Pontius Pilate when questioning Jesus asked the question “What is truth?” Which is probably a more honest question than would be asked by today’s culture “What is my truth?” In the context of the Shroud of Turin, the persistent question asked is “What is proof?”
Regarding definitive proof, Shroud sceptic Hugh Farey once said “Anybody who has read and understood the primary sources of any of this information…. will know how nuanced and un-definitive the observations are, and how carefully assessed must be the conclusions drawn from them”.
One thing everyone, both sceptic and authenticist agree on however is the exceptional quality of the cloth itself. In BSTS Issue No. 85, Farey states: “There can be no doubt whatsoever that whatever and wherever the cloth from the Shroud was made, it was an example of the finest, most difficult to make and therefore most expensive linen sheet available “.
Why Are Jews Buried in White Linen Shrouds? was an article recently written in the Jewish website chabad.org by Yehuda Shurpin. In it he looked at the reasons for white linen and its use through the centuries dating back to Gamaliel the Elder (mentioned in Acts). He says that at that time the most expensive shroud available became the norm. This caused tremendous problems and led to funerary rights being often discarded because of the expense. Gamaliel therefore asked to be buried in a simple cheaper shroud which then became the norm making proper burials accessible to all. Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy member of the ruling council of the Sanhedrin so this superb quality expensive cloth would be within his means.
However, the arguments proposed by the sceptics to show that the cloth is medieval are based on the fact that it must have and can only have been woven on a treadle loom as against a warp weighted loom which was commonly used during the first century. The treadle loom only being introduced to Europe during the late medieval period.
Shroud sceptic Charles Freeman wrote an article in BSTS Issue No. 85 commenting on his work on the dating of the cloth in which he says “I argued that there is overwhelming evidence that the Shroud was woven on a treadle loom, not known in Europe before 1000AD”. He concluded that this in itself is proof that the cloth is medieval. Regarding the image on the cloth, he said it was painted and that the image was created by ‘fall off’ and that it was then used in the religious Quem Quaeritis ceremony.
In 2020 Hugh Farey contacted textile expert Antoinette M Olsen and asked the question “if you had a piece of cloth as described (the Shroud of Turin cloth) and looked at it closely, could you tell if it was made by a warp-weighted loom or a treadle loom, or would there be no difference?“ It was noted about the treadle loom that this ‘…technical innovation maybe came from the Near East probably by way of Italy’. This argument is one of the key points made by medievalists to support claims that the cloth was woven in Europe post 1000AD. Olsen concluded that “The Shroud of Turin cannot have been woven on a warp weighted loom and must have been woven on a treadle loom”.
Evidence of ancient treadle looms
Whilst this observation on the face of it would seem to indicate that the cloth is medieval, it only indicates that treadle looms were not used in Europe prior to 1000AD. Shroud scholar Otangelo Grasso says “horizontal looms with treadle like mechanisms were not invented overnight in medieval Europe. Evidence of multi-harness looms exist in earlier periods. Egyptian tomb paintings (as early as 12-11 BC) depict horizontal looms with weavers operating foot treadle or hand levers”. One such example is the illustration at the top of this page, which is a horizontal loom depicted in the tomb of Chnem-hotep.
Grasso added that the presence of a horizontal loom does not confirm a medieval origin and that the transmission of technology from the east via the Silk Road makes it plausible that such looms or at least their basic principles, reached the eastern Mediterranean earlier than assumed.
He continued: “Hybrid or transitional looms, could explain it. A pit loom or semi horizontal loom operated by a skilled weaver with multiple harness controls is possible in Syria or Judea… While the Shroud weave is uncommon for first century fabrics, it is not impossible. Early horizontal looms with multi heddle capabilities likely existed in Eastern Mediterranean regions influenced by Egyptian or Persian weaving techniques. The presence of a complex weave is evidence of technical skill, not medieval origin. The loom argument must be weighed against the overwhelming anatomical, chemical, historical and forensic coherence pointing to an earlier date”.
Evidence of Middle Eastern Origin
The archaeologist and Shroud scholar Bill Meacham tested some actual Shroud threads using mass spectrometry. The results showed that the cloth most probably originated from the Middle East (BSTS Issue No. 99). He states that “Recent testing on several threads from the Shroud of Turin have provided a strong indication that the flax used to make the linen was grown in the Middle East, specifically the Western Levant (Israel, Lebanon, western parts of Jordan and Syria). Now with a probable Near East origin, new doubts must be raised about interpreting the Shroud as simply a fake relic made in medieval Europe and new questions arise about what the image on the cloth signifies”.
Meacham goes on to say, “The possibility that this cloth is actually the burial shroud of Jesus is strengthened by this new evidence. In my view, that remains the best explanation for the Shroud, even though the C14 dating issue is yet to be resolved “.
Evidence of First Century Origin
Further evidence for a first century cloth comes from the renowned textile expert Methchild Flury Lemberg. Born in 1929 she was chosen as the technical director on the panel of experts chosen for the 2002 Shroud of Turin restoration project. Her expertise being in ancient textiles. She agreed that the Shroud cloth could not have been made on a warp-weighted loom, but concluded that the cloth had been woven and finished on an ancient loom, the type of which existed in Egypt and could produce this type of complex weave in bolts of fabric measuring up to 3.5 metres wide, enabling them to turn out continuous lengths of cloth, far longer and wider than the Shroud.
She proposed that the Shroud itself had been cut into three from a wider bolt of fabric: there would have been two wide pieces (one now missing) as well as a narrow side strip that was reattached and is visible on photos of the Shroud. This observation was reached by the use and lack of some selvedges. She claimed that the high quality of the Shroud weaving strongly suggests it to have been made on a professional loom of this kind.
Her observations discovered even more convincing evidence of a first century cloth when she found that an unusual type of stitch had been used on the hems and joining seams. These were very nearly invisible on one side and closely resembled that of an ancient Jewish textile found at Masada which was the palace of Herod the Great, but more famously was the last stand of the Jewish rebels after the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Roman Emperor Titus in 73 AD, never to be occupied again.
She said “In my opinion the Shroud is not a medieval fake. The parallels I have found indicate that it could have existed at the same time as Jesus Christ and in what is now Israel”. Whilst the Masada stitch is strong evidence for a first century cloth, the side strip in itself points to a practical purpose so why would a medieval artist cut this from the same cloth and then sew it back on? That doesn’t make any sense, nor does the decision to sew it using an ancient Jewish stitch unknown in medieval Europe. Schwalbe and Rogers studied the side strip using X Ray analysis and found that it had indeed been cut from the same cloth (see Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin pp 39-40).
As a footnote, in BSTS issue No. 65 Flury-Lemberg explained that she was also given an opportunity to view the Sudarium of Oviedo, the facecloth which has a much older known provenance and has forensically been shown to be a close match with the Shroud. She said that in her opinion, this cloth was also likely to be authentic.
Strong confirmation of Flury-Lemberg’s work comes from Ada Grossi of the Centro Espanol de Sindonologia who wrote a paper ‘Jewish shrouds and funerary customs, a comparison with the Shroud of Turin’. Her opening comment is “The Shroud of Turin appears to be a traditional Jewish burial shroud, the only really peculiar feature is the exceptional value of the cloth (which however is consistent with the range of possibilities allowed by Jewish laws)”. She notes that one of the most relevant features of the cloth is the absence of wool fibrils, which leads to the conclusion that the fabric was woven on a loom subject to the laws of Jewish cleanliness, i.e. intended for flax weaving only. The characteristics of the cloth point to it being cut from a bolt of fabric as per the observations of Flury-Lemberg, and she goes on to say that “…its dimensions are perfectly consistent with ancient techniques”. Gross also observed that the side strip had been sewn back on to the Shroud at a very early stage for reasons impossible to determine.
Evidence of other Fabric Characteristics
Giulio Fanti and Emanuela Marinella in their paper ‘Results of a probabilistic model applied to the research carried out on the Turin Shroud’, noted several significant characteristics of the cloth, including:
- That it has the characteristics of a first century Jewish burial cloth.
- That the dimensions were expressed in Syrian cubits, the measure used in ancient Israel.
- That the ‘z’ twisting of the Shroud yarn is typical of Syro-Palestinian area of Christ’s time. Opposed to the ‘S’ twist more common to ancient Egypt. “Even the interlacing of the cloth, hand spun, can be taken back to a rudimentary treadle loom, it presents bumps and bears mistakes”.
- That the ‘Z’ twisting of the Sudarium of Oviedo is analogous to that of the Turin Shroud.
Conclusion
A key argument presented by sceptics is that the Shroud was woven on a treadle loom and since there were no treadle looms in Europe prior to 1000AD, this must then be proof that the cloth is indeed medieval. However, opposing arguments, especially by Flury-Lemberg (a highly respected authority on ancient textiles) suggest otherwise. She and other textile specialists claims that there were such looms in the first century capable of weaving such a cloth. The unusual style of stitching used to attach the side-strip, identical to that found in textiles from first century Masada, is also strong evidence of a first century origin..
Tests by archaeologist Bill Meacham strongly indicate that the linen of the Shroud was made from flax grown in the Middle East.
Whilst sceptics argue the case for a treadle loom as evidence of a medieval origin, it is worth noting that most authenticists also agree that a treadle loom was used and that a warp weighted loom could not have been used. As Otangelo Grasso says “the loom argument must be weighed against the overwhelming anatomical, chemical, historical and forensic coherence pointing to an earlier date”.
As with all things Shroud, proof is an elusive creature. Corroborating evidence being the key factors in all discussions.
