Justin Robinson is an enthusiastic, engaging, and knowledgeable numismatist convinced that some early Byzantine coins are indisputable evidence of the Shroud of Turin in Constantinople, and before that as the Image of Edessa. His paper ‘Byzantine Coins, the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Grail’ appeared in April 2021 in the Coins & History Foundation blog, shortly before the publication of Giulio Fanti’s monumental book, Byzantine Coins Influenced by the Shroud of Christ, which was published in English in November. Robinson has also been interviewed by Guy Powell, videoed as ‘The Stories Coins Can Tell With Justin Robinson,’ at youtube.com/watch?v=OyIuJIr-w2Q&t=606s
Their emphasis is different. Fanti’s book displays a gold solidus on its cover, Robinson’s paper begins with a bronze follis, worth (in its time) about three hundred times less – a penny to a pound, in old English – and the focus and scope of their work is reflected in that choice.
Robinson illustrates his case with two examples of a follis, which he describes as a “mass-produced circulating coin,” from the reigns of John I Tzimiskes (AD 969- 976) and Michael IV (AD 1028-1041). The first represents the earliest coins of this kind, which Robinson suggests may have been influenced by the arrival in Constantinople of the Image of Edesssa in 944.
The custom of having the head of Christ but not the emperor on these coins lasted for about 110 years, and has led to these folles being known as ‘anonymous.’ An article in CoinWeek by Mike Markowitz (‘The Byzantine Anonymous Follis,’ 2020) describes and illustrates the successive types:
It is Robinson’s contention that the detail in these coins “absolutely proves conclusively that the engravers were actually looking at something physical […] and carefully making this engraving match as closely as possible.” He says that the Image of Edessa was considered too holy to go on public display, so “I’m pretty sure that the emperor would have wanted to make sure that a good likeness of the true face of Christ appeared on his coins,” and “the engravers would have been granted a special viewing of the Mandylion so that they could produce an accurate likeness”(quoted from the interview with Guy Powell). Considering the very wide variety of these folles over the years, this cannot be true.
For absolute conclusive proof that even one coin is a copy of the image on the Shroud, we’re going to need more than just a picture of an old man with long hair, and Robinson gives five specific comparisons for his first coin (my annotations):
“Most striking of all is the distinctive cross shape incorporating the eyebrows, forehead and nose. There is a long horizontal band above the eyes, bisected by a long vertical line that starts at the hairline and extends downwards to become a long nose. [1] The base of the nose connects to a smaller horizontal line that forms the moustache, which slopes down slightly on the left-hand side. [2] There is a distinctive mark on the right cheek [3], and beneath the moustache is a small square and a forked beard. [4] The long hair, which hangs down on both sides of the face, has two parallel strands of hair at the bottom left of the image. [5] These features can be seen clearly on the Shroud image, and the result is a coin that resembles the Shroud image far too closely to be dismissed as a coincidence.”
I’m afraid I don’t think these are specific enough for Robinson to have made his case. The upper extension of the ‘cross’ towards the hairline is fanciful, and a great many non-Christ Byzantine coin faces have the Tau-shape marking the nose and eyebrows. The moustache of the Shroud is bushy and mostly horizontal; the coin moustache is, like most Byzantine moustaches, thin and pointed downwards on both sides. The ‘squares’ below the chin and the beards do not match at all, and the upper tress of hair is continuous in the Shroud but clearly separate in the coin. On the coin, the hair bulges outwards over the ears, unlike the Shroud, and the overall shape of the face is ovoid, broad at the top and thin at the bottom.
But perhaps the most cogent argument against the engraver having copied the Shroud after a “special viewing” is in Robinson’s second coin, which has none of these features at all, but brings with it another collection of its own.
“Intriguingly, there is a tiny mark in the centre parting of the hair in the forehead that resembles the inverted “3” shaped bloodstain that appears on the Shroud in the same area. [1] In addition, the coin artist has replicated the way that the long hair appears to bunch at the shoulders. [2] The eyebrows are represented with a long horizontal line, and there is the suggestion that the right eyebrow is slightly higher than the left. [3] There is also a wound-like mark on the right cheek [4], a moustache that appears to slope down to the left [5] and, most striking of all, a horizontal band across the throat.”
Well, no. Nobody who had actually looked at the Shroud, and wished to include the bloodstain would have omitted the distinctive epsilon shape, and instead extended it upwards into the hair.
The bunches of hair at the shoulders do not resemble the Shroud at all, the raised right eyebrow, with its lowered right eyeball, does not resemble the Shroud image, the alleged cheek wound is in a completely different place, the moustache is pencil thin, and “most striking of all” the horizontal band across the throat does not match anything on the Shroud.
It’s not as if Robinson is exploring new territory. The reason for, and the design of, John Tzimiskes’ coin has been much discussed.1 Rather than referring back to the arrival of the Image of Edessa twenty-five years before he came to the throne, most numismatists have connected it to his own rebuilding, on a much grander scale, of the Chapel of the Chalke (Bronze) Gate of the imperial palace. The icon above this gate, the principal entrance to the palace, and that in the dome of the Hagia Sophia, were the most public, most recognised, and most authoritative depictions of Christ, and almost certainly the source of the Byzantine tradition of representing him with the long wavy hair and thin, down-pointing moustache that are typical of the vast majority of Byzantine icons of Christ.
Some attempt has been made, but only by authenticists attempting to give the Shroud provenance, to relate these icons to the Image of Edessa, and to relate the Image of Edessa to the Shroud, but there is little to substantiate their case. Although the Image may have been a major feature of Edessan liturgy, from a metropolitan point of view it was little more than a provincial curiosity, and only one of several holy images gradually incorporated into the Byzantine treasury, after which it is scarcely mentioned again.
Even in John Tzimiskes’ own reign, there is substantial variation among folles, so that it is unlikely that any of the die-makers really paid much attention to the exact details of what they were instructed to copy.
Although all these folles show some general similarities, they none of them give us an authoritative version of the epitome they were generally copying. The image above the Chalke gate seems to have come and gone through the ages. If there was one before the iconoclastic reign of Leo III, it was removed in about 730 AD, but seems to have been replaced by Eirene in about 790, removed by Leo V in 814, and replaced again before, or by, John Tzimiskes in 969. Whether any of these two or three images were the same as any of the others, and simply replaced, or all were made new, is not known. Meanwhile the image of the Hagia Sophia, completed in 537, collapsed with the dome twenty years later, and was replaced in 563. Needless to say neither of these massive icons survive, so we must look to copies or derivatives for an idea of what they looked like. According to Jeremy Johnson, the position of the hands was different. The Chalke Gate icon showed Christ cradling the scriptures in his left arm, while his right hand emerged from his wrapped cloak in a traditional gesture of blessing, but in the Hagia Sophia the book was clasped by the open fingers of the left hand, the right hand less erect, the thumb touching the third finger. According to Johnson the follis of John Tzimiskes combined the two, the right hand of the church and the left hand of the palace, symbolising the authority of Christ over both church and state, and by extension, the authority of the emperor as well.
1 See, for example, Johnson, Jeremy, ‘Piety and Propaganda: John I Tzimiskes and the Invention of Class “A” Anonymous Folles,’ Athanor XIX, 2001
Brubaker, Leslie, ‘The Chalke Gate, the Construction of the Past, and the Trier Ivory,’ Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1999
Baranov, Vladimir, ‘Visual and Ideological Context of the Chalke Inscription at the Entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople,’ Scrinium, 2017
2 Chatzidakis, Manolis, ‘An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai,’ Art Bulletin 49, 1967
Mango, Cyril, The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople, 1959
Lowden, John, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, 1997