This piece of linen, revered by some, contested by others, has just experienced a new twist. Pierre de Riedmatten, honorary president of the association Show us your face and author of the book The Holy Shroudexplains to us why the carbon 14 test which dated the fabric to the Middle Ages has become obsolete.
Iris Bridier. New technology has recently dated the Turin shroud to the time of Christ. What does it consist of?
Pierre de Riedmatten. In 2013, Professor Giulio Fanti (University of Padua) had already shown, by an analysis in infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, that the fabric of the shroud could have been made at the turn of the Christian era. By examining a dozen linen fabrics, dated from 3,500 BC to the present day, he had in fact observed a decrease in the amplitude of the spectroscopic absorption peak of cellulose, which makes it possible to characterize the crystallographic aging of this molecule. After having established the law corresponding to this ageing, he tested a small sample of linen from the shroud of Turin and he was thus able to date it from the time of Christ, to within +/-250 years.
A new study, conducted by the Institute of Crystallography in Bari (Italy), was published on April 11, 2022 in the journal Legacy. The new technology uses X-rays, following the same approach: determining a law of structural degradation of cellulose on a dozen old and recent linen fabrics. The test of a very small sample (0.5 mm x 1 mm), indicated as coming from the shroud of Turin, thus made it possible to date it to 2,000 years: the result is indeed very close to that of a thread coming from of fabrics recently found at Masada, a Jewish fortress taken by the Romans in the year 73.
IB What were the conclusions of these new experiments?
PdR According to this new approach, the fabric would date well from the time of Christ. Other elements also give objective information on the very great age of this fabric: a very particular longitudinal seam does not exist on any old fabric of European origin, but it is found precisely on the fabrics discovered in the fortress of Masada mentioned upper ; the traces of coins, visible on the eyes of the man in the shroud, correspond to those made between 29 and 32 in Jerusalem (but Christ was crucified in the 1930s in Jerusalem); finally, proof that the shroud was in the Middle East long before the date given by the 14C, there are, in the fabric, holes of a very particular form which were reproduced in Constantinople in a manuscript dated later than 1195 (manuscript Pray now kept in Budapest).
IB Who is the man in the shroud?
PdR According to the traces of writing recently discovered around the face of the man in the shroud, it is a certain Jesus, a Nazarene, condemned to death. The imprint left on the fabric shows that this condemned man underwent, and in the same order, all the tortures of the Passion of Christ, with many more details, in particular for the crown of thorns, the flagellation, the carrying of the cross , the wound on the side…
All in all, although this linen is not an article of the Christian faith, because it shows a dead man and not the Risen One, it can only strengthen our personal faith and encourage us to meditate on the wounds of Christ.
IB Will these new results put an end to all controversy?
PdR There will always be controversies. But the “raw data” from the 1988 carbon-14 tests was recently provided by the British Museum. Their statistical analysis (published in 2019) shows that the differences in dating between the three laboratories reach 255 years, which is totally incompatible with the homogeneity of the measurements, whereas, on the textile level, the three samples are perfectly homogeneous. Moreover, no one has ever been able to reproduce this image which is absolutely unique (three-dimensional, in negative while the bloodstains are in positive). She is always « provocation to intelligence »as Pope John Paul II said in 1998.
IB Has the Church recognized this relic?
PdR All popes without exception have always venerated the Holy Shroud. Today, Pope Francis celebrated a mass before the shroud in Turin, in commemoration of the bull of Pope Julius II who established the feast of the Holy Shroud on May 4, 1506. [NDLR : le lendemain du 3 mai, fête de la Sainte Croix].
