1898 – Present
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AD
1898
Shroud photographed for the first time
In May, after a public showing of the Shroud, permission is given to an amateur photographer Seconda Pia to photograph the face for the first time. As he develops the image in his darkroom, he nearly drops the photographic plate in shock. The negative reveals hidden details of the face that had never been seen before. Pia is accused of tampering with the image. With the Shroud back in its case, Pia has to wait until the next public showing before his discovery can be vindicated.
1931
Shroud photographed again
The Shroud is photographed again, revealing even more detail. The news intrigues members of the international scientific community who begin to speculate how the image has been transferred onto the cloth to produce such photographic qualities.
1939
World War II
The shroud is secretly moved from Turin to the Benedictine Abbey at Montevergine in southern Italy for safekeeping during World War II (1939-1945). Only four monks at the abbey know what they are protecting.
1966
Eureka!
Whilst researching the Shroud of Turin, Ian Wilson has a Eureka moment when reading the Acts of Thaddaeus. A footnote at the bottom of the page alerts him to the fact that the Edessa image was described as being ‘doubled in four’. He cuts out an image of the Shroud of Turin from a newspaper and tries folding it accordingly. To his astonishment, he discovers that the Shroud face appears in the centre on landscape-aspect cloth, exactly as it does on paintings made of the Edessa Cloth.
1978
Best seller The Turin Shroud published, STURP begins, BAFTA winning The Silent Witness released
Ian Wilson releases The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ? which goes on to be a bestseller.
In October, an international team of about forty scientists is granted unprecedented access to the Shroud for five days. Calling themselves the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), they included a nuclear physicist, a thermal chemist, a biophysicist, an optical physicist, a forensic pathologist and specialist photographers. They bring over eighty tonnes of scientific equipment to Turin, primarily to determine once and for all how the image had been formed.
In this year the BAFTA winning documentary directed by David W Rolfe The Silent Witness is released.
1981
STURP concludes Shroud is not the work of an artist
STURP concludes that the image on the shroud is not the work of an artist. There are no pigments, paints or dyes on the linen fibers, and “no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image”. Furthermore, the bloodstains which cover the cloth are human and contain a high concentration of bilirubin, produced when a body is suffering extreme stress and pain. They also noted that blood was present on the linen before the image formed around it. Pollen grains taken from the cloth have been identified as coming from plants that flower in Jerusalem, Edessa and Constantinople, suggesting that the spent time in these locations.
1983
Umberto II of Savoy bequeaths the Shroud to the Pope and his successors on his deathbed.
1984
Proof the Shroud was in Jerusalem
Analysis of dirt particles collected on the Shroud by STURP reveals travertine aragonite limestone with an almost identical chemical signature to limestone samples collected in Jerusalem. This suggests that the body that the Shroud covered walked through the dusty streets of that city.
1988
Controversial 1988 Radiocarbon Dating Test
Samples cut from a corner of the Shroud are sent to laboratories in Oxford, Tucson and Zurich for Carbon 14 testing to determine its age. They conclude that it is a late medieval fake, produced between 1260 and 1390.
1997
Fire at Turin Cathedral
During renovations in Turin Cathedral, a fire breaks out which threatens the Shroud’s bulletproof display case. Fireman Mario Trematore uses a sledgehammer to break open this case and the Shroud, in its traditional casket, is taken temporarily to Cardinal Saldarini’s residence.
Signs of arson are found in the Royal Chapel, the walls of which are very badly damaged. Also damaged are the whole High Altar end of the cathedral and the part of the Royal Palace directly adjoining the Chapel.
We are grateful to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, Department of Fire Corps, Public Rescue and Civil Defense, Command of the Turin Fire and Rescue Service for the inclusion of the film of the fire in the Guarini Chapel.
2002
Removal of backing cloth reveals new evidence
The backing cloth attached to the Shroud after the fire in 1532 is removed. This enables the stitching on the seam the connects the side strip to the main body of the Shroud to be examined for the first time. The seam is nearly invisible on the image side of the Shroud, and the way it has been stitched corresponds to fabric found in the Jewish fortress of Masada, which was overthrown by the Romans in 73 AD and never reoccupied. There is no evidence that this stitching pattern has ever been used after the First Century AD.
2005
Carbon 14 test results invalidated
New analysis reveals that the corner in which the samples were taken had been repaired centuries earlier. Cotton had been expertly woven into the linen to strengthen it and then dyed to match the original colour. This invalidates the Carbon 14 test results as the samples taken “were not representative of the main Shroud” which is 100% linen.
2013
Further testing dates linen to 33BC ±250 years
A team of scientists from several Italian Universities publish the results of non-destructive chemical and mechanical tests on the shroud. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman Spectroscopy and other tests measuring the micro-mechanical characteristics of flax fibres such as tensile strength enable the team to date the linen to 33 BC ±250 years.
