Blood Evidence
The 1978 STURP examination included a study of the blood markings and these gave positive results in twelve separate diagnostic tests, confirming that the marks did indeed contain blood. These examinations were conducted by STURP members John Heller and Alan Adler who detected blood constituents including proteins, albumen, haem products and the bile pigment bilirubin. The constituents of blood plasma were also present in what appeared to be serum halos around many of the bloodstains.
These conclusions have been independently confirmed by Dr. Pier-Luigi Baima-Ballone, an Italian pathologist who also found that the blood contained both type A and type B antigens. This indicates that the blood group could be AB and it is interesting to note that the same blood group results have been obtained from blood deposits on the Sudarium of Oviedo, as well as manifestations of blood that have appeared on consecrated hosts in Eucharistic Miracles. However, there is a tendency for ancient blood samples to test as blood group AB so additional tests are needed before this classification can be considered to be reliable.
Unusually, the bloodstains on the Shroud are not brown. Old bloodstains almost always turn brown due to oxidation of the iron present in haemoglobin but the bloodstains on the Shroud have remained red. This has led to suspicions that the alleged bloodstains must have been painted onto the cloth, or that the original blood had been ‘touched-up’ with paint at some time during the Shroud’s history. However, the effect of severe torture and traumatic shock, such as the brutal scourging and crucifixion endured by Jesus, causes the liver to convert haemoglobin from broken blood cells into bilirubin. Bilirubin has been found in the Shroud bloodstains and is yellow-orange in colour. When mixed with the other, brown blood components, it causes the bloodstains to appear red.
Heller and Adler also discovered that in those areas of the cloth which contain both blood and the discoloured fibres that produce the body image, there was no discolouration of any fibres below the bloodstains. This indicates that the blood had been deposited on the cloth before the image was produced, which is clearly not the way that an artist would have worked.
A recent study by Giulio Fanti of minute traces of blood taken from the Shroud has provided an insight into the extensive injuries and physical trauma endured during the torture and crucifixion. He examined blood particles that had been found on the sticky tapes that had been placed in contact with the Shroud during the 1978 STURP examination. These were orange-red in colour with a chemical composition that was compatible with that of human blood. The particles were disc-shaped with a concave centre, similar to the shape of red blood cells but much smaller. If these blood particles were red blood cells, then something had caused them to shrink significantly.
Fanti discovered that when mixed with a saturated solution of urea, human red blood cells shrank to sizes compatible with the size of the particles found on the Shroud. He also realised that a clinical condition known as uraemia, which literally means ‘urine in the blood’, can be caused by kidney failure, a condition that causes waste products such as urea and creatinine that are normally eliminated from the body as urine to remain in the bloodstream. It’s clear from the scourge marks on the Shroud that there was an extremely brutal flagellation in the area corresponding to the kidneys and it is quite plausible that this would have caused kidney failure.
The following links provide further information on this topic
Blood on the Shroud of Turin. Research paper by John H. Heller and Alan D. Adle published in Applied Optics Vol. 19 (1980) page 2742.
New Insights on Blood Evidence from the Turin Shroud Consistent with Jesus Christ’s Tortures. Research by Giulio Fanti published in Archives of Hematology Case Reports and Reviews (2024).
