Tests In 1988 Concluded The Cloth Was A Medieval "Hoax"

London, England—The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website reports. A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.

The BBC says the author of the paper dismisses 1988 carbon-14 dating tests which concluded that the linen sheet was a medieval fake. The shroud, which bears the faint image of a blood-covered man, is believed by some to be Christ’s burial cloth.

Raymond Rogers says his research and chemical tests show the material used in the 1988 radiocarbon analysis was cut from a medieval patch woven into the shroud to repair fire damage. This was responsible for an invalid date being assigned to the original shroud cloth, he argues.

“The radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the shroud relic,” said Rogers, who is a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US.

He says he was originally dubious of untested claims that the 1988 sample was taken from a re-weave. “It was embarrassing to have to agree with them,” Rogers told the BBC News website.

The 4m-long linen sheet was damaged in several fires since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a church blaze in 1532. It is said to have been restored by nuns who patched the holes and stitched the shroud to a reinforcing material known as the Holland cloth, the BBC website states.

“[The radiocarbon sample] has obvious painting medium, a dye and a mordant that doesn’t show anywhere else,” Rogers explained. “This stuff was manipulated—it was colored on purpose.”

In the study, Rogers analyzed and compared the sample used in the 1988 tests with other samples from the famous cloth. In addition to the discovery of dye, microchemical tests—which use tiny quantites of materials—provided a way to date the shroud.

The BBC report says these tests revealed the presence of a chemical called vanillin in the radiocarbon sample and in the Holland cloth, but not the rest of the shroud. Vanillin is produced by the thermal decomposition of lignin, a chemical compound found in plant material such as flax. Levels of vanillin in material such as linen fall over time.

“The fact that vanillin cannot be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen and other very old linens indicates that the shroud is quite old,” Rogers writes. “A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.”

In the 1988 study, the BBC says, scientists from three universities concluded that the cloth dated from some time between 1260 and 1390. This ruled it out as the possible burial cloth that wrapped the body of Christ. That led to the then Cardinal of Turin, Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, admitting the garment was a hoax.

The BBC quotes Michael Minor, vice-president of the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research, who commented: “This is the most significant news about the Shroud of Turin since the C-14 dating was announced in 1988. The C-14 dating isn’t being disputed. But [the new research] is saying that they dated the rewoven area.”

Several attempts have been made to challenge the authenticity of these tests since the announcement of the results.

“The sample tested was dyed using technology that began to appear in Italy about the time the crusaders’ last bastion fell to the Mameluke Turks in AD 1291,” said Rogers. The radiocarbon sample cannot be older than about AD 1290, agreeing with the age determined in 1988. However, the shroud itself is actually much older.”

Some now hope the Vatican will give approval for samples of the shroud to be re-tested. But,Minor say, “the church is very hesitant, very reluctant for that to be done, because they’ve been given so many conflicting opinions.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times news service and other agencies report that a new analysis says the Shroud of Turin “is much older than the medieval date that modern science has affixed to it and could be old enough to have been the burial wrapping of Jesus.”

These agencies say that since 1988, most scientists have confidently concluded that it was the work of a medieval artist, because carbon dating had placed the production of the fabric between 1260 and 1390.

These reports say that in an article this month in the journal Thermochimica Acta, Dr Raymond N Rogers, a chemist who retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the carbon dating test was valid but the piece tested was about the size of a postage stamp and came from a portion that had been patched.

“We’re darned sure that part of the cloth was not original Shroud of Turin cloth,” he said, adding that threads from the main part of the shroud were pure linen, which is spun from flax. The threads in the patched portion contained cotton as well and had been dyed to match, the agency reports said.

From other tests, he estimated that the shroud was between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.

News outlets explain the shroud is a linen sheet, 4.36-metre long and 1.10-metre wide. Other than the two dark parallel lines with the white triangles, burn marks (from the Chambéry fire in 1532) and the imprint of an image — front and back — of a man who died from crucifixion, are clearly visible. The Shroud arrived in Turin in 1578 from Chambéry, then the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, and it has been kept in Turin Cathedral ever since, the news reports said.

They add: “Reliable historical documents record the Shroud’s movements, without interruption, from the mid-14th century. It is known that in 1350s the Shroud was in Lirey, France, and perhaps previously it was in the East, initially in Edessa and later in Constantinople, before being brought to Europe during the Crusades. In 1453, it was ceded to Duke Louis of Savoy, and followed the ruling family when the capital of Savoy was transferred to Piedmont.”

Catholic World News (CWNews.com) says that new scientific tests on the Shroud of Turin “have confirmed that the cloth dates back to around the time of Christ. The results dismiss a 1988 study that claimed the cloth was manufactured in the 13th or 14th century.”

CWNews.com stated the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research (AMSTAR) found that the tests done in 1988,using carbon-14 dating techniques, were actually performed on a patch that had been skillfully woven onto the original cloth of the Shroud.

The news outlet quotes Tom D’Muhala, the president of AMSTAR, who says that new chemical tests have shown that the main cloth of the Shroud is “actually very old—much older than the published 1988 radiocarbon date.”

It adds that chemist Raymond Rogers, a fellow of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, dismisses the results of the 1988 test in a study published in Thermochemica Acta, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He reports finding that the cloth used for those tests “was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin.” Rogers added: “The radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the Shroud relic.”