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Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus, (23 - 79) known best as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author and scientific observer who wrote Natural History or Naturalis Historia. This, his primary work, is his only work that survives today. This encyclopedia was used as an authority on many subject for many centuries. It still provides useful information, particularly that of a historical nature. For instance: how linen was manufactured during Pliny's life, how papyrus was made and how various kinds of purple dye were used.

Of special interest to the Shroud of Turin is to how Pliny the Elder tells us linen was made in the first century. First the fibers of the flax plant were hand spun into yarn. Then individual hanks of yarn were bleached and dried. When it was time to weave the yarn into cloth, warp threads were strung vertically on a loom so that weft threads could be passed over and under them.

The warp threads were lubricated with crude starch on the loom to make weaving easier. Doing so reduced friction and also lessened the chance of fraying. When a length of linen cloth was woven it was taken from the loom and washed in the suds of the Saponaria officinalis, the Soapwort plant. After washing out the starch, the linen was placed across bushes or hung to dry.

Where Pliny the Elder leaves off, the modern chemist picks up. Soapy residues and small amounts of starch would remain in a water soaked cloth. As the cloth dried, moisture would wick its way to the surface to evaporate into the air. As the water made its way to the surface it carried with it dissolved starch fractions and saccharides. As the water evaporated into the air these chemicals were deposited as a super thin coating on the crown fibers, the very outermost fibers of the thread. Chemists say this superficial residue of reactive saccharides is at the evaporation surface of the cloth.

This is important for it is the only possible explanation for the starch and saccharide coating on the fibers which contains the image we see on the Turin Shroud.

Pliny the Elder died near Pompei during the Vesuvio eruption.

For more on this subject see Pliny the Elder and the Turin Shroud in the Shroud of Caiaphas Essay.

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Shroud of Turin Story

© 2005 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York