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

First Written Record of the Sudarium

A pilgrim, around A.D. 570, Antoninus of Piacenza gives us the first written record of the cloth. It was, he tells us, in a cave by the monastery of Saint Mark in the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Its journey to its present location began in A.D. 614 when Persians under Chosroes II invaded Jerusalem. To protect the Sudarium, it was moved out of the city to safety. We are uncertain of its route to Spain. It may have been first taken to Alexandria along with numerous other relics (real or otherwise, and stored in a chest or “ark”) and from there, in succeeding years, along the coast of North Africa ahead of advancing armies. Some historians have suggested a more direct sea route to Spain. Whatever the route, we know that after it arrived in Spain it was kept in Toledo for about 75 years. For some time after it arrived, it was in the custody of the great bishop and early-medieval scholar, Isidore of Seville. In 718, to protect it from Arab armies, which had invaded Spain only seven years earlier, it was moved northward along with fleeing Christians. In 761, when the city of Oviedo became the capital of a northern, well-defended enclave of Christians on the Iberian Peninsula it was to the city. It has been in Oviedo since.