The Chronological Gradient

The three laboratories chosen to radiocarbon date the Shroud were given samples which they cut into subsamples for dating. Oxford used three subsamples, Arizona used four and Zurich five. As we know the order in which the samples were originally placed on the cloth – Oxford nearest the end, then Zurich, then Arizona – an […]

Willy Wölfli’s Little Joke

In his controversial book about the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin (The Shroud Unmasked), David Sox, who was visiting the Zurich laboratory with the BBC Timewatch team, tells an anecdote about Professor Willy Wölfli, the head of the department. “He was also worried about the results he had with the linen tablecloth of […]

Talk to the Hand

[This was published in 2020. Following an observation made in 2023,I have made a substantial new and alternative interpretation of the nail wound,which can be found at ‘The Hand Talks Back!’] Here is a photo of a hand. The palm is distinguished from the fingers in red, and the middle of the palm, where most […]

Cubits and Ells

In a YouTube presentation on the Shroud of Turin delivered on 10 April 2020, the charismatic Fr Johnathan Meyer of All Saints, Guildford, Indiana enthusiastically declares:“The Shroud of Turin is 14.3 foot by 3.5 foot burial cloth. So if we look at the Shroud, its exact dimensions are 14.3 by 3.5 foot length of fabric. […]

The Holy Shroud of Hereford

ONE: In Hereford Museum there is a tantalising piece of rubble found while excavating for some building work in the nearby village of Canon Pyon. It is part of a Lamentation scene, and shows Jesus’s torso, his arms crossed Shroud-wise at the wrists. The museum keeps a couple of fragments of the rest of the […]

Shroudstory Adventures – 4. When is a Sindon not a Sindon?

Diana Fulbright published a detailed paper on several Greek words relating to the burial of Jesus in the bible, including ‘sindon’, ‘othonion’, ‘keiria’, and ‘soudarion’. HF: Diana Fulbright’s paper is masterly, and fairly convincingly demonstrates that the Greeks, at any rate, had no specific word which meant exclusively ‘cloth for wrapping dead bodies with,’ and […]

Shroud Adventures – 2. The Airship

What on earth is this? It appeared on 25 April 2013, having been posted on his own website (digitaldmx.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/the-shroud-of-turin) by digital surrealist Daniel Milberg, without any explanation. The walls and ceiling appear to be made of distorted two-dollar bills, and the tail marking seems vaguely but militarily German. One or two of the scholars of […]