herringbone

Three-Hop Twill

If you look closely at the cloth you will see that the weave is three-hop twill with a herringbone pattern. This is a very distinctive weaving pattern. In twill weaving, the weft or cross thread passes over two, three or more warp threads before passing under a single one. Warp threads are the threads that are strung onto the loom first before weaving begins, usually in a vertical direction. Warp threads invariably are the threads that run the length of the cloth. During weaving, the hop over and then under process is repeated across the entire width of the cloth. Then, at the next weft row (or pick as it is sometimes called) the hop pattern is offset by one warp thread. And then the next pick, offset again; and on and on. This creates a fine ridge at an angle that gives an illusion that the cloth is woven at an angle. Twill is said to have a diagonal wale or texture. Look at a pair of ordinary denim blue jeans to see an excellent example of twill weave. On well faded jeans the hop is clearly visible as nearly white thread and the weft it goes under as a darker blue stripe. (15)

A herringbone pattern is sometimes introduced into a twill weave by, every now and then, reversing the offset so that the diagonal wale is reversed.  The resulting appearance resembles the backbone pattern of a herring, hence the name herringbone. Some blue denim designer jeans use the herringbone pattern, which gives them a striped appearance. If you are not into designer jeans you can see the patterns at Target or Macy’s or any number of stores that sell them.  Other decorative and complex patterns including lozenges, waves and zig-zags can be created in twill weaving by varying the hop in different ways. (16)

Herringbone in History

Herringbone twill has been found in fabric samples dating back as far as 400 B.C., among the mummified remains of a Celtic people found in ancient Hallstatt salt mines near present-day Vienna. Other herringbone cloth, made from horsehair, has been found in Ireland dating from possibly as early as the arrival of Celtic people on the island around 600 B.C.. Other complex twill patterns going back to at least 200 B.C. and probably earlier have been found with mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China. In Northern Italy a six foot long piece of linen cloth was found with twilling and lozenge patterning that is almost certainly from the third millennium B.C.. (17)

Linen itself has been around for a very long time and in diverse parts of the world. Fragments of Egyptian linen at the British Museum in London and the Bolton Museum in Lancashire are over 6,000 years old. The wrappings from the mummy of Rameses II, the pharaoh of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, are linen, and are still very well preserved. In the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, we learn that curtains of the Tabernacle were of fine linen. Aaron, the high priest, wore a linen coat and linen miter.

In other words, linen and twill cloth, even herringbone twill, has been around for a long time. We might reasonably suppose that herringbone twill linen was produced in the weaving centers of Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus and in other cities in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity. Claims from some skeptics that a three-over-one herringbone is too elaborate for Roman Palestine, or that a piece of linen could have lasted 2000 years is historically unsustainable.

Apparent Flower Images

If you look very closely between the face and each of the upper corners you may notice two very faint shapes that look something like flowers. One is very distinct. The other is barely visible. They look like small circles with apparent petals about them—like a child’s drawing of flowers. They may be images of real flowers, as some contend, or they may simply be illusions, shapes of flowers caused by anomalies in the weave and coloration of the cloth. For our purposes it is only important to note that they look like flowers.

We will, when we examine the images in fuller detail, explore many other aspects of the images and the cloth, qualities and mysteries that will fascinate and challenge our intelligence. But for now, and to help us with history, we will focus on just these observations.

And so, with an understanding that the shroud that is in Turin is a large oblong three-over-one herringbone twill piece of linen with two life-sized images along with bloodstains, burn holes called poker holes, and persistent folding creases and patterns that look like flowers, we turn our attention to Edessa and then Constantinople.

Hungarian Pray Manuscript

In the Budapest National Library there is an ancient codex, known commonly as the Hungarian Pray Manuscript or Pray Codex, named for György Pray (1723-1801), a Jesuit scholar and important historian who made the first detailed study of it, although we can reasonably suspect, with no realization that it might someday have some bearing on the shroud. The codex is the earliest known text in the ancient Finno-Ugric tribal languages of the people that occupied that region.

This codex was written between 1192 and 1195, within about 30 years of the Nerezi mural. An illustration, one of five in the manuscript, shows Jesus being placed on a burial shroud, a shroud with the identical pattern of burn holes found on the shroud. The artist has drawn the very unusual herringbone weave on the shroud and a number of other graphic characteristics consistent with the shroud. Jesus is shown naked with his arms modestly folded at the wrists, the fingers are unusually long in appearance as they are on the shroud, and there are no visible thumbs. There are no thumbs visible in the images of the man of the shroud either. This seems artistically strange. But forensic pathologists tell us that this makes sense. Why? It was once stated that nails driven through the wrist would likely cause the thumbs to fold into the palms. But Fred Zugibe disagrees.

In the drawing, there is also a clear mark on Jesus’ forehead where the most prominent 3-shaped bloodstain is found on the forehead of the man of the shroud.   There can be little question that this illustrator of the Pray Codex, far removed from France—working at a time before the sacking of Constantinople by French knights, before the earliest date assigned to the shroud by carbon 14 testing—knew something of the details about the shroud, the Holy Mandylion, the Image of Edessa.

Portrait of an Empty Shroud

It might have been more satisfying if the artist had actually drawn the image on the shroud. But that seems to be a secondary objective. In two panels, comic book style, he is portraying first a burial preparation scene and second an empty tomb—indeed graphically, an empty shroud. He portrays the dead Jesus but not the risen Christ and seems to be adhering to biblical narratives. Or is he?

In the first panel Jesus is shown in burial repose being attended to by Joseph of Arimathia and Nichodemus and a third figure. Jesus’ is naked, his arms are crossed at his wrists. There seems to be a mark on his forehead that is not unlike a forehead bloodstain on the Shroud of Turin.

The second panel shows witnesses to an empty tomb, or more precisely to an empty shroud. The shroud is shown folded along its length. On the upper half the artist has clearly attempted to depict the texture of the cloth, and it seems to be stylized herringbone pattern. Here, within the pattern we find one set of the distinctive L-shaped pattern of poker holes. Some critics have suggested that the weave pattern is not that but merely hatching, a technique artists use to show shading or shadows. But the drawing makes no use of hatched or patterned shading. Lines are used to represent hair texture and there is one instance where a brocaded or ornamental neckline to a garment is drawn with a series of circles. The artist simply does not use any technique to show the play of light on faces or bodies or other surfaces. The artist only uses position and angles to depict a sense of three-dimensionality to the scene.

The lower half of the cloth does not depict the texture that we see in the top half. Instead, the artist has drawn a series of outlined crosses, or plus signs or Xs? Is this an attempt to symbolically represent empty space where the Christ had been? Is the X a Chi, the Greek character used to symbolize Xpistos, the Christ? Is it perhaps a way of trying to show that there is something, a ghostlike image perhaps?