"Then he (Joseph of Arimathea) bought fine linen, took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen. And he laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb." Mark 15: 46 New King James VersionIn the original Greek, that verse says that Joseph of Arimathea purchased a fine Sindon, a shroud, not strips of cloth. The linen of the Shroud is a very fine Linen, hand woven, that represented about two months worth of labor. The idea of "winding" cloths around the body is a confabulation resulting from confusing Egyptian burial techniques with those of the Hebrews. First Century Jews did not bind their dead in mummy like wrappings... they did not embalm, or wrap them tightly in yards and yards of linen strips. Burials were fairly simple rituals requiring washing the body, annointing with oils, and packing around the body with herbs and spices. Extant documents show that Jews buried their dead with a shroud, strips of cloth that bound the ankles and wrists to prevent them from flopping, and another strip around the head, under the jaw, to keep the mouth closed. Exhumations of 1st Century Jewish burials show that the shroud is not inconsistent with Jewish burial customs.
“Sindon” can refer to a garment made of linen but mostly just to the cloth itself and since the action taken with the linen is described as wrapping in Mark or winding in John 19:40 with the addition of a face cloth it doesn’t describe a shroud.
“Exhumations of 1st Century Jewish burials show that the shroud is not inconsistent with Jewish burial customs.”
Does this men they used shrouds to cover the body and face as the Turin one seems to indicate?
And if the body were liberally greased with spices, John said Joseph of Arimathea used about a hundred pounds, might we not expect to see some traces on the Shroud?