Spirituality

Doubts cast on 1988 Shroud of Turin study

By T.K. Randall
August 6, 2019

Image: Turin Shroud
Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 / Dianelos Georgoudis During the original study back in 1988, radiocarbon dating was used to determine that the Shroud of Turin - which is believed by many to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus himself - dated to between 1260 and 1390, suggesting that it was in fact a medieval forgery.

Now though, by obtaining the original data through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a new team of researchers has determined that these results may in fact be unreliable.

"For almost 30 years, scholars asked in vain for the raw data from the three laboratories and the supervising institution, the British Museum," said study leader Tristan Casabianca."I graduated in law, so I had the idea to make a legal request based on the Freedom of Information Act. The British Museum was the only institution to fully and quickly answer my request."

It turned out that the original tests had been conducted only on the very edges of the cloth and that the results may have been affected by a fire at the Sainte-Chapelle in 1532.

"The tested samples are obviously heterogeneous from many different dates," said Casabianca. "There is no guarantee that all these samples, taken from one end of the shroud, are representative of the whole fabric."

"It is, therefore, impossible to conclude that the Shroud of Turin dates from the Middle Ages."

Source: NC Register

Tags: Shroud of Turin