The Shroud «Make over», science or marketing?

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The director of the International Centre of Sindonology: respect scientific methods
At this point it is a regularly repeated refrain. Every time an exposition of the Shroud is announced, we learn about a series of discoveries during the preceding months - presented as ‘sensational‘ - that would prove the Shroud a fake, something created with the most diverse techniques, obviously in the Middle Ages. Even this year, at the beginning of summer, news from the United States claimed that the Shroud would be a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci created by the Tuscan genius in an authentic darkroom with a bust of himself which would have left an imprint on a canvas treated with egg white and gelatin: practically speaking, the invention of photography would have been moved up almost 400 years! We didn‘t know a thing about this until now! Another theory appeared almost immediately after (that had actually been proposed years ago) claiming that the image on the Shroud is easily obtained by pyrography. About thirty years ago, a physician from Bari stated that he had succeeded in realizing an impression similar to that on the Shroud by utilizing thermal energy generated by a heated bas-relief. We could go on and on with the list of such theories.  Now it is a Pavia-based chemist‘s turn who, according to reports from several newspapers, claims that he too has realized an imprint identical to the one on the Shroud by using his assistant‘s body and a plaster cast as a mold along with reddish okra, liquid tempera, sulfuric acid and cobalt aluminate. I have no reason to doubt the attention and professionalism with which such handworks have been created, but I have strong doubts as to if they can seriously be held up to comparison with the Shroud and its image. It is not enough to obtain an image that appears to be similar to the one present on the Shroud at first glance. It might have been good enough up to a few decades ago, but this is no longer the case today. The image on the Shroud and the so-called “bloodstains” visible on it have been studied in depth, above all after the data and sample gathering campaign carried out on the Shroud from October 8 - 13, 1978. Scientists participating in the research made the results of the analyses of such data known by publishing dozens of articles in prestigious international scientific journals.In particular, American scientists belonging to STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) carried out a series of exams (spectroscopy on the visible and ultraviolet for reflectivity and fluorescence, X-ray and Infrared-ray spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, infrared thermography, radiography etc.) on the areas of the image as well as those with the bloodstains, ascertaining the absolute lack of pigments and dyes on the Shroud, proving that the body‘s image is absent beneath the bloodstains (therefore formed after them) and is due to an oxidation-dehydration of the cellulose of surface fibres with the forming of bonded carbonylic groups.Such a modification is detectable only on a surface level, for a depth of approximately 40 micrometres (four hundredths of a millimeter). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the colouration of the fibres in the area of the image is uniform and variations in the image‘s intensity are due to the number of coloured fibres per surface unit. The presence of porphyrinic rings has been highlighted in the bloodstained areas and these same areas have caused immune-fluorescence reactions typical of type AB human blood group. There are many more features of the image that have been highlighted from analyses carried out after the 1978 exams.Therefore, it is obvious that in order to affirm that an image identical to the one on the Shroud has been obtained (no matter which technique or method employed), it is essential that the same analyses carried out on the Shroud must be carried out on this image and they must show identical results. I invite all those who intend to try their hand on such experiments to carry out such analyses on the images obtained and to publish their results in scientific journals. It appears to me that until now all the proposed theories, interesting ones in themselves, have always come up lacking either because they were not correlated by serious experimental verification or because such verifications have demonstrated the physical and chemical features on the obtained images to be very different from those present on the Shroud‘s image. Bruno BARBERISDirector of theInternational Centre of Sindonology 

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News Archive

• Overseas pilgrims and youth from the Comunità Cenacolo
• The Orthodox Great Vespers
• Fifth week of the Holy Shroud Exhibition: 260.000 visitors at the Cathedral
• Last week of the Holy Shroud Exhibition: route hours and evening events at the Cathedral
• Turin International Book Fair with the Holy Shroud
• Photographs of the Holy Shroud Exhibition: â01CA 45 day storyâ01D
• Mons. Ravasi, meditation before the Holy Shroud
• The sick of Unitalsi from all over Italy
• The pilgrimage Nice-Turin is concluded
• From the diocese of Ravenna the millionth pilgrim
• Holy Shroud celebration with abbot of Montevergine
• Piazza San Carlo is celebrating the arrival of Benedetto XVI
• Juventus football players visit the Shroud
• Exposition: 400 volunteer doctors and nurses
• Shroud: the number of bookings grows
• The President of the Senate worships the Shroud.
• The Shroud in the digital era
• The Shroud on-line
• Exhibition: great affluence to the Penitenzieria
• Shroud: visitors and pilgrims from the five continents
• Football players Bianchi and Flamini in front of the Shroud
• A large number of visitors for the Shroud
• Shroud: over 200,000 pilgrims in the first week
• Shroud: the day of confraternities
• Reservations: 100,000 new bookings in two days
• Visits: Pilgrims from Egypt and Russia
• Shroud: 20,000 visits on the 13th April
• Being on time is important to facilitate the welcome procedures
• The Holy Shroud: crowd at the bookshop
• Holy Shroud exhibition: first day. Mass celebrated at the Cathedral and visits of the first pilgrims

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