| Along
the whole side that is generally called the upper side, (in fact, the Shroud is usually
displayed with the frontal imprint on the right of the observer) a strip of the same cloth
that was used to prepare the Shroud was sewn very long time ago. Many hypotheses were
formulated about the reasons that led somebody to do this. The strip presents some evident
gaps under which the Holland cloth shows up. It is not possible to determine when those
ancient mutilations were made, for unknown reasons. Along the lower edge of the hole (on
the top left of the observer) we can find the area from which samples were taken in 1973,
for product analysis on the cloth, and in 1988, for the carbon radio-dating test. |
