Science, Archaeology, and the Shroud of Turin

PAUL C. MALONEY
General Projects Director
Association of Scientists and Scholars International
for the Shroud of Turin

Opening Remarks¹

Either the Turin Shroud is one of the Vatican's most unusual artist renditions of Christ's suffering and death, or it is one of Christendom's most important archaeological artifacts. If it is the latter it certainly seems appropriate to make some archaeological observations about it.

I am in a rather unique position. In June of 1983 I took on a major task. As General Projects Director for the Association of Scientists and Scholars International for the Shroud of Turin &emdash; or "ASSIST", as known by its acronym &emdash; it has been my responsibility to help put together a scientific group and set of proposals for an independent examination of the issues surrounding the Turin Shroud. Therefore, the questions which stand before us here must be viewed in a context far larger than if one is guided only by the parameters of his own field of specialty.

Throughout this paper I will try to voice the philosophy which has guided the formation of ASSIST: to examine the issues from a balanced and objective approach. Where my own opinion is expressed I shall try to label that as such.

Put in the barest of terms, there are two essential views about the Turin Shroud: On the one hand, a majority of scientists who examined the Shroud in 1978 have publically concluded that the Shroud wrapped a corpse. On the other hand, Dr Walter McCrone and other investigators drawing from his data and pursuing other lines of research, have concluded that the Shroud has been produced by an artist in the mid-fourteenth century.

Let me say here that what follows is somewhat speculative. If science has not yet demonstrated that the Shroud dates from the first century of this era then it may seem to some a questionable practice for an archaeologist to examine the Shroud in intimate detail. Nevertheless, there are some facets of modern Shroud research in which the archaeologist can be vitally interested and can contribute to the discussion. We shall use, here, a set of rhetorical questions to probe the archaeological potential of the cloth.

First of all, how can the Shroud be in such good condition if it is 2000 years old? In actual fact material composed of cellulosic fibers, such as cotton and linen, are amongst the most resilient of all cloths. Between these two linen exhibits a slower deterioration rate. Their preservation depends upon many variables in the environment. But it seems clear that given special care, such cloths will survive very long periods in good condition. In fact, according to Dr. K.A. Jakes and L.R. Sibley, given the nature of cotton and linen, we should expect to find such cloth in the archaeological environement (Personal communication).

I observed linen clothing from the tomb of King Tutankhamon on display in the Cairo Museum in a remarkable state of preservation. And discussions with Ms. Jean Mapes of the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, curator of the Paley Design Center, revealed that they often wash such ancient linen in a washing machine with no damage to the fabric. This is also supported by Ms. Alisa Baginski of the Shenkar College of Fashion and Textile Technology (Ramat Gan, Israel) who is an internationally acknowledged authority in Coptic textiles (Personal Communication).

With regard to oxidation of linen, specifically, it is known that it is "catalyzed by transition metals such as cobalt, iron, and manganese, and is inhibited by silver and organic antioxidents."2 Both the iron (in chelated and particulate forms) and the silver (in the reliquary in which it was kept at least as early as 1532) have had long associations with the Shroud and surely offer clues to the history of its image and preservation.

Secondly, is it possible to trace the technology of twill weaving back to the first centuries AD Palestine and thereby make plausible that the pattern used in the Shroud might have existed then? In 1953 Dr. Yohanan Aharoni and a team of Israeli archaeologists explored numerous caves in the region Nahal Hever. From the pottery and other evidences in the caves they were able to date the sites to the period of two Jewish Wars, either in AD 70 or in AD 135. Among the textile finds here was a single sample of a yellow woolen fabric in a 2/1 twill.3

What do clues in the cloth indicate about source of the linen? From his 1973 examination Dr. Gilbert Raes found traces of cotton in the Shroud. A study of these traces, specifically a count of the twists or reversals in the cotton fibers showing 8 per cm, demonstrated that this species was Gossypium herbaceum4.

It is important here to correct an error which has somehow crept into the English literature on the Shroud. We are told in a number of places5 that the Shroud cloth was woven on equipment used also for weaving cotton. Actually, Raes found the traces of cotton, Gossypium herbaceum, in the threads themselves6. This means that the threads were spun in the same geographic region where both flax and cotton grew side by side. This being the case we can almost certainly rule out Egypt as a potential source for the cloth since cotton was introduced into Egypt only in the recent times, perhaps by the Frenchman Jumal, in the year 18227. The lateness of this introduction has been confirmed for me by the Dr. Shokry Ibrahim Saad of the Dept. of Botany of the University of Alexandria who states that the pollen evidence can trace cotton back no more than two hundred years ago8.

One possibility which should be considered is that the threads might have been imported into Egypt for weaving purposes we do have ancient evidences for the import of such threads into the Nile valley. But it seems far more likely that the cloth was woven where the flax and cotton grew. It is possible that the cotton we are discussing grew in northern Syria or Mesopotamia. In the Mishnah, Yoma 3:7 reads: "In the morning he [the High Priest] was clothed in Pelusium linen worth twelve minas, in the afternoon in Indian linen worth eight hundred zuz"9. Because the presence of cotton alone cannot prove the connection with the Near East and we shall therefore return to this question when we deal with the pollen.

On the other hand, students of the Shroud who have based their conclusions firmly upon Raes remarks that Gossypium herbaceum was of a type common in the Middle East have overlooked the fact that cotton, specifically Gossypium herbaceum, was spread throughout the Mediterranean by the Arabs. If Sir George Watt, a botanist specialising in cotton, is to be believed, cotton arrived in Sicily in the ninth century. He then notes:

In the tenth century the Muhammadans carried the self-same cotton plants [...] across the Mediterranean to Spain, and for three centuries thereafter Barcelona had a flourishing cotton industry. There would thus seem no doubt the plant disseminated by the Muhammadans was Gossypium herbaceum, the species presently cultivated in the regions indicated.10

Hence any attempt to pinpoint the source of the cloth must pay careful attention to the history of the spread of Gossypium herbaceum. In the light of the above, I do not consider it impossible for an alleged artist to have obtained his cloth from a European source in the mid-fourteenth century. But if the ninth century is the beginning point for the presence of Gossypium herbaceum in that region of the world then a valid carbon date11 for the cloth considerably earlier than this would surely point to a source in the Eastern Mediterranean of beyond.

Should we expect, from the nature of this cloth, that it might normally have been used as a Shroud in Jewish custom? This question has several ramifications. One aspect pertains to the cloth as a whole, in its 14 foot form.

Observers have often noted that Dr. Raes found no mixture of linen and wool in the Shroud. According to Jewish law there were strict controls placed on the use of such mixtures. Kilaim 9:1 says: "Wool and linen alone are forbidden under the law of Diverse Kinds"12. Kilaim 9:2c says: "Diverse Kinds may not be worn even momentarily, and Diverse Kinds may not be worn even over ten [other garments]..."; 9:5 tells us: "Clothes dealers may sell [garments made from Diverse Kinds and displays them] in usual fashion, provided that they do not use them of set purpose in the sun as protection from the sun or in the rain as protection from the rain". In other words a human being could not be under a cloth made of diverse kinds. It was for this reason that early concerns were allayed &emdash; the cloth, although it was found to have traces of cotton in it, did not break Jewish prohibitions.

Yet herein lies a suprise, for Jewish laws often make certain special exceptions. If the Shroud were to be viewed as a "normal" shroud we actually might expect to find just such a mixture. Kilaim 9:4 says: "The wrappings of a corpse and asses' pack-saddles do not come under the law of Diverse Kinds".

A second observation relating to the nature of the cloth is that the most common type of weave found in the ancient Palestinian context, was the plain, or square weave. Even if twills have been found they are, by comparison, rare. Clearly, this weave, being much more complex, was an expensive one to produce. Hence, we believe this particular type of cloth was costly. We thus note that both lack of a mixed type and the costliness of the cloth i tself are in conformity with what we would expect from a reading of the Gospels but a point which, we must add, a careful artist would surely not have missed.

The second aspect of the issue treats the cloth as a whole. How large might such a cloth have been? The Mishnah indicates that such a cloth could be large enough to act as a curtain. In Yoma 3:6 we read:

They brought him [that is, the High Priest] to the Parwah Chamber which stood in holy ground. They spread a linen sheet between him and the people. He sanctified his hands and his feet and stripped off his clothes. (R. Meir says: He [first] stripped off his clotes and afterwards sanctified his hands and his feet). They brought him white garments; he put them on and sanctified his hands and his feet.

Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok has questioned the use of such a singular piece of cloth to lay the dead to rest pointing to the common use of tachrichin &emdash; or grave clothing. Such clothing was specially made with unknotted thread sewn in the seams so that in death the cloth would quickly fall from from the corpse and speed the deceased's return to the dust for, "from dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return". Drawing from the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok notes that such a singular piece of cloth was not expected as a Shroud13.

Such confusion however, I believe, stems from the fact that the Jerusalem Talmud receives comparatively little attention in the West largely because it is not of easy access. However, there are references in the Jerusalem Talmud which make it quite clear that such cloth may have been in common use during the first and second centuries AD. For example, Jerusalem Talmud, Kilaim 9:32b refers to the burial of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch who flourished at the end of second century AD: rbqn dha nydsb ybr "Rabbi was buried in one linen shroud (without any other garments)". We can draw several conclusions from this. First, the Hebrew word dha, "one" makes it clear that we are dealing with a single sheet large enough to wrap a corpse; and second, it implies that Rabbi was buried naked. This is the interpretation of such semitic scholars as Marcus Jastrow14 who has never directed any attention to the implications his interpretation might have for the Shroud of Turin. The textual evidence in the Hebrew Bible supports the suggestion that we are here dealing with a large piece of cloth which might have been intended as clothing. The word ˆyds "linen" appears four times in the Tanakh and in every case in a context where the reference is to clothing. In three of these cases the Septuagint translates the Hebrew ˆyds with the Greek word sindwvn. This is the identical word used in the Synoptic Gospels for the burial cloth of Jesus and above in connection with the burial of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch.

On the one hand, E.A.W. Budge, former keeper of the Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, refers to the occasional use of simple shrouds among the Egyptians. He notes: "Each coffin contained a mummy that was wrapped in a single large sheet of brownish yellow linen, and it appeared to be a solid thing"15.

More recently, Carol Andrews, also of the Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities of the British Museum , has noted in a discussion of Egyptian mummies that

on average a shroud was more than 14 1/2 ft. (4.5 m) in length and 4 ft (1.2 m) in width, rather larger than might be expected, as it had to be of sufficient dimensions to be knotted at top and bottom behind the head and feet of the mummy. ...a few layers so that the features are clearly visible through the bandages and are picked out in paint, as the earliest mummies of the Old Kingdom.16

We now turn our paper away from the cloth itself to another facet of some considerable interest to archaeologists.

In 1973, when Dr. Max Frei was asked to examine the Shroud to confirm details of photographs taken in 1969, he noted on close inspection that there appeared to be pollen between the threads. Frei, well known as a criminologist, was also a trained botanist. He therefore requested and was granted permission to apply a method to the Turin Shroud which he himself had invented for use in criminological research. Thus he was able to take sticky tape samples from at least six sites on the cloth and perhaps as many as 12. He applied the same technique again in 1978 when he took 26 more such samples.

From the 1973 tapes he was able to extract and identify a total of 57 pollen, plus some plant hairs of Platanus orientalis and epidermal cells of Aloe socotrina17.

Frei's data have not been generally accepted by the Shroud scientific community partially because STURP was unable to find pollen on their sticky tapes. The explanation turned out to be rather simple. STURP, using a torque applicator which limited the pounds per square inch pressure on the Shroud, only took samples strictly from the surface of the cloth. Frei, in a letter to me just before he passed away, told me he was able to secure samples of materials from between the threads by moving the tape (and cloth) laterally, thus lifting the pollen between the threads up onto the sticky tape. The tapes themselves still preserve this evidence.

In 1986, through the kind courtesy of Mrs. Gertrud Frei-Sulzer, the ASSIST organization had access to four of the tape samples Dr. Frei removed in 1978, plus a fifth, unlabeled slide, also removed from the Shroud but of uncertain date. Intense microanalysis of all four of the labeled samples show that 95% of all the pollen are localized in the first 1/2 inch or "lead" portion of the tape. This demonstrates that the sticky tape technique per se is pressure sensitive, the highest number of pollen on the tapes coinciding with the highest number of flax fibrils on those tapes.

Meanwhile, Italian microanalyst Dr. Giovanni Riggi, a member of STURP, has confirmed the presence of pollen on the Shroud. But he has not ventured to identify any of them since his research carried him in directions other than the study of the pollen. He distinguishes two different types: "ancient" and "modern" with the former being identifiable from the mineral coating on them.

Another reason that was given for rejecting Dr. Frei's case was the observation that pollen can travel for a thousand miles or more from their source. Dr. Riggi, for example, believes that the Middle Eastern pollen found contaminating the Shroud were likely deposited during the many exhibitions of this cloth in Turin. He notes that such pollen could have been carried into Italy on winds from North Africa18.

In actual fact tests conducted by airplanes and by ship have shown that most wind-borne pollen travel no further than 600 miles from their point of origin19. Any pollen which might have been carried from North Africa to be deposited in Turin would be in trace amounts.

Work done during a period of 20 years between 1943 and 1963 in the area of Minneapolis, Minnesota, by the well known atmospheric palynologist, Dr. A. Orville Dahl, who has been a consultant to ASSIST on the pollen question, supports this in that he could not find evidence for a wind-borne pollen from further than 600 miles away20.

I had earlier posed this same issue to Dr. Aharon Horowitz of Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, Israel's leading palynologist. He pointed out to me that in a 1975 study he made a comparison between the pollen spectrum of the winds from North Africa with those typical over Israel and informed me that there is considerable difference. He adds that the pollen sampling removed from the Shroud do not conform to the North Africa spectrum but rather to the Israeli spectrum21.

But there is another facet to the pollen question. Dr. Dahl has kindly evaluated the entire list of 58 pollen in Dr. Frei's sampling. He noted that 32 of these are entomophilous or insect pollinated types. Their presence, in his opinion, must be due not to wind-borne deposition but to human activity of some sort since these pollen types are not transported any distance at all by wind22.

Steven Shafersman, formerly a student in the field of micropaleontology at Rice University23, and who is vigorously outspoken against the authenticity of the Shroud, was the first to suggest that human activity was involved. Without any objective foundation he charged that Dr. Frei himself must have put them there since, in his opinion, the Shroud cannot be authentic. Nevertheless, Shafersman makes the following statement regarding the pollen evidence:

Frei's data are such excellent evidence because pollen almost invariably falls to the ground within 100 meters of the parent plant. This phenomenon is used in palynology and biostratigraphy, for example, to document the ecological succession of plant communities in a small land, or in an area subject to warming as continental glaciers retreat and plant communities migrate northward. Typically the simultaneous shifts in occurence and abundance of dozens of plants species in a core through lake sediments, mark the shifts of ecological zones with great precision. Such precision is possible because wind pollination, and wind-transported pollen just does not travel very far. Therefore, finding such pollen on an object would indeed demonstrate that it was once in an area where pollen was present (or that it came into contact with another object from that region). Finally, the remarkably large number of Middle Eastern plant pollens, 33 species, appears to make it inescapable that the "Shroud" was once in the Middle East. [...] Frei's assemblage of 33 species from the Middle East is almost all from low-lying herbs and shrubs [...] By my examination of the flowers of the genera, at least eight of the Middle Eastern species are insect-pollinated and would not therefore be expected in a wind-distributed assemblage.24

Just a brief note about the paradoxical statements between the pollen falling to the ground within 100 meters of the parent plant and their travel thousands miles from their site of origin. There is no discrepancy here. The pollen which do travel far are more likely those from trees which raise their pollen sources to the wind rather than low-lying shrubs which lie relatively protected from such winds.

I wish to reiterate that Prof. Shafersman does not support the authenticity of the Shroud, preferring to believe that Dr. Frei himself put those pollen on the cloth. But this suggestion is unfair bacause it needlessly impugns another man's reputation. The evidence in the sticky tapes which the ASSIST Organization examined support a different hypothesis: that flowers were laid directly on the Shroud at some time in its history25.

Dr. Dahl has suggested a human activity which ought to be further investigated. We know from other studies that manufactured liturgical shrouds, technically known in the Byzantine world as epitaphioi, antimensia, or eiliton, may have been laid upon the altar as part of a Good Friday liturgy26. Their exact role remains to be determined. Nor do we yet know if the so-called "shrouds", eight of which had images on them &emdash; possibly copies of the Turin Shroud &emdash; were used in a liturgical setting, or if they were, exactly how. By this analogy Dahl has suggested it may be possible that during the liturgical ceremony of such a commemoration flowers were physically laid upon the Shroud leaving their pollen &emdash; and I can now add, other plant debris &emdash; behind.

There is a third possible human activity, one which is consistent with the thesis that the Shroud was used as a burial cloth. Amongst the ancient Jews burial was in two phases. The primary phase, lasting about a year, consisted of the corpse lying in a supine position in the tomb for decomposition. They then practiced ossilegium or "secondary burial": the bones were gathered to be deposited in a special burial place. During the first century AD bone boxes or ossuaries, as they are known, where used as receptacles for these collected remains. One such ossuary found in Jerusalem contained a burial on top of which a bouquet of flowers had been laid27.

In mid-1983 I had submitted Frei's study of the pollen to Dr. Aharon Horowitz. Following this I was able, through the kind auspices of Prof. Dr. Werner Bulst, a longtime friend of Dr. Frei, to submit 22 of the pollen photographs to Dr. Horowitz. He found Frei's identification quite accurate and in general agreed with the case he had built (Personal communication). More recently, I was able, through the kindness of the widow of the late Dr. Frei, to secure a copy of his unpublished manuscript. At my request Mrs. Frei sent further materials from Dr. Frei's study to Dr. Horowitz. We hope, eventually, to have a more definitive evaluation of Dr. Frei's work &emdash; one not likely to be available until after a new exam of the Shroud and further pollen are removed for professional analysis. Moreover, we recognize the need for addressing the important questions of pollen statistics and the distribution of pollen on the Shroud.

At the same time as the above submission to Dr. Horowitz I also requested an evaluation from Israel's foremost specialist in the botany of desert flora, Dr. Avinoam Danin, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also has given support to Frei's case adding that by studying the spectrum it is clear to him that the Shroud had been exposed to the Negev, to the Jerusalem area, and finally to the Lebanese highlands (Personal communication).

Because I was interested in a comparison between the pollen spectrum discerned by Drs. Horowitz and Danin with that typically found in Egypt I submitted Frei's list to Dr. Shokry Ibrahaim Saad of the University of Alexandria's Dept. of Botany. Dr. Saad pointed out that at least 28 of the plants on the list grew in the area of Egypt (Personal communication). Frei had listed 33 coming from Israel. Now, however, a tentative re-evaluation of the case would make it appear that at least 44 pollen could have come from this area of the world.

The study is far from complete, its importance can not be underestimated since the pollen data are the only scientifically verifiable data to date which testify to the Shroud's presence in the Middle East. Using Frei's own data there are a minimum of at least eight floral pollen which could only have gotten onto the Shroud if this cloth were in a Middle Eastern geographic setting. Therefore, the statistical significance of Frei's study is currently not to be found in the multiple presence of individual pollen since he provided no such data. Rather, it is to be found in the sum total of the entire list and/or blocks of pollen from specific geographic areas.

As indicated above we believe further statistically valuable data are to be found in future Shroud researches. Because we now know that all sticky tape methods are pressure sensitive we are very cautious about drawing solid scientific conclusions about statistics and distribution of pollen on the Shroud from these samples. Nevertheless, it seems highly likely, based upon ASSIST's examination of the sticky tapes that were on loan to us, that a new exam would furnish the solid basis, we seek not only for verifying Dr. Frei's work, but also picking up where he left off and advancing pollen research well beyond where it stands today28.

Before we turn to another topic it is important to sound a word of caution regarding the interpretation of the presence of pollen on the Shroud. In my opinion, if in the evaluations by Horowitz and Danin it appears that the Shroud was in the Middle East at some time, or even specifically in Israel, the pollen could, at the present state of technology, say nothing about when it was there. Due to a misunderstanding of an article published on the pollen data in 1978 by Prof. Giovanni Charrier29, geologist at the Turin Polytechnic Institute, it was thought that the pollen data could date the Shroud, or at least tell us when the Shroud was in the Holy Land. This is emphatically not true. Dr. Horowitz told me that there are no extinct pollen in Frei's list; all the pollen found there have been in existence for at least the last 2000 years (Personal communication).

To this point in our presentation we have discussed two tangibles regarding the Shroud: the cloth and the pollen. These are things an archaeologist can put his hands on and see with his eyes. We believe the evidence shows that a plausible case can be made for the cloth as a shroud, and that the pollen studies show promise of supporting the possibility that it was once in the Holy Land. However, we also believe that none of the points we have made above prove the thesis that the Shroud is a shroud.

We wish now to turn our attention to the archaeology of the image on the cloth. However, we will limit ourselves to just a few items of specific interest &emdash; namely, the nature of the image itself, and a treatment of a geological facet already observed by STURP.

The image and the iron oxide issue

Although we wish to discuss the presence of iron oxide in some detail we must first ask "Is it possible for a corpse to leave an imprint on cloth?" Robert Wilcox30 recounted his attempt to confirm this when he made a special trip to Paris and later to London to track down an alleged imprinted piece of burial cloth that the archaeologist, M. Gayet, had found in the Coptic cemetery at Antinoe, Egypt. Although he was unsuccessful in discovering the whereabouts of this cloth I discussed this possibility with Alisa Baginski31. She told me of a remarkable Coptic linen burial tunic, now in a private collection, that had the imprint of the back of a corpse inside the garment. So stunning was the trace that it was examined at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem where doctors confirmed the cadaver's impression (Personal communication).

But what about the iron oxide on the cloth? In an article published in «The Microscope»32 Dr. Walter McCrone and his assistant, Christine Skirius, revealed the results of an extensive study. They found that "10 samples from control areas showed no significant oxide pigment and l9 samples from body and blood image areas showed light to heavy concentrations of iron oxide". Their conclusion was: "These data are convincing evidence that very fine iron oxide pigment particles are associated with the image area". Dr. McCrone firtnly believes that they "have demonstrated the Shroud to be, to a major extent, an artist's representation."33

Did an artist produce the Shroud image? The controversy swirls about this question. STURP acknowledges that there is iron oxide on the Shroud. In fact they find it in three different forms: first, as a chelated form deposited most likely during the retting process which released the husk from the flax. Second, as blood iron. And third, as iron oxide concentrated at the water stain margins. But STURP does not agree that all the red particulate matter on the Shroud is iron oxide. They are convinced that some of it, perhaps most of it, is blood in some form.

Dr. John Jackson (Schwalbe & Rogers, 1982) has explained that the reason the red particulate matter appears intimately associated with the image areas is because shards of this material have broken off the blood areas and, since image area is always folded against image area, there occurred a translocation of the shards from the blood areas to the non-blood image areas.

Probably no single issue of Shroud research has sparked more heated debate in public literature than the question, "Who is right?" Is the red particulate matter largely iron oxide? Or is it largely of a biological origin? One of the reasons why the entire matter of the presence of blood on the Shroud has raised such suspicions amongst the skeptics is because the "blood" is still red. Drs. Alan D. Adler and Gilbert R. Lavoie believe this is because the stains on the Shroud represent blood exudate high in bilirubin34.

On the other hand, Dr. McCrone has found the presence of other pigments: orpiment, ultramarine, azurite, wood charcoal, vermilion, and madder rose, in microscopic amounts on the cloth. The very presence of many of these pigments on the Shroud may have been caused by perturbations and vibrations of the building in which the scientific examination of the Shroud took place in 1969, 1973, and 1978. Dr. Jackson mentioned to me that in the examination room in 1978 there were not only paintings on the walls but frescoes on the ceiling (Personal communication). It would have been a simple matter for microscopic particles to have broken loose from their moorings to be deposited on the Shroud35.

The above suggestion, however, does not easily explain the presence of the madder rose which, to date, is the only organic pigment on the Shroud. In photomicrographs the madder rose appears to have been deposited on the cloth while wet. To make the matter more suspicious yet, the madder rose was found on sticky tapes 3-CB and 3-AB both of which were taken from the blood flow area across the back.

The vermilion mentioned above also was found associated with blood areas on one of the sticky tapes containing the madder rose: 3-CB. Incidentally, minute traces of vermilion have also been confirmed by STURP on another slide: 6-BF36.

Let's digress a moment from the iron oxide issue to look at the presence of madder rose, or alizarin, as artists know it. The presence of madder rose has been explained in several ways. Since it is known that the Shroud was a model for many painters is it possible that the wet madder rose could have been spattered onto the cloth while an artist was copying it? Dorothy Crispino believes is this not likely since the Shroud would probably have been at least 10 feet away (One cannot focus on the image closer than 6 feet). She has suggested that perhaps the copy was still damp when it was laid down on the original Shroud (Personal communication) &emdash; a practice very common from the medieval period right on up to recent times.

Less likely is another possibility. In the Mishnah (Danby, 1938) we learn that kesherim &emdash; that is, garlands of madder rose &emdash; were used by Jews as amulets to ward off evil and illness: "Said Adda Mari [[in the name of four other rabbis regarding]]...Garlands of pu'ah [[madder:]]...three arrest [illness], five cure [it], seven are efficacious even against witchcraft..." (double bracketed entries are mine; single bracketed entries belong to the author). Were several such garlands laid on the cloth and the corpse laid on top? I know of no direct evidence, either archaeological or literary, where these were used with the dead.

I will share the following interesting archaeological sidelight if only because it has been an intriguing path to pursue. But my conversations with Dr. Alan Adler lead me to believe the path may terminate in a dead end.

Some years ago it was noted by archaeologists that some skeletal remains from the persons interred at the Qumran cemetery had a purplish-red color at the ends of the bones. Studies were conducted on these bones and the coloration was discovered to be calcium alizarate37. Later the same phenomenon was discovered at another Dead Sea community cemetery, namely, at En el-Ghuweir38. The ancient Jewish literature soon produced a reasonable suggestion: These sectarians must have practiced drinking a decoction made of the roots of madder rose. The path of the madder rose, from the beverage to the bones, would have been through the blood. But according to Adler there is no evidence for this pigment on a wide scale.

We wish now to return to our main discussion of the presence of iron oxide on the Shroud. If we consider that an artist may have put the pigment on the cloth there are two views currently being promoted as to technique: a dilute painting or a dry rubbing.

Dr. McCrone had suggested that the iron oxide was mixed with a thin tempera, probably from animal collagen, and applied as a finger painting39. More recently he has suggested that an artist simply dipped his brush into liquid paint and applied to the cloth40.

Joe Nickell has suggested that the iron oxide was applied dry using a dauber on cloth formed over a bas relief as a rubbing &emdash; much in the manner as gravestone rubbings have been produced. From experiments I have conducted the latter technique presents us with some problems. Although the Shroud is of a herringbone twill, I selected a box weave cloth for my work. The reason is that of all weaves possible the box weave is the tightest. Yet in every case the iron oxide penetrates through the cloth. STURP's examination of the Shroud indicates to them that the image does not penetrate to the backside of the Shroud. This observation has not been independently verified nor is it clear that this is true everywhere behind the image, but Dr. Jackson believes that light transmission photographs underscore the superficiality of the image (Personal communication).

But one does not need to use a bas relief to prove my point. Simply select a very tight weave piece of cloth, place it on a flat piece of white paper, dip the dauber in the pigment, and rub gently on the cloth. Even with the lightest rubbing the red pigment penetrates and leaves a visible iron oxide dusting on the paper. This point is very important since with a bas relief, when the cloth is molded over the details of the relief, the high points tend to spread the weave. At these particular points even greater amounts of pigment penetrate.

Another problem with the rubbing approach is deposition of excess pigment on the leading edge of the skoke This is true since the dauber is loaded with the pigment. When the dauber is set down on the cloth and the stroke is begun, more of the pigment is deposited than on the return stroke. But it may also be due to the amount of pressure applied since when the dauber is first set down the artist may not pull up on the tool until after he has begun the stroke. Again, this concept can be simply demonstrated. Take a piece of paper and a soft lead pencil. Place it on a coin and rub. Note that the darker areas are on the leading edge of the strokes. On a VP8 Image Analyzer these areas would show up as high points in the relief. We see none of this type of distortion on the VP8 of the Shroud image.

However, I have not completely ruled out Nickell's approach to producing the Shroud face because I think with practice and experimentation one can learn to control the pressure of one's strokes. Also, without independent verification of STURP's observation we cannot be scientifically guaranteed that the image does not penetrate everywhere on the Shroud. Nevertheless, it seems to me that such control as Nickell has developed has been after the fact, using the Shroud face as his guide. Since the Shroud is unique &emdash; whether as a genuine burial cloth, or as an artist's production &emdash; no artist in the mid-1300s had such a unique image to copy. Further, pace Nickell's view41, the greater challenge is not to copy the face, rather it is the entire Shroud image which would have required a bas relief of both front and back and consistent control to have rendered an image the size of a human body similar to the one we find on the Shroud without evidence of directional marks.

On the other hand the method suggested by Dr. McCrone may be capable of greater control because here the application assumes a flat surface. If the iron oxide mixture with the tempera is kept thin and the finger or brush pressure kept light with only a wet, not fluid, application, then the iron oxide tends to stay relatively near the surface. This is extremely important since STURP's study has not been able to detect a miniscus which would imply a fluid application. On the other hand, with repeated application and rubbing the pigment can be deposited between the threads. More recently Dr. McCrone has shown that microscopically the rubbing technique is untenable since he would expect to find evidence of "snowfencing" on the Shroud fibers42.

One of the main problems I see with this approach is that of stylistics. Dr. Noemi Gabrielli saw this problem when she inspected the Shroud in 1969. She perceived that the image was more like the kind of representations of the human figure rendered in the Renaissance. She therefore concluded that the Shroud she was examining was not the original but was a copy made about 130 years later but pre-dating the 1532 fire in closer conformity to the styles and intimate anatomical knowledge of the Renaissance period.

Se si tiene conto dei caratteri stilistici, si deve ammettere che questa non è la stessa Sindone comparsa per la prima volta nell'anno 1356, appartenente al conte Goffredo I di Charny, e poi passata in proprietà ai duchi di Savoia. Si tratterebbe di una versione posteriore di circa centotrent'anni, anteriore tuttavia al 1532, data dell'incendio.43

The method Dr. Gabrielli has suggested is that of producing an image painted on a cloth stretched taut and soaked with water. When this image was completed she suggests it was impressed upon a second cloth also stretched taut and soaked with water. The image was created using a compound of sepia-colored clay and yellow ocher diluted in a resinous liquid. Both cloths were laid flat and weights placed on top to transfer the image from the original painting to the new cloth.

However, in her view the image is strictly inherent in the mixture added &emdash; the clay, yellow ocher, and resinous liquid. For STURP the image is inherent in the dehydrated fibers themselves. Gabrielli does not discuss the "blood" markings. But in fact all of the artist hypotheses assume that the blood was added after the image was completed. STURP believes it has evidence that the "blood" was on the cloth before the image &emdash; i.e. that the "blood" acted as a sealant against whatever oxidized the flax fibers ofthe image area44.

If true, the same problem is inherent in all artist hypotheses proposed. If an artist is involved it seems that the only way blood markings could have been accurately imposed upon the cloth is that an image was previously placed there to act as a guide for the artist. Any further scientific examination of the Shroud must seek to explore this angle thoroughly and from a statistically valid sample of the blood areas to determine if all such blood area fibers bear the same characteristics. If it can be shown that the blood was likely on the cloth before the image then science will have made the artist hypothesis infinitely more difficult to hold.

Nevertheless, Dr. McCrone believes he has found iron oxide intimately associated with the entire image area. If this observation should prove, from an independent examination to be accurate, what explanation can be offered? Is the iron oxide in the image area due to an artist &emdash; whether by finger painting, dauber, or brush, or is it there due to some other reason?

Dr. McCrone's work is almost entirely based upon the sticky tape samples taken by STURP from the surface of the Shroud in 1978. Aside from being representative only of the surface of the cloth, the sampling was not a statistically valid one. We do not know the exact distribution of the iron oxide45. As noted above, STURP believes it finds such surface samples in the water stain margins and in the blood areas and it further believes that not all the red particulate matter is iron oxide. Dr. McCrone believes there is no blood on the Shroud and that the majority of the red particulate matter is iron oxide and that it is ubiquitous in the image area. Who is right? Does it exist everywhere in the image area and are there deposits of it between the threads? Until there is an independent and objective examination of this question the matter will not go away.

Enter now the archaeologist. Information on the distribution of the iron oxide on the Shroud is an especially important matter. Certainly, iron does occur in water and can be deposited as a precipitate in water stain margins. And artists do use iron oxide as a pigment. But, to my knowledge, no attention has yet been paid to the use of iron oxide in relationship to burials and to ancient pharmacopoeia in relationship to the Shroud.

It is a curious fact that of the thousands of crucifixions which ancient sources tell us took place in the Holy Land, only one, that of the discovery at Giv'at ha-Mivtar in 1968, has been clearly proven to be a crucifixion victim. What was the initial clue which tipped off archaeologists? A nail was penetrated through the ankle bone and though much deteriorated was still fairly intact. One reason for the "lack" of evidence for crucifixion nails may be due to the fact that when archaeologists have found them in burials, they have preferred not to interpret them as evidence for crucifixion. One such example might be a discovery made in the "Abba Cave" in 1968. Dr. Patricia Smith, of the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, examined the skeletal remains and states:

Two iron nails were found in association with the phalanges. One had the base of a proximal phalange adhering to it. The second, which was bent, had a proximal phalange adhering to one side and a medial phalange to the other side. In neither case had the nail perforated the bone. A third nail was also present, but no bones were in contact with it.46

She concludes that "The iron nails found in the Abba Cave were associated with the phalanges (fingers) and did not penetrate the bone; it would not seem, therefore, that this can be considered evidence of crucifixion."47 Smith's reluctance to interpret the nails as evidence for crucifixion stems solely from the fact that none of the nails perforated any of the bones. However, the fact that three nails were included in the burial (i.e. because, in Jewish custom, anything that had touched a corpse was considered impure), the fact that two of them were directly connected with finger bones, and the fact that one of the nails was bent (suggesting that it had once been pounded into something (a wooden cross?), plus the fact that we are left with no other good reason for why three nails would have been associated with the bones, while not constituting absolute proof, are all strongly suggestive of a crucifixion.

But there must have been many more nails that archaeologists have simply missed. This is partly because the Mishnah, Shabbath, 6:10 tells us that iron nails were highly desirable as amulets to treat inflammation &emdash; i.e. wounds.

Men may go out with a locust's egg or a jackal's tooth or with a nail of [the gallows of ] one that was crucified, as a means of healing. So R. Meir. But the Sages say: Even on ordinary days this is forbidden as following in the ways of the Amorite. (brackets are author's).

Danby comments that the reference to "Amorite" means that the Sages label such practices as being "heathenish superstition". In other words, while not all religious authorities approved of such practices, folk customs often prevailed. Clearly, nails are missing from many burials because they were scavenged at the site of crucifixion. Pliny the Younger, writing in the last half of the first century AD was vitally fascinated with all facets of nature and medicine. In his Natural History he tells us the following interesting use of iron:

Rust of iron is obtained by scraping it off old nails with an iron tool dipped in water. The effect of rust is to unite wounds and dry them and staunch them... Applied on wool it arrests women's discharges and for recent wounds it is useful diluted with wine and kneaded with myrrh, and for swellings round the anus dipped in vinegar.

Scale of iron, obtained from a sharp edge or point, is also employed, and has an effect extremely like that of rust only more active, for which reason it is employed even for running at the eyes. It arrests haemorrhage, though it is with iron that wounds are chiefly made!48

This kind of knowledge was carried throughout the ancient world and when, in the medieval period, much of it seemed lost in Europe, the Arabs became among the foremost to preserve and advance ancient medicine. The Arab physician Al-Samarqandi, who died in 1222 AD, wrote a medical formulary which mentions hematite as being an ingredient in a formula for arresting blood flows49.

If an independent examination of the Shroud confirms Dr. McCrone's findings that iron oxide is intimately associated everywhere with the image, then perhaps we should consider the possibility that the presence of iron oxide may have a pharmacopoeic explanation. By this interpretation the pervasive presence of the iron oxide becomes a support to the case for authenticity, not a hindrance. But it must be firmly established that such iron oxide exists largely on the surface, not in large amounts between the threads which, in my view, could support Dr. McCrone's artist hypothesis50.

It is perhaps of passing interest to note here &emdash; though I caution that on the basis of the following slim evidence one can prove nothing &emdash; that Dr. Frei found the pollen of Christ's Thorn (Paliurus spina-Christi Mill.) and Tamarisk of the Nile (Tamarix nilotica Bunge) on the Shroud. Both of these are mentioned as dry astringents51. Martin Levey notes that, "In Egypt today, the tamarisk is used for haemmorrhage..."52. But their presence on the cloth may mean little more than that the cloth was exposed to the same area where these plants grew. Yet, if pollen from these were found to be statistically high on the doth it could offer support to the pharmacopoeic view53.

Finally, we must not close this discussion of the presence of iron oxide on the Shroud without mentioning the promise that an investigation of copies of the Shroud may offer in possibly explaining the iron oxide and to which we have briefly alluded above. Don Luigi Fossati, S.D.B.54 has noted that such copies of the Shroud kept in Spain and Italy were laid down on the Shroud as a kind of authentication of the copy &emdash; perhaps akin to the concept of "brandea"55. Still more recently we learn that there is a copy of the Shroud in Summit, New Jersey with an inscription running warpways on the copy: "CAVATO DALL'ORIGINALE IN TVRINO L'ANNO 1624" (Taken from the original in Turin, the year 1624)56. We are convinced that such copies placed upon the Shroud in such a manner, may have left some historical trace.

As noted above, McCrone and his associate, Christine Skirius, have examined more than 30,000 fibers and found a high association of iron oxide and particularly iron oxide coated fibers in the image area. Did these iron oxide coated fibers come from the Shroud or from the copies? We believe this entire matter needs careful scientific examination to determine the possible relationship between copies and original.

One of the problems with the sticky tape samples has been the inability of researchers to be absolutely certain of the source from which the red particulate matter and coated fibers might have come. The sticky tapes, by themselves, do not prove that such particles and fibers actually were pulled from the Shroud. Therefore, we must be open to the possibility that they may have flaked off from the copy during the laying of the copy down on the original. Dr. Alan D. Adler and I, independently, called for a test of the possibility that "sloughing off" from True Copies could have occurred. At my request, Ms. Isabel Piczek, well known Los Angeles mural artist, with the aid of a forensic pathologist, has conducted such a test and has definitively shown that such sloughing off &emdash; both of particles and of iron oxide coated fibers &emdash; can in fact be transferred from a painted surface to another57.

We have discussed at length the presence of iron oxide on the Shroud and a number of its possible implications from an archaeological and historical point of view.

Dirt adjacent to the heel

Before turning to a discussion of the carbon dating picture I wish to touch briefly on one item of note. Samuel Pellicori and Mark Evans have said that "Visual observation of the heel area at 500 times magnification revealed the presence of very fine yellowish particles suggesting dirt..."58. Through the kindness of Ray Rogers, one of the STURP scientists who took the sticky tape samples, Mr. Joseph Kohlbeck, a chemist at Hercules Aerospace in Salt Lake City, Utah, was able to study some of the samples of sticky tapes taken from the Shroud.

He found particles of calcium and made special microscopic mounts. Upon study he discovered that the particles were of a travertine which is a less common form of calcite. These samples were then compared with similar thin mounts of materials taken by Dr. Eugenia Nitowski from some tombs near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. These also turned out to be travertine thus demonstrating an interesting match between the two59.

Radiocarbon dating

Now I would like to turn my attention to the topic of carbon dating. I am asked about this more than any other facet of Shroud research. But the answer to the question is not as straight forward and as uncomplicated as one might wish.

When the study of radioactive carbon was first begun by Dr. Willard Libby at the University of Chicago a Geiger counter was used to count the breakdown rate &emdash; a method called "beta counting" which measures radiocarbon 14 indirectly. Years ago the reason the Shroud was not carbon dated was due to the fact that too large a sample &emdash; about the size of a handkerchief &emdash; would have had to have been taken from the cloth in order to obtain an accurate date. Now, much smaller samples can be run in an accelerator using a method known technically as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry or AMS for short. This device, which does not use a Geiger counter, is only about 20 years old and measures the amount of carbon in any given sample directly. It is well known, however, that this latter method is extraordinarily sensitive to tiny amounts of contamination. Contaminants not removed during the standard pretreatment will therefore affect the test results. This issue is now being investigated further60. When the radiocarbon matter is finally settled &emdash; if it should be settled in favor of a first century date &emdash; discussion will not cease regarding the authenticity of the Shroud.

With this view Prof. William Meacham, of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, who otherwise supports the authenticity of the Shroud, agrees: "A 14C age of 2,000 years would not appreciably tilt the scales toward genuineness, as only the cloth, not the image, would be so dated"61. When archaeologists grapple with dates they like to talk in terms of a terminus a quo and terminus ad quem &emdash; that is, a beginning date and an ending date. If we can get a valid date for the cloth we shall have a beginning date. But how can we obtain an ending date &emdash; in essence, a date for the image?

Most observers are agreed that the "blood" patterns on the cloth are intimately connected with the image. Whether the "blood" was deposited on the Shroud before the image developed, or whether an artist, using an animal protein binder and iron oxide, to simulate it, or even if he used real blood to paint his blood flow patterns, the material, if datable, would effectively give us an ending date. Dr. Richard Gillespie and his colleagues at the Oxford accelerator facility have successfully been able to date hydroxyproline, a component of animal gelatin62.

Therefore, if an artist, using a mixture of tempera and iron oxide, painted the "blood" on the Shroud image, material taken from these blood flows can be dated to tell us when the artist painted the flows &emdash; and hence also the image63. But can genuine blood be dated? For a number of years an effort has been made by one laboratory in particular to do just that64. Suffice it to say that two tests were conducted, one on a 3 milligram blood carbon sample and the other on an incredibly tiny 50 microgram sample. Both tests were done on samples for which the date was already known by the investigators &emdash; both based upon blood taken from stone tools dated by typological means. The 50 microgram sample is interesting since it came from a tool typologically dated to 2000 years ago. Both tests were pronounced successful.

Conclusion

I wish to close with a few remarks on the role of archaeology in the study of the Shroud. History and archaeology is actually a vast reservoir of knowledge about past ways of life. It can provide clues for the scientist to pursue and offer alternatives for interpreting the data scientists collect.

But please understand, neither science nor archaeology, in my opinion, can ever unequivocally prove the Shroud authentic. There is no single test which science can use to identify the man of the Shroud. Josephus tells us that thousands of his countrymen were crucified during the Roman occupation of Judea.

Moreover, neither can one unequivocally prove the identity of the Man of the Shroud by pointing to singular unique features of the image. For example some have pointed to the Crown of Thorns as evidence of the identification of the Man of the Shroud. Yet in the same Jerusalem burial referred to earlier, ossuary III/2, an adult male, 50-60 years old, was found with a plaited crown of cereal spikes on the skull. The correlation with the Crown of Thorns is not exact but the general parallel is there.

History and archaeology can, however, take the entire data base provided by science, and, coupled with the many observations of medically trained investigators, set them within a proper context to attempt to build a case consistent with the requirements of the Gospel narratives. Unfortunately the scientific data base, as it currently stands, has too may blank spots. These can only be filled by a new comprehensive examination of the Shroud. Surely, the information of tomorrow will help us sort out the controversies of today.

NOTES

1 The following article is © 1998 by P.C. Maloney. All rights reserved. I am deeply indebted to Mr. John Beers, science librarian at a Midwestern library, to Mrs Dorothy Crispino, Director of the Indiana Center for Shroud Studies and editor of Shroud Spectrum International, and to Rev. Albert R. Dreisbach, Jr. founder and director of the Atlanta International Center for the Contiuing Study of the Shroud of Turin, Inc. for proofreading this paper. They have each made valuable suggestions which have been incorporated here and I wish to thank them for their help. I am solely responsible for any errors which remain. This paper was presented publically at the Elizabeth College Conference on the Shroud of Turin, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, Feb. 15-16, 1986. Except for the deletion of material no longer relevant, and for the insertion of some new material and other minor changes, it remains essentially the same as originally given. There may be some material that needs reinterpretation or expansion in the light of more recent developments. The following abbreviation «SSI» for «Shroud Spectrum International».

2 See K. A. JAKES, L. R. SIBLEY for study and references in Survival of Cellulosic Fibres in the Archaeological Context, in «Science and Archaeology», 25 (1983), pp. 31-38.

3 See Y. AHARONI, in «Atiqot», 3 (1961), p. 161; M. LEVIN, S. HOROWITZ, Textile Remains from the Caves of Nahal Hever, in «Atiqot», 3 (1961), pp. 163f.

4 G. RAES, «Appendix B &emdash; Rapport d'analyse: Pl. II-III», in La Santa Sidone: ricerche e studi della Commissione di esperti nominata dall'arcivescovo di Torino, Card. Michele Pellegrino nel 1969, in «Supplemento Rivista Diocesana torinese», gennaio (1976), pp. 79-83.

5 For example in I. WILSON, The Shroud of Turin, Doubleday & Company, Garden City 1979, p. 53.

6 G. RAES, op. cit., p. 83.

7 ELHAMY A.M. GREISS, Anatomical identification of some ancient Egyptian plant materials, Costa Tsoumas & Co., Cairo 1907.

8 Private communication.

9 We are not necessarily required to understand "India" in the Talmud as the modern Asiatic India. See the full discussion of this problem in: P. MAYERSON, A confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine sources, in «Journal of the American Orient Society», 2 (1993), pp. 169-174.

10 SIR GEORGE WATT, The wild cultivated cotton plants of the world, Longmans, Green and Co., Bombay and Calcutta 1907.

11 The reader should not understand that by the use of the phrase "valid carbon date" I do not wish to impugn the precision of the testing conducted in 1988. Rather, until we understand the discrepancy between the radiocarbon date and some significant historical facts, and until we know that the date is truly representative of the entire cloth, not just one corner, and until we have a better grasp of the nature of the Shroud material being dated (i.e. that some as yet unknown or poorly understood factor or factors about the cloth that may be involved affecting the date), we do not consider that a scientifically verified date has yet been obtained.

12 By this is meant that the wool and linen mixture only (i.e., with animal and vegetable fibers together) was not permitted by the law of Diverse Kind. Other fiber combinations were permitted.

13 COHN-SHERBOK, RABBI DAN, The Jewish Shroud of Turin, «The Expository Times», 1 (1980), pp. 13-16.

14 M. JASTROW, A Dictionary of the Targumin, the Talmud Babli and the Midrashic Literature, Traditional Press, Inc., Brooklyn (NY) 1903. See under the entry for sadìn (p. 957).

15 E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, The Mummy, Biblo & Tannen, London 1964 (reprint of 1894 edition). See p. 211.

16 See her Egyptian Mummies, British Museum, London 1984, p. 26. My thanks to Mr John Beers, of Lincoln Nebraska, to whom I am indebted for kindly bringing this and the previous reference to my attention.

17 See M. FREI, Nine Years of Palinological Studies on the Shroud, in «SSI», 3 (1982), pp. 3-7.

18 Private communication.

19 See the article by S. SENIOR SACK, How Far Can Wind-Borne Pollen Be Disseminated, in «The Journal of Allergy», 20 (1949), pp. 453-460.

20 See his 1965 study Long-Term Analysis of Atmospheric Pollen, co-authored with Anges Hansen and published in the Proceedings of the Atmospheric Biology Conference, 1965, pp. 145-150 where, on p. 148 he states: «As one would expect, the sampling slides have given virtually no evidence for the presence of the many insect-pollinated species which together comprise an important element in the current vegetational community».

21 Private communication.

22 See, P.C. MALONEY, The Current Status of Pollen Research and Prospects for the Future, in «The ASSIST Newsletter», 1 (1990), pp. 1-7.

23 Dr. Shafersman is currently professor of micro-paleontology at Miami University in Florida. For the most recent edition of Dr. Shafersman's text see the discussion in MCCRONE, W.C., Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud, Microscope Publications, Chicago 1996, pp. 298-308.

24 Letter to Dr. Walter McCrone in «The Microscope», 30 (1983), pp. 344-352. See also above.

25 G.R. LAVOIE, Unlocking the Secrets of the Shroud, Thomas More, Allen (TX) 1998, p. 48, includes a reference to II Chronicles 16:14 as a precedent for flowers in a burial. This may not be impossible. However, the context indicates that these were not flowers placed there. Rather, these were spices prepared by specialists from the exudates of spice plants. Israel Slotki translates the verse regarding David's burial as follows: «And they buried him in his own sepulchres,... and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds [of spices] prepared by the perfumers' art; and they made a very great burning for him.» (I.W. SLOTKI, The Soncino Books of the Bible, VI, Chronicles, The Soncino Press, London &Bournemouth 1952, p. 233; brackets are the translator's). The reference, therefore, is to the likely use of incense at David's heir - not to flowers.

26 See, for example, I. WILSON, The mysterious Shroud, Doubleday, Garden City 1986, pp. 114 and 116.

27 See N. HAAS, Anthropological observations on the skeletal remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar, in «Israel Exploration Journal», 20 (1970), p. 39.

28 It is difficult to know, at this point, just what effect Prof. G. Riggi di Numana's vacuuming on the Shroud has had on what remains of the dust. In 1978 Prof. Riggi used a relatively large nozzle to remove materials from the backside of the Shroud in four areas: from the back of the feet and calves of the legs, from the back of the buttocks, from the back of the face, and from the back of the hands. Frei's sampling, which was the first action to take place on the Shroud on the night of October 8, 1978, obviously took place before Prof. Riggi did his vacuum sampling. Much of what Dr. Frei pulled up onto his sticky tapes in 1978 came from between the threads. I do not know just where or how much vacuuming was done during the 14 hour session on April 21, 1988 when the sample was removed for radiocarbon dating. It is clear that vacuuming did take place on that occasion for Prof. Riggi informed me that it was fully videotaped. Indeed, Prof. Riggi showed excerpts of that video to his audience at Evansville, Indiana on February 12, 1994. Following that lecture I asked him regarding this new sampling. He used a small photograph of the full length of the Shroud to indicate with pen in zig-zag fashion that he had vacuumed, in addition to the area of the selvage at the frontal end of the cloth, at random over the entire surface. Therefore, it would be highly useful for someone to examine this videotape and create a map of all the areas vacuumed in order to determine from which areas on the Shroud one could obtain fresh samples from places on the cloth as yet untouched by any previous vacuuming.

29 See «La Stampa Supplement» entitled La Sindone, Aug. 27-Oct. 8 (1978), p. 11.

30 R.K. WILCOX, Shroud, Bantam/Macmillian Publ., New York 1978, pp. 47-62, 114.

31 See above my discussion of the preservation of linen cloth.

32 Vol. 28 (1980), p. 110.

33 Op. cit., p. 112.

34 See E. JUMPER et al., A comprehensive examination of the various stains and images on the Shroud of Turin, in «Archaeological Chemistry», 3 (1984), p. 459.

35 There was also an examination of the Shroud in 1931 but in a letter to me D. Crispino says, «... even when laid on a table (1931) there weren't any paintings around». This does not exclude, however, the presence of such art during other exams and expositions.

36 See J. HELLER & A.D. ADLER, A chemical investigation of the Shroud of Turin, in «Canadian Society for Forensic Science Journal», 3 (1981), p. 93f.

37 See in particular S.H. STECKOLL et al., Red-stained human bones from Qumran, in «Israel Journal of Medical Sciencies», 11 (1971), pp. 1219-1223.

38 P. BAR-ADON, Another settlement of the Judean dedesert Sect at En el-Ghuweir on the Shores of the Dead Sea, in «Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research», 222 (1977), pp. 1-25, see esp. p. 24, n. 2.

39 See variously W.C. MCCRONE, Light Microscopical study of the Turin 'Shroud' II, in «The Microscope», 28 (1980), pp. 115-128, esp. p. 122.

40 See now the discussion in W.C. MCCRONE, Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud, op. cit.

41 J. NICKELL, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1978.

42 See McCrone's discussion of "snow-fencing" in Judgement Day, op. cit., p. 143 and fig. 63 on p. 149.

43 N. GABRIELLI, La Sindone nella storia dell'arte, in P. CARAMELLO (ed.), La S. Sindone: ricerche e studi della Commissione di esperti nominata dall'Arcivescovo di Torino nel 1969, in «Rivista Diocesana Torinese», 1969, p. 89.

44 HELLER & ADLER, op. cit., p. 91a.

45 I have explored this problem further in conjunction with my discussion of x-radiography performed on the Shroud in 1978 in chapter 19 of my book A Case in Study in Document Authentication, Haworth Press, New York (in preparation).

46 P. SMITH, The human skeletal remains from the Abba Cave, in «Israel Exploration Journal», 27 (1977), pp. 121-124.

47 Ibid., p. 123f.

48 PLINY, Natural History, by W.H.S. JONES, vol. 8, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1963, p. 239.

49 M. LEVEY, N. AL-KHALEDY, The Medical Formulary of Al-Samarqandi, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1967, p. 118.

50 Since this paper was presented in 1986 Dr. McCrone has further clarified his position on the matter of the presence od iron oxide on the Shroud. He states that since the image fibers are coated all round with a thin veneer tempera and iron oxide, the paint must have been applied to the Shroud probably by a brush dipped into a diluted mixture. Both the method suggested by N. Gabrielli and the pharmacopoeic approach I have offered would leave iron earths on the surface of the cloth but not necessarily in coated fiber forms.

51 LEVEY, op. cit., p. 122.

52 LEVEY, op. cit., p. 238, n. 508.

53 As an aside I list here the plants published by Dr. Frei that Al-Samarqandi (LEVEY & AL-KHALEDY, 1967, see above) presents as having medicinal value: Althaea officinalis, marshmallow, for obtaining perfumes; Anemone coronaria, red anemone, scrofula, moist ulcers; Artemisia judaica, (Frei identifies his finding as Artemisia herba-alba) swellings, bruises; Atraphaxis spinosa, dry sugar, rose lozenge, healing wounds; (Capparis [spinosa] = poultice, ulcers, scrofula, carminative; Cistus creticus, ladanum resin, ladanu, astringent, anti-dysenteric; Corylus avellana, filbert nut, Pontic nut, hazelnut, restore hair; Cupressus semprervirens, cypress, relieve heat in face, hemorrhoids; Laurus nobilis, sweet bay oil: to warm and dry the kidneys, to purify air in epidemics; Oryza sativa, rice, used for dysentery; Peganum harmala, diuretic, vomitive; Pinus halepensis, turpentine from, for swelling; Pistacia vera, facial paralysis, Persia = astringent; Ricinus communis, stomach, dysentery, purgation; Tamarix nilotica, manna; Zizyphus spina Christi, Christ's thorn fuit, used for hair, skin, astringent, evaculate bile in stomach, and intestines. I wish to emphasize here that I am not proffering the pharmacopoeic approach as a resolution to the presence of iron oxide on the Shroud as one component of other pharmacopoeic items. As I have noted in the body of the text we have no firm evidence for its use on the dead. However, this is a topic that is barely explored and bears further depth study as a viable topic for research in and of itself to see just how the ancients treated their loved ones for burial. The prohibitions listed for treatment of the goses (a dying person) in Semahot are quite suggestive of what the living did for their loved ones just after death.

54 «Shroud Spectrum International» n. 12 (1984), pp. 7-23. For example, the Guadalupe, the Navarrete, and the Alcoy copies all bear documentation which specifically confirm their having laid down upon the Shroud of Turin. The Aglie copy is also accompanied with similar documentation.

55 But see D. Crispino's discussion and cautions in Questions and Answers, in «SSI», 22 (1987), pp. 23-26. On the other hand, since brandeum is a medieval word (believed to derive from the medieval Greek prandion), see the valuable discussion in the massive medieval glossary: D. DU CANGE, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, I, Firmin Didot Fratres, Paris 1840.

56 See the article by E.J. INSINGER, A True Copy of the Shroud in Summit, New Jersey, in «SSI», 20 (1986), pp. 24-27.

57 See her chapter in my book The Shroud of Turin: A Case Study in Document Authentication, Haworth Press, New York (in preparation), for a discussion of this testing.

58 S.F. PELLICORI, M. EVANS, The Shorud of Turin through the microscope, in «Archaeology», 1 (1981), p. 41.

59 See J.A. KOHLBECK, E.L. NITOWSKI, New evidence may explain image on the Shroud of Turin: Chemical tests link Shroud to Jerusalem, in «Biblical Archaeology Review», 4 (1986), pp. 18-29

60 Both topics are explored by their respective authors in chapter 5 (Kouznetsov) and 6 (Garza-Valdes) in my book. In interim one may consult D.A. KOUZNETSOV, A.A. IVANOV, P.R. VELETSKY, Effects of fires and biofractionation of carbon isotopes on results of radiocarbon dating of old textiles: The Shroud of Turin, in «Journal of Archaeological Sciences», 1 (1996), pp. 109-121, "on the fire model" (along with the evaluation by J.A.T. JULL et al., Factors affecting the apparent radiocarbon age of textiles: A comment on "Effects of fires and biofractionation of carbon isotopes on results of radiocarbon dating of old textiles: The Shroud of Turin" by D.A. Kouznetsov et al., in «Journal of Archaeological Sciences», 1 (1996), pp. 157-160. On "bio-plastic coating" SEE H.E. GOVE, S.J. MATTINGLY, A.R. DAVID, L.A. GARZA-VALDES, A problematic source of organic contamination of linen, in «Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research», B 123 (1997), pp. 504 ff.

61 W. MEACHAM, The authentication of the Turin Shroud, in «Current Anthropology», 3 (1983), p. 289b.

62 R. GILLESPIE et al., Radiocarbon dating of bone by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, in «Journal of Archaeological Science», 2 (1984), pp. 165-170.

63 For example, please refer to C. ANDREWS, Egyptian Mummies, British Museum, London 1984, where she refers to paint on the shrouds of Old Kingdom mummies. My thank to Mr. John Beers for suggesting that attention be drawn to this point.

64 D.E. NELSON et al., Radiocarbon dating blood residues..., in «Radiocarbon», 1 (1986), pp. 170-174.