World news This article is more than 24 years oldNew tests back claims for Turin Shroud - for now
This article is more than 24 years oldNews Unlimited documentary: religion in the UKA new analysis of ancient pollen found on the Turin Shroud has restored life to the long-held Christian belief that it was the cloth used to wrap the crucified body of Jesus Christ, an Israeli botanist said yesterday.
Avinoam Danin said that pollen grains and plant imprints on the linen cloth are from species which could only be found in a small area between Jerusalem and Hebron in the months of March and April.
Dr Danin told the Guardian yesterday that the pollen traces and the shape of bloodstains on the shroud exactly matched those on a second cloth, known as the Sudarium of Oviedo, which Roman Catholics believe was the cloth used to cover Christ's face at his burial. The Sudarium has been kept at the Cathedral of Oviedo in Spain since the Eighth Century, and the Turin Shroud must be at least as old, Dr Danin argued.
Radiocarbon dating tests in 1988 appeared to place the origins of the cloth between 1260 and 1390 AD, leading experts to suggest it was a medieval fake. The Vatican conceded that the relic, stored in Turin Cathedral since 1578, appeared to have been forged.
Dr Danin, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, insisted that he is "300 per cent certain that the shroud and the sudarium are synchronic, covering the same face." The pollen grains are not substantial enough to be carbon dated, but Dr Danin said the same plants grew near Jerusalem 2000 years ago.
"They only grow in that small area," he said by telephone from St Louis, Missouri, where he presented his findings to the International Botanical Congress.
He pointed out that the 1988 carbon dating was carried out on only one corner of the shroud, which he said other tests had found to be polluted with bacteria. By contrast, his pollen sample was taken from the entire shroud.
He identified pollen from a thistle called gundelia tournefortii, from bean caper (zygothyllum dumosum) and rock rose (cistus creticus). Other biblical scholars have speculated that Christ's "crown of thorns" was made of the prickly gundelia tournefortii.
Millions kept faith with one of the church's holiest relics in the face of apparent scientific evidence. Asked whether the Vatican had called with congratulations, Dr Danin said: "Not yet, but they know where to find me."
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