Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

The Real Sudarium?

We can imagine that there may have been several cloths: the shroud, the face cloth or sudarium, a chin band, a strip of cloth to tie the wrists together and perhaps a similar strip for the feet. It was, however, the sudarium, the towel that was being mentioned in Constantinople. Was it real, as well?

There is a contender for the real deal, one that has an uncanny and astonishing relationship to the shroud that is in Turin. It is the Sudarium of Oviedo. This piece of cloth was never in Edessa or Constantinople. But if the historical record is correct, it was in Jerusalem. If the shroud is genuine, it was in Jerusalem at the same time as the shroud.

In the city of Oviedo, in northern Spain, in a small chapel attached to the city’s cathedral, there is a small bloodstained dishcloth size piece of linen that some believe is one of the burial cloths mentioned in John’s Gospel. Tradition has it that this cloth was used to cover Jesus’ bloodied face following his death on the cross. Forensic analysis of the bloodstains suggests strongly that both the Sudarium and the shroud covered the same human head at closely different times. Bloodstain patterns show that the Sudarium was placed about a man’s head while he was in a vertical position. If we assume that the man was a crucifixion victim then we can presume that this was while he was still on the cross. It was then removed before the shroud was placed over the man’s face. 

The Sudarium, unquestionably, has been in Oviedo since the eighth century and in Spain since the seventh century.

Documents in the late Roman period and the early middle ages are often sketchy and prone to chronological mistakes, and those pertaining to the Sudarium are no exception. But from a multiplicity of sources, scholars have extracted core elements of historical certainty and plausibility sufficient for a fair degree of historical reconstruction. We can be confident that the Sudarium came to Oviedo from Jerusalem.