Stephen E. Jones

Shroud of Turin quotes: Unclassified quotes: July 2009

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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in July 2009. See copyright conditions at end.

2009: , Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

10/07/2009
"Pilgrim's Medallion A fortuitous discovery which adds another piece to the case for the Shroud's 
historicity concerns a pilgrim's medallion dating from about 1357 which was found in the Seine River in Paris 
in 1855 by Arthur Forgeais. This small lead object, most likely a souvenir of a pilgrim's visit, is now kept in 
the Museum of Cluny. It depicts the frontal and dorsal image of a body on a long sheet being held out for 
veneration by two clerics vested in copes. It is obvious that the heads are broken. The image is an uncanny 
replica of what is now known as the Shroud of Turin. The double body image depicts a naked figure with 
crossed hands and trickles of blood on the back and feet. As an added touch of realism one can also detect 
the herringbone weave pattern that appears on the Shroud. Of striking note are the two coats of arms 
represented on the reliquary beneath the Shroud on the medallion. The one on the left (as viewed by reader) 
is that of Geoffrey I de Charny, represented with three small inner shields. The original would have been 
silver on a red background. The one on the right is that of Jeanne de Vergy, represented with three flowers 
which would have been gold. Flanked between the coats of arms are the instruments of the Passion. Clearly 
visible are the flagrum, the scourging column, the lance, nails, and, in the middle of the two shields, a 
roundel symbolizing the empty tomb surmounted by a cross upon which is hung a crown of thorns. 
Although the exact date or origin of the medal is not certain, the coats of arms give us a clue. Since Geoffrey 
I de Charny was Lord of Lirey, the medallion probably came from that region. Humbert de Villersexel, the 
second husband of Marguerite de Charny, to whom various relics were entrusted for safekeeping in 1418, 
acknowledged receiving `a cloth, on which is the figure or representation of the Shroud of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which is in a casket emblazoned with the de Charny crest.' Geoffrey I de Charny died on September 
19, 1356; therefore, it is highly unlikely that his crest would have been engraved on a medallion produced 
after that year." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, 
pp.103-104. Emphasis original)

10/07/2009
"The Pray Manuscript In his book on the history of the Shroud of Turin, a Dominican priest, Fr. Andre M. 
Dubarle, O.P. remarked that an image of the Shroud appears in the first extant book in the Hungarian 
language. This manuscript is known as the Pray Manuscript or Codex, named after Georgius Pray, who 
discovered it in the eighteenth century. 53 This codex, kept at the Budapest National Library, is believed to 
have been written between 1192 and 1195 because of the historical details it relates. The manuscript 
contains four pen and ink drawings pertaining to the death of Jesus. The first panel depicts the Crucifixion; 
the second shows the descent from the Cross with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus holding the body 
of Jesus while the Virgin Mary holds His head; the third panel is divided into two, the top section showing 
the body of Jesus laid out on a cloth for burial, and the lower section depicting the arrival of the holy women 
on Easter morn who find an angel at the empty tomb; and the fourth panel is that of the glorified Christ." 
(Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.104. Emphasis 
original)

10/07/2009
"The French geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune delivered a paper at a conference in 1993 in which he discussed 
the Pray Manuscript. ... He remarked that the artist's attention to details suggested he was familiar with the 
image on the Shroud. Lejeune noted the following common characteristics between the Pray Manuscript and 
the Shroud [Lejeune, J. "Unfolding the Shroud," The Catholic World Report, July 1994, pp. 51-52]. 
o The Shroud was twice the length of a man.
o The Shroud has a herringbone weave.
o The cloth had L-shaped hole marks on the front and back.
o Jesus wore a beard and long hair.
o There is a scar above the right eye corresponding to the "3"-shaped bloodstain on the Shroud.
o The body was completely naked.
o The right hand was laid over the left.
o The fingers were unnaturally elongated, and the thumbs invisible.
o The wound on the left hand is in the palm, but on the right hand the wound is on the wrist.
o One panel shows only three nails used for crucifixion.  
One of the most minute yet most revealing similarities between the Pray Manuscript and the Shroud of Turin 
is what Wilson refers to as the `poker holes' on the Shroud. These two parallel groups of small puncture-like 
burn marks are located near the hands of the man on the Shroud and on the dorsal image on each side of the 
man's thighs. On the panel of the codex depicting the arrival of the three holy women, similar `poker holes' 
formed like an inverted, upside down `L' can be seen on the top sheet which represents the Shroud partly 
folded over. Other small holes can be seen on the bottom part of the cloth between little red Greek crosses 
representing bloodstains." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford 
IL, 2000, pp.104-105. Emphasis original)

11/07/2009
"But Professor John Jackson, director of the Turin Shroud Centre of Colorado, who believes the item dates 
from the time of Jesus's crucifixion, dismissed the Leonardo hypothesis. 'It is based on some very poor 
scientific and historical scholarship,' he said. The earliest known record of the shroud appears on a 
commemorative medallion struck in the mid-14th century and on display at the Cluny Museum Paris, he 
added. 'It clearly shows clerics holding up the shroud and is dated to around 100 years before Leonardo was 
born. 'There is no evidence whatsoever that Leonardo was involved in the shroud.' The professor believes 
the radiocarbon dating of the shroud was wrong because the sample was contaminated." (Derbyshire, D., 
"Is the Turin Shroud really a self-portrait by Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci?," Daily Mail, 1 July 
2009)

11/07/2009
"Yet, for once, the series had a reasonably strong case to make with The Da Vinci Shroud: Revealed which, 
as the title suggests, argued that while it now seems that the famous Turin Shroud cloth image of 'Jesus' is a 
medieval forgery ... the forger was, of all people, the equally famous Leonardo.This initially sounded like 
wishful thinking ... In his undoubtedly busy life, how could Da Vinci have had time to fake a religious icon ... 
Yet it wasn't just that computer mapping shows the image said to be Jesus has the same dimensions as a 
self-portrait of Leonardo (after all, a lot of faces are similarly proportioned), but the actual technical 
challenge of creating such a clear negative image on linen could only have been done by very few people. 
The forger would have had to be in the right place, with knowledge of both anatomy and art, as well as a 
technical imagination which could have conceived of a form of photography, in effect, centuries before it 
was actually invented. The attribution suddenly began to seem much less coincidental. Until ah. They got 
me again, didn't they? After all that evidence, it turned out that there's a medallion showing the shroud a 
century before Da Vinci was born. This is the Revealed way, hiding rather crucially important details until 
late on so that those new to the subject are carried along blithely only to be brought suddenly down. By 
that time, you've invested almost an hour in the theory ... It's a cheat's way of making historical 
documentaries, with standards of proof which would be laughed out of court or academia. Yet these 
programmes don't actually lie; perhaps the sensational revelations promised draw in gullible viewers but 
they do at least get a fair amount of information about the subjects in order to make up their own mind. And, 
well, they are on Five: don't expect BBC4 levels of intellectual rigour, because it's not going to happen. Still, 
it was disappointing to have been temporarily taken in. Next time I'll take advice from the theme tune to 
Five's other most implausible show, CSI Miami: I won't get fooled again." (Mullaney, A., "TV review: The Da 
Vinci Shroud - Revealed," The Scotsman, 2 July 2009)

11/07/2009
"Shortly after doing both these broadcasts [1989], Lynn received a letter from a complete stranger. ... The 
letter was intriguing. Signed simply `Giovanni,' it dealt with Leonardo and the Shroud but took the story 
much further into the realm of what appeared to be fantasy. On the radio Lynn had simply said that the 
Maestro might have been implicated in the fake, but this man claimed to have inside knowledge that 
Leonardo had been responsible. Giovanni said that she should read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail 
by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln as background to the story of Leonardo and the 
Shroud, and that he would be in touch again. We have to admit that, both of us having read the book, we 
were no wiser about Leonardo and the Shroud, although he does figure in the story as grand master of a 
secret society. ... Clearly there was a feeling that the events and theories outlined in The Holy Blood and 
the Holy Grail had some connection with the Shroud, although quite what it was eluded everyone. In due 
course, however, we made that connection. Our mystery man, Giovanni, had made some astonishing claims 
about Leonardo and the Shroud. ... He offered extraordinary pieces of information that, although seemingly 
outrageous, gave us real food for thought. He said that Leonardo had put the image of his own face on the 
Shroud. That serene, gaunt, bearded face so widely believed to be that of Jesus himself was in fact 
Leonardo da Vinci, perpetrating a sacrilegious joke on posterity. As if this were not enough in itself, he went 
further, much further. He claimed that the body on the Shroud from the neck down at the front and all of the 
back image was that of a genuinely crucified man, a fifteenth-century victim of the first-century legacy of 
man's inhumanity to man ... Our informant also told us that Leonardo had not created the Shroud image by 
painting or any other known technique such as brass rubbing. He said that it represented the Maestro's 
greatest and most daring innovation, as the image had been created using `chemicals and light, a sort of 
alchemical imprinting:' In other words, the Shroud image is actually a composite photograph of Leonardo da 
Vinci together with some hapless crucifixion victim, whose every contusion was recorded for posterity by a 
fifteenth-century camera! Over the months we received a total of thirteen letters from Giovanni, which gave 
us a great deal of information about Leonardo and the Shroud, most of which we have shown to be accurate 
through independent research and our own experiments. To sum up ... Leonardo faked the Shroud in 1492. It 
was a composite creation: he put the image of his own face on it together with the body of a genuinely 
crucified man. It was not a painting; it was a projected image `fixed' on the cloth using chemicals and light; in 
other words, he used a photographic technique. ... Giovanni also claimed to have been high in the ranks of a 
schismatic faction of the Priory of Sion, claiming that his faction was purists who believed that the modern 
organization had moved too far from its original aims and beliefs." (Picknett, L. & Prince, C., "The Turin 
Shroud: How Da Vinci Fooled History," [1994], Touchstone: New York NY, Second edition, 2006, Reprinted, 
2007, pp.87-88, 90,93)

12/07/2009
"At the time Lynn was a freelance feature writer on a women's magazine, and that afternoon it was 
organizing a mammoth photo shoot for its fashion pages. She took the portrait of Leonardo and the postcard 
into the models' dressing room ... So Lynn just showed them the two pictures and asked, `What do you 
think?' The response was instant and extremely gratifying. Out of fifteen who came and went during the 
afternoon ... eleven of them said straightaway, `It's the same man.' Two said words to the effect of `I don't 
know what you want me to say ... apart from the fact that it's the same man.' One said she didn't know what 
Lynn was after and was busy, and the last one said she recognized the man on the Shroud because she was 
a Catholic ... This unofficial vox pop was hardly evidence, although it is true that the human eye is a better 
judge than almost any other monitoring, imaging, or matching equipment, from the camera to the computer. 
Lynn had been careful not to give the models any clues as to what reaction she was looking for. We regret 
not having taken their details for future reference, but even so that episode certainly added to the growing 
enthusiasm we felt for further investigation into Leonardo and the Shroud. And it certainly made us smile 
when, months afterward, Rodney Hoare and Michael Clift of the BSTS said, respectively, `I can't see the 
similarity myself' and `The man on the Shroud looks nothing like Leonardo.' On the other hand, even other 
believers have no difficulty seeing the resemblance. One of the most priceless moments in our career came in 
2001, during the filming of a documentary about our work for the National Geographic Channel. The program 
also included a piece about the Italian sculptor Luigi Mattei, who specializes in life-size sculptures of-as he 
firmly believes-Jesus based on the image on the Shroud. During filming Mattei spontaneously declared that 
he had often remarked on the striking resemblance between the Shroud image of `Jesus' and Leonardo da 
Vinci." (Picknett, L. & Prince, C., "The Turin Shroud: How Da Vinci Fooled History," [1994], Touchstone: 
New York NY, Second edition, 2006, Reprinted, 2007, pp.90-91) 

12/07/2009
"Two English researchers, Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett, have suggested that the Shroud image was 
painted by none other than Leonardo da Vinci. According to Picknett, da Vinci created the image using an 
early photographic technique. Supposedly, a recently crucified body was used for the main image while 
Leonardo used a self-portrait for the face. [Prince, C., "Did Leonardo da Vinci Fake the Shroud?," British 
Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 28, April/May 1991, p.12] This hypothesis completely lacks 
credibility, for we know that there is documentary evidence that the Shroud was in Lirey in the 1350s and 
that it was given to the House of Savoy on March 22, 1453. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452. Isabel 
Piczek, an artist and physicist, said that `most of Leonardo's paintings are ... lost today because of his 
technical errors, despite the fact that he was one of the greatest masters of all time. So could he have created 
the Turin Shroud? It is not very likely. First, we would expect to find hundreds of sketches in his notebooks, 
describing the project from every angle and giving long instructions. We would also expect to find 
meticulously written records of the cost of the linen and all other materials used. He never once missed such 
information... . The image shows a cadaver in the state of rigor mortis. He would have had to finish his work 
before that condition changed, and that is a very limited time, too fast for the slow Leonardo... . Working at 
Leonardo's speed the man of the Shroud would have been not much more than a skeleton.' [Piczek, I., "Why 
Leonardo da Vinci Could Not Have Painted The Shroud," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, 
No. 28, April/May 1991, p.15]" (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: 
Rockford IL, 2000, pp.69-70)

15/07/2009
"The year 1453 marks one of those major changes of ownership episodes that requires special scrutiny in 
order to guard against any skulduggery or confusion, especially since there survives no actual deed of 
transfer as such. Instead, what we do have is a set of alternative documents which serve the same function. 
These comprise, from the year 1443, a petition from the dean and canons of the tiny French church of Lirey, 
urging the elderly French widow Margaret de Charny to return the Shroud to them; for the year 1453 the 
conveyance by Duke Louis I of Savoy of a small castle and some estate revenues to this same Margaret in 
return for some unspecified `valuable services' (this seems to have been what sufficed as the transfer); for 
the year 1457 an excommunication of Margaret for her failing to return the alleged Shroud to the Lirey 
clergy; for the year 1459 a lifting of the excommunication, apparently as a result of a deal having been 
struck; and finally for the year 1464, four years after Margaret de Charny's death, an agreement on Duke 
Louis's part to compensate the Lirey canons for their loss of the Shroud. Despite the lack of a formal transfer 
document, it is crystal-clear from all this data that a Christ shroud had been in Margaret de Charny's 
possession and passed into Duke Louis's. And from the fact that Duke Louis's Christ shroud passed all the 
way down through his descendants to become the Turin Shroud that we know today it follows, despite 
Margaret's and Louis's rather 'under-the-counter' way of conducting their transaction, that Margaret's Christ 
shroud must have been our Turin Shroud." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the 
World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.117)

16/07/2009
"One might well say that the Turin shroud guards its mystery to this day. Could it be possible that new 
developments may come from so unexpected a field as numismatics ? Strange as it may seem, the 
possibility cannot be excluded. It all began at NASA in 1978. At this time researchers Jackson, Jumper and 
Stephenson wanted to test the capacities of their VP8 new computer, specially for three dimensional 
extrapolation, so they submitted the face on the shroud for analysis. The image obtained, now famous, 
distinctly revealed two circular protrusions on the eyelids. The experts immediately made a connection with 
an ancient custom which advocated the placing of coins on the eyes of the dead to keep them closed. 
Archaeological excavations have confirmed this tradition. Skeletons from the first and second century C.E. 
have been found with a coin in each eye-socket at Jericho and at En Boqeq. Everything then happened very 
quickly. The following year Professor Francis Filas, a teacher at Loyola University of Chicago, made an 
enlargement of the image of the left eye and noticed a strange curved shape with traces of letters above it. 
Intrigued, he went to a ancient coins expert from Chicago, Michael Marx, who concluded that it was 
probably the image of Pilate's lituus coin. I have reproduced the relevant illustration so that anyone may 
form their own opinion on the matter. In 1980, an electronic analysis performed in the Overland Park 
Laboratory in Texas confirmed not only the soundness of Professor Filas' findings, but also allowed the 
admission of evidence of another coin on the right eye, without however being able to identify why precise 
details were absent. Other researchers, Alan and Mary Wanger, took up the investigation in 1985, applying 
the technique of polarised light superimposition; they though they detected on the left eye coin the three 
ears of barley encircled with faint traces of letters: this indicated that it could be the coin minted in year 29. 
What credibility may be given to these `discoveries' ? Like everything else touching on the Turin Shroud, 
each discovery, whether in favour of its authenticity or against, is immediately contested by supporters 
holding the opposite view. The thesis of Pilate's coins on the eyes is neither more or less argued about than 
any other discovery or supposition concerning this shroud. For my part, I must admit that I have failed to 
detect any trace of the year 29 coin on the right eye. On the other hand, the similarity of the centre left eye 
image to a coin bearing the lituus motif is actually more disturbing. The round form gives an impression 
suggestive of the lituus cross, (albeit a little less curved than in usual) surrounded by traces of letters which 
could be a vestige of the centre of the inscription `TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC' [Tiberius Caesar (42BC-AD37)]." 
(Fontanille, J.-P., "Pilate's Coins and Turin Shroud," Numismalink, 5 April 2007)

18/07/2009
"February 19, 1976, was a day physicist Dr. John Jackson will never forget ... in 1976 he was a U.S. Air Force 
captain serving as an instructor at Albuquerque, New Mexico ... he happened to call on the nearby Sandia 
Scientific Laboratories at Albuquerque, entering into a discussion of his Shroud experiments with an 
industrial radiographer, Bill Mottern, who happened at that time to be experimenting with a new piece of 
equipment, an Interpretation System's VP-8 Image Analyzer, recently developed as a spin-off from the 
NASA space research. The special feature of Mottern's Analyzer was that it translated light and shade, as 
on a black-and-white photograph, into relief, viewable `in the round' on a television monitor. In the space-
program work, two photographs taken from differing angles on the surface of the Moon could be fed into 
the machine and seen in their original relief on the television screen, an effect normally impossible in the 
case of a single photograph, such as a human portrait, which would be expected to contain insufficient relief 
information. ... Mottern had not even heard of the Shroud, but as the two men discussed it, he suggested 
that, although he did not expect anything meaningful, it might at least be interesting to see what his machine 
made of it. It was therefore with some astonishment that, after the Shroud negative had been placed in the 
Analyzer, the two scientists found themselves looking at a convincing, properly three- dimensional image 
which could be consistently rotated without distortion, the only anomalies being creases and the 1532 fire 
marks ... It was as if the Shroud, in addition to or alongside its negative characteristics, was somehow 
encoded with relief information of the body it once wrapped, which the Analyzer could reconvert back into 
its original form. As subsequent experiments revealed, no paintings produced the same effect under the 
Analyzer. For John Jackson it was visual confirmation that there was something quite extraordinary about 
whatever image-forming process was responsible for the Shroud image." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the 
Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, pp.47,49)

18/07/2009
"One of the most significant discoveries favoring the first century dating of the Shroud (and thereby 
helping to refute the Carbon-14 test dates) comes from the identification of ancient Roman coins - leptons 
minted by Pontius Pilate - over the eyes of the Man of the Shroud." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the 
Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, p.33)

18/07/2009
"The VP-8 Image Analyzer The story, as related by Ian Wilson,' begins on February 19, 1976 at the Sandia 
Scientific Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Research physicists Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric 
jumper were, at that time, Captains in the U.S. Air Force and Instructors in Albuquerque ... On that day, Drs. 
Jackson and jumper visited the Sandia Scientific Laboratory and were introduced by William Mottern, an 
industrial radiographer, to a recently developed instrument known as the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image 
Analyzer, a spin-off of the NASA Space Program research. They were joined shortly thereafter by Kenneth 
Stevenson and Giles Charter." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific 
Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.33-34. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"Discovering a Three-Dimensional Image This instrument was utilized to interpret light and dark as 
functions of distance in space. Essentially, the VP8 Image Analyzer translated light and shade, as on a 
black-and-white photograph, into relief, viewable in dimension on a television monitor ... Such relief would 
not normally be expected from a single photograph of a person, which would contain insufficient relief 
information. The group decided to place a photo of the Shroud into the Analyzer, not expecting to see 
anything meaningful. But, as Ian Wilson relates: `It was... with some astonishment that, after the Shroud 
negative had been placed in the Analyzer, the two scientists found themselves looking at a convincing, 
properly three-dimensional image which could be consistently rotated without distortion, the only anomalies 
being creases and the 1532 fire marks.' [Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 
1986, pp.47,49)] It appeared that the Shroud was encoded with relief information of the body it once 
enveloped. Subsequent experiments revealed that no paintings produced the same effect under the 
Analyzer. The three-dimensional information of the Shroud image discovered in 1976 was now added to the 
photographic negativity of the Shroud image (with actual positive blood) discovered by Secondo Pia in 1898 
... to deepen the mystery surrounding the formation of the images on the Shroud." (Iannone, J.C., "The 
Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.33-34. 
Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"Another Unique Discovery The story of the coins begins two years later in July 1978 with an article in 
The Numismatist magazine. Drs. Jackson and jumper along with Reverend Kenneth Stevenson made an 
other startling discovery. The investigators stated in their article .. that: `The result of this process (VP-8 
Image Analyzer) ... revealed objects resting on the eyes, objects which resembled small disks or "buttons." 
... In summary, ... the objects are circular, about the same size and flat.' [Jumper, E., Stevenson, K. & Jackson, 
J., "Images of Coins on a Burial Cloth?" The Numismatist, July 1978, pp.1349-1357, p.1356] They noted 
that the object on the right eye was more noticeable. The thickness of the objects was approximately 1 to 5 
millimeters and the average diameter was approximately 14 millimeters. The researchers theorized that these 
objects could be coins and they mentioned this to Ian Wilson to determine what coins might be likely 
candidates. Wilson noted that several coins from the time of Pontius Pilate were possible on the score of 
their size - approximately 15 millimeters (5/8 inch, or about the size of a United States dime). But he favored a 
lepton, the traditional widow's mite of the Bible. The authors state: `The result of his (Ian Wilson's) study 
produced the possibility of a Roman Bronze lepton of Pontius Pilate minted between 29-31 A.D. One of 
Wilson's observations was that it lacked the image of Caesar and was therefore likely to be in the 
possession of Orthodox Jews. Rather amazingly, the size and shape of the lepton are perfect.' [p.1356] The 
researchers further noted the observation of what appeared to be a "backward question mark" on the object 
on the left eye that seemed to correspond to the striking Augur's Wand (lituus, or astrologer's staff) on a 
lepton. [p.1356] Italian numismatic expert Mario Moroni also identified the lepton [Moroni, M., 
"Pontius Pilate's Coin on the Right Eye of the Man in the Holy Shroud in the Light of New Archaeological 
Findings," Berard, A., ed., "Symposium Proceedings: History, Science, Theology, and the Shroud, St. Louis, 
MO, USA, June 22-23, 1991," The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo: Amarillo TX, 1991, pp.275-301] 
." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island 
NY, 1998, pp.35-36. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"The Filas Report In 1979, the late Rev. Francis Filas, a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at Loyola 
University in Chicago, photographed an enlargement of the face of the Shroud that he had been using on 
television programs. The enlargement was made from a second generation sepia print based on the original 
1931 photographic plates of Giuseppe Enrie. Fr. Filas stated: `To my surprise, I happened to notice a sort of 
design directly over the right eye.' [Filas, F., "The Dating of the Shroud of Turin from Coins of Pontius 
Pilate," Cogan Productions, 1984, p.3] He brought the print to Michael Marx, a Greek classical numismatist in 
Chicago. As Marx scanned the photograph with his. magnifier, he called Fr. Filas' attention to four curving 
capital letters: UCAI. Together, they obtained Frederick W. Madden's History of Jewish Coinage and of 
Money in the Old and New Testament and consulted the catalog of all Pontius Pilate coins in the British 
Museum. The projected objects on the eyes matched in size and shape a coin of Pontius Pilate. Letter-like 
shapes that Filas (and later Dr. Robert M. Haralick of the Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory at Virginia's 
Polytechnic Institute and State University) read as UCAI occur in the correct position on the projected 
object on the lepton of Pilate. [p.3] Using high magnification photography of the right eye on a large print 
of the Guiseppi Enrie negative revealed four letters: UCAI. The VP-8 Image Analyzer showed raised 
letters. Fr. Filas identified these as belonging to the lepton (or widow's mite) of Pontius Pilate where the 
words TIBERIOUCAISAROS were found. The UCAI was arranged in a coin-like curve surrounding a 
shape resembling a shepherd's staff. The tiny lepton or mite of Pilate (a coin consisting of 96.5 percent 
copper and 3.5 percent tin) bears an astrologer's staff (lituus) accompanied by the inscription TIBERIOU
KAISAROS. But how does one explain the use of UCAI versus UKAI? Fr. Filas surmised that the 
Shroud's UCAI might be the central letters with a C substituted for the Greek K, a contention 
received with considerable skepticism until there came to light two actual examples (now four) of Pontius 
Pilate leptons with precisely this misspelling. [p.4] The problem of the misspelling will be addressed 
shortly. Filas noted that the UCAI was angled from 9:30 o'clock to 11:30 o'clock around the curve of the 
astrologer's staff. The lituus was a constant motif in coins minted by Pontius Pilate between 29-32 but 
never minted again by any official in Palestine nor anywhere else in the Roman world as an independent 
symbol. In addition, a clipped area of the coin from 1:30 o'clock to 3:30 o'clock was evident. [p.4] William 
Yarbrough, a numismatist in Atlanta, Georgia, provided Fr. Filas with an actual Pilate coin. Later, a confrere 
of Michael Marx, John Aiello, contributed another Pilate coin that exhibited a more elegant style. Michael 
Avi-Yonah's modern Prologomenon to the re-issuance of Madden's History of Jewish Coinage and of 
Money in the Old and New Testament, made the point that Pilate minted his coins in the Roman years of 
Tiberias, 16-18 (corresponding to 30-32 A.D.). Fr. Filas concluded that there existed a combination of size, 
position, angular rotation, relative mutual proportion, accuracy of duplication (with the exception of 'a C 
on the Shroud coin where a K existed on the Pontius Pilate coins that were examined) and parity (i.e., 
turned in the proper direction) that proved beyond reasonable doubt that these were real coins and not just 
"weave anomalies" of the linen of the Shroud. He goes on to say that the mathematical probability suggests 
that to have four letters so appear in the correct positioning around the lituus would be in the range of 
one chance in eight million.  [p.4]" (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific 
Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.36-38. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"The Julia Lepton Over the Left Eye The image of the coin area over the left eye is less distinct, but, as 
Dr. Alan Whanger stated: `We are able to determine that another Filas coin, a Julia' lepton struck only in 29 
A.D. by Pontius Pilate (and named after Julia, the mother of Tiberius Caesar) matches this rather well, having 
73 points of congruence in an area smaller than a finger print.' [Whanger, A. & M., "Floral Coin and Other 
Non-Body Images on the Shroud of Turin," Duke University: Durham NC, p.19] The Julia lepton was also 
identified (independently) by Dr. Baima Bollone (forensic medicine) and Dr. Nello Balossino (computer 
sciences) - both of the University of Turin." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New 
Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, p.38. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"Coins Over the Eyes: An Ancient Jewish Burial Custom? Recent archaeological digs have unearthed 
skeletons around Jericho that date back to the time of Christ with coins placed on the head and in En Boqeq 
in the desert of Judah, a skeleton dating to the second century with coins in each of the eye sockets- 
evidence that Jews, on occasion, placed coins over the eyes of the deceased in the time of Jesus. Some 
critics, however, state that it was not necessary to place coins over Jesus' eyes. Professor James Cameron, a 
pathologist, points out that such closing of the eyelids would have been quite unnecessary in the case of 
an individual who had died upright, the weight of the super orbital muscles performing this function 
automatically. However, this opinion is not shared by U.S. pathologist Dr. Robert Bucklin, formerly of the 
Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office. Additionally, Cameron's statement assumes that the purpose of the 
coins was to keep the eyes closed. There were, however, other reasons for such a practice in antiquity. The 
Greeks, for example, placed coins over the eyes as a tribute by the deceased to the mythical Charon, who 
had to ferry the dead across the River Styx. Early Christian graves revealed that coins were sometimes 
placed in the hand, pocket or mouth of early Christians who were buried. The Gates of Heaven had replaced 
the River Styx. It is quite probable that this Christian custom commenced from the tradition that coins were 
placed over the eyes of Jesus and that the practice, even among the Jews, has a purpose other than a 
physical one of keeping the eyes closed. In any case, placing coins over the eyes was a custom of antiquity, 
and the conclusions of the pathologist should take into consideration the facts that objects were, in fact, 
found over the eyes of the Man of the Shroud, and that such placement of coins has been noted by 
archaeologists on occasion in Jewish burials and is consistent with the customs of antiquity." (Iannone, 
J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, 
pp.38-39. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"The Haralick Report It became apparent that computer enhancement or some such sophisticated 
technique might be an important avenue to allow identification. Fr. Filas subsequently submitted the coin 
and Shroud image for comparative analysis at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's 
Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory. Dr. Robert Haralick, then at the Institute, offered cautious support to 
Filas' hypothesis while stressing the fundamental problem that science has no way of determining whether 
what appears as a coin inscription is anything but a random quirk of the Shroud's weave. In the abstract 
introducing his report, Dr. Haralick advises that: `A number of digital enhancements were performed on 
imagery digitized from the 1931 Enrie photographs of the Shroud and a 1978 S.T.U.R.P. photograph taken by 
Vernon Miller. The enhancements provide supporting evidence that the right eye area of the Shroud image 
contains remnants of patterns similar to those of a known Pontius Pilate coin dating from 29 A.D. [Haralick, 
R.M., "Analysis of Digital Images of the Shroud of Turin," Spacial Data Analysis Laboratory, Virginia 
Polytechnic Institute and State University: Blacksburg VA, December 1983, p.2] After extensive study, Dr. 
Haralick concludes: `Thus, in the enlargement of the right eye image we find supporting evidence for a 
bright oval area: a shepherd's staff pattern as the main feature in the bright area; and bright segment 
patterns just to the side and top of the staff pattern, which in varying degrees match to the letters 
OUCAIC. [p.34] Haralick goes on to caution the reader that: This evidence cannot be said to be 
conclusive evidence that an image of the Pontius Pilate coin appears in the right eye of the Enrie Shroud 
Image... however, the evidence is definitely supporting evidence because there is some degree of match 
between what one would expect to find if the Shroud did indeed contain a faint image of the Pilate coin and 
what we can in fact observe in the original and in the digitally produced images. [p.34]" (Iannone, J.C., 
"The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.39-40. 
Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"The Problem of the C Versus the K The problem still remained that the letters on the Shroud coin read 
UCAI, whereas the Pontius Pilate coin in Fr. Filas' possession read UKAI. Logic said that if a 
coinmaker were to make an error, the substitution of a C for a K in a Roman province was the most 
logical error to make. The pronunciation of `Caesar' in Latin and `Kaisaros' in Greek would have been 
identical for the hard K sound. In addition, repeated admonitions in modern coin manuals and from 
numismatists indicate that the coins of Pontius Pilate are, as a class, of wretched technical quality, poorly 
pressed, off-center and showing misspellings. [Filas, F., "The Dating of the Shroud of Turin from Coins of 
Pontius Pilate," Cogan Productions, 1984, p.15]" (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New 
Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.40-41. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"An Actual Maverick Coin In 1981, Fr. Filas took the photograph of the Pilate coin he had received from 
William Yarbrough to Gamma Laboratories in Chicago and asked them to enlarge the coin to about twenty-
five times life size in black-and-white. When Fr. F'ilas mounted the photo and stepped back to look at it, he 
noticed a definite C where the K of Kaisaros should have been located. He could not believe his eyes 
or believe that he had in his possession a coin with a maverick misspelling that had never been known to 
exist before this. The coin provided concrete proof that the misspelling had to exist in the past not only on 
the Shroud but also on an earlier example as well. 15 In 1982 a second misspelled coin was found. A coin 
dealer advised Fr. Filas that he had just sold a batch of Pilate leptons to the Rare Coin Department of the 
Marshall Field Department Store in Chicago. On November 12, 1981 Peter Meissner, Manager of Field's coin 
sales, showed Fr. Filas his Pilate coins. The third coin viewed under the magnifier seemed to read 
"CAISAROS" confirming the misspelling of C for K. [Filas, F., "The Dating of the Shroud of Turin from 
Coins of Pontius Pilate," Cogan Productions, 1984, p.16]" (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of 
Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, p.41. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"The Polarized Image Overlay of Dr. Alan Whanger Dr. Whanger made a breakthrough in Shroud studies 
in December 1981 when he came across what is called the polarized image overlay technique - a procedure 
for comparing various images. He utilized this technique to examine the areas over the eyes of the Man of 
the Shroud, and published his results in early April 1982. As he describes the technique: `Subsequently, in 
1981 we developed a method for exacting image comparison which we called the polarized image overlay 
technique in which the two images for comparison are projected one on top of the other on the same screen 
through polarizing filters at right angles to each other. By observing these images through a third polarizing 
filter which is rotated, one can shift from one image to the other and compare the two images in great detail. 
[Whanger, A. & M., "Polarized Image Overlay Technique," Applied Optics, March 15, 1985, p.766] In an 
article in 1985, Dr. Whanger tells us that, using the polarized image overlay technique with a photograph of 
Filas' coin and a computer enhanced photograph of the area over the right eye, produced by Log 
E/Interpretation Systems of Overland Park, Kansas, from the Enrie 1931 photograph: We found that there is 
a nearly perfect match between these two images. Using the same technique of image overlay, we were able 
to identify the rest of the eroded letters RIOU CAICAROC, with a reasonable degree of certainty and 
found congruencies between the coin and the Shroud image on several of these letters. [p.767] He goes on 
to say that `our conclusion is that indeed there is an identifiable coin image over the right eye of the Shroud 
of Turin and it is so similar to a known coin that the two coins must have been struck from the. same die.' 
[p.767]  Whanger also states that the use of the polarized image overlay technique `enabled us to confirm 
that indeed there is an image of a coin over the right eye and that the coin from which that image was formed 
was a die mate of a rare Pontius Pilate lepton, the only known one of its striking, in existence.' [p.767]  (Note: 
To date, six examples have been found.)" (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New 
Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.41-42. Emphasis original

18/07/2009
"The Coronal Discharge In 1982, Dr. Alan Whanger observed that the congruencies between the image 
on the Shroud and the actual coins (i.e., the die mate) were on the elevated points and irregularities on the 
coin's surface, following a pattern that one would expect from a coronal-type high energy discharge. 
[Whanger, A. & M., "Polarized Image Overlay Technique," Applied Optics, March 15, 1985, p.766] 
Oswald Scheuermann, with whom Whanger collaborated, then picked up and pursued this line of 
investigation. Scheuermann has developed remarkable skill and experience in producing coronal type images 
both photographically and on linen. Dr. Whanger states: `His (Scheuermann's) methods are similar to 
electrophotography or Kirlian photography. He has produced coronal images of, and off of, a wide variety 
of materials which have enabled us to have much better ideas of what various images might look like and 
this has made it much easier to identify and understand images and patterns seen on the Shroud, even 
though the exact mechanism of formation of the Shroud image remains a mystery. ' [p.767] He further notes 
that coronal-type images tend to come off of pointed and irregular surfaces, as well as margins. Where the 
object is in touch with the surface (Shroud, linen, photo graphic plate), the image tends to be dense. Where 
the object is partially in contact with the surface, the outline is dense and partial, with a light central area. 
[p.767] The presence of such coronal discharges and the ability to duplicate them on linen seems to provide 
further proof (or certainly lend credence to the claim), that there were in fact real coins over the eyes on the 
Shroud and not just quirks or anomalies of the linen weave of the Shroud. It should be noted that optical 
specialist Kevin Moran of Charlotte, North Carolina, questions this conclusion of coronal discharges and 
more research is recommended." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific 
Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.42-43. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"A Medieval or Renaissance Artist? Dr. Whanger observes that, since this unique coin, struck in 29 A.D., 
was not found until 1977, it is hardly plausible to claim that a medieval artist (or forger) would have included 
this tiny detail of a coin then unknown and that could not be discerned for at least another five hundred 
years when optical, photographic and computer imaging techniques would first be able to demonstrate such 
fine points. [Whanger, A. & M., "Polarized Image Overlay Technique," Applied Optics, March 15, 1985, 
p.767] Fr. Filas supports the authenticity also by saying that: `The conclusion points in one inescapable 
direction: forgery of the Shroud is utterly impossible. No forger in the Middle Ages or even earlier would 
have been able to fabricate tiny imprints over both eyes on the Shroud cloth in photographic negative - with 
no pigment - reflecting letters 1/32 inches high with a rare misspelling, including an astrologer's staff existing 
practically nowhere else in numismatic history in full size of 1/2 inch, from one Roman coin (Pilate lepton) 
issued certainly in Palestine in 29 A.D. - and a second Roman coin (Julia lepton) whose traces point again to 
Palestine and 29 A.D.' [Filas, F., "The Dating of the Shroud of Turin from Coins of Pontius Pilate," Cogan 
Productions, 1984, p.20] (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St 
Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.43-44. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"Three questions begin to emerge that apply to so many aspects of the study of the Shroud with regard to a 
medieval or Renaissance forgery theory: 1. How would a medieval or Renaissance artist (or forger) have had 
access to refined information encoded in the Shroud, information only recently discovered by scientists, 
artists, historians, archaeologists and forensic pathologists? 2. Even if such an artist or forger had the 
information, how could that artist or forger have duplicated such information in microscopic detail well 
before the invention of the microscope and then done this in negative reverse photography, and three-
dimensionality? 3. Finally, why would such an artist or forger have utilized this information or 
methodology at a point in history when the people of that time could not possibly have realized or 
appreciated the microscopic presence of a rare, misspelled coin, not to mention pollen, mites, limestone dust 
from the cave-tombs of Jerusalem or microscopic dirt on the heel, knee or tip of the nose of the victim?" 
(Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 
1998, p.44. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"Conclusion As noted previously, there are some today who think the coins over the eyes may represent 
a weave anomaly or a quirk of the linen-weave, or even that the coins may be a figment of a vivid 
imagination. The evidence, however, seems overwhelming in favor of the presence of coins over the eyes. In 
this regard, Picknett and Prince in their book Turin .Shroud: In Whose Image?, in an effort to prove that 
Leonardo da Vinci `faked' the Shroud, make the astounding statement that Fr. Francis Filas is an 
`enthusiastic researcher,' and that `most other researchers ascribed this to Filas' imagination, and when 
S.T.U.R.P. made a special search for the coins, they could not find them."[Picknett, L. & Prince, C., "Turin 
Shroud: In Whose Image?," Harper Collins: New York, 1994, p.26] Picknett and Prince simply gloss over in 
one sentence the evidence just presented to promote their Leonardo theory." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery 
of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, p.45. Emphasis original)

18/07/2009
"However, in their recent book The Shroud and the Controversy, S.T.U.R.P. researcher Kenneth 
Stevenson and his colleague Gary Habermas state, regarding objects over the eyes: there is definitely 
something in both locations, not merely anomalies in the weave patterns of the cloth as some Shroud 
opponents and even team members have suggested. All of the three-dimensional images that I (Stevenson) 
have examined give evidence of something round and solid on the eyes. The fact remains that something is 
there, and the most logical explanation still suggests that they are coins .... [Stevenson, K. & Habermas, G., 
"The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville, 1990, p.165] We noted at the beginning of 
this chapter that the original report published by S.T.U.R.P. leaders Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Eric Jumper and 
Rev. Kenneth Stevenson in The Numismatist showed dense, circular disks or button-like objects that 
must still be explained and cannot be explained by the `weave anomaly theory.' The application of 
mathematical probability as explained by Fr. Filas; the utilization of various methodologies including the 
NASA VP-8 Image Analyzer for three-dimensionality by physicists and S.T.U.R.P. leaders Jackson and 
jumper; the use of macro-photography to enlarge the image; the computerized digital enhancement by Dr. 
Robert Haralick at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory; 
the coronal discharge and polarized image overlay for congruence as explained by Dr. Alan Whanger and 
Oswald Scheuermann - all point to objects over the eyes of the Man of the Shroud. This is hardly the work 
of `Filas' imagination,' but rather overwhelmingly supports the presence of ancient Roman lepton coins. 
Such evidence, while not convenient for Picknett and Prince, strongly refutes the medieval / Renaissance 
forgery theory and the medieval dating of the Carbon-14 test to be addressed further on." (Iannone, J.C., 
"The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.45-46)

19/07/2009
"SUMMARY The two roundish bodies in relief, pointed out by J. Jackson and G. Tamburelli, and a few 
alphabetical letters arranged circle-wise, detected by Father Filas, are the premises for considering that coins 
were placed in the eye-socket areas of the Shroud. Now this hypothesis is beginning to consolidate: the 
shape of the `K' letter, a small `pastoral' or `shepherd's' staff with a crooked end, and two faint parallel 
segments just under the vertical line, are imprinted on the right eye: it is missing the rim of the coin, but there 
is the presence of a roundish halo reveals its rim. The coin, we have found out, never known before by 
numismatists, having an irregular diameter, with a maximum axis of 16mm, in addition to the imprint of a staff 
in the shape of `a question mark' reversed, has also the imprint of two segments, only a few millimeters long, 
which certainly do not belong to the `shepherd's staff' outline, but are part of the stamp. Furthermore, the 
discovery of an ancient stone, used to found coins of the first century, explains the possible rare presence 
of the two segments: these segments be imprinted on any point on the rim of the coin, caused by tongs 
which are used during the final step of coinage. By radiographic experiments carried out on a skull and by 
using coins of that period, we also confirm that only a certain kind of small coins laid on the eyes can reach 
the medialis hollow of the skull when these coins come out of the `superior orbitalis fissure.' Moreover, it 
will be explained that the coins placed in the mouth fall, in the contrary, outside the skull due to decay. Also 
the well-known discovery of two skulls - both with two small coins of Christ's time - at the Jewish 
Community Cemetery of Jericho, lead us to the irrefutable conclusion that on the Shroud cloth a decal of a 
coin really was imprinted which portrayed a `staff' or LITUUS, the symbol existing uniquely on very rare 
coins minted by Pontius Pilate in the XVIth year of the Tiberius Kingdom, 29-30 AD." (Moroni, M., "Pontius 
Pilate's Coin on the Right Eye of the Man in the Holy Shroud, in the Light of the New Archaeological 
Findings," 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.295-297. Emphasis original)

20/07/2009
"`Pilate' Coins Covering the Eyes Another of Jackson and Jumper's discoveries related to the eyes. Rather 
than being closed - as had been assumed from the lack of visible detail in all previous photographs - the 
eyes seemed to be covered by small objects. Jackson and Jumper thought they were coins, knowing that it 
was a custom in the first century AD for coins to be placed over the eyes of a corpse, to keep them closed. 
For an expert opinion on the objects that appeared to cover the eyes, the magnified image was examined by 
Father Francis Filas SJ, a professor of theology at Loyola University in Chicago. A computer enhancement 
of the image was then examined by Michael Marx, a Greek classical numismatist, who opined that the object 
covering the right eye seemed to be a lepton, a Roman bronze coin of about 1.5 centimetre diameter minted 
during the time of Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judaea from AD 26 to 36. To confirm this, they 
referred to Fredrick W Madden's History of Jewish Coinage and of Money in the Old and New Testament 
and to the British Museum's catalogue of all Pontius Pilate coins. From close analysis of the object covering 
the right eye Father Filas and Marx were able to detect 24 characteristics matching a coin that was 
catalogued as having been minted between AD 29 and 32 during Pilate's rule. [Filas, F.L., "The dating of the 
Shroud of Turin from Coins of Pontius Pilate," Cogan Productions, 1984] They recorded that the object is 
the same size, the same cut, and bears the same effigy of an astrologer's staff, a lituus - the emblem of 
Pontius Pilate - as a catalogued coin. Also seen on the border of the lepton were the letters UCAI at 
approximately the 10 o'clock position. These letters were found to correlate with the part of the inscription 
curving around the inner border of a catalogued Pilate coin reading TIBERIOUCAISAROS. These letters, 
translated from Latin into English, read `of Tiberius Caesar' - the Roman Emperor at the time of Jesus' death. 
Further analytical work on the coins-over-the-eyes images was carried out by the prominent sindonologists, 
Dr Alan Whanger, a Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University and Mrs Mary Whanger, after Father Has 
had sent to them the coin that he had identified with the coin image over the right eye. Using their detailed 
image overlay technique to compare the coin - a lepton once known as a `widow's mite' - with the Shroud 
image, the Whangers found Filas' observations to be quite accurate. They had verified to their satisfaction 
the image on the Shroud of a known coin." (Whiting, B., "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: 
Strathfield NSW, Australia, 2006, pp.98-99. Emphasis original)

20/07/2009
"The coin over the left eye was not seen as distinct, but according to three sources it was identified as a 
Pontius Pilate lepton, known as a joulia lepton (Julia), which was struck only during a six-month period in 29 
A.D. in honour of Julia, the mother of Tiberius Caesar. Although this coin is smaller than a finger-print, Dr 
Alan Whanger, using his `Polarized Image Overlay Technique', found 73 points of congruence between the 
left-eye image and the Joulia lepton. [Whanger, M. & A., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of 
Discovery," 1998, p.26] Dr Pierluigi Baima-Bollone, a professor of forensic medicine, and computer scientist 
Dr Nello Balossino, both of the University of Turin, concurred with Whanger's conclusion. Here now 
seemed to be irrefutable palaeographical dating of the image on the cloth to possibly the very year of 
Christ's death. What a strange quirk of fate that, after having allowed Christ to be crucified contrary to a law 
of Caesar and, presumably, having ordered all of the evidence to be hidden, Pilate's own coins had been 
buried with the body." (Whiting, B., "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, 
2006, pp.100-101)

20/07/2009
"Filas became convinced that there are indeed images of coins over the eyes. [Filas, F.L., "The Dating of the 
Shroud of Turin from Coins of Pontius Pilate," Cogan Productions: Youngtown AZ, Second edition, 1982] 
He identified the one over the right eye definitely as a lituus lepton of Pontius Pilate; and on very minimal 
evidence (three very short curving lines that seemed to spread away from each other from a common source) 
suggested that the one over the left eye was likely also a Pontius Pilate lepton but of a different design, that 
of a sheaf of barley, which is found on a Pontius Pilate lepton known as the Joulia (Julia) lepton, which 
was struck only during a six-month period in A.D. 29 in honor of Julia the mother of Tiberius Caesar. These 
findings received a very mixed reaction: while some accepted them as at least possible, others met them with 
derision. ... Finally, some who had derided him began to concede that maybe there are tiny letters there, but 
if so this finding still could not point to Jesus ... because the letters Filas claimed to see were UCAI, while if 
they came from a Pontius Pilate lepton, they should have been UKAI. Therefore, so the argument went, the 
letters must be from some coin other than a Pilate lepton and therefore from a different locale and time. 
Although lepta of Pontius Pilate were Jewish coins struck in a Roman province, the inscriptions of the 
Emperor's name were in Greek, TIBERIOU KAISAROS (Of Tiberius Caesar). While these coins were crudely 
struck with frequent misspellings, no coins had ever been found with the Emperor's name misspelled in such 
a way. Filas continued to defend his findings. In May, 1981, at Filas's request, Log/E Interpretations 
Systems personnel, using Standard Earthview equipment, digitized photographs of both eye areas of the 
Shroud face image. The enhancement for the right eye area shows clearly the letters UCAI, the curving staff, 
and the coin outline. These features are more prominent where the object itself had touched or almost 
touched the Shroud cloth, as would be expected from earlier studies which had shown that the density of 
image is proportional to the distance between the body and the cloth." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., 
"The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, 
pp.24-25. Emphasis original)

20/07/2009
"The left eye area showed the outline of the coin and other features which were not recognized as pattern 
until the following year when we used our Polarized Image Overlay Technique to examine this area. Then in 
August, 1981, Filas had Gamma Laboratories of Chicago enlarge a black and white photograph of his Pilate 
lepton to twenty-five times life-size. In photography, shades and contrasts may be more discernible in black 
and white than in color. On looking at it for the first time, to his great surprise he suddenly saw the letter C 
where K should have been! He could hardly believe that he had in his possession a coin with the never-
before-seen misspelling. The coin is somewhat eroded, but the enlarged letter is clear. Once again, 
something astonishing was about to happen. In November, 1981, Filas went to the coin sales department of 
Marshall Field's, where the manager showed him their collection of Pilate coins. The third coin he inspected 
had the aberrant C misspelling! When he asked about buying the coin, he was told that it wasn't worth 
much, so he could just have it. So now he had in his possession not one, but two, lituus lepta with the 
previously unknown misspelling, and both had been given to him. Later, Filas located two more lituus lepta 
with the C misspelling. It was soon after this that we held our first press conference and someone from the 
Duke News Service challenged us to look at the Filas coins. This was something we had wanted to do 
anyway, and it didn't take Alan long to get in touch with Filas, who was delighted and gratified that 
someone was at last taking him seriously and was willing to examine the evidence. He promptly sent us 
excellent photographs of his coins, both of his original lituus lepton and of a joulia lepton which he had 
purchased as an example, and also of the Log/E Interpretations Systems computer enhancements." 
(Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House 
Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.25-26)

20/07/2009
"Polarized image overlays revealed seventy-four points of congruence (PC) between the image on the right 
eye of the Shroud and Filas's lituus lepton, and seventy-three PC between the left eye image and the joulia 
lepton! Remember, in a court of law it takes only fourteen PC to establish same source of fingerprints. These 
coins are much smaller than a fingerprint. For the right eye, there is a clipped edge on one side of the Filas 
coin that matches a clipped edge on the Shroud image. The letters, which are about one and one-half 
millimeters high, match remarkably: about half of the letter U, which actually is the Greek letter upsilon and 
shows the tail looking like a Y; all of the letter C; two-thirds of the letter A; the lower half of the letter I; as 
well as parts of other letters. On the coin there is a circular die defect at the base of the letter A; the same die 
defect can be clearly seen on the Shroud. We know the Filas coin is not the same coin as the one whose 
image is on the Shroud because the letters on the upper left edge are more complete on the Shroud than 
they are on the Filas coin. But the Filas coin is a die mate of the one that made the image, and that is as 
astonishing as anything in this entire coin saga because it is so unlikely." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., 
"The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, 
pp.26-27)

20/07/2009
"These coins were crudely designed and crudely struck. They were made from cast bronze bars of coin 
blanks into which the design was hammered and then the coin was cut from the bar, leaving a flat or clipped 
edge on one side. The iron dies would last only for perhaps a thousand or two thousand coins and then 
would deform or break and a new die would have to be made. Hence there are countless variations of the 
same design, many misspellings, and many variations of position. We've looked at hundreds of lepta, and 
have never seen any two alike, even of the same design. How truly extraordinary, then, to find a coin that is 
a die mate of the one whose image is on the Shroud! A later count of every feature shown on the right eye 
enhancement with the Filas coin showed two hundred eleven PC and only eighty-four discordant points, or 
points that don't match. Since we know that the Filas coin is not the actual coin whose imprint is on the 
Shroud, we did not expect every point to match." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: 
An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.27-28)

20/07/2009
"Then came another exciting development. Until this time, it had been thought that the lituus lepta were 
struck only in the years A.D. 30-32. Dating was according to the regnal year of the Emperor rather than by 
calendar year. Greek letters were used to represent numbers. Using a photograph of the reverse side of the 
Filas coin, we used the Polarized Image Overlay Technique to compare the coin's features with Greek letters 
that correspond to the years A.D. 29-32, as found in Madden's History of Jewish Coinage, and of Money 
in the Old and New Testament. We identified three tiny letters: L (signifies that the letters following have 
numerical value), I (number value of ten), and a letter called Stigma that looks something like a rounded 
number five that was at that time becoming obsolete (number value of six). Thus the coin was dated to the 
sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, which is A.D. 29. Completely unknown to us, on the same day, 
William Pettit, Research Specialist for the Standard Catalog of World Coins, visited Filas to examine his 
coins, and discovered the same dating!" (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An 
Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.28-29)

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