


The relic, whose dramatic history is intertwined with the Knights Templar, Moors, El Cid, saints and bishops, has been in Spain since 631 A. Verses 5-8 of the 20th chapter of "The Gospel According to St. he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths, but rolled up in a separate place." This head cloth, the sudarium, has become the focus of increasing debates over the validity of the carbon-14 tests on the Shroud of Turin.
One example of microscopic testing that supports the Shroud as authentic is the 1978 sample of dirt taken from the foot region of the burial linen.
The dirt was analyzed at the Hercules Aerospace Laboratory in Salt Lake, Utah, where experts identified crystals of travertine argonite, a relatively rare form of calcite found near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.
The image appears as a negative rather than a positive image, and it shows features that can be interpreted as marks of crucifixion.
That image is nowhere near as distinct as most people think! The image that is usually presented is an ENHANCED image, which DOES appear to show the image of a person, which is just barely recognizable to a person looking at the cloth.
The implication is that this long cloth was laid flat, the body was laid on top of half of it and then the other half of the cloth was folded back over the body.
This situation may certainly have been true for whoever the person was whose image is preserved in the cloth.
The Shroud was contaminated by water twice: at some point by flood water and by douse water from the 1532 fire. Some of the bacteria have become endospores: please see
Endospores have been found on ancient linen such as Egyptian mummy linen.
Prior to that year, no evidence seems to exist about it.
In 1578, it was placed in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy, where it remains (and where it received its popular name).