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

Limestone Dust

Limestone dust has been found on the Shroud of Turin in the vicinity of the image which contains the feet as well as on the backside of the cloth. We might suppose that if the cloth actually contained the body of Jesus or a Roman-style crucifixion victim and if we assume that the victim walked to his crucifixion than we might infer that limestone dust was picked up on his feet and subsequently deposited on the cloth and that over time it became embedded. And if the cloth was used as a burial shroud in a tomb or cave in Jerusalem’s chalky, porous limestone outcroppings, then too, the embedded dust might have come from here.

Joseph Kohlbeck, a scientist at the Hercules Aerospace Center in Salt Lake, Utah, and Richard Levi-Setti of the famed Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, examined some of those dirt particles taken from the foot region of the shroud. Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of dirt samples taken from the shroud with samples of a rare travertine aragonite found near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.

With a microprobe, scientists direct a beam of charged particles at a sample to obtain a reading of the precise elements in a mineral sample. By comparing two samples they can determine how similar they are.

The chemical signatures, the elemental composition of the shroud samples and the dust found near Golgotha, were identical except for some minute fragments of organic cellulous linen fiber that could not be separated from the shroud samples.

Kolbeck acknowledges that this is not absolute proof that the shroud was in Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world--though none are known--where travertine aragonite has the identical trace chemical composition.

This was good. It said something about geography. Short of a conspiracy theory, of which there are many in the world of shroud literature and television productions, or a highly imaginative scenario, it seems likely but not absolutely certain that the Turin Shroud had been in Jerusalem at one time. That is, unless, of course, some pilgrim, let us say between about 1355 and 1978, had returned from Jerusalem and trampled on the shroud with the dirty boots he had been wearing while sightseeing. Or because some imaginative forger of fake relics had anticipated forensic science and ordered some limestone from Jerusalem, just to make sure we remained fooled in the 21^st century.