This article was originally published on Nov. 2, 2020.
There are a number of religious objects that claim to be authentic pieces of history. Take the pieces of wood from Jesus’ cross, fragments of Muhammad’s beard or the Buddha’s tooth, for example. Because it’s difficult to verify the authenticity of these objects, they’ve remained largely outside the purview of science. The one notable exception, however, is a sheet of cloth in Italy, known as the Shroud of Turin.
Perhaps no religious relic has received more scientific scrutiny than the Shroud. A rectangular sheet about 14-feet-long and 3-and-a-half feet wide, the cloth is purported to be the shroud that wrapped Jesus’ body in the tomb.
The most striking evidence for this is the image of a man imprinted on the cloth, naked and with hands covering the groin — caused by a yellowish discoloration of the cloth. What appears to be ...
