THE RELIQUARY

The Shroud is laid out flat and horizontal in a watertight full of inert gases reliquary. Alenia Spazio and Microtecnica built it in 2000 and placed the highest level aerospace technologies at the disposal of the Shroud.

In particularly, the metal recipient was milled from a single light aeronautical alloy bar while the upper surface is made of bullet-proof, laminated glass. The reliquary is protected by a multilayer “sarcophagus” in order to guarantee a considerable mechanic resistance and a good protection from fire. The Shroud conservation system is completed by a production plant of wet inert gas (argon) to be activated when the inner reliquary atmosphere needs to be renewed or filled up.

A computerized system constantly regulates and checks the most important reliquary and Chapel parameters (in the left transept of the Cathedral of Turin) on temperature, pressure, humidity, inner gas composition etc.

If on public exposition the Shroud is in another reliquary which was built in 1998 by the Bodino company. It is a parallelepiped that measures 4.640 x 1.380 x 282 mm and whose upper surface is made of bullet-proof, laminated glass. It weighs 2.500 kg and is on a sound metallic truck allowing it to rotate from an horizontal to a vertical position and making it visible during the expositions.

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