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

The Ibis Mummy

Things were heating up. Harry Gove, a prominent radiocarbon dating expert from the University of Rochester in New York, who had wanted to be part of the carbon dating of the shroud and not been selected, was now involved. Ann Rosalie David, who had been part of the team that had studied mummy 1770, was involved as well. They met at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Austin. David brought a mummy of an ibis, a bird that the ancient Egyptians considered sacred. They had been careful to select one that seemed unlikely to have been rewrapped. They extracted samples of both tissue and bone from the bird as well as linen fabric from its wrappings. These they took to the National Science Foundation Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility at the University of Arizona, one of the same labs involved with the shroud’s dating.

The linen appeared to be newer than the bird it wrapped. And unless the bird was rewrapped—which seemed implausible to the four researchers—then appearances contradicted reality. They clearly saw something that seemed to be a bioplastic coating. But they entertained another possibility as well: the bird’s diet.