A researcher looking into the intriguing 'Shroud of Turin' has shared the details of a new discovery which may change what people believe about the linen cloth.
With accounts of the cloth beginning around 1353, the piece of material gained attention due to its depiction of what appears to be a crucified man, complete with wounds that match descriptions from the Bible.
The image on the cloth led many Christians to believe that it may have been the original burial shroud of Jesus, due to apparent marks from a crown of thorns, as well as wounds in the wrists and feet.
Debates around the authenticity of the cloth have been ongoing for years, and now new research published in the journal Archaeometry has added another argument for why the Shroud of Turin might not have been Jesus' burial cloth, after all.
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The research was conducted by Brazilian 3D digital designer Cicero Moraes, who specializes in historical facial reconstructions and used modeling software to look into how cloth drapes over a human body.
Moraes compared the findings with what it looks like when a cloth drapes over what is known as a 'low-relief sculpture' - when the sculpted elements stick out only slightly from the background.
Using 3D simulation tools, Moraes virtually draped fabric on to the two different models, and compared the virtual image of the fabric to photographs of the shroud taken in 1931.
After studying the results, the researcher found the image on the cloth is more likely to have come from a sculpture, rather than a real human body, with the fabric from the low-relief sculpture model matching the real photographs almost exactly.
In an email to Live Science, Moraes said: "The image on the Shroud of Turin is more consistent with a low-relief matrix. 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."
When placed over a 3D body, Moraes found that the fabric deformed and resulted in a swollen and distorted image.
Moraes wrote: "Although there is a "remote possibility that it is an imprint of a three-dimensional human body, it is plausible to consider that artists or sculptors with sufficient knowledge could have created such a piece, either through painting or low relief."
The findings would fall in line with previous carbon dating analysis, which found that the shroud was created some time between A.D. 1260 to 1390, further indicating it is not a genuine relic.
Emily Brown