprint, so that the presence
of even a few in any art work is sufficient to establish a relationship with the Shroud. He also maintains that
the presence of all the distinctive details of the imprint of the face in many different art works taken together,
which extend over more than seven centuries, proves that it was the canon of the Shroud that the artists
obeyed in various degrees and usually with almost slavish fidelity. The attitude of the critics again suggests
a paraphrase of Delage: `If, instead of the genuine imprint of the face of Christ, there were question of a
portrait of Cicero, of Caesar Augustus, or of one of the Greek philosophers, no one would have made any
objection.'" (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild:
Esopus NY, 1954, Third printing, 1961, pp.59-60. Emphasis original)
26/07/2008
"When we look at the history of the likeness of Jesus as this has quite independently come down to us in
art we find something very curious. The relatively few portraits of Jesus that date from before the sixth
century are mostly very nondescript and unconvincing, often depicting him as a beardless, Apollo- like
youth. A similar vagueness extends even to the few more credible ones that show him as Jewish-looking
and with a beard. Consistent with this, St Augustine, writing in the fifth century, went on record as
remarking, `We do not know of his [Jesus'] external appearance, nor that of his mother.' [St Augustine, De
Trinitate VIII, 4, 5, in J.P.Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 42, p.1801]" (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The
Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.109)
26/07/2008
"But in the sixth century, and therefore synchronous with the Edessa cloth's rediscovery, something quite
remarkable happens to the portraits of Jesus. They suddenly take on a highly distinctive character, often
rigidly front-facing, and exhibiting all those long-haired, long-nosed, fork-bearded characteristics that to this
day we `recognize' as being Jesus' likeness. As if by invisible decree the Jesus portrait that we know today
comes into being, and the logical explanation is that the Byzantines now had an authoritative reference for
what Jesus looked like in the form of the cloth of Edessa." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud:
The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.109)
26/07/2008
"Nor is even this all. For when the Jesus portraits which are influenced by the Edessa cloth are examined
closely, many of them exhibit certain oddities that recur time and again. As early as the 1930s these oddities
particularly struck a French scholar, Paul Vignon, who assembled a list of some fifteen that he considered
particularly significant. [Vignon, P., "Le Suaire de Turin devant la Science, l'Archeologie, l'Histoire,
l'Iconographie, la Logique," Paris, Masson, 1939, p.128ff] These included a raised eyebrow, a 'topless
square' between the eyebrows, a small `triangle' below this, heavily accentuated eyes, an enlarged nostril,
exaggerated cheek markings and the hairless gap between lip and beard. And to Vignon the explanation
seemed to lie unmistakably in the Shroud, since all the oddities could be traced to blemishes and quirks on
its surface that the early artists had seemingly worked into their Jesus portraits. A classic example is an
eighth-century Christ Pantocrator fresco in the Ponzianus catacomb in Rome, in which the artist has painted
a very unnatural-looking topless square between Christ's eyebrows. When the equivalent area on the
Shroud face is studied, there is this same topless square, telling us more strongly than any words that
someone, somewhere, somehow knew of the Turin Shroud's existence back in the eighth century AD."
(Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London,
2000, p.110)
26/07/2008
"What Vignon was not able to explain satisfactorily was how the Shroud could have had such a profound
influence on art so far back, when its existence as a historical object was not correspondingly frequently
mentioned. But, if the Byzantine world knew our Shroud, not as a shroud but as the cloth of Edessa, then all
such difficulties evaporate. For during the centuries before 1204 the Jesus-imprinted Edessa cloth received
precisely the kind of historical documentation that is very largely absent for the cloth that we know as the
Turin Shroud. So for what became known as the Turin Shroud after the 1350s to have been one and the
same as the cloth known before 1204 as the cloth of Edessa would make a great deal of sense." (Wilson, I. &
Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.110)
26/07/2008
"Though, in my opinion, this Vignon-inspired argument concerning the facial markings is highly compelling,
nothing in Shroud studies is ever straightforward. A very valid objection that has been raised by some
specialist scholars is that both in the great majority of documentary sources and in artists' copies the
Byzantines clearly understood the cloth of Edessa to have been an imprint of Jesus' face only, not of his
whole body. [Cameron, A., "The Sceptic and the Shroud," Inaugural Lecture, Department of Classics and
History, King's College, London, 29 April 1980] They also understood it to have been made by Jesus while
he was alive, not dead in the tomb. So how could it have been one and the same as our Turin Shroud?"
(Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London,
2000, p.110)
26/07/2008
"For me a crucial breakthrough in overcoming this objection surfaced in the 1960s, when I noticed how a
sixth-century Greek version of the Abgar story, the Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddaeus', describes the
Edessa cloth as a tetradiplon. [Roberts, A. & Donaldson, J., eds., "Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddaeus,"
in "The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to AD 325, Vol. VIII,
Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1951, pp.558-559] In all the corpus of Greek literature tetradiplon is an
extremely rare word, and totally exclusive to the Edessa cloth. Yet, because it is a combination of two
common words, tetra meaning `four' and diplon meaning `two fold' or `doubled', its meaning is actually
very clear: `doubled in four', suggesting four times two folds. This immediately raised the thought: `What
happens if you try giving the Shroud four times two folds?'" (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud:
The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, pp.110-111)
26/07/2008
"When I tried this, using a full-length photograph of the Shroud, I was dumb-founded by the result - as I
continue to be today. There was the Shroud face, front-facing and disembodied-looking on a landscape
aspect cloth, exactly as on the earliest artists' copies of the cloth of Edessa. Whenever the Shroud is
presented in this manner - and it is a very logical way to present and make manageable a 437 cm length of
cloth - its nature as a `shroud' is in fact subordinated to its rather more socially acceptable nature as a
`portrait'. And historically such an arrangement finds ready support in the description of the Edessa cloth,
on its arrival in Constantinople, as `fastened to a board and covered with the gold which is now to be seen'.
["Story of the Image of Edessa," in Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin," Doubleday: New York, 1978, p.242] It
therefore readily explains the many centuries of silence about an image-bearing `shroud' as such." (Wilson,
I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000,
p.111)
26/07/2008
"Furthermore, when the man of the Shroud's eyes are viewed on the cloth itself, as the Edessans and
Constantinopolitans might have viewed them, rather than on the photographic negative that we tend to be
more familiar with today, they appear open and staring, just as if he was alive, thus readily corresponding to
this aspect of the Abgar story. And when we further learn that in the tenth century, when the cloth of
Edessa was transferred to Constantinople, the Byzantines rewrote the story of the cloth's origins to suggest
that it may have been created by Jesus' `bloody sweat' in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke: 22 44), this also
fits. It is just the sort of interpretation that anyone might come to when, ignorant of the Shroud's nature as a
shroud, they noted on the forehead watery-looking bloodflows that we, from our perspective, now
understand to have been from the crown of thorns." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The
Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.111)
26/07/2008
"The facial imprint as it appears on the Shroud ... with ... a highlighting of some of the so-called Vignon
markings that repeatedly occur in Byzantine portraits of Christ, as if copied from these anomalies to the
Shroud face: (1) two strands of hair; (2) transverse streak; (3) `topless' square; (4) `V' shape; (5) raised
eyebrow; (6) heavily accentuated eyes; (7 and 8) accentuated cheeks (9) enlarged nostril; (10) line between
nose and lip; (11) line under lower lip; (12) hairless area; (13) forked beard; (14) line across throat; (15) left
sidelock longer." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara
Books: London, 2000, p.111)
27/07/2008
"As generally agreed by most observers, the visible body on the Shroud appears to be that of a thirty-to-
forty-five-year-old male, quite naked, with beard and mustache and hair falling to the shoulders. At the back
of the head seems to be visible a long, loose rope of hair extending down the spine to the level of the
shoulder blades. Although anthropological deductions are inevitably subjective, ethnologist Carleton S.
Coon has associated the man with the very pure Semitic type found today among noble Arabs and
Sephardic Jews, and certainly there are at least broad hints of Jewishness in the hair styling. The seemingly
unbound rope of hair at the back of the head accords with what German biblical scholar H. Gressman has
referred to as one of the commonest fashions for Jewish men in antiquity, to which French scriptural
authority Daniel-Rops has supportively added the information that the Jews normally wore this "plaited and
rolled up under their headgear" except on public holidays." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild
Publishing: London, 1986, pp.15-16)
27/07/2008
"In the 1930's a French scholar, Paul Vignon, was studying the new photographs by Giuseppe Enrie. Vignon
had noticed that numerous early pictures of Christ in both the Byzantine and western traditions bore a
strong resemblance to the face of the man on the Shroud beyond just the long hair and beard. He identified
about fifteen peculiar details found on many of these early Christ-faces which could only be explained if the
Shroud face was the model. ... The most noticeable of these are: 1. Almost all portraits of Jesus show two or
three strands of hair in the middle of the forehead. The hairline is otherwise quite neat. These could be the
artist's rendering of the reverse figure `3' bloodstain the Shroudman's forehead. What other reason would
there be for the persistent strands? Or for the initial use of the strands in the first Christ-face, subsequently
copied by all the others? 2. Many portraits of Jesus show one eyebrow higher than the other, exactly as on
the Shroud face. 3. Most intriguing of all is the appearance of a strange shape that looks like a box without a
lid above a rounded V at the bridge of the nose. On the Shroud of Turin it is clearly visible and seems to be
an aberration in the weave of the cloth. 4. Most Christ-faces have a forked beard, as on the Shroud. 5. Many
of them bring the face down to a garment neck-line exactly congruent to a crease we still see on the Turin
Shroud. 6. Others, especially those that purport to depict the Edessa face, show the face alone, as if
disembodied." (Scavone, D.C., "The History of the Turin Shroud to the 14th C.," in Berard, A., ed., "History,
Science, Theology and the Shroud: Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man
in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.171-204, pp.185-186)
27/07/2008
"Much of what follows in this paper draws upon Vignon's work. [Vignon, P., "Le Saint Suaire de Turin
devant la science, l'archeologie, l'histoire, l'iconographie, la logique," Masson: Paris, 1939] St. Catherine's
Monastery, tucked away and virtually isolated in the Sinai Peninsula, was a place that evaded the
iconoclasts. Here still resides perhaps the earliest surviving portrait-icon of Christ, in encaustic on wood. It
dates from the 6th c. A comparison of this icon with the face on the Shroud of Turin will, for many, put an
end to their doubts about the Shroud. The icon is nearly perfectly congruent to the Shroud-face. Notice
especially the high right eyebrow, the very hollow right cheek, and the garment neckline. The artist seems
even to have rendered even the creases and wrinkles still seen on the Shroud, meaning that it must have
been inspired by, i.e., copied from, the Shroud. [Whanger, A. & M., "Polarized Image Overlay Technique: a
New Image Comparison Method and its Applications," Applied Optics, 24, March 15, 1985, pp.766-772]"
(Scavone, D.C., "The History of the Turin Shroud to the 14th C.," in Berard, A., ed., "History, Science,
Theology and the Shroud: Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the
Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.171-204, p.186)
27/07/2008
"In the 7th c., the Byzantine Emperor at Constantinople, Justinian II, was the first to mint coins, both
tremisses and solidi, bearing the face of Jesus on their obverse. The Jesus-faces on these coins are of
two types: the so-called Syrian Christ ... and the recently coined (no pun) `Shroudlike' Jesus." (Scavone,
D.C., "The History of the Turin Shroud to the 14th C.," in Berard, A., ed., "History, Science, Theology and
the Shroud: Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud
Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.171-204, pp.187-188)
27/07/2008
"A 6th c. vase from Homs, Syria is quite similar to the Shroud in many of the `Vignon' -- and other --
respects. Additionally, one is struck by the narrowness of the face; the distortions carved into the right side
of the face, where the Shroud face has two sizable bruises, the swollen cheek and the half-moon bruise
below; and the `light-bulb' shape of the head on its outer edge." (Scavone, D.C., "The History of the Turin
Shroud to the 14th C.," in Berard, A., ed., "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud: Symposium
Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas:
Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.171-204, p.189)
27/07/2008
"A Christ-icon of the 8th c., from the Roman catacomb of Pontianus, bears a distinct box above the nose. ...
We have to wonder why the artist put it there unless it was a marking that artists perceived on the Shroud
face. Other icons have some, but not all, of the Vignon markings, depending on what the copyist/artist saw
as he rendered his version of Christ. The point is that the very early origin of these distinctive traits
which persist in the iconography of Christ must almost necessarily be the Turin Shroud -- as early as the 6th
c. If so, it is not proof-positive that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Christ, but it powerfully refutes the
carbon-dating of the Shroud to the 13th-14th c." (Scavone, D.C., "The History of the Turin Shroud to the
14th C.," in Berard, A., ed., "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud: Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis
Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.171-
204, p.189. Emphasis original)
27/07/2008
"While waiting, I decided to reread the conclusion of The Shroud of Turin by the German Jesuit Werner
Bulst, which had been published in Germany in 1954 and in the United States in 1956. `Is it possible to
determine more closely the nationality of this man on the cloth? Since we have only a frontal image, and
moreover, since the color of the skin, hair, and eyes is unknown, it would hardly seem possible to directly
determine the racial strain with certitude. Still, the style of wearing the hair and beard allows some
deductions. The man was certainly not of the Greco-Roman culture. Of the numerous portraits we have of
Greek and Roman origin, there is not one of a man with hair parted in the middle and falling to the shoulders.
Likewise, a beard like that on the cloth of Turin is seldom found. Is this in keeping with a Jew in the time of
Christ? There was hardly a people in the whole Roman Empire who clung so stubbornly to their customs
which, for the most part, were determined by their religious beliefs. It is well known that, in contrast to other
peoples, the Jews highly regarded the beard as a manly adornment. However, we do not know exactly how
men wore their hair in the time of Jesus. But, again in contrast with other peoples even neighboring on
Israel, longish hair was thoroughly in keeping with Jewry. In his researches into the Jewish style of wearing
the hair, H. Gressman found that they generally wore long hair caught together at the back of the neck. S.
Kraus, the distinguished Jewish archaeologist, maintains that both in the talmudic and biblical period to
which Gressman extended his study, men wore `long hair' but `not too long' - a flexible gauge."In any case
we can say that the `portrait' on the cloth of Turin agrees perfectly with what we know from other sources of
the Jewish style of wearing the hair. Still these scraps of information are too meager to allow any conclusive
proof.' [Bulst, W., "The Shroud of Turin," Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI, 1957, pp.104-105]" (Wilcox,
R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, pp.129-130)
27/07/2008
"Once Stewart arrived back from lunch, we walked down through some of the halls of the institution until we
came to his office. I saw the packet of shroud information on his desk, but it turned out that he hadn't had a
chance to look at it. He was attentive to my story, however, and when I finished, he made some comments.
`The effect is of a narrow face, characteristic of the caucasoid people-a white man. Orientals tend to be
round-faced. Negroes have broad noses and thick lips. That means he could be semitic, but I would have to
see the profile to tell for sure. It looks like a large nose, and it might have been quite prominent. But there's
no way to be certain without a profile.' ... The FBI, said Stewart, frequently asked him to identify the race of a
person by bones that agents would bring in. `But we can't go beyond broad racial stocks with so little
evidence. We can say, these are from a white man, a Negro, or a Mongoloid. But you really need to see a
person in life to be positive. The shroud face is that of a white man. I think we can say that. But whether he
was from Palestine or Greece, I don't know. I don't think you can be that specific. You'd be challenged.
People would say, `How do you know? What's your proof?'" (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York
NY, 1977, pp.131,136)
27/07/2008
"Stewart suggested that I put the question to Carlton S. Coon, one of the world's most distinguished
ethnologists. A former Harvard professor and ethnology curator at the University of Pennsylvania, Coon
had written books on the racial classifications of people all over the world. `He'd be the man who might be
able to give you some answers.' `Here are the pictures that you asked me to return,' Coon wrote back in a
week's time. `Whoever the individual represented may have been, he is of a physical type found in modern
times among Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs. The soft parts of the nose have shrunken a bit, which is
simply a sign of death. I have seen the same thing in the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs. `For what it is
worth, that is my opinion.' Coon's opinion was worth a great deal, especially in view of the fact that he had
traveled widely throughout the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Africa. He was also the author of
fifteen books in the area of anthropology, including The Origin of Races, published in 1962; and The
Living Races of Man, published in 1965. As if these weren't enough accreditation, he is credited with the
discovery of at least one ancient-man fossil, Arterian man, and with leading the expeditions that discovered
two others: Hotu man and Jebel Ighoud man No. 2." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY,
1977, pp.131,136)
27/07/2008
"Is it possible to determine more closely the nationality of this man on the Cloth? Since we have only a
frontal image, and moreover, since the color of the skin, hair and eyes is unknown, it would hardly seem
possible to directly determine the racial strain with certitude. Still the style of wearing the hair and beard
allows of some deductions. The man was certainly not of the Greco-Roman culture. Of the numerous
portraits we have of Greek and Roman origin, there is not one of a man with hair parted in the middle, and
falling to the shoulders. Likewise a beard like that on the Cloth of Turin is seldom found. Is this in keeping
with a Jew in the time of Christ? There was hardly a people in the whole Roman Empire who clung so
stubbornly to their customs which for the most part were determined by their religious beliefs. It is well
known that, in contrast to other peoples, the Jews highly regarded the beard as a manly adornment." (Bulst,
W., "The Shroud of Turin," McKenna, S. & Galvin, J.J., transl., Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI, 1957,
pp.104-105)
27/07/2008
"However, we do not know exactly how men wore the hair in the time of Jesus. But, again in contrast with
other peoples even neighboring on Israel, longish hair was thoroughly in keeping with Jewry. In his
researches into the Jewish style of wearing the hair, H. Gressmann found that they generally wore long hair
caught together at the back of the neck. S. Kraus, the distinguished Jewish archaeologist, maintains that
both in the Talmudic and Biblical period, to which Gressmann extended his study, men wore `long hair' but
`not too long' - a rather flexible gauge: In any case we can say that the `portrait' on the Cloth of Turin agrees
perfectly with what we know from other sources of the Jewish style of wearing the hair. Still these scraps of
information are too meager to allow of any conclusive proof." (Bulst, W., "The Shroud of Turin," McKenna,
S. & Galvin, J.J., transl., Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI, 1957, p.105)
28/07/2008
"A DNA test was conducted in 1995 on a sample of the pigment. ... `That was not an authorized test,
but it was done from an actual sample of the shroud's blood,' Schwortz told Lauer. `They determined
that it was very degraded, but they were able to determine that it was male and human. Whether or not
newer types of DNA analysis could tell us more really would depend on the Turin authorities giving
permission for this type of testing to be done.'" (Celizic, M., "Shroud of Turin debate rekindled
Scientists re-examining whether ancient cloth could date back to Christ," MSNBC, March 21, 2008.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742885/)
29/07/2008
"Following the successful cloning of the three gene segments from the samples of blood on the Shroud, I
sent a fax to Cardinal Saldarini, telling him of our success. I received no acknowledgement. The first
indication I had of trouble was when I heard that Cardinal Saldarini had issued a statement following
`recently published press reports concerning the Holy Shroud'. The gist was that `... while the Church
recognized every scientist's right to carry out research that he feels to be suitable in his field of science, in
this case it is necessary to point out that: a) no new sample of material has been taken from the Holy Shroud
since 21 April 1988, and, as far as the Custodian of the Holy Shroud knows, there is no residual material from
that sample in the hands of third parties; b) if such material exists, the Custodian reminds everybody that the
Holy See has not given permission to anybody to keep it and do what he wants with it.' The Custodian
requests those concerned to give the piece back to the Holy See; c) as there is no degree of certainty about
whether the material in question on which these aforesaid experiments have been carried out actually comes
from the fabric of the Shroud, the Holy See and the Papal Custodian declare that they cannot recognize any
serious value in the results of the alleged experiments. The statement, dated September 1995, clearly seemed
to be directed toward my research, research I had always assumed to be bona fide, thanks to my samples
having been given to me by a person I believed had full Church authority to pass them on. From my
understanding of what Luigi Gonella had told me, the samples had been preserved on the authority of
Cardinal Ballestrero, to be utilized in future `honest' research if they were required. How was I to know that I
had been caught in a political situation in which the words of Cardinal Ballestrero would be disregarded
once he relinquished his custodianship of the Shroud to Cardinal Saldarini, as happened in September
1990?" (Garza-Valdes, L.A., "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1998, pp.75-76)
29/07/2008
"In the spring of 1996, the University Health Science Center at San Antonio published its journal, The
Mission, featuring a major article about my research on both my Maya artefacts and the Shroud of Turin,
as well as the results of the DNA testing. On the front cover was the facial image of Christ as seen on the
Shroud, with the Caption: `Secrets of the Shroud-Microbiologists discover how the Shroud of Turin hides
its true age'. The article, written by Jim Barrett, outlined my hypothesis about the bioplastic coating and
covered the work that had been done with Rosalie David's Mummy 1770. It also reported the findings of
human blood by Dr Tryon's Center for Advanced DNA Technologies. It said, in part, After months
examining microscopic samples, the team concluded in January that the Shroud of Turin is centuries older
than its carbon date.' Dr Harry Gove was quoted as saying, `This is not a crazy idea.' Having heard nothing
from Cardinal Saldarini in response to the various faxes and reports I had sent to keep him informed about
my research, I sent him a copy of the magazine. It was probably the magazine that finally elicited a response
from Cardinal Saldarini. His letter, dated July 31, 1996, and written in Italian, was translated for me by Dr
Roberto Rolfini, and it upset me greatly. In it, the Cardinal asked `by whose authority' I had done my work.
In reply, I sent Cardinal Saldarini a copy of the letter I had received from His Holiness John Paul II back in
April 1994, with my comment: `By this authority.' Perhaps it was not the most diplomatic response, given the
circumstances ... The Cardinal also accused me of not having respect for the millions who believe that the
blood on the Shroud is from Jesus. (In other words, he was asking me to hide the truth.) He asked how it
was possible for me to report that we had done studies on the blood from the Shroud. I am a Catholic ... I see
no problem with any of the studies we did. I think that the Cardinal does not understand. And he said that,
since the samples had not been given to me officially by the Church, the Church cannot recognize my
research on the Shroud. Again, I say that I was dealing with the man I believed to be the official
representative of the Church-and with samples contained in a parcel officially sealed by a signatory of the
Church." (Garza-Valdes, L.A., "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1998, pp.77-78)
29/07/2008
"The blood present on the Shroud has been studied in Europe by Dr. Pier Luigi Baima Bollone, professor of
forensic medicine (Turin University), Jose Delfin Blanco, Spanish specialist in legal medicine and by
hematologist Carlo Goldoni. They confirmed that the blood on the Shroud is human blood, indicating that
`in light of its characteristics it would seem to appear as belonging to blood type AB.' Dr. Daniel Scavone of
the University of Southern Indiana reports in an article of October 13, 1995 that in September 1994 Dr. Victor
Tryon, Director of DNA Technologies of the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio ...
`isolated three genes from Shroud blood remnants. He has obtained a segment of the Betaglobin gene from
Chromosome 11 and the Amelogenin gene from both the X and Ychromosomes. Together with the blood
analysis, the DNA research also identifies the occipital blood from the Shroud as that of an adult human
male." Dr. Tryon noted in a CBS special The Mysterious Man of the Shroud (Executive Producer Terry A.
Landau, April '97) that the blood was human, male and contained degraded DNA consistent with the
supposition of ancient blood." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific
Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.67-68. Emphasis original)
29/07/2008
"In October 1994, Dr. Victor Tryon and his wife Nancy conducted DNA testing on sample threads from
the Shroud given him by Dr. Garza-Valdes. Using a technique called PCR (polymerase chain reaction),
which multiplies the number of cells in a substance, they were able to identify three gene segments in
the blood. Tryon found that the two samples contained human blood and male DNA, which was very
degraded. According to Dr. Adler: `It's not surprising to find DNA... . It's hard to establish, however,
that the DNA came from the specific blood sample you're working with.... With really old blood, the
DNA does break down. You would get smears, instead of sharp bands.' [Allen, J., "The Shroud of Turin
and Genetic Research," The Tidings, March 21, 1997, p. 15] Dr. Garza-Valdes admits that 95% of the
blood areas on the Shroud are covered by fungi and bacteria, and the small amount of blood left will
continue to disappear with the passage of time. [Garza-Valdes, L.A., "The DNA of God?," Doubleday:
New York, 1999, p.114] With numerous people handling the Shroud throughout the centuries it is
virtually impossible to determine with absolute certitude if the DNA belongs to the same man whose
image is on the cloth. When this test result was made public, it immediately provoked controversy, for
it was an unauthorized test. Even though the scientific test may have been carried out in an unbiased
fashion, the Church does not accept the validity of these findings because the Pontifical Custodian of
the Shroud was not apprised of these `secret' samples, nor was permission granted to conduct such a
test. Cardinal Saldarini emphatically stated that `no new removal [of material from the Shroud]
happened after April 21, 1988, and there should not be any residual material in the hands of a third
party.' [The Holy Shroud Guild Newsletter, November 25, 1995, Vol. 3, No. 52, p.1] The Cardinal
demanded that any circulating samples of the Shroud be returned to his custody." (Guerrera, V., "The
Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.148)
29/07/2008
"In the early 1990s Dr. Victor Tryon, director of the Center for Advanced DNA Technologies at the Texas
University Health Science Center, obtained from Italian scientist Giovanni Riggi some small samples that
Riggi had taken in 1988 from the area of the Shroud's crown of thorns on the day that he also had removed
material from `Rae's corner' for radiocarbon-testing. Dr. Tryon and his wife Nancy, who was his chief
technician, on examination of a 1.5 millimeter fragment on sticky tape, were able to confirm that it was blood
from a male human being and were also able to `detect pieces of double-stranded DNA' and found `three
quite unmistakable gene segments.' [Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud," Free Press: New York, 1998,
p.91] Then in 1995; scientists from the Genoa Institute of Legal Medicine were able to examine two threads
that were 1.5 centimeters in length that had been taken from the foot region of the Shroud by Italian
scientists when they worked with the STURP team in 1978. Professor Marcello Canale reported that they had
been able to extract DNA from the threads. [Wilson, 1998, p.90] The fact that it does in fact contain
bloodstains does not, however, reveal the owner of the blood nor the time or manner that it was deposited
on the Shroud." (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts
Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, pp.101-102)
[top]
Copyright © 2008-2009, by Stephen E. Jones. All rights reserved. These my quotes may be used
for non-commercial purposes only and may not be used in a book, ebook, CD, DVD, or any other
medium except the Internet, without my written permission. If used on the Internet, a link back
to this page would be appreciated.
Created: 29 June, 2008. Updated: 20 July, 2009.