Shroud of Turin

A linen cloth bearing the faint image of a man, venerated by some Christians as Jesus’s burial shroud. Its age, provenance, and image formation remain disputed.

Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin: A 1988 test dated a sample from the shroud’s edge to the medieval period. The test supplied the strongest published scientific evidence for a medieval origin.
Image formation on the Shroud of Turin: The unresolved question of how the shroud’s faint body image formed on its linen fibers. The image’s shallow, superficial coloration is central to debates about its origin.
Raymond Rogers: An American chemist who studied the shroud and challenged the representativeness of its radiocarbon sample. His chemical analysis became a prominent criticism of the 1988 dating.
Medieval forgery hypothesis: The explanation that the shroud’s image and relic status originated in the medieval period. It fits the radiocarbon date and the cloth’s first secure historical appearances.
Rogers's textile analysis: Raymond Rogers’s chemical study argued that the radiocarbon sample came from a repaired area. It challenged whether the tested corner represented the rest of the cloth.
Secondo Pia: An Italian lawyer and photographer whose 1898 photograph of the shroud appeared to show a positive image. His negative image made photographic properties a major part of the shroud’s modern story.
Walter McCrone: An American microscopist who argued that pigments on the shroud accounted for its image. His interpretation directly opposed claims that the image required an unusual process.
Painted-image hypothesis: The proposal that pigment or another applied material produced the shroud’s image. Microscopic studies and experiments have tested whether an artist could have made the image.
Shroud of Turin in history: The documented history of the cloth, from its appearance in medieval Europe to its present custody. The earliest secure records place the shroud in France in the fourteenth century.
Shroud of Turin Research Project: A 1978 scientific examination of the shroud conducted by an interdisciplinary team using non-destructive tests. Its investigators studied the image, stains, and cloth directly, publishing findings in 1981.

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