Shocking experiments were carried out by enthusiasts who believe that Jesus Christ who was taken down from the cross was wrapped in the Turin shroud.
It's a fake copy
Researchers at the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado in Colorado Springs promise to release sensational results from their experiments, which they believe prove the Turin Shroud is genuine. They intend to report details on February 21, 2019 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) in Baltimore. In the meantime, the researchers published an annotation (E73 on p. 573), from which it is possible to understand what the actual essence of the experiments undertaken and what were their motives.
At all times, there were those who wanted to be in the role of Jesus Christ.
The Shroud of Turin is a cloth 437 cm long and 111 cm wide, woven of flax, is kept in the Italian city of Turin in the Cathedral of John the Baptist. There are two negative misprints of the human body on the canvas - front and back views.
Some believe that it was in this canvas that the Savior taken from the cross was wrapped. Allegedly, his body was imprinted on the fabric in some supernatural way. Skeptics doubt it. And they suspect that the shroud is still fake. That is, the image on it, if not drawn, was somehow artificially obtained in the Middle Ages.
Both sides have been arguing bitterly for years. With varied success. At the moment, skeptics are in the lead, inspired by the experiments that forensic forensic scientists - Luigi (Matteo Borrini) from Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom told about in 2018.
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Let me remind you that criminologists looked closely at the body prints - specifically, the traces of the numerous wounds that it had on it, the blood stains from them. First of all, they paid attention to the cut under the heart - a trace in the form of a narrow oval measuring 44 by 11 millimeters. As if from the wide blade of a spear that entered the chest. Then they examined the arms and legs punctured by sharp objects with a cross section of about 8 square centimeters. Presumably nails.
Italian and British forensics have experimented with dummies.
Garlachelli and Borrini set out to check whether the wounds received by the man crucified on the cross could have left marks on the shroud.
Scientists pierced mannequins with spears. They bled from their "wounds". And they found out that the smudge on the shroud did not correspond to those left by the blood that flowed from the body under the influence of gravity.
That is, if a person were pierced with a spear, after some time they were removed from the cross and wrapped in linen, then the traces of blood on it would be different, they would be located differently. Those that were available could not leave the body hanging on the cross. Nor could it be laid horizontally.
The scientists imitated the blood leaks on the forearms by means of tubes attached to the volunteers - approximately in the places on the wrists in which they were pierced on the body imprinted on the Turin Shroud. The volunteers' hands were placed at different angles to the body. These experiments have demonstrated that the traces on the canvas could appear if a person's hands were raised vertically. Which is not at all consistent with existing ideas about the execution on the cross.
Blood flowed from model wounds.
And how some of the other spots were formed, Garlachelli and Borrini could not explain at all from a physical point of view.
The spills of blood were blotted and compared with those on the shroud.
The general conclusion given in the Journal of Forensic Sciences is that the footprints on the Turin Shroud do not look like real ones. Therefore, it is most likely fake.
No, the shroud is real
The experiments of Colorado scientists were designed to refute the conclusions of their Italian and British colleagues. American enthusiasts reported that they simulated the crucifixion as realistic as possible - they placed volunteers on the cross. They just didn't nail it down, but fasten it with special clamps. And they bleed.
The experiments were led by physicist John P. Jackson, a scientist entrusted by the Holy See in 1978 to study the original of the Turin Shroud for a week. And he believed that the body was really imprinted on it. And that this body is Jesus Christ.
Almost real crucifixes seem to have demonstrated that the blood flowed from the volunteers "as expected" and its marks on their bodies allegedly corresponded to those found on the Turin Shroud. That is, there are no contradictions with the laws of physics here. At least John Jackson and his associates did not identify them. Therefore, the shroud is genuine.
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Controversial points
The figure imprinted on the shroud has pierced wrists. And this is archaeologically true. The fact that a person nailed to the cross by the palms of his hands would not hang for a long time was proved back in 1931 by the French surgeon Pierre Barbet. He experimented with the blessings of the Vatican and found out that under the weight of the body, the palms would break very soon. But the wrists in this sense are much stronger.
But only recently the experiments found real confirmation: Italian archaeologists discovered a skeleton with characteristic "wounds". This "detail" is in favor of the authenticity of the shroud.
A nail was driven into the feet of the crucified man through the heels.
But the wounds on the legs seem to be "wrong" - the feet are punched in the area of the metatarsal or tarsal bones. But in fact, the crucified's legs were fastened with one nail that passed through both heels - more precisely, both heel bones. The heels were aligned and pierced at once. The nail allowed the victim to lean on it and thereby prolong her torment. Typical injuries in these places are found on the remains - on the bones of people who died on crosses at the beginning of the first century AD. Just when Jesus Christ was executed.
Disputes about the authenticity of the Turin Shroud continue.
Shroud of Turin with body prints on it.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY