He is well-proportioned and muscular, and quite tall (1.75 m or roughly 5 ft 9 in) for a man of the first century (the time of Jesus' death) or for the Middle Ages (the time of the first uncontested report of the shroud's existence, and the proposed time of possible forgery). The 'Man of the Shroud' has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. The views are consistent with an orthographic projection of a human body, but see Analysis of artistic style

The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and pointing in opposite directions. It bears the image of a front and dorsal view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The cloth is woven in a herringbone twill and is composed of flax fibrils entwined with cotton fibrils. The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 × 1.1 m (14.3 × 3.7 ft). Many Christians believe this image to be the face of Jesus, and thus the face of God. Secondo Pia's negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin has an appearance suggesting a positive image. This may prevent the issue from ever being fully settled to the satisfaction of all sides. It is the subject of intense debate among some scientists, believers, historians and writers, regarding where, when and how the shroud and its images were created.Īrguments and evidence cited against a miraculous origin of the shroud images include a letter from a medieval bishop to the Avignon pope claiming personal knowledge that the image was cleverly painted to gain money from pilgrims radiocarbon tests in 1988 that yielded a medieval timeframe for the cloth's fabrication and analysis of the image by microscopist Walter McCrone, who concluded ordinary pigments were used.Īrguments and evidence cited for the shroud's being something other than a medieval forgery include textile and material analysis pointing to a 1st-century origin the unusual properties of the image itself which some claim could not have been produced by any image forming technique known before the 19th century objective indications that the 1988 radiocarbon dating was invalid due to erroneous sampling and repeated peer-reviewed analyses of the image mode which strongly contradict McCrone's assertions.īoth skeptics and proponents tend to have entrenched positions on the cause of image formation on the shroud, which has made dialogue very difficult. Skeptics contend the shroud is a medieval hoax or forgery - or even a devotional work of artistic verisimilitude. Some believe it is the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth when he was placed in his tomb and that his image was somehow recorded on its fibers as a photographic negative at or near the time of his proclaimed resurrection. It is presently kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. The Shroud of Turin (or Turin Shroud) is an ancient linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. The first photo of the Shroud of Turin, taken in 1898, had the surprising feature that the image on the negative was clearer than the positive image.

Shroud clothing