The controversy surrounding a 14.3 x 3.7 foot linen cloth — the Shroud of Turin, believed to be the burial linen of Christ — resurfaces time and again and this time around an Italian scientist has determined in fresh research that the shroud indeed could be around 2,000 years old.
This contradicts the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, the most important relic of Christianity, that puts the linen to be only about 700 years old. According to the scientist, Dr Liberato de Caro of Italy’s Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council, in Bari, the new WAXS technology places the relic within the time of Christ. It was “possible to evaluate the structural degradation by natural aging of the cellulose that makes up the fibres of the flax threads.
In this way, it is possible to date with X-ray analysis the ancient tissues from which the samples were taken. The integrated WAXS data profiles, obtained on the Shroud sample are compatible with similar measurements obtained on a sample of flax whose dating, according to historical documents, is 55–74 d.C., siege of Masada, Israel.
De Caro’s research published on the website of Italy’s Department of Chemical Sciences and Materials Technology says that the carbon-14 analysis came with its set of flaws: “Mold and bacteria, colonising textile fibres, and minerals containing carbon, such as limestone, adhering to them, in the gaps between the fibres that at the microscopic level represent about 50% of the volume, can be so difficult to totally eliminate, in the cleaning phase of the sample, that they can distort its dating.”
Carbon Dating the Relic
De Caro said that “the fabric can be enriched with new carbon-14, assimilated through the lifecycle of living beings belonging to eras later than the one in which the textile artifact was made. Textile finds are the samples to be radiodated most at risk of contamination, difficult to eliminate, since the surface per unit of weight exposed to interaction with the outside is very high, due to the small diameter of the microfibres (10-20 micrometres) and the high number of microfibres per wire (about 200). About half the volume of a thread of natural fibres is empty, interstitial space, filled with air or other, between the fibres that compose it.
Everything that creeps between the fibres must be carefully removed. If this does not happen, carbon-14 dating is not reliable. It cannot be excluded that this may have happened in 1988, something confirmed by the fact that moving from the periphery to the centre of the sheet, along the longer side, shows a significant increase in carbon.
In an interview to the National Catholic Register, the scientist called for some more sampling by other laboratories: “The technique of dating linen by X-ray is non-destructive. Therefore, it can be repeated several times on the same sample… it would be more than desirable to have a collection of X-ray measurements carried out by several laboratories, on several samples, at most millimetric in size, taken from the Shroud.”
The peer-reviewed research said that “for the natural aging of the cellulose in the linen of a TS (Turin Shroud) sample, allows us to conclude that it is very probable that the TS is a relic of about 20 centuries old, even if we only have European historical documentation for the last seven centuries. Since the 14C dating does not agree with our results, or with the dating obtained by other works, a more accurate and systematic X-ray investigation of more samples taken from the TS fabric would be mandatory to confirm the conclusions of our study.”
Perhaps one of the most-studied archaeological object, the Shroud, preserved in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, depicts the image of a crucified man, and the debate has been on for long whether it indeed is the “sepulchral cloth of Jesus Christ.”
“Finally, since X-ray dating indicates that the TS is older than its seven centuries of European history, we can also argue that it was fortunate that the TS was carried to Europe seven centuries ago. Indeed, our analysis has shown that, from the XIV century until today, the natural aging of the cellulose of the TS linen has been very low, due to the low secular European average room temperatures, thereby preventing the TS body image from fully disappearing, which would have happened at an average secular room temperature of 22.5 °C.
"Therefore, by chance, only the recent history of the TS in Europe has prevented the TS linen from fully yellowing and the TS image from fully disappearing, thus preserving a puzzle that is very difficult for science to solve. New WAXS analyses on the natural aging of the cellulose in linen could allow for the correct age of the TS to be determined, which is a fundamental piece of this puzzle,” the research concluded.
Interestingly, The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., is running till 31 July an interactive, state-of-the-art exhibit on the Shroud. The exhibit, "Mystery and Faith: The Shroud of Turin," is a “groundbreaking, high-tech, innovative exhibition about the Shroud of Turin. Over the course of five exhibit sections and eight cutting-edge interactives, guests learn about how the Shroud mirrors the Gospels, its history, and its impact on millions of people.”
