Is the Turin Shroud a fake?

The Turin Shroud is a piece of linen bearing the image of a man. Many people believe this to be the actual shroud in which Jesus Christ was buried after the crucifixion, and that his dead body miraculously imprinted the image on the cloth. Others think it is a hoax by a medieval artist.

Nothing is known of the shroud before 1357, when it surfaced in the village of Lirey in France. It has burn marks from a fire in 1532 and more marks from the water used to put out the fire. In 1988, radiocarbon dating tests showed that the linen had almost certainly been manufactured between 1260 and 1390 – several centuries after the death of Jesus. Chemists and art experts, however, are mystified about the techniques used to make the image. So although it seems that the Turin Shroud is a medieval fake, exactly how it was created remains uncertain.

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The Turin shroud
(Gianni Tortoli/Science Photo Library)

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