Shroud of Turin didn't wrap Jesus' crucified body — it was just art, new research claims
Contrary to popular belief, the sacred Shroud of Turin was not used to cover Jesus' post-crucifixion and was actually a recreation created by artists, per a study published in the journal Archaeometry.
'The Shroud's image is more consistent with an artistic low-relief representation than with the direct imprint of a real human body,' Brazilian 3D digital designer Cicero Moraes, who used modeling software wrote in the paper, per the Daily Mail.
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The legendary linen, which measures 14.5 feet by 3.7 feet, is one of the world's most iconic religious relics. The artifact is emblazoned with the visage of a crucified man, which penitents and religious scholars believe was formed when the shroud was used to wrap the Messiah's bloody body after he was taken off the cross 2,000 years ago.
4 Moraes various 3D simulation tools to digitally drape both bodies, before comparing the virtual fabric to photos of the Shroud snapped in 1931 — a forensic 'wrap' battle of sorts.
Cicero Moraes
However, skeptics have disputed the theory, citing a carbon dating analysis that placed the shroud's creation between 1260 to 1390 — a time when low-relief sculptures of religious figures were prevalent, especially on tombstones according to PBS.
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But was the shroud Jesus' actual post-crucifixion cloth or a Medieval hoax?
Moraes has seemingly settled the longstanding debate after using the aforementioned tech to scientifically prove that the Shroud of Turin couldn't have been used to swaddle JC.
4 'The Shroud's image is more consistent with an artistic low-relief representation than with the direct imprint of a real human body,' said Moraes while discussing the Shroud Of Turin (pictured).
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To determine whether the cloth skewed more form or religious function, the virtual wizard devised two digital models: a 3D human body and a low-relief representation of the human form, Livescience reported.
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He then used various 3D simulation tools to digitally drape both bodies, before comparing the virtual fabric to photos of the Shroud snapped in 1931 — a forensic 'wrap' battle of sorts. The virtual forensicist was reportedly building on a previous experiment where he just virtually covered a 3D body double without the low relief version.
4 The archbishop of Turin Severino Poletto attends the Solemn Exposition Of The Holy Shroud on April 10, 2010 in Turin, Italy.
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Through this digital game of dressup, Moraes discovered that the low-relief recreation was an exact match for the pictures, while the 3D iteration was far from form-fitting.
In the latter, the fabric deformed around the body in a phenomenon he analogized to the 'Agammemnon Mask Effect,' named after the preternaturally wide gold death face covering that was exhumed from a tomb in Greece.
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4 An archive negative image of the Shroud of Turin (L) is shown next to one recreated by an Italian scientist and released in Pavia October 5, 2009.
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One can think of the phenomenon like painting one's face and pressing it into a piece of cloth. The resultant imprint is distorted and warped and looks almost nothing like a person's real countenance, making it unlikely that the immaculate Jesus image on the Shroud was his actual face print.
Therefore, Moraes theorized that the shroud was not the genuine artifact used to clothe Jesus but was rather approximated via a shallow carving.
'The image on the Shroud of Turin is more consistent with a low-relief matrix,' he told Livescience. 'Such a matrix could have been made of wood, stone or metal and pigmented — or even heated — only in the areas of contact, producing the observed pattern.'
Although he hinted at the remote possibility that the work was an 'imprint of a three-dimensional human body.'
Much like the Jesus gravestone reliefs popular in the Middle Ages, Moraes believed that the Shroud was a funerary work, making it 'a masterpiece of Christian art.'
Nonetheless, plenty of researchers maintain that the Shroud's image was formed by the actual body, er, face of Christ.
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University of Padua professor Giulio Fanti asserted in a study that the Shroud of Turin offered legitimate proof of Jesus Christ's crucifixion wounds due to the blood stain patterns.
Fanti posited that 'the different directions of blood flow from the side wound are discussed, the probable presence of pulmonary fluid,' and 'some bloodstains' point to trauma suffered by the Savior.
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