The Controversial 1988 Radiocarbon Dating Test

This website outlines a substantial body of evidence that makes a compelling case in support of the authenticity of the Shroud. However, the result of a single scientific test has overshadowed all of this research and caused a widespread belief that the Shroud is a medieval.  This single scientific test, the 1988 carbon dating test of the Shroud which concluded that the cloth dated from the period 1260 AD to 1390 AD, was conducted by three radiocarbon laboratories under the supervision of the British Museum and achieved more publicity than all the other research combined.  

Professor Hall of Oxford University who was part of the group that announced the result to a UK audience on 13^th October 1988 made his views very clear, saying,

“There was a multi-million pound business in making forgeries during the fourteenth century. Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up and flogged it!”

Professor Edward Hall, Oxford University.

Growing criticism of the test

These concerns grew following publication of the test report in February 1989.   Over the months that followed there were claims that the radiocarbon dating project had fallen short of acceptable scientific standards in almost every part of the process, from initial planning through to result analysis and reporting.  It was already apparent that signed commitments to maintain strict secrecy were disregarded by those involved as there had been widespread media reporting of the outcome of the test months before the result announcement.  However, several other test protocols that had been introduced to ensure the integrity of this test were also abandoned, including:

• An agreement that seven laboratories would carry out the experiment: five accelerator-mass spectrometer (AMS) laboratories and two small gas counter laboratories. Instead only three laboratories were involved, all of which used the relatively new AMS radiocarbon dating technology rather than the tried-and-tested small gas counter method.
• The plan had been to remove samples from multiple areas of the Shroud to minimise the risk of an inaccurate result due to localised contamination but instead only one sample was removed from a single corner of the cloth.
• The plan to allow a simultaneous comprehensive examination of the cloth was abandoned.
• They decided not to follow the blind test procedures that had been agreed as important during the planning process.  

Various scientists also found what they claimed were inconsistencies and errors in the published test report and asked the British Museum and the C-14 laboratories to release details of the test data so that their concerns could be addressed. Astonishingly, this request was refused and this test data remained undisclosed for twenty-eight years until the British Museum was obliged to publish the details in 2017 following a Freedom of Information request.