The history of the Shroud, beginning 1357 CE, is more certain than its earlier history.

It is the story of Shroud since its first known appearance in Lirey, France up to the present. It is during this period that the Shroud was damaged by fire and subjected to photographic, scientific and historical scrutiny. 

Geoffrey II de Charny first displayed the Shroud in a church in Lirey, France, in 1357. In 1389, Bishop Pierre D'Arcis of Troyes charged, in a memorandum to Pope Clement VII, that the Shroud was a forgery. He states that his predecessor, Bishop Henri of Poitiers has determined that the Shroud was a forgery because the image was not mentioned in the Gospels, that an investigation by Bishop Henri showed it to be a cunning painting, and that an unnamed artist had confessed.  No evidence is presented, the forger is not named, and there is no other evidence that Bishop Henri ever investigated the Shroud's authenticity.

Margaret de Charny, deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy in 1453. It remained the property of the House of Savoy until the twentieth century.

As a result of Pope Sixtus IV acknowledging his personal belief that the Shroud was the real burial cloth of Jesus, the Savoy family built a special chapel for the Shroud in Chambery, France in 1464.

In 1532, a fire in the chapel of Chambery Castle, where the Shroud was kept, damaged the Shroud. Molten silver from the reliquary that contained the Shroud, and water used to extinguish the fire, caused permanent damage to the cloth. Two scorch lines, each with four large scorch marks, are the most visible damage caused by the fire (see small picture above). The image on the Shroud was not seriously damaged and the cloth was rewoven and patched by the Poor Clare Nuns. This fire is significant not only for the permanent damage caused to the Shroud but for its effects on modern day scientific investigation. It is quite possible that the intense heat of the fire, hot enough to melt silver, along with water used to douse the fire, caused chemical reactions that distorted carbon 14 testing in 1988.  

The Savoys moved the Shroud to Turin, Italy in 1578 so that Cardinal Charles Borromoe, who had decided on a pilgrimage by foot to see the Shroud, would be saved from a journey over the Swiss Alps. Except for being hidden during World War II in the Abbey of Montevergine in Avellino, Italy, the Shroud has remained in Turin.

Umberto II of Savoy, who was deposed as the king of Italy in 1946, died in 1986 and bequeathed the Shroud to John Paul II and his successors, thus ending over four centuries of control of the Shroud by the House of Savoy. 

In 1997, fire broke out in the dome of Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin. Firefighters saved the Shroud by breaking the glass of its bullet proof outer container and removing it from the cathedral. The Shroud was not damaged in any way. 

The most significant event took place in 1898. The Shroud was photographed, and the world discovered, that the image seemed to be a photographic negative. The world took notice and a century of discovery began. 

 

A Century of Modern Discover
1898	Secondo Pia photographed the Shroud and found that the image seemed to be a negative image since his negative glass plates showed a positive image.
1931	Giuseppe Enrie, a professional photographer took new photographs of the Shroud. His negatives confirmed what Secondo Pia had discovered more than 30 years earlier.
1955	Monsignor Guilio Ricci studied the Sudarium of Oviedo, believed to be the face cloth used on Jesus before his burial, and discovered striking similarities of blood stain patterns on the Sudarium with those on the Shroud. Dr Alan Whanger, using the Polarized Image Overlay technique, and Thomas Vuke, using computerized analysis has confirmed the similar patterns.
1973  (And 1978)	Swiss criminologist Dr. Max Frei took particle samples from the Shroud by rubbing transparent sticky tape into the surface of the cloth. Frei identified 58 different pollens, many which established that the cloth had been in the Jerusalem area as well as parts of the Middle East which include Constantinople and Edessa.
1976	Research physicists Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper discovered that the Shroud image produced a 3-dimensional image when analyzed with the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer at the Sandia Scientific Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Normal photographs and works of art do not produce this effect.
1978	A team of over forty scientists, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) conducted a comprehensive investigation of the Shroud. Detailed photographs were taken, particulate matter was collected using sticky tape and detailed scientific observations and analysis about the Shroud were extensively documented.  This material has been the basis for much of the subsequent research on the Shroud.
1988	A small sample of the Shroud's linen fabric was tested using carbon 14 dating methods. The conclusions of the tests suggest that the linen was produced between 1260 and 1390 CE. These tests have since been questioned on the several grounds.
1994	Dr. Dimitri Kouzenetsov and Dr. A. Ivanov proposed that biofractionalization in flax as well as  the fire of 1532 could have altered the carbon 14 testing results significantly.
1995	Dr. Kouzenetsov demonstrated through experiments that a fire such as the one in 1532 would, in fact, modify the carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratio in the Shroud's fabric. He calculated  that the change in radioactive carbon showed that the Shroud's linen could have indeed originated in the first century CE.
1995	Dr. Mattingly and Dr. Garza-Valdez found a bioplastic coating on some fibers which could alter the carbon 14 testing results.

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Shroud Story  

© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York

TOPICS ON THIS WEBSITE:

• POLLEN AND FLOWERS  The work of Dr. Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Uri Baruch, a pollen specialist at the Israel Antiquities Authority is highly significant. Pollen grains and flower images show that the cloth was at one time in the Jerusalem environs as well as the Anatolia area of Turkey that includes the cities of Constantinople and Edessa.  
• 3D ENCODING   The image is actually a 3-D encoded chart of the front and back of a man that also happens to have the important characteristics of a photographic negative. This unique dual quality may help theoretical physicists understand how the image was created.
• AN IMAGE OF PIXELS  The image is very faint and composed of discolored lengths of fibers that have been chemically altered (dehydrated, oxidized and conjugated). Scientists call the lengths of discolored fibers: pixels. Different shades of yellow in the image are achieved by the number of pixels in an area in very much the same way as half tone photographs are printed in newspapers. Pixels are only to be found in the topmost layers of the cloth. 
• THE EDESSA CLOTH  Until 1204 CE, when crusaders sacked Constantinople, there was in that city, a picture of Jesus on a piece of cloth. It had been moved there from the city of Edessa in 944 where it was discovered in the city walls in 544. Historians think that the Edessa Cloth, also known as the Mandylion, is what we now call the Shroud of Turin. 
•  IT IS NOT A WORK OF ART  Chemists and art scholars have ruled out the possibility that the Shroud is a painting or any other known form of art, including photography. 
• THE CARBON 14 TESTS  Scientists, who have examined the evidence, seriously question results  of 1988 carbon 14 tests that determined that the Shroud had a medieval origin. Contrary to popular belief, carbon 14 testing is not always right. Too many variables, including contamination, could have skewed the results. 
• THE SUDARIUM  Since the eighth century, there has been in Oviedo, Spain, an ancient piece of linen known as the Sudarium. Blood stains and forensic analysis link it to the Shroud. 
• ABOUT THE CLOTH  The Shroud is an old, blood-stained piece of linen with traces of dirt. The historical  nature of the cloth, the peculiarities of the blood stains, and the particles of travertine aragonite limestone dirt that suggest an origin in Jerusalem, are all significant to understanding the Shroud's origins.
• AN ART CONNECTION  Scholars have found an amazing connection between the Shroud and depictions of Christ. These depictions date back as far as the sixth century.
•   NATURAL CAUSE EXPLANATIONS  Scientist do not know how the image was created. Having ruled out a work of art, they also rule out most natural causes known to science at this time. 
• FORENSICS SCIENCE  Twentieth century forensic medical science tells us that the image on the Shroud is an anatomically correct picture of man in a state of rigor mortis who was tortured and crucified. The blood stains are realistic to the point that only modern-day pathologists would know how to explain them.
• THE MISSING YEARS  If the Shroud is indeed the Edessa Cloth, as most Shroud scholars now believe, then what happened to it after the sack of Constantinople? 
• THE SHROUD'S LATER HISTORY  The Shroud was displayed in Lirey, France in the 1350's. Later, moved to Chambery, France it was almost destroyed in a fire in 1532. It is now in Turin, Italy. Nothing in its later history has been more significant than a century of research since Secondo Pia's amazing discovery of its negative image properties in 1898. 
• POSSIBLE COINS OVER THE EYES  It seems that there is something over the eyes. It is quite possible that coins were placed on the eyelids to keep the man's eyes closed. This was a common burial practice. There is some evidence that these may be coins that were struck about 30 CE.