I have been inspired to revisit the question of pollen on the Shroud of Turin by the publication of two interesting papers, analysing some pollen assemblages of First Century Jerusalem and Medieval Europe respectively. 1 The title of this article relates to the location of these assemblies, a town drain running roughly from the Temple Mount to the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, and a collection of cesspits in Belgium, of which one in Aalst (halfway between Ghent and Brussels) is 13th/14th century.
Notoriously, in 1973 Max Frei-Sulzer extracted pollen from the Shroud by sticky-tape sampling, and identified 58 species of pollen which he thought provided conclusive evidence of a provenance including Jerusalem, Constantinople and Northern France, with a distinct emphasis on the first. 2 Unfortunately, as we have discussed before, 3 his methods, his secrecy, his dubious reputation and his repudiation by Israeli botanist Avinoam Danin 4 and Gaetano Ciccone 5 make all his results too suspect to be worth discussing and his conclusions worthless.
However, his raw material was reexamined by Uri Baruch, 6 from whose investigation some more reliable information can be drawn. Unfortunately, of the just over 300 pollen grains Baruch examined, a third were unidentifiable, and we don’t know whether it was a representative third or not. Notoriously, nearly half of those which he did identify were a single species (which he and previously Frei identified as Gundelia tournefortii, but which is now under question) 7 which, if they are right, cannot be adventitious, and a further 27 grains were Cistaceae (making 13% of all pollen counted, or 24% if the Gundelia is ignored), from rock roses, also unlikely to be adventitious.
Discounting these, the list of other pollen ‘types’ (even today, very few palynological studies are specific to species level) is illuminating. Some 35 types are listed, varying in precision from whole families with similar pollen, such as the Tubiliflorae, Umbelliferae and Gramineae, to Genera, and a few particular species, such as Lomelosia prolifera. This last is the Carmel Daisy, and native to the Eastern Mediterranean, which in a more typical assemblage could be diagnostic, but which is also easy to misidentify. Eleven pollen grains were oak-like, and classified as “Quercus (deciduous) [?]” and “Quercus (?)” which is a little confusing. In fact of the 35 types identified by Baruch, seven are qualified with a question mark, suggesting that even they are not certain.
In order to try to compare the three assemblages, from 1st century Jerusalem, 13th century Belgium, and the Shroud, a certain amount of manipulation of the data is sensible, which, in the interests of full disclosure, is detailed below. In particular, various names have changed, and groups of plants have been re-assigned to different types, over the years.
Starting with Uri Baruch’s analysis of the Shroud pollen, I shall discard completely the alleged smear of Gundelia tournefortii, all on a single slide, whose provenance and identification remain obscure, but in my opinion are not representative of the origin or subsequent history of the Shroud. The next commonest pollen are from the Cistaceae family – rock-roses – of which 23 are undifferentiated, 2 are called “Cistus salviifolius-type (?),” and 1 is “Cistus incanus-type.” These do not suggest confidence in the identification, so I shall include them all as Cistaceae. They comprise nearly a quarter of the 112 identified pollen remaining after Gundelia has been excluded, so it is remarkable that no Cistaceae at all were found among the 1200 grains extracted from the Stepped-Street drain in Jerusalem, although the family is not rare in Israel. Cistaceae do make up a very small proportion of the pollen found in the Belgian cesspits, and are explained by perhaps being derived from honey, as they cannot be supposed to have come from atmospheric distribution or from rock roses being used in food.
Next in abundance of the Shroud pollen are the 13 grains from Umbelliferae, also called Apiaciae, a large, widespread, and poor geographical indicator. 13 out of about 100 grains is a larger proportion (about twice as much) than appears in either the Jerusalem or Belgian assemblages, but this could be accounted for as a sampling error. A similarly undifferentiated group is the Tubiliflorae (usually now Tubulilflorae), a sub-family of the Asteraceae. They are common to all three assemblages.
The 11 grains of Quercus on the Shroud represent about four times as much as appears in the other two surveys, but the uncertainty of Baruch’s identification does not enable us to say much more about it.
Next in abundance on the Shroud are 6 grains of Graminae, now more usually called Poaceae, the grasses, and 5 grains of Papilionaceae, a sub-family of the Fabaceae, the beans. They are all abundant and widespread, appear in all three assemblages, and cannot be considered geographic indicators. However it may be worth mentioning that grass pollen, including cereals, is a very prominent component of most pollen assemblages from almost every place and time, so it is curious that such a small proportion was identified on the Shroud.
Echinops (4 grains) is a common and widely distributed Genus of globe thistles, and Tamarix (4 grains) is a Genus of largely Western Mediterranean tree. Although there are Israeli species of both, none are found in the Jerusalem area except two species of Echinops (E. polyceras and E. adenocaulos), which is not the one identified by Frei (E. glaberrimus).
25 other plant types are also quoted as being represented by 3, 2 or 1 grains of pollen on Frei’s sticky tape slides, 5 of them qualified as “(?).”
Apart from the pollen identified as present on the Shroud, it is also worth noting a few absences. Willow (Salix) pollen, for example, which is found in both the Jerusalem and Belgian assemblages, is completely missing from the Shroud, as is bullrush (Scirpus) and Papyrus, which are only present in the Jerusalem collection. These are associated with water, and ought to be present on the Shroud, as a result of the retting, weaving, washing or fire extinguishing processes to which it has been subjected. Similarly, there is no vine pollen, nor elm, walnut, cypress or fig, all of which are found in the Jerusalem assemblage. The most abundant of the minor plants represented in Belgium is the cornflower (Centurea cyanus), which the author of the paper thinks may be so common because it grows among the cereals; its native range is the around the north to northeastern Mediterranean, from which it has spread al over Eurasia and the USA. Centaurea is also represented in the Shroud pollen, this time tentatively identified as “Centaurea solstitialis – type.” C. solstitialis is the yellow star thistle, with a much wider native range covering most of Europe and adjoining countries. Without very microscopic analysis it would be easy to confuse the two.
In his analysis of the species determined by Max Frei-Sulzer, Werner Bulst lists 17 “plants typical or frequent in Jerusalem and its surroundings,” which are not found in Europe. Were it sound, the list would be quite diagnostic, but unfortunately, it is too specific, and represents more wishful thinking than objective identification. In the discussion below, distribution information comes from Plants of the World Online (POWO) published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and also Flora of Israel and Adjacent Areas, by Avinoam Danin and Ori Fragman-Sapir, at flora.org.il. Pollen information is from PalDat, the online Palynological Database.
Of the 17, a few have been covered above, and a few are not mentioned by Uri Baruch at all, either in his comments about Frei’s identification or in his own list of types. Others are given comments such as “OK, but not at species level,” which generally widens their native distribution to all around the Mediterranean or even Europe. Slightly curiously, many of them, although listed as present in Flora of Israel, are conspicuously absent from the Jerusalem area. Almost all are represented by a single grain among the 203 Baruch was able to give any identification to.
For example, Frei’s Acacia albida, now called Faidherbia albida, is rare in Israel generally, and only common around Galilee, not Jerusalem. Acacia (and Faidherbia) pollen in general looks like a packet of a dozen burger buns squashed tightly together, and one species is difficult to distinguish from another. Baruch commented “OK, but not at species level.” Acacia species are found all over southern Europe and most of Africa.
Anabasis aphylla is another rare plant to Israel that does not grow in or near Jerusalem. Anabasis in general is only native east of the Black Sea, but Baruch calls this one “Anabasis type,” which could be anything.
Artemisia herba-alba is native to the western Mediterranean, and not Israel. However, Flora of Israel gives it as a synonym for Artemisia sieberi, which is in fact quite a different species. A. sieberi has been found in Jerusalem.
Fagonia mollis is common in southern Israel but rare in Jerusalem. Baruch thinks it looks more like Fagonia arabica, which isn’t found in Jerusalem at all. Fagonia is very similar to Zygophyllum which is native to Africa and most of south west Asia.
Glaucium grandiflorum is a poppy found around Jerusalem, and in the Middle East generally. However, Baruch commented that the pollen on the slide labelled Glaucium was “Echinops. Glaucium not found.” The two pollens are very different in shape, one being spherical and the other ellipsoid with squashed into a triangular cross-section. How could Max Frei not distinguish between them?
Helianthemum vesicarium is a pink rock-rose, found in Jerusalem and the Middle East, but Baruch notes, “Cistaceae; the slide is not clear enough.” All the Cistaceae have more or less spherical pollen, covered in a network which looks a bit like honeycomb, with a few protrusions. Distinguishing one from another is extremely difficult. Try identifying the ‘unknown’ grain below! (See Footnote 8)
When I set out to compare the alleged Shroud pollen with that of the Stepped Street drain and the cesspits of Belgium, I hoped that, at least using Baruch’s identification, it might be possible to demonstrate or disprove an Israeli context, but unfortunately, as with so often in Shroud studies, in fact the evidence is insufficiently clear to be diagnostic.
1). ‘Pollen Analysis of the Stepped Street Drains of 1st Century Jerusalem,’ Patrick Geyer and Ronnie Reich, 2022.
‘The Interpretation of Pollen Assemblages from Mediaeval and Post-Mediaeval Cesspits: New Results from Northern Belgium,’ Koen Deforce, 2017
2). ‘Nine Years of Palinological Studies on the Shroud,’ Max Frei-Sulzer, Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 3, 1982, at shroud.com.
‘The Pollen Grains on the Shroud of Turin,’ Werner Bulst, Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 10, 1984, at shroud.com.
3). ‘Problems with Pollen,’ Hugh Farey, BSTS Newsletter 79, 2014
4). Botany of the Shroud, p68, Avinoam Danin, 2010
5). La truffa dei pollini. Il dossier completo, Gaetano Ciccone, 2011
6). ‘Floristic Indicators for The Origin of the Shroud of Turin,’ Avinoam Danin and Uri Baruch, 1998
7). Botany of the Shroud, p68, Avinoam Danin, 2010. German Palynologist Thomas Litt is quoted as saying: “with a high probability, I can exclude that the pollen I have seen on the sticky tapes belong to Gundelia.”
8). The ‘unknown’ pollen grain is of Cistus monspeliensis.
Hugh,
Thanks for your latest comment. You make some relevant points. I might just respond again.
Regarding Max Frei-Sulzer’s lifelong palynology studies, I know next to nothing about them. But according to his friend Petrus Soons, in a website page about him, he held a doctorate in Botany. Elsewhere I’ve read that his dissertation was on palynology. He presumably wrote his dissertation when young, in his 20s, having already studied the subject for at least a couple of years as preparation. A dissertation itself normally then takes a couple years or more to research and write. He certainly retained a keen professional interest in botany and palynology thereafter. His long career in criminology involved a lot of microscopic inspection of crime scene debris, using his famous and pioneering “sticky tape” method of collecting samples, often including pollens among that evidence. And when he finally conducted his Shroud pollen study 1973-1982 he was in his prime, his 60s, with three to four decades of highly relevant experience behind him. He spent nine years on and off studying those Shroud pollens, and intensively in his free time. He did much valuable new field research in the process. So it seems unfair to demonize Frei, to deny him “any credibility.”
As you rightly note, Prof. Dr. Thomas Litt has been a prolific author of palynology studies. But it seems possible that he was so very prolific, researching so many different pollen subjects, that he did not devote much time to the study of the Shroud pollens when asked to do so in 2001, in his 40s. He apparently wrote no article on the subject then, and I’ve never read of any further comments by him on the Shroud pollen, nor any such later article by him, and here we are in 2024. He’s apparently still alive, in his 60s now and perhaps still vigorous. But maybe he’s one of those many academic scholars who do not wish to sully their names by (in his case, further) involvement with the allegedly dubious Turin Shroud. I also wonder whether he was convinced, back in 2001 or even before, soon after the (now greatly doubted) 1988 C-14 dating results were announced, that the TS was man-made in medieval France and therefore a hoax. Hence, perhaps, his Shroud pollen skepticism.
Another real possibility: If Frei, who died in 1983, could have spoken with Litt in 2001 and could have used the same cutting-edge technology that Litt used that year, he might have agreed with Litt – partly, largely, or entirely. Technology came a long way in those twenty years. Besides, Uri Baruch in 1998 largely agreed with Frei’s Shroud pollen findings at genus level, didn’t he?
Incidentally, or not, it seems that Frei has finally been cleared of his mistaken authentication of the “Hitler Diaries” in that 1982-83 hoax. He was tricked into doing so. See P. Riedmatten’s short article “‘Hitler’s Notebooks’ and Max Frei-Sulzer” in the BSTS Newsletter, No. 87, Summer 2018.
Back to Litt, and now McCrone too. If I’m not mistaken, Hugh, there’s a curious contradiction in your citing Litt in support of your pollen-skeptic position. Walter McCrone, very anti-Shroud authenticity back in the 1970s and even later, suggested that Frei had manipulated the pollen evidence, especially in the case of the “Gundelia tournefortii” pollen, adding numerous grains of it to one of his slides. You, being a fellow skeptic of Shroud authenticity, have quoted McCrone credibly on that point (e.g., your 2014 BSTS article, “Problems with Pollens,” Points 1 and 6). You even alluded to McCrone’s sinister scenario again with your phrase “Notoriously … [the Gundelia tournefortii] cannot be adventitious [accidental]” in your recent “Sewers” post here on March 20.
But Litt’s main contribution to the whole Shroud pollen discussion was to cast serious doubt on Frei’s identification of those “Gundelia tournefortii” grains, at both species and genus level. And so, if Litt was correct, it would seem to mean, given McCrone’s scenario, that Frei had very oddly chosen Some Other Pollen (Carduus?) with which to deviously salt the slide in question, and then not only falsely declared it to be Gundelia tournefortii but also preserved the slide carefully for posterity, so that it would be available to future researchers (Litt), who would recognize the grains as “almost certainly” NOT being Gundelia tournefortii. That sounds to me like a convoluted scenario, even a hilarious one – like those cartoon robbers who shoot themselves in the foot during the act. May I suggest that you cannot “have your salted Gundelia and eat Other Pollens too”? Or do you have a better explanation for this peculiar situation?
In sum, it seems to me, at the moment, that if Litt was right, McCrone was wrong (on the pollens issue). And if McCrone was right (on the pollens issue), Litt was wrong. Their claims are mutually exclusive.
I’ve never read mention of this apparent discrepancy. People therefore have the impression, or create the impression as you did, that Frei’s G. tournefortii pollen claim has had two big allegations going against it. A one-two gut punch, as it were. In reality, the claim seems to have had only one big allegation against it, which (whichever of the two it is) completely negates the other big allegation against it. But maybe I’m mistaken. If you see a way to reconcile these two alternatives, Hugh, please let me know.
Please note, too, that Frei, in his footnote to his June 1982 article “Nine Years” in Shroud Spectrum International (pp. 2-6; see shroud.com), even stated that, “SEM photos of all the pollens represented on the Shroud can be found in the picture book…,” then indicating his forthcoming book as “in press.” Unfortunately it was never published because of his sudden death in January 1983. Now, to me that sentence sounds as if photos of the actual, physical pollens he collected would be published, which certainly makes sense, not merely photos of preexisting pristine catalogue specimens of the same type (as Frei had, admittedly or apparently, used in his earlier presentations). And if so, Frei was expecting to do this very soon, thereby opening himself to possible serious questioning by many academic palynologists. Apparently he did not fear them. That speaks for his honesty and confidence at least, if not his accuracy.
A final point, or question. Some or many of the pollens found on the Shroud seem to have a wide distribution in desert environments around the Mediterranean. Shroud skeptics have therefore suggested that they could have come from North Africa, not Israel/ancient Palestine. That makes perfect sense – geographically and palynologically. But if I’m not mistaken, it makes little or no sense historically and demographically. Why? Because North Africa’s population, except for Egypt located next to Israel, is 99% Muslim, and has been Muslim ever since about the year 700. So, the number of North African Christians who, impoverished besides, could have made the long Christian pilgrimage journey north to Turin sometime between 1578 and 1978 to see the Shroud during one of its rare ostentations there, and brought grains of their native desert pollen with them there, where they then somehow got onto the Shroud, seems absolutely minimal, probably next to zero. I’m not aware of anyone having made this point or asked the question before. If you see a flaw in it, please let me know. And a windborne scenario for such North African desert pollens reaching Turin seems likewise nil. Bulst in his 1984 article seriously contradicted it.
Anyway, you doubtless agree that it would be good to see some serious new palynologist action – another study, and done by three or more experts working together instead of yet another lone researcher who might be inclined toward subjectivity or worse.
John Loken
Hi John,
Thanks for your continued interest in my excursions into generally neglected backwaters of Shroud research. Almost all your comments, mostly in the form of questions, are both sound and yet to be answered – probably, at this stage, unanswerable. I don’t think there is clear evidence of any Middle Eastern pollen on the Shroud, but agree that there is also no clear ‘evidence of absence’ either.
For what it’s worth, Werner Bulst’s rather hagiographic description of Max Frei’s “lifelong study of pollen” is not justified by any evidence, whereas Thomas Litt was, and perhaps still is, the author of over a hundred papers on palynology (see researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Thomas-Litt-77287797).
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hello Hugh,
Yes, the Turin Shroud pollen question can be complex and discouraging. But in writing that, “nothing really worthwhile could be gained” from investigating it, you may have dismissed the results too soon. It seems to me that your initial presentation revealed quite a lot, just not what you wished. The pollen facts you presented appear sufficient to support a pro-Shroud authenticity case, despite your own skeptical words.
You write that it is “extremely unlikely that an Israeli cloth [you imply the Turin Shroud if it derived from ancient Palestine] would carry no pollen at all from a whole group of common [Israeli/ancient Palestine] trees.” But Hugh, if the samples from that cloth were recorded on merely some 38 small sticky tapes, as indeed they were, your word “extremely” seems much less applicable. Besides, what is the alternative scenario? That the Shroud was man-made in northern France (home to Lirey), in the early 14th century, with, of course, no pollen acquired there from those particular trees in Palestine, yet it did indeed acquire there pollen from some or many other plants native to Palestine, which got on it accidentally (and even at least one pollen grain from the faraway eastern Black Sea area)? Is that credible?
Or do you mean to suggest something more sinister about that “absence yet presence” of such Israeli/Palestine pollens on the Turin Shroud? You use the odd phrase “cannot be adventitious” without explaining it.
With regard to the numbers, that is, the 1200 Jerusalem sewer pollens vs. the 203 pollens found and identified on the Turin Shroud, and then the “58” different Shroud pollens claimed as identified more precisely by Max Frei-Sulzer, or the “37” by Uri Baruch, I’m confused by your latest comments. Why do you even cite Frei’s identification of “58” pollens in this context when you otherwise criticize his misidentifications severely? Which is it? Is Frei’s number credible or not? And Baruch’s? If their two pollen variety estimates were both overeager, a bit too high, that would bring the true number of different Shroud pollens down – 35?, 30?, 25? – perhaps to nearly the number found (or claimed as found) by the recent researcher you cite, Patrick Geyer, in his Jerusalem sewer system sample. You have used the pollen counts made by just two Shroud researchers to doubt the authenticity, the honesty, of the Shroud itself, as if Frei or Baruch were the Shroud and it goes down with them.
And could Geyer’s own 2020 paper on the Jerusalem sewer sample, identifying only “26” different pollens in a sample size of 1200, be questionable itself, perhaps even too low? Does it represent years or months or weeks of deposits in the 1st century? What was the physical size of his sample? A square meter? Less? More? Did Geyer himself perhaps make mistakes? Did he underestimate? Would he even agree that his study is relevant to the Shroud pollen question, as you assume it is? Are deposits in sewer systems and burial cloths typically compared in microscopial studies? You don’t mention these factors or potential factors, nor any others. Maybe the Shroud pollens and the Jerusalem sewer pollens are compatible after all, or may not be comparable at all.
Anyway, does it really matter that not every plant found in Jerusalem or Israel is demonstrably represented by the pollens found – thus far – on the Turin Shroud? The Shroud samples were very limited in the areas on the cloth they derived from. What percentage of the whole Shroud cloth was subject to pollen removal and analysis? Maybe 1%? The small sticky tapes Frei used to remove the pollens were only about 38 in number. That’s not many for such a very big cloth.
Thanks for the title of Bulst’s Shroud pollen article (I see now that you did cite it earlier, under Frei, which I missed). It was, as I expected, from several decades ago, 1984, when the science involved was not as advanced and reliable as today. Wouldn’t you agree? Surely we should not take his (mistaken, overeager?) words and numbers as representative of all or most Shroud authenticity supporters then or now. He and Frei were friends and had their German language and culture in common, hence Bulst’s article supporting Frei after the latter died in early 1983. Some or many other authenticity supporters might have been more cautious in their words and numbers if they had investigated the subject themselves.
By the way, I’ve now read Bulst’s article for the first time and think there may still be some or much validity to it. It is short, just 11 pages total, and 6 of them simply large format maps and tables of flora/pollen statistics. I hope many people will search it out and read it too. Bulst also relates Frei’s (generally) great reputation as a criminologist and his lifelong study of pollen, begun decades before he got involved in the Shroud. Frei was a Protestant, not a Catholic (a fact not often mentioned by Frei critics, including you), and surely no credulous fan of Catholic relics. He got into the Shroud field purely by accident in 1973, via invitation. So he had no pious devotion to it beforehand. The most famous anecdote about him within the Shroud field relates how, during the 1978 STURP examination in Turin, he reached out with his primitive Scotch tape “sticky-tape” in hand to collect a pollen sample, and was just about to jam his thumb down on The Nose Of Jesus Christ when he was interrupted. Some people relate that incident aghast, but I find it funny, though also sympathizing with Catholic sensibilities. And it does suggest that Frei was not interested in proving the Shroud authentic for any religious reason.
Your several comments on the Echinops pollens still confuse me, Hugh. You say: 1) six species are present in Israel, 2) all six look about the same (are easily confused?), 3) an Echinops species is also native to Europe (but exactly where, Hugh – northern Europe? Near Lirey, France?), 4) the Echinops glaberrimus (love that word) species is native to the Dead Sea area but not to Jerusalem (but Hugh, Jerusalem is only some 20 miles/30 km from the Dead Sea; it’s not London to Loch Lomond, 400 miles. Besides, what difference does it really make what Max Frei wrote about Echinops glaberrimus pollen over 40 years ago? Maybe he was honestly mistaken on that point, or maybe he exaggerated slightly. Does that matter so much now? With your four-sentence digression on (diversion to?) Frei you seem to be avoiding the Echinops elephant in the Dead Sea or Jerusalem room.
Moreover, Frei was so busy that he only ever found time to write one very short article on the Shroud, merely 6 pages long, 2 of them showing only photographs (“Nine Years of Palinological Studies on the Shroud,” Shroud Spectrum International, June 1982; see shroud.com). He would doubtless have modified his Shroud statements, perhaps with more caution or more evidence, in his planned book, had he not died in January 1983 at age 70.
Hugh, I’ve only had time in recent days to check one of your recent, Frei-critical sources, Danin’s Botany of the Shroud (2010, accessible online). Your original “Sewers” post here stated that it contained on p. 68 a “repudiation” of Frei’s findings. That word sounds harsh. Danin is actually mild in his phrasing. He does not accuse Frei of deliberately falsifying facts or of being sloppy. Also, Danin, a botanist not a palynologist, only covers the pollens question on a few pages of his short book (64-68), two of those few pages fully occupied by photographs, not text. He corrects Frei indirectly in two or three short paragraphs, based on “new advanced microscope equipment” used in 2001, almost twenty years after Frei died. Even then, Danin admits that the palynologist who actually did the new research, Thomas Litt, only examined “several” of Frei’s Shroud pollen slides, “not all,” and Litt seems to have focused almost entirely on the question of Frei’s alleged “Gundelia tournefortii” pollens, which Litt strongly doubted were that species or even that genus. (Has Litt been heard from since, by the way? If not, his contribution was only fragmentary and who knows how reliable) So, that was just one pollen variety out of dozens that Frei and Baruch identified or claimed to have identified. Danin (a very nice guy, by the way – I met him once) writes a little too superficially for me on the pollens question here, as if pollen genus can say nothing about a plant’s geographical range. He seems focused on the “species level” question, with Jerusalem his goal or criterion. But looking at the list of Shroud pollens Frei claimed to have identified, I notice, after checking online, that around half of them, even at lowly genus level not full species level as Frei thought, are found in desert environments. So, Gundelia tournefortii was apparently not even necessary to prove the Shroud’s earlier/ancient presence in desert areas consistent with Palestine/Israel. (And from my own visits to northern France, I don’t recall many arid, rocky, sandy deserts there – but maybe I missed them all.) Danin, however, side-stepped the pollen evidence and, as a more general botanist, instead favored the full flower images on the Shroud as evidence for its presence in ancient Jerusalem, devoting his short book very largely to those clues, which he thought convincing (a highly disputed topic itself, but let’s not go there). So he was a Shroud authenticity believer, not skeptic.
I’ve also just read your 2014 BSTS article “Problems with Pollen,” and found it, while insightful in spots, rather weak in general. In my print-out version, I’ve penned in 19 question marks next to statements of yours. It’s too much to elaborate on here, however.
Hugh, I’ll probably leave it at that, being busy here with other things. Thank you very much for the pollen prompt. Just a week ago I knew nothing at all about the Shroud pollens, but have since learned a wee bit and do see some bright buds of springtime hope arising there.
Best wishes, of course.
John Loken
Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. Indeed, thanks for reading in the first place. You make fair points. At one point I decided not to pursue this investigation as it was clear nothing really worthwhile could be gained from it, but then I’d done quite a lot of work and I didn’t want to waste it!
It is possible to construct all sorts of scenarios by which pollen has arrived on the Shroud, and the presence or absence of this or that, especially if there are only few or a single grains. I quite agree that it is more likely that an Asian pollen grain would be found on an Israeli cloth than a French one, but then, it is extremely unlikely that an Israeli cloth would carry no pollen at all from a whole group of common anemophilous trees. Probability is not a very good guide to provenance in this case.
You would be making a sensible point in saying that “Naturally the sewer pollens, a much larger sample, included much more variety than the smaller Turin Shroud group did. No mystery there.” You would be, if it were true. If fact, Frei identified 58 types (and Baruch about 37) in about 300 to 400 grains on the Shroud, whereas Patrick Geyer identifies 26 in 1200, which suggests an unreliably precise identification on the Shroud’s part.
Werner Bulst’s analysis is ‘The Pollen Grains on the Shroud of Turin’ in Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 10, at shroud.com. Your point about the specificity of the area perhaps deserves more explanation than I gave. The area defined by Bulst, which is not necessarily an accurate translation of Frei’s description, is specifically “Plants typical or frequent in Jerusalem and its surroundings.” Flora of Israel lists six species of Echinops, of which only two are “Plants typical or frequent in Jerusalem and its surroundings,” neither of which are E. glaberrimus. In fact, as Baruch points out, all Echinops pollen looks much the same, including that of the numerous species that occur in Europe, so why did Frei choose E. glaberrimus rather than, say, E. adenocaulos, which does occur in Jerusalem? Was he not secure in his identification of his plants? Or did he collect an atypical plant? Or collect it from somewhere other than Jerusalem, such as the desert south of the Dead Sea, where E. glaberrimus actually occurs? Sadly this uncertainty, like many others in a similar vein, may never be resolved.
Hi Hugh,
The pollen grains found on the Turin Shroud are certainly baffling in many ways. Thanks for investigating the subject. A lot of juggling of numbers and names was required with those three different source groups or “assemblages” as you call them. I’m still dizzy from reading it all. You have my sympathies.
I’m rather ignorant on the Shroud pollen question, so can’t say much of use here. More studies certainly need to be done. Only a few have been done so far, and as you say, many of the specialists involved had their faults (maybe the others did too). Perhaps more teams of two or three or four botanists working together are needed, instead of just individuals prone to making their peculiar judgments.
Your “Sewers and Cesspits” title was cute, but a reference to “Pollen” might usefully have been included for browsers on your blog site who might be more interested in pollen than sewers. In reading the post, I’ve tried to separate the significant points from the trivial points, but have had trouble, it being mostly over my head. Also, I simply don’t have time to check your sources. So, apologies for any mistakes in what follows.
One general impression: Your final conclusion, “an Israeli context … unfortunately … the evidence is insufficiently clear to be diagnostic,” may be flawed. Your complaint that some researchers were too narrow in their focus may also apply to your own narrow focus on Jerusalem pollens. The Israeli pollens on the Shroud seem better attested or at least highly probable. That’s important.
Also, while few or no Turin Shroud pollens may have been pinpointed to Jerusalem by the most recent botanists, at least a few TS pollens do seem to be excluded or probably excluded from being Western European ones. That finding would or could contradict the theory that the Shroud was a 13th-14th century item, man-made in northern France or a neighboring country, which is what your medievalshroud blog claims.
In stating so often that a certain TS pollen/plant is not native to Jerusalem or only rarely so, you also may have forgotten that the Shroud, if truly, authentically from Jerusalem at the time of the burial of Jesus, was handled, carried, and otherwise tended mostly by people from outside of Jerusalem – the women followers of Jesus and his disciples. They had come from elsewhere for the Passover Festival and were doubtless wearing the clothes they also wore in their home regions of ancient Palestine. Those clothes could very easily have carried the microscopic pollen grains from all around Palestine including Galilee. Some of the pilgrims who attended the Pentecost Festival several weeks later and, according to Acts of the Apostles, were in close contact with the disciples and other followers of Jesus, were from even farther afield, the entire Near East, likewise bringing, unawares, pollens with them on their clothing and other belongings.
For example, which is more likely, that an Anabasis pollen grain such as you cite from “east of the Black Sea” somehow got onto the Shroud two thousand miles (3000 km) away in northeast France in the 14th century, or that the same pollen grain got onto the Shroud just several hundred miles south in Jerusalem, during a religious festival involving many thousand Jewish pilgrims of the Near East Diaspora gathering there? (Or that the same grain got on the Shroud sometime later in Edessa just a few hundred miles south of the Black Sea?)
With your Echinops and Tamarix pollen examples the case seems possibly similar. You write that Tamarix “is a Genus of largely Western Mediterranean tree. Although there are Israeli species of [Echinops and Tamarix], none are found in the Jerusalem area except two species of Echinops … which is not the one identified by Frei.” This sentence confuses me. Are you saying that Max Frei, otherwise your least favorite expert, has now become your trusted pollen authority? Or are you suggesting that the Turin Shroud Echinops could really be the same species as that Echinops of Jerusalem? In any case, both Echinops and Tamarix seem Israeli at the least. Are they also native to northeast France (the location of Lirey)? What about Frei’s “Acacia albida” (now renamed Faidherbia albida)? Is it found in northeast France?
Your long paragraph on those pollens “absent” from the Turin Shroud but present in the group collected from the ancient Jerusalem sewer – willow, bullrush, vine, elm, walnut, cypress, fig – seems to me weak evidence against TS authenticity, at least upon first impression. Surely we cannot expect every cloth from a certain location to bear pollens of every plant or even most plants from that location. So that whole “absent” section of yours seems more deserving of mere footnote status, not that of a major argument in the main body of your post. Besides, the ancient Jerusalem sewer system pollens that you cite were very numerous, some 1200 in all, you say, compared to the mere 203 recovered from the Shroud and identified. That is a ratio of 6 to 1. Naturally the sewer pollens, a much larger sample, included much more variety than the smaller Turin Shroud group did. No mystery there.
You mention W. Bulst at one point, but don’t cite which work of his you refer to. Didn’t he write more general studies of the Shroud, and several decades ago? Why criticize him so much as “too specific” with his claim of “17 plants typical in Jerusalem and its surroundings” on the Shroud? You say that “many of them … are conspicuously absent from the Jerusalem area,” but you also admit that many are “listed as present Flora of Israel.” Are you arguing for a Turin Shroud from ancient Palestine but not from Jerusalem? It was a tiny province and remains a tiny country today. 50 miles (80 km) one direction or another seems too short a distance to argue over, especially when the alternative distance to France is two thousand miles. And again, what about the factor of pilgrims’ clothing from elsewhere as pathways for those pollens to get on the Shroud in Jerusalem in the year 30 or 33? (But I don’t mean to excuse Bulst’s error too quickly, either. It is good that you point it out.)
Besides, if the Shroud is authentic, it must eventually, some time later, have been transported north, very likely for many days or several weeks by land up the caravan trails through or directly parallel to Palestine, in some saddlebag or other container, again coming into contact with pollen from the Levant such as the Israeli/ancient Palestine pollens apparently identified on it.
In sum, Hugh, it seems that you might have “lost the forest (the verified Israeli or Levant pollens) for the trees (the Jerusalem pollens you tried to find but did not or only rarely so).”
Anyway, let’s hope that more studies of the TS pollens are done, and soon.
John Loken