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

Textile Analysis

Attempts to tentatively date the cloth by comparing it to other samples of linen have been fruitless. There are many factors besides the weaving pattern that are important: the left hand or right hand (S or Z) twist of the threads, the average number of fibers in a thread, fiber lengths, thread counts, etc. But the problem is that no one has ever found a single piece of linen from any era that closely resembles the shroud that is now in Turin.

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) web site section for the popular series, Secrets of the Dead, contains a full page article from an interview with Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, a leading authority on historic textiles and the former curator of Switzerland’s Abegg Foundation Textile Museum notes that . . .

This kind of weave was special in antiquity because it denoted an extraordinary quality. . . . [of an] indubitably exceptional nature . . . Flury-Lemberg also discovered a peculiar stitching pattern in the seam of one long side of the Shroud, where a three-inch wide strip of the same original fabric was sewn onto a larger segment. The stitching pattern, which she says was the work of a professional, is surprisingly similar to the hem of a cloth found in the tombs of the Jewish fortress of Masada. The Masada cloth dates to between 40 B.C. and A.D. 73. (36)