Pod Insights Short History Of... The Shroud of Turin About this episode The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Its most famous feature is the blurry imprint of a man’s face, which resembles the pictures of Jesus that have passed down to us over the centuries.
Revered by millions, the Shroud is the most scientifically studied object in the world, but why does its recorded history only reach back to the 1350s? Where did it go in the intervening centuries? And will we ever be able to prove whether it’s a real relic, or medieval forgery?
This is a Short History Of The Shroud of Turin.
A Noiser Production. Written by Nicola Rayner. With thanks to Nora Creech, a Shroud educator and the leader of Othonia in North America, a church-affiliated organisation dedicated to sharing knowledge about the Shroud of Turin.
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1:07 Speaker 02 It is December the 4th, 1532, in the alpine town of Chambéry, in what is today southeastern France.
1:17 Speaker 02 In the dead of night, a young blacksmith is woken by a frantic knocking at his door.
1:25 Speaker 02 As he stumbles out of bed, rubbing his eyes, he recognizes the stench of smoke in the air.
1:32 Speaker 02 At the door is a breathless cleric. His sooty face is streaked with sweat and his cassock dusted with ash.
1:42 Speaker 02 He explains that the chapel is on fire at the Château de Chambéry, the seat of the Dukes of Savoy. And worse: The holy shroud, said to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, is trapped, locked behind an iron grill. They need his help.
2:03 Speaker 02 The blacksmith throws on a linen shirt and breeches, then, after quickly gathering his tools and wrapping them in their leather roll, he hurries after the cleric.
2:13 Speaker 02 As the pair make their way through the narrow town streets, Chambrai is in chaos with panicked cries.
2:20 Speaker 02 They climb the hill to the chateau, which overlooks the town. As they approach an arched gateway, guards, holding gleaming halberds, wave them urgently through, and soon they're close enough to feel the heat.
2:35 Speaker 02 Looking up, they see flames licking at the high gabled roof and narrow Gothic windows of the pale austere chapel. They slip through a side entrance, as timbers crack and shriek overhead.
3:00 Speaker 02 Sweat beads instantly on the blacksmith's brow as he follows his guide down a smoke-filled corridor. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, a beam collapses with a booming crash.
3:15 Speaker 02 Coughing and half-blinded by the smoke, they find their way to where the shroud is kept behind the high altar of the chapel. There, the canon and two Franciscan friars in brown habits crowd around a cavity in the wall.
3:31 Speaker 02 Inside it, the precious silver casket is secured by an iron grill with four locks, each opened by separate keys.
3:40 Speaker 02 "But in this heat," the cleric explains, "the locks have deformed and are failing to open." Hence the holy men's desperation as they try to prise the grill off with makeshift tools. With no time to waste, the blacksmith gets to work. He reaches for his hammer first and begins to use it, the sound echoing from the high vaulted roof as he swings it down hard to break through the locks. He shatters the first and then moves on to the others, with the heat now becoming truly unbearable. At last, with a great heave, he forces the final lock open, and the blisteringly hot grill gives way and crashes to the ground.
4:24 Speaker 02 Using cloth-wrapped hands, the men drag the silver casket free, its surface already softening in the heat. It's too risky to open it here, but as they carry the casket out of the burning building, the blacksmith joins with the muttered prayers of the monks that the Holy Shroud has survived the inferno.
4:53 Speaker 02 The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Housed in a chapel at the cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy since 1578, it bears the faint image of a man who appears to have suffered wounds consistent with crucifixion.
5:15 Speaker 02 Most famous of all is the blurry imprint of his face, which resembles the pictures of Jesus that have come down to us over the centuries.
5:26 Speaker 02 Revered by millions, the Shroud is the most scientifically-studied object in the world.
5:33 Speaker 02 But why does its recorded history only reach back to the 1350s, when it turns up in L'Orée, France? Where did it go in the intervening centuries? And will we ever be able to prove whether it is the real thing or a medieval forgery?
5:50 Speaker 02 I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Network, this is A Short History of the Shroud of Turin.
6:04 Speaker 02 The truth about the birth, life, and death of Jesus is something that divides historians and theologians to this day. But even so, they tend to be in agreement that around 6 to 4 B.C., a child named Jesus is raised in Nazareth, a small town in Galilee, a region under Roman rule. In adulthood, he gathers a group of followers, known as his disciples. But his teachings, through parables and sermons, often challenge social and religious norms and criticize the elite, leading to fierce opposition from those in power.
6:41 Speaker 02 Sometime around the years 30 to 33, Jesus is arrested in Jerusalem, and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate sentences him to death by crucifixion. According to the Bible, before he is executed, Jesus is flogged with a Roman scourge, a type of whip with sharp pieces of bone or metal. The soldiers then mock him by dressing him in a robe and putting a crown of thorns on his head, pretending to honor him as the king of the Jews.
7:15 Speaker 02 Nora Creech is a Shroud educator and the leader of Athonia in North America, a faith-based organization dedicated to sharing knowledge about the Shroud of Turin.
7:25 Speaker 03 When Jesus was crucified, the Gospels tell us that a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea purchased a precious linen cloth to bury the body of Jesus in. So it is mentioned in all four Gospels. However, in the Gospel of John, he very clearly describes the grave clothes that Jesus was buried in: the large linen cloth plus the face cloth that had covered his face when he hung on the cross.
7:57 Speaker 02 After his death, Jesus's followers begin spreading his teachings, believing he is the promised Messiah who has risen from the dead. These early believers don't call themselves Christians. They refer to their movement as "the Way."
8:13 Speaker 02 But in the coming decades, followers of "the Way" are persecuted, both by Jewish religious authorities and the Roman Empire.
8:22 Speaker 02 To the Romans, their refusal to worship Roman gods or the emperor is both unpatriotic and blasphemous. As a result, early Christians often meet in secret, in homes, in caves, or catacombs, to avoid persecution.
8:40 Speaker 02 As for Jesus's burial cloth, many theories exist about what happens to it. Some say early Christians hide it to protect it from destruction during these times of oppression. It is a matter that is complicated when Rome sacks Jerusalem in response to a major Jewish revolt against Roman rule in 70 AD.
9:02 Speaker 03 Jerusalem was destroyed, and so the people left the city of Jerusalem. And so there is a theory that the shroud was taken to the city of Antioch, which was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. And it's where a lot of the Jewish people fled after the fall of Jerusalem. Another theory is that the shroud was taken to the city of Edessa, which is in modern-day Turkey.
9:28 Speaker 02 According to early Christian tradition, many years previously, King Abgar V of Edessa fell sick and wrote to Jesus, asking him to come and heal him. Though Jesus allegedly declined the invitation, the story goes that he promised to send one of his disciples at a later point.
9:45 Speaker 03 And so the legend goes that the apostle Jude Thaddeus brought the shroud to the king, King Abgar, and that Abgar was healed of his physical ailment. It's thought that he had leprosy. So this tradition has been handed down over the centuries, that shroud was in Edessa for many centuries after the resurrection.
10:15 Speaker 02 Records from the 6th century make mention of a cloth called the "image of Edessa", also known as the "mandilion", which is said to bear an image of Christ's face. Some argue that this artifact could in fact be the item later known as the "Shroud of Turin", folded in such a way that only the face is visible.
10:36 Speaker 02 According to a sermon by the archdeacon of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the cloth from Edessa is transferred to his city in AD 944. Byzantine sources from this period begin to describe a fabric bearing a full-body imprint, lending weight to the idea that the image of Edessa and the shroud are one and the same.
11:03 Speaker 02 But in 1204, the French and Venetian forces of the Fourth Crusade attack Constantinople. The city is sacked, and many relics, possibly including the cloth, are looted. The Venetians take the gold, while the French claim the relics. The image of Edessa disappears from historical records, though many believe it is taken to Western Europe by one of the Crusaders.
11:29 Speaker 03 However, this is a hard journey to document because the Shroud was known by different names then. It wasn't called the Shroud of Jesus, it was not called the Shroud of Turin. It may have been called the Image of Edessa, or it may have been called the Mandilion. These are images from history that seem to have characteristics similar to the Shroud, and historians think they could have been referring to the same image, but it's still being actively researched.
12:02 Speaker 02 For now, the trail goes cold. But in the century that follows, a remarkable relic emerges in France, raising new hopes and fresh controversy.
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13:20 Speaker 02 In the 1350s, a French knight named Geoffroy de Chani founds a church in the village of Lyree in north-central France. Here, he and his wife display a cloth that they claim is the burial shroud of Jesus. It is a long, rectangular piece of linen, measuring around 4.4 meters by 1.1 meters. But what's important is the faint, sepia-toned image it bears.
13:50 Speaker 03 The reason why it's captured the attention of people over the centuries is because it has a very mysterious image on it, and it's a full-body image of a man. So we have the full front and the full back of a naked man. His arms are crossed over his pelvis, and this man has been scourged. He's been crowned with thorns. He shows the wounds of crucifixion, and he's been pierced in the side.
14:20 Speaker 02 Most notable of all is the faint, blurry likeness of a man's face, complete with beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair. As proving his identity beyond doubt is impossible, he is often known as "The Man of the Shroud." But there are other, arguably more compelling, reasons that some believe this could be the shroud of Jesus of Nazareth.
14:49 Speaker 03 There are many features of the shroud that tie it specifically to the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. The most obvious is what is known as the Crown of Thorns. So "The Man of the Shroud" and "Jesus of Nazareth" are the only people in recorded history who were both crowned with thorns and then also crucified. So that is a very, very unique feature. The other thing that really stands out in that respect is that both "The Man of the Shroud" and "Jesus" were crucified, but then buried in this exquisite cloth that was priceless. And so that would have been completely unheard of because crucifixion victims were crucified
15:33 Speaker 03 in an effort to humiliate them and to serve as a caution to other people that if you misbehave and you go against the Roman authorities, this is what will happen to you.
15:47 Speaker 02 Ordinarily, les corps de gens qui ont souffert de l'ordeil de crucifixion dégradant sont jetés dans une pente comme une humiliation finale. Mais qu'ils soient ou non les uns et les autres, pour le homme de la poudre et Jésus de Nazareth, aucune dépense n'a été dépensée sur le tissu de cimetière.
16:05 Speaker 03 Sur la poudre, nous voyons ce linge magnifique, tissé dans cette bouche de hache qui était exquis et aurait pu être sans prix au début du premier siècle. Cela aurait été comme de l'or ou de la ferme d'acheter un tissu de cette qualité magnifique. Et donc nous voyons que l'homme de la poudre est victime de torture, d'abuse et de crucifixion, et pourtant il a été enterré de façon amère dans ce magnifique tissu.
16:34 Speaker 02 Même s'il ne peut pas savoir pour sûr, Geoffroy de Charny croit que la poudre est une vraie relique, et donc à la grande foule de pilgrines qui viennent la visiter.
16:46 Speaker 02 Mais comment il a obtenu le tissu est inconnu. Malgré l'interrogation plusieurs fois, il n'explique jamais comment la poudre est arrivée à son possession. Peut-être un ancien de son a participé au sac de Constantinople et l'a pris. Mais si c'est le cas, de Charny ne le fait jamais. Peut-être conscient que le pape au moment de la quatrième crusade menaçait l'excommunication pour tous ceux qui se trouvaient coupables de voler des reliques.
17:15 Speaker 02 Une autre théorie est que un franco français appelé Otto de La Roche a gagné la poudre comme prix de la quatrième crusade et l'a passée à travers les générations à Jean de Vergi, la femme de Geoffroy de Charny. Dans tous les cas, la garde de l'artefact ne dure pas longtemps. Pas longtemps après qu'il trouve sa churche, il meurt en bataille contre l'Angleterre.
17:42 Speaker 02 A few decades later, the Bishop of Troyes, who has jurisdiction over the church where the shroud is still exhibited, sends a memorandum to the Pope. He states that the relic is a forgery, and even claims that his predecessor has found the artist who made it. The Pope responds by allowing the church in Lirey to continue showing the shroud, on the condition that it is presented not as a true relic, but simply an artwork depicting what Christians call "the Passion", the events leading up to and including Jesus's death. It remains in the family for another century, until in 1453, Joffa's granddaughter, Margrethe de Chani,
18:25 Speaker 02 transfers its ownership to Duke Louis I of Savoye.
18:30 Speaker 03 The Savoye family was the ruling family of the southern part of France and the northern part of Italy. So she transferred the shroud to the Savoye ownership in exchange for two castles. And so the Savoye took possession of the shroud, and for several years, about 50 years, they traveled from castle to castle and they took the shroud with them on their journeys. And they would display the shroud to show that they had been given this divine right to be the rulers of this area.
19:04 Speaker 02 Around 50 years after they've acquired the shroud, the house of Savoye builds a chapel in which to keep it, in Chambéry in southeastern France. And there is good news from the Vatican, when in 1506, Pope Julius II, who is more supportive of the artifact than some of his predecessors, awards the shroud its own feast day on May the 4th.
19:28 Speaker 02 But in 1532, a terrible fire breaks out in the chapel.
19:34 Speaker 02 A team of rescuers managed to extract the shroud from where it is kept under lock and key, but not before the heat causes the metal box to melt. A small piece of molten silver drips onto the corner of the folded fabric, burning holes through the cloth.
19:51 Speaker 03 So today, when you look at the shroud, the most prominent feature that draws your eye are these burn marks. So there's holes in a triangular shape in a repeating pattern throughout the fabric that go all the way through the fabric, and then there's lines where the fabric was folded that are scorch marks.
20:14 Speaker 02 But not long after the fire, the house of Savoy moves its capital to the city of Turin in northwestern Italy. The family build a palace on the same complex as the city's cathedral and commission a chapel specifically to house their prized possession. The resulting Chapel of the Holy Shroud is a Baroque masterpiece, an octagonal structure of white marble and stone with a huge dome of geometric latticework.
20:42 Speaker 02 In 1694, the chapel is officially established as the new home of the relic, which now becomes known to the world as the Shroud of Turin.
20:54 Speaker 02 Over the centuries that follow, the shroud remains safely in its chapel home. Though it is generally kept out of public view, it is occasionally displayed during religious festivals or for visiting royalty and dignitaries.
21:10 Speaker 02 The 19th century sees the shroud's owners play a key role during a major shift in Italy's history, known as the Risorgimento. This political and social movement leads to the consolidation of the various independent states into a single Kingdom of Italy. And it's the son of the Savoy family, Victor Emmanuel II, who becomes the first king of the unified nation in 1861.
21:38 Speaker 02 In 1898, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a key document in Italy's unification and the 400th anniversary of its cathedral, Turin prepares to stage a major festival of arts and culture.
21:54 Speaker 03 The most famous item in the city was this shroud. So they wanted to have it photographed as a part of this arts and culture festival. And so they invited an Italian lawyer by the name of Secundopia, who was also an amateur photographer. And Secundopia brought his very large camera to the cathedral and he set it up on scaffolding so that he could take his picture. And of course, in those days, photography was new. It had only become popular in the 1840s. Not many people had access to camera equipment. And so when Secundopia came and set up his equipment, he brought with him his large camera
22:37 Speaker 03 and then also the glass plates that had been treated so that they could accept the image.
22:45 Speaker 02 After taking the photograph, Secundopia rushes back to his studio with the glass plates to develop the photograph for the upcoming exhibition.
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24:05 Speaker 02 It is night time in Turin on May 28, 1898. Secundo Pia, dressed in a dark suit with a thick, full moustache, jumps into the carriage waiting outside Turin Cathedral.
24:21 Speaker 02 The vehicle begins to make its way through the dimly lit streets.
24:26 Speaker 02 The city is quiet at this hour, and dark, except for the occasional gas lamp casting its wavering glow across the cobblestones.
24:35 Speaker 02 In a bag, clutched to his chest, are the glass plates, carefully wrapped in cloth. They are the key to the first-ever photographs of the Shroud of Turin. He urges the driver to make haste. Every minute in this process counts. The plates need to be developed quickly to avoid losing the image.
24:59 Speaker 02 The carriage pulls up outside his apartment building, and he swiftly pays the driver before hopping out and letting the door swing firmly shut behind him.
25:09 Speaker 02 Now, the amateur photographer arrives up to his apartment, which doubles as his studio. Crossing the cluttered room, the smell of chemicals still hanging in the air from his last job, he heads to the dark room.
25:24 Speaker 02 It's cool in here, lit only by a dim, red bulb hanging from the ceiling.
25:30 Speaker 02 Pia works quickly, efficiently, as he prepares the materials. Then, when he is ready, he places the first plate into the tray of developing solution. The liquid is sing slightly as it meets the glass.
25:46 Speaker 02 Pocket watch in hand, he watches the chemicals swirl over the surface, counting impatiently while the minutes stretch out. As the plate sits in the solution, gradually, a faint outline appears in metallic silver where light strikes the emulsion. It is slow at first, and then it starts to come into focus.
26:09 Speaker 02 Leaning closer, he watches as the image emerges.
26:15 Speaker 02 It's similar to the faint, blurry stain he has seen with his own eyes on the shroud itself, except in this negative, it's much, much clearer. A detailed, lifelike face. The face of a man with long hair, a full beard, and closed eyes.
26:35 Speaker 02 Pia's hands tremble slightly as he lifts the plate from the solution. And in his consternation, he almost drops it.
26:44 Speaker 02 Because if the stories about the relic are to be believed, he could be looking at something that hasn't been seen for almost two millennia: the face of Jesus Christ.
27:04 Speaker 02 In his memoir, Secundopia later describes the experience.
27:09 Speaker 03 He says he nearly dropped the glass plates because he was so shocked by what he saw. It was not what he expected. The image that appeared as a photographic negative was much more clear and distinct than what we see with the naked eye. And so what Secundopia realized is that the image that we see with the naked eye acts more like a photographic negative. So when he looked at the photographic negative, it acted more like a positive image.
27:40 Speaker 02 Pia's photograph of the Shroud of Turin in 1898 sends shockwaves across the world. It reveals so much previously invisible detail that some suggest he must have somehow tampered with the photo to create such a startling result.
27:56 Speaker 02 But it's not until 1931, when Giuseppe Enri, a professional photographer, gets his chance to photograph the shroud, that the mystery is cleared up.
28:08 Speaker 02 Enri's own photo confirms beyond doubt what Pia's attempt seemed to reveal: that the negative image holds far more detail than we see in the shroud itself.
28:21 Speaker 03 People who understood photography and recognized that Secundopia had not done anything to manipulate the image, they became increasingly interested and intrigued by this mysterious image. And it really set off a firestorm of research. So, some of the things that happened early on were forensic studies of the image on the shroud, because it's so covered with wounds, the wounds of the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion. And the forensic doctors wanted to understand, were these wounds accurate for what we could expect from someone who had been subjected to these kinds of tortures?
29:07 Speaker 02 In the 1930s, Pierre Barbey, a French surgeon who had worked in the First World War, begins to research what are thought to be crucifixion wounds, somehow transferred onto the shroud. Using his medical expertise, he analyzes the anatomical details of the image.
29:24 Speaker 03 In medieval art, we're so used to seeing Jesus crucified on the cross with the wounds going through the palms of his hands. And the wound that is reflected on the shroud is actually in the wrist area. And so Pierre Barbey wanted to understand how someone would be crucified. And so he actually had access to cadavers. And so Pierre Barbey started doing experiments crucifying cadavers to see where a nail could be placed that would not break any bones, but would secure the body to the cross. And what he discovered is that nails placed through the palm of the hand would not hold the weight of the body.
30:05 Speaker 02 Barbey's research reveals that there is an area at the base of the palm where a nail could enter and which would result in an exit wound at the wrist, something that correlates with the wounds on the shroud. It is another of many important discoveries about the shroud which are revealed as it becomes one of the most scientifically studied objects in the world.
30:29 Speaker 02 But when the Second World War breaks out in 1939, the studies have to be paused. Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy sides with Nazi Germany, and Turin, like much of the country, faces the threat of bombing raids by the Allied forces. There is also the rumor that Adolf Hitler has a special interest in the Shroud, and wants to get his hands on it.
30:53 Speaker 02 With violence intensifying throughout Europe, the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, decides to move the Shroud from Turin to Rome. He appeals to the Vatican to look after it, but is informed that even there, it might not be safe, given Hitler's interest.
31:16 Speaker 02 In September 1939, a highly secretive transfer takes the Shroud to the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Vergini, around forty miles east of Naples.
31:32 Speaker 02 It is September 1943, at the Abbey of Monte Vergini, nestled high in the steep slope of a mountain.
31:41 Speaker 02 As the bells ring out, echoing down through the valley below, an elderly monk is preparing vestments in the softly lit chapel.
31:50 Speaker 02 But as the peeling finally stops, he pauses from his work.
31:56 Speaker 02 Locking eyes with another monk, he confirms his fear. That's the sound of boots, many pairs of them, marching towards the abbey.
32:07 Speaker 02 Without speaking, the pair get to their feet and hurry through the complex to the chancel of the church. Very few know what is hidden here, but these two have been entrusted with a secret.
32:20 Speaker 02 The altar is overlooked by the Madonna di Monte Vergini, a famous icon of the Virgin Mary, holding Christ on her lap.
32:29 Speaker 02 Known as the icon of the Black Madonna, she draws thousands of pilgrims to the abbey, and is believed to work miracles. They need one today, because just below her, beneath the altar cloth, is hidden the Shroud of Turin, Christianity's most precious relic.
32:49 Speaker 02 The monks kneel and begin to pray for the safety of the shroud, but also for their community. Just days ago, the nearby city of Avellino was bombed by Allied planes. More than 3,000 people lost their lives. While they pray, the monks listen to the sound of the marching boots drawing closer until they are right outside.
33:11 Speaker 02 When the footsteps stop, there is a brief pause before the aggressive knocking begins.
33:20 Speaker 02 The two monks decide that one of them will go to the door, while the other will stay at his post. The older man gets up off his knees and makes his way through another part of the building to the main entrance, careful to keep his pace measured and calm. A couple of younger brothers are standing flustered at the entrance, trying to decide what they should do.
33:43 Speaker 02 Calmly, the older monk ushers them aside and opens the abbey's door.
33:50 Speaker 02 A thick oak groans, and outside, a phalanx of Nazi soldiers in gray-green uniforms stand to attention.
33:59 Speaker 02 A German officer steps forward and explains curtly that after the bombing in Avellino, they have orders to search the building. Monasteries in Italy and elsewhere have become known as sanctuaries to resistance fighters. The monk steps aside, head bowed. Once the soldiers have filed in, their heavy boots loud against the flagstones, he heads as quickly as he can back to the chapel, gathering fellow monks with him on the way.
34:30 Speaker 02 Now the brothers file in, lining up at the altar. Though they appear deep in prayer, in reality, they are standing guard. Eyes closed, the old monk can almost feel the soldiers staring, but he and his brothers do nothing to respond. Only the Latin murmur of their prayers fills the air as the Germans move about behind.
34:57 Speaker 02 Minutes pass, and the prayer continues, until eventually, one of them gives an order in clipped German, and the visitors finally retreat.
35:07 Speaker 02 Their heavy steps fade away, and once again, the monks are alone in the abbey.
35:15 Speaker 02 The elderly, holy man lets out a long breath and makes a sign of the cross. Glancing up at the Madonna, he gives thanks, sure that he has witnessed a miracle today.
35:33 Speaker 02 After the war, the Shroud is returned to its home in Turin, but not before the monks who shielded it at Monte Vergeni are allowed a brief exhibition of their own. It is laid on a table in the abbey's reception hall with the strict orders that no one should touch it.
35:52 Speaker 02 The war's conclusion also marks the end of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1946, after the fall of Mussolini's fascist regime, a referendum is held and the Italian people vote to abolish the monarchy. This results in the establishment of the Italian Republic, with the King Umberto II being exiled. The Savoys, who have ruled Italy since 1861, lose their royal status and much of their property. So while the family still owns the Shroud, because the chapel in Turin is part of the now state-owned royal palace, the relic is technically on Italian state territory. The Catholic Church begins to take on the responsibility for its preservation and display.
36:42 Speaker 02 In 1958, the first major public exhibition of the Shroud after the war draws international attention. And in the decades that follow, there are further scientific studies, while interest in the question of the Shroud's authenticity intensifies.
37:00 Speaker 02 In the early 1970s, Max Fry, a German microbiologist, studies pollen grains found on the Shroud. His forensic analysis reveals they come from plants native to Palestine, particularly around Jerusalem. The same decade, another important discovery is made.
37:20 Speaker 03 There were two Air Force physicists who had access to a machine called a VP8 image analyzer. And this image analyzer could take the light and dark areas of a two-dimensional photograph and convert them into three-dimensional information. And so they had the idea of taking a photograph of the shroud and putting it into this VP8 image analyzer to see what result they might get. And just like when Sekundipia took his photograph of the shroud, they got an amazing result. They put the image into the VP8, and what came out was a landscape of the face and the body of the man of the shroud.
38:06 Speaker 02 The image from the analyzer appears in three dimensions, much like a modern hologram. And the 3D mapping reveals anatomical accuracy. The depth variations in the image appear to correspond to real human body contours, including facial features, hands, and the overall shape, aligning with how a body would appear if it were lying in the shroud. The fact that the image also behaves like a photographic negative and contains three-dimensional data strengthens the idea that it would have been extremely difficult to fabricate, especially in medieval times.
38:44 Speaker 02 This discovery sparks what is known as the Shroud of Turin Research Project, or STUP. A team of around 33 scientists, engineers, and photographers, mostly from the United States, are given unprecedented access to the shroud for five days in October 1978. They arrive in Turin with seven tons of equipment.
39:07 Speaker 03 They assembled their team of scientists. They raised the money through private donations to be able to fund this project. And they prepared down to the minute for the 120 hours that they would have with the shroud. They planned every minute of that time so that they could utilize every minute of it to do detailed studies.
39:30 Speaker 02 The team's goal is to analyze the relic using modern scientific tools with no religious agenda, to determine how the image might have been formed and whether it could be a forgery. They use X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared imaging, microscopes, and chemical testing.
39:52 Speaker 02 Though one popular theory amongst skeptics posits that medieval forgers might have rubbed or singed the cloth over a raised bar relief sculpture, analysis now suggests that the shroud's image has not been painted, as there are no traces of pigments or dyes. But the team is not unanimous in its findings.
40:13 Speaker 03 One of the most famous skeptics was a man named Walter McCrone, and he said that he observed a piece of iron ochre on the shroud itself, which could have been from paint. So this is an argument that is often repeated, that this was iron oxide, which could be a part of a paint pigment that was discovered on the shroud. People refute that by saying that it is recorded multiple times in the history of the shroud, that paintings of the shroud were laid on the shroud to make them second-class relics, because they came in contact with what could be a first-class relic, because it contained the blood of Jesus.
40:56 Speaker 02 The scientists find that the image is only on the outermost surface fibers, just a few microns deep, less than the thickness of a human hair.
41:06 Speaker 03 The researchers unstitched the backing cloth that had been applied to the cloth after that fire, and they put a light between the backing cloth and the shroud itself, and they photographed the shroud using a backlight. And so this was when it was revealed to them that the image did not penetrate through the fabric. The blood penetrates through, the water stains, the burns, of course, go through the fabric, but the image is only on a very superficial part. It doesn't go through and is not evident on the other side of the fabric. What they discovered when they did a chemical analysis of the image area was that the area where the image was
41:50 Speaker 03 had aged more rapidly than the surrounding fabric. So the image is actually a chemical change in the fibers, where the cells are more dehydrated than the background linen. So they have the appearance of aging more rapidly than the background linen. That is what creates the image.
42:14 Speaker 02 Tests also identify blood components, including hemoglobin and serum, and the stains are confirmed as real human blood, type AB, though it has been noted that old blood often tests as that blood type. Ultimately, Sturp concludes that the image is that of a real human form, of a man who had been scourged and crucified. They also state that no known technology or artistic method could explain how the image was formed, or indeed forged.
42:50 Speaker 02 The mystery the researchers came to solve remains unsolved. But in another decade, science will promise to finally have the answer.
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44:06 Speaker 02 On March 18, 1983, the former King of Italy, Umberto II, dies in Cascais, Portugal. In his will, he bequeaths the shroud to the Pope and his successors with the proviso that it stays in Turin. In 1988, then, it is the Vatican that authorizes the radiocarbon dating of the shroud to determine its age.
44:32 Speaker 02 All living things have a type of carbon in them called carbon 14. When that living thing dies, such as the flax plant that would have made the linen shroud, the carbon 14 slowly fades away.
44:49 Speaker 02 Scientists can measure how much carbon 14 is left to estimate how long ago the living thing died, which in the case of the shroud would tell us how old the cloth is.
45:01 Speaker 02 Small samples are taken from a corner of the fabric and sent to three laboratories: at Oxford University in the UK, the University of Arizona in the United States, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The Vatican and the Archdiocese of Turin appoint the British Museum as the neutral overseer of the process.
45:23 Speaker 02 All three laboratories work independently, using a technology known as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. Through this process, they count the carbon 14 atoms left in the cloth and compare them to regular carbon atoms. When the results come in, the shroud once again makes global headlines.
45:45 Speaker 03 So in 1988, it was reported around the world that the dates for the radiocarbon dating showed that the age of the fabric was between 1260 and 1390, so that the fabric was only about 700 years old. And this news was reported around the world. Shroud of Turin proven to be a forgery, a medieval fake. And this was just devastating news to the people in the world of the shroud.
46:22 Speaker 02 What makes the results more plausible are that the dates provided by the labs closely coincide with the first documented appearance of the Shroud of Turin in the 1350s.
46:34 Speaker 02 But since the 1988 tests, the carbon 14 dating results have become the focal point of another shroud controversy, with critics challenging its methodology and findings.
46:47 Speaker 02 In 2017, a French researcher, Tristan Casabianca, looks again at some of the British Museum's records of the radiocarbon dating study. What he finds is that while the data was averaged for the 1988 reports to get an age of around 700 years, there is a difference of more than 150 years in the raw data. The discrepancy suggests that the sample taken in 1988 was not homogeneous. Some also argue it was taken from a corner of the shroud likely to have been repaired over the centuries.
47:24 Speaker 03 So, the result is that in 2019, in this same journal that reported the original 1988 radiocarbon dating results, a new article was published saying that the sample that was tested was not representative of the whole cloth, and therefore the results should not be included and there needs to be a new test. Now, that was published in 2019, that was not reported around the world, the way that the 1988 results were reported.
47:55 Speaker 02 To date, while the earlier results are still upheld as valid by many scientists, there have also been multiple peer-reviewed articles that have challenged the results of the carbon dating.
48:11 Speaker 02 Never a stranger to peril, the Shroud of Turin survives another fire in 1997 that requires an emergency rescue. And in 2002, a controversial restoration removes centuries-old patches and its backing cloth.
48:29 Speaker 02 Today, it is stored in a climate-controlled, fireproof case made of bulletproof glass. But despite extensive study, the exact method by which the faint image of a crucified man was formed on the Shroud of Turin still remains a mystery.
48:47 Speaker 02 Scientists have explored natural explanations, such as whether heat could have changed the cloth's fibers and made the image, but this isn't something that usually happens on burial cloths. Another theory is that the ammonia released from the breakdown of urea in sweat or during decomposition might be involved. But experiments have shown that this would likely produce a much blurrier picture than the one on the shroud. Italian chemist Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua has proposed that the image might have been burned into the upper layers of the cloth by a burst of so-called radiant energy, namely, bright light emanating from the body itself.
49:31 Speaker 02 He cites the Gospel of Luke, which describes how Jesus was transformed or transfigured into radiant light.
49:40 Speaker 02 Fanti has argued for tests to explore whether artificial sources of such radiation could produce a similar result on linen.
49:52 Speaker 02 To many, though, this is one of the more fringe theories. Indeed, the 16th-century French theologian John Calvin argued that it was unlikely that a miracle as remarkable as an imprinted image would be emitted by the biblical historians. He also pointed out inconsistencies between the shroud and the biblical accounts of the burial of Jesus, noting that the Gospels mention one cloth covering the body and a separate cloth for the head.
50:23 Speaker 02 The search for answers continues to this day. Fascinated by the mystery of the shroud, filmmaker David Rolfe has offered a $1 million reward to anyone who could recreate the image using only medieval technologies. It has yet to be done. On one hand, skeptics highlight the results of radiocarbon dating tests conducted in 1988, dating the cloth to between AD 1260 and 1390, and suggesting it is a medieval forgery. The uncertainty around the location of the shroud before it turned up in the 1350s in Lorraine, France, also endures. On the other hand, for millions of Christians, the Shroud of Turin holds deep spiritual significance.
51:10 Speaker 02 It is often seen not only as a symbol of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection, but as contemporary evidence of it.
51:19 Speaker 02 The Vatican, meanwhile, regards it as a powerful symbol of Christian faith, but not as a proven relic.
51:27 Speaker 02 Scientific opinion remains divided, with calls for new tests using modern techniques. But for now, questions around the Shroud's age and origins, as well as the identity of the man of the Shroud, remain unanswered.
51:43 Speaker 02 And despite the passing of many centuries of speculation, exploration, and fierce debate, our opinions on the Shroud of Turin must in many ways be a matter of belief.
51:57 Speaker 03 The interest in the Shroud today in 2025 is skyrocketing. People all over the world are wanting to know about the Shroud. And that's because we have new technology that allows us to explore and examine the Shroud in a greater detail than has ever been possible in the past. The Shroud can take it. The Shroud invites people to examine it. And to have science still be so baffled by this mysterious image and still not be able to explain it, it leads one to question, well, how could this image have been created? Could it be the natural effect of a supernatural event?
52:39 Speaker 03 And so today, with our scientific ability, we have the ability to study and question and probe and learn, and yet we still have to have the answer that only our faith can provide.
53:02 Speaker 02 Next time on Short History, I will bring you a short history of the East India Company.
53:09 Speaker 05 You look at those famines in the latter half of the 18th century are really harrowing. But I think the general fairly safe interpretation is that the company bears quite a lot of responsibility for the response to it. But the fact of the matter is, like, that is the sort of neglect that can arise from saying profit matters first. And the problem is that the company got out of this in the end with quite a lot of money in pocket and very little accountability in terms of that sort of broader sense of responsibility, and a lot of people died for it.
53:34 Speaker 02 That's next time.
53:41 Speaker 02 If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions for more information.
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