Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild
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)
Stitching
The stitching is unusual type of stitching that is intended to appear almost invisible to the eye on one side. Flury-Lemberg has proposed that the cloth from the loom was wider than what was appropriate for a burial shroud and that it had been trimmed down to size. To keep it from unraveling, the selvage edge from the piece that had been cut away had then be attached with the very distinctive stitching. The stitching pattern is an important clue.
Mechthild Flury-Lemberg a Holdout
Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, who directed a controversial restoration of the shroud in 2002, was another holdout. During the restoration she had not seen any evidence of repairs and stated that “reweaving in the literal sense does not exist” and that any such reweaving would be visible on the back side of the cloth.
But the invisible reweaving art did exist. It existed in medieval Europe just as it does today. In a peer-reviewed paper presented at the Third International Dallas Conference on the Shroud of Turin in September, 2005, Benford and Marino explain why the repairs may not have been noticed. And they corrected Flury-Lemberg’s statement that any such repair would have been visible on the back side of the cloth.
Without a Trace: French Reweaving
Michael Ehrlich, the president and owner of a Chicago-based company called “Without A Trace” provides invisible mending services for clients throughout the United States. He explains that there are two types of reweaving: inweaving, which is noticeable from the back side of the cloth (as Flury-Lemberg stated) and a technique called French weaving. French weaving was practiced in Europe during the time when it is likely that the cloth would have been repaired. Benford and Marino explain:
French Weaving, now only done on small imperfections due to its extensive cost and time, results in both front and back side ‘invisibility.’ According to Mr. Ehrlich, French Weaving involves a tedious thread-by-thread restoration that is undetectable. Mr. Ehrlich further stated that if the sixteenth Century owners of the Shroud had enough material resources, weeks of time at their disposal, and expert weavers available to them, then they would have, most definitely, used the French Weave for repairs . . . the House of Savoy, which was the ruling family in parts of France and Italy, owned the Shroud in the sixteenth century, and possessed all of these assets.
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