The “Other” Shroud of Christ

The Sudarium of Oviedo is by most accounts the best validation of the Shroud of Turin as the true burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.

I have followed with great interest the response to Catholic World Report's recent article on the Shroud of Turin by Jim Graves, which now has well over a 150 comments. Many are statements and counter-statements that attempt to prove or disprove the authenticity of the Shroud as the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. This is as it should be—a mystery for our era that calls us into a deeper examination of faith, or the lack of faith, in Jesus as Savior.

The science of carbon dating is a major question in the comment section. There is valuable information in this University of Iowa paper on the validity of carbon dating on the Shroud. Still, science can only serve truth to a point, for science cannot interpret itself; it is simply data.

Enter history and the "other cloth" of St. John's Gospel. The Sudarium of Oviedo is by most accounts the best validation of the Shroud of Turin as the true burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Almost nothing has challenged the provenance or the scientific findings in the fourteen years since I penned the article below, in April 2001 for Crisis magazine, on the Sudarium. The history and the scientific studies on the Sudarium pose a fascinating question that leaps over the confusion of carbon dating: How can the Shroud date from the Medieval period if the face in the image is identical to the face that was covered by the first century Sudarium?

The “Other” Shroud of Christ (April 1, 2001)

A little-known relic in Oviedo, Spain, called the Sudarium, the cloth said to have covered Jesus’ face after He was crucified, may be the key to unveiling the mystery of the Shroud of Turin. The history and scientific findings respecting the Sudarium, often called the “Cloth of Oviedo,” provide an unfolding story that rivals the most pious fiction.

As debates have intensified about the Shroud, the 14-foot swath of linen enshrined in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy, that is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Christ, it appears that the Sudarium may be evidence of the authenticity of the Shroud. Hidden from public view for more than a millennium, the Sudarium of Oviedo is thrusting into the modern world fresh testimony about the suffering and death of a man crucified many centuries ago.

New investigations of the two burial cloths have compared blood types, patterns of stains, facial geometry, and pollen in an effort to find scientific data from the Cloth of Oviedo that might prove whether it covered the same man whose tortured image is preserved on the Shroud.

Debates about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin focus on two stumbling blocks: Carbon-14 dating tests in 1988, which placed the origin of the Shroud in the 14th century; and lack of documentation to support theories about what happened to Christ’s shroud after the resurrection. Those who doubt the authenticity of the Shroud reject all evidence other than the Carbon-14 results, which coincide with the date of the first recorded exhibition of the Shroud in 1357 in Lirey, France. Clearly, if the Shroud of Turin is a 14th-century artifact, it cannot be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Some Shroud doubters go further; they attempt to speculate on the identity of the man so cruelly crucified to achieve the “fraudulent” image.

While historians sift through lurid alternative theories about crucified Templars and a Masonic Grail, ongoing artistic studies and forensic pathology research on the Shroud of Turin still suggest it may truly be an artifact of first-century Palestine. Thus, the various methodologies of investigation have yielded conflicting conclusions, and the mystery remains. To many skeptics, the Shroud is at best a pious icon and at worst a medieval hoax.

However, the Cloth of Oviedo, venerated in its own right for centuries in this city in Asturias, in north-central Spain, without reference to the Shroud of Turin, stirs far less controversy over its provenance. The documented whereabouts of the Sudarium have been undisputed since at least 718 A.D., which explains its tremendous significance: If forensic evidence can prove that the Shroud and the Sudarium were in contact with the same body at the time of death, it would tend to invalidate the Carbon-14 results that date the Shroud only to the 14th century.

While the assumed chronology of the Shroud is veiled in the mists of medieval history, the Sudarium is a revered relic that could well have been preserved from the days of Christ’s crucifixion.

In Latin, sudarium means “face cloth.” The Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates sudarium as “napkin,” a clear indication that this smaller cloth was not identical to the longer burial shroud called the sindon in the New Testament’s Greek. The smaller cloth was used to cover the face of the body immediately following death, a Jewish practice of respect and compassion for the family of the dead.

According to Liber Testamentorum (Book of Testaments), written by Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo in the twelfth century, a “holy ark” made out of oak by followers of the twelve apostles was said to contain the Sudarium, along with several relics of the Virgin Mary and the apostles and a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. According to Pelayo, the ark remained in Jerusalem for the first 500 years following the resurrection.

Philip “the Presbyter,” a leader of the Christian community in Palestine, fled Jerusalem with the oak chest when Chosroes II, king of Persia, sacked the holy city in 614 A.D., according to Pelayo’s chronicle. John the Almoner, bishop of Alexandria, welcomed Philip and his precious cargo. When the Persian invasion continued into Egypt, the chest was said to have accompanied the faithful into Spain, where St. Fulgentius received it and sent it to Seville. In 657, according to Pelayo, the ark traveled north to Toledo where it was protected until 718. Citing slightly different dates from those in Pelayo’s chronicle, Lucas, the bishop of Tuy, wrote in his 13th-century Chronicum Mundi (Chronicle of the World) that the ark was taken north from Toledo to Monte Sacro in Asturias in 711, to escape the advancing Moors. History and Description of Spain, a text completed in 977, corroborates this move, at least obliquely, with a description of Christians fleeing the Muslims to the mountains of Asturias and burying their relics underground.

From atop Monte Sacro, Alfonso II, king of Asturias, turned back Spain’s Moorish invaders and established his court at Oviedo. The 800-year Reconquista, or reconquering of Spain from the Moors, began with Alfonso’s victory. He built a CÁmara Santa (holy chamber) in 840 A.D. to shelter the relics in the ark. Later kings built Oviedo’s cathedral of San Salvador (Holy Savior) around this tiny chapel.

A record from the year 1030 reports that some hapless clerics opened the reliquary in the CÁmara Santa without prayer or fasting and were struck blind. This account is dismissed by historians as legend. Rev. Rafael Somoano, the current dean of the cathedral, summarizes the contents of a document recording a second opening of the reliquary at Easter in 1075 by King Alfonso VI, his sister, Doña Urraca, and Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, popularly known as El Cid, the Spanish hero:

Other references to the Sudarium are scattered throughout medieval European literature. Among the most intriguing are a mention of a mysterious ark in Spain in the documents of the Third Council of Braga, in Portugal, in 675, and the following reference to Oviedo in a ditty recited by pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, the site of St. James the Apostle’s shrine not far from Asturias (see “Pilgrimage to the Stars” in the February 2000 issue of Crisis):

Fascinating evidence of early veneration of the Sudarium also appears in this eleventh-century Spanish poem: “Tell us Mary, what did you see on the road? I saw the tomb of the living Christ, and His glory as He rose,…the sudarium and the linen cloths [emphasis added].”

Since the relic was brought to the CÁmara Santa in the ninth century, it has remained undisturbed in Oviedo. Skeptics willing to concede its relative antiquity still question its authenticity as the sudarium of Christ described in John’s gospel (John 20:6-7). Can it be proved that this cloth was used in the burial preparations for Jesus? This question and the related one of proving a correlation between the Sudarium and the Shroud of Turin are the object of ongoing scientific investigations by a team from the Spanish Center for Sindonology, an organization that studies the Shroud of Turin.

The secret of the Sudarium’s preservation, notes Father Somoano, is that its reliquary was rarely opened. Father Somoano himself knew nothing about the Sudarium when he was growing up, even though he was raised in a village near Oviedo. “I never saw theCÁmara Santa until after I became a priest, because it was always closed,” he recalls. He first learned about the Sudarium while studying in Rome and “was astounded.”

Formal testing of the Sudarium began 15 years ago. The first to study it was the late Msgr. Giulio Ricci, president of the Roman Center for Sindonology. Father Somoano reports that when Ricci viewed the Sudarium for the first time, he exclaimed, “It’s authentic,” and decided it was a complement to the Shroud of Turin.

Ricci concluded that the simplest explanation for certain symmetrical stains on the Sudarium was that they were made by someone holding the cloth against a bloodied face. He also suggested that a Swiss pollen expert, Max Frei, be given an opportunity to search for botanical evidence. Frei found two species of pollen typical of Palestine; significantly, these same pollens were found on the Shroud. However, he also found pollen from North Africa, which is consistent with the Sudarium’s legendary travels. While this African pollen is not present in the Shroud, the Shroud contains pollen from species found in Turkey and France that were not found on the Cloth of Oviedo. Advocates of the authenticity of both the Sudarium and the Shroud contend that the two cloths exhibit pollen evidence consistent with their differing routes into Europe.

In the late 1980s, Ricci urged a systematic study of the Cloth of Oviedo that would compare it with the Shroud. Early investigations included a photographic study of ultraviolet and infrared images of the cloth. This preliminary study confirmed that there is no underlying image of a face on the Sudarium—unlike the Shroud, which contains a bodily image that looks like a photographic negative. The Sudarium presents only a pattern of successive stains from perspiration, blood, and lymph. In the testing, video images were digitized so that the images on the two cloths could be highlighted and compared.

The First International Congress on the Sudarium of Oviedo, held in 1994, sponsored further testing. The findings indicated that the Sudarium had been placed against the face of a man who had been beaten on the front and back of the head. Although there is no facial image on the Sudarium, it does contain a distinct facial impression, the 1994 study showed. The cloth is impregnated with blood and lymph that match the AB blood type on the Shroud. (This was a crucial test, for had the blood types not matched, any subsequent testing would be pointless.) The pattern and measurements of the stains indicate a placement of the cloth over a face. Measurements of facial features were also made. These patterns were extensively mapped to enable researchers to compare the markings and measurements with those on the Shroud.

Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of medicine at Duke University, found similarities in the blood stains on the two cloths by using a polarized image overlay technique. He noted 70 congruent patterns on the face and more than 50 on the back of the head and neck. Furthermore, when the image on the Shroud was placed over the stains on the Sudarium, there was an exact correlation between the stains on the Sudarium and the image of the beard of the man on the Shroud.

According to the gospels, at the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pontius Pilate for permission to remove His body from the cross. Following the custom of the time, the Sudarium would have been placed over Jesus’ head at that time. The pattern of stains suggests that it was then wrapped back on itself, because the victim’s head seemed to have been lying at an acute angle against his right arm. Author Mark Guscin explains in his book The Oviedo Cloth (Lutterworth Press, 2000) how the effects of a crucifixion are recorded on the Sudarium:

The first set of stains on the Sudarium indicates that the victim’s body was in a vertical position with the head at an angle. There are also stains from deep puncture wounds on the portion of the cloth covering the back of the head that are consistent with similar marks found on the Shroud, presumably made by Jesus’ crown of thorns. A separate set of stains, superimposed on the first set, was made when the crucified man was laid down horizontally and lymph flowed out from his nostrils. Scientists are able to calculate the time that elapsed between each new set of stains based on the pattern of stains and the measurements of a model head used in the experiments.

According to Guscin, “the third stain was made when the body was lifted from the ground about forty-five minutes later…. The marks (not fingerprints) of the fingers that held the cloth to the nose are also visible.”

Once the body was in the tomb, the Sudarium, stained and bloody, would have been set aside. The victim was then placed face-up on one-half of the long linen (presumably the Shroud of Turin) that Joseph of Arimathea had purchased (Mark 15:46). The linen was folded longitudinally over the body, which was only cursorily prepared for burial because the Sabbath was near, according to the gospels. The women planned to return after the Sabbath to prepare the body properly.

A comparison of the two cloths reveals an important difference between them. While the blood types match, the wound marks match, the facial features and measurements coincide, and pollen studies help confirm the cloths’ histories, researchers point out that the Sudarium does not have the “scorched” fibers present on the Shroud. Those who believe that both cloths are genuine attribute this difference to a powerful event that later took place in the body and hence in the Shroud, but not in the Sudarium, which was “rolled up by itself (John 20: 6-7). Christian believers maintain that this event was the resurrection.

Despite all the evidence, the question remains: What about the Carbon-14 data? The answer is partly to be found in the complex methodological and technical considerations with which reputable scientists on both sides of the issue are still grappling.

The controversy over the carbon-dating evidence with respect to the Shroud centers on the validity of tests performed on three samples snipped from it in April 1988. When the results of testing by the three international laboratories selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass spectrometry method of carbon-dating were made public, all three labs concurred: The Shroud dates sometime between 1260 and 1390 A.D.

Many in the academic and scientific communities were stunned. The great preponderance of other data suggests that the Shroud is a relic from first-century Palestine. Some even called into Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo, Spain, where the Sudarium is housed today question the integrity of the samples: Had they been cut from an area charred during a fire in 1532, thus compromising the carbon-testing? Similarly, carbon-testing on the Sudarium sets its origin in the seventh century, but those who contend it is older say the test results were distorted by the effects of a terrorist bombing inside the cathedral in 1934.

Reams of paper have been devoted to trying to invalidate carbon-dating and its use on textiles. Shroud advocate Ian Wilson reported in his 1998 book, The Blood and the Shroud, that Egyptologists have produced Carbon-14 test results that date the wrappings of mummies as 1,000 years later than they are known to be. Some even question the quasi-religious belief of some scientists in the infallibility of carbon-dating. They cite famous and often hilarious examples suggesting that carbon-dating may be among the least accurate methodologies for assessing the age of the Shroud. For example, the head of the Swiss laboratory that participated in the Carbon-14 tests on the Shroud also ran a Carbon-14 test on his mother-in-law’s 50-year-old tablecloth. The results of the test set the age of the textile at 350 years. He theorized that soaps used to wash the tablecloth were the compromising factor.

Complicating the Carbon-14 question is the problem of the Shroud’s chronology. The Carbon-14 date of the Shroud closely corresponds to its first documented appearance. There is, however, a possible earlier history for the Shroud that awaits further research before it can provide the chronological documentation that accompanies the Cloth of Oviedo.

According to some theorists, including Wilson, the Shroud of Turin is actually the precious piece of cloth known in the Byzantine world as the Mandylion. Early Christian iconography brims with images of Jesus’ face on the Mandylion that closely resemble the image of the man on the Shroud—an image that was not revealed until the age of photography. Where did these ancient artists find their model?

Tradition holds that Jesus’ disciple Thaddeus took the Mandylion—perhaps the Shroud—with him to Edessa in Mesopotamia at the invitation of King Abgar V of Edessa (the Church historian Eusebius chronicles a supposed exchange between Jesus Himself and Abgar that is probably apocryphal). Later, Christians were persecuted in Edessa, and the “Cloth of Edessa,” as the Mandylion was called, was hidden in the city walls. By 550 A.D., the Mandylion had reportedly been recovered, and it was brought to Constantinople in 944. It was described as “the divinely wrought likeness which human hands have not made.”

Travelogues, diaries, liturgies, hymns, and even coins attest to the existence of a mysterious image of Christ in the Near East. Shroud advocates believe this cloth was pirated during the infamous Fourth Crusade of the 13th century, when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, and brought to France by the Knights Templar. Scant solid evidence has been found to support this theory, however.

Naysayers scoff at such suppositions as fanciful. But Shroud devotees point to an equally vexing question: How is it that science and technology cannot provide a method to duplicate the Shroud, if it is in fact a hoax? What is the explanation for the most studied holy relic in history?

Juan Ignacio Moreno, a magistrate in Burgos, Spain, and a leading advocate of the Sudarium’s authenticity, offers this answer to the mystery of both the Shroud and the Cloth of Oviedo: “The Sudarium is a relic rediscovered for Christians fighting a new fight. It is a love letter to our time from God: a tantalizing puzzle saved for the minds of men that have made science and knowledge their god.”

From the article:

The controversy over the carbon-dating evidence with respect to the Shroud centers on the validity of tests performed on three samples snipped from it in April 1988. When the results of testing by the three international laboratories selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass spectrometry method of carbon-dating were made public, all three labs concurred: The Shroud dates sometime between 1260 and 1390 A.D.

I find it interesting that this article does not mention that the 1988 C-14 tests were completely FALSIFIED in three different peer-reviewed scientific articles which demonstrated that although the C-14 tests were accurate on what was tested, the tests failed at the very beginning by the breaking of the test protocols when the sample was taken!

Contrary to what was quoted in the article above, there were NOT three samples taken from the Shroud of Turin, but only ONE, and that one was taken from an area of the Shroud that had been identified by the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project scientists as the one area of the Shroud that was NOT homogenous with the main body of the Shroud in that it fluoresced under ultra-violet light while the main body did not! In other words, that part of the Shroud was physically and chemically different from the main body of the Shroud.

The original C-14 agreed on protocols were that EIGHT samples were to be cut from the Shroud from EIGHT separate areas, including both image and non-image sections of the Shroud. At the very last minute those agreed protocols were tossed out by a single person.

That person cut a SINGLE piece out of the Shroud and that piece was then cut into SIX pieces, one of which was discarded because of "colored threads were observed" and it was considered contaminated. The remaining became the C-14 test sub-samples.

Testing done by three different scientists in 1994-2005 proved that the part of the Shroud from where the 1988 C-14 test sample was cut was actually a skillfully rewoven PATCH which included threads from the original Shroud LINEN, made from FLAX, and PATHED in threads made of COTTON. The main body of the Shroud is pure LINEN made from FLAX. The primary rule of any C-14 test is to be sure that what you are testing is homogenous with what you are intending to test. The test failed right there!

These proofs include

Statistical analysis of the 1988 C-14 results from the three lab's results on the FOUR sub-samples showing that the results could not possibly have come from a homogenous sample. . . indicating that even in the original single main sample that had been cut into FIVE sub-samples, were not homogenous, i.e., made of similar aged materials as not ONE of the results—which actually spanned 180 years between the earliest and latest possible creation dates—overlapped any other test's results range of confidence. This statistical work was done by a well respected statistical mathematician who published in a peer-reviewed mathematical journal. That should have been a huge red flag for the testing referee. Instead, the referee merely impermissibly averaged the resultsy a well respected statistical mathematician who published in another peer-reviewed journal.
Chemical tests of threads taken from the surviving control sub-sample of the 1988 C-14 test by one scientist.
Microphotoscopic physical optical examination of the threads from the same source by an independent scientist published in another Scientific Journal showing the threads were from different species of plant demonstrating older, original material made of linen from flax, and newer, dyed Cotton.

THREE SEPARATE approaches conclusively FALSIFIED the 1988 C-14 Tests.

Here is a repost of a commentary I wrote several years ago that explains it in detail.

In 2004, Dr. Raymond Rogers conclusively proved... and had his work successfully peer-reviewed, found accurate, and published in prestigious scientific journals (which is something McCrone has NOT done)... that the sample used in the 1988 carbon dating was inconsistent with the main body of the shroud. Other scientists working from a different direction came to the same conclusion. The samples were NOT physically or chemically the same as the main body of the Shroud... ergo the 1988 C14 testing is proved invalid.

Dr. Rogers worked with photomicrographs and the remaining control sample retained from the five sub-samples cut from the original cutting from the Shroud.

I submit you haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about. You have heard and repeated something that is untrue.

Chemist and pyrologist Raymond N. Rogers, (Sandia National Laboratory, University of California) and, independently, Dr. John L. Brown, (former Principal Research Scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Energy and Materials Sciences Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology), have done other research and tests and presented evidence in peer reviewed scientific journals that proved that:

The 1988 Carbon 14 Tests were accurate at the current state of the art - on what they tested.
The established, agreed sampling protocols were violated. This is well documented and is beyond contention. The sample cut from the Shroud came from only one area in contravention of the previously agreed protocols which required 8 samples from 8 areas. Instead a single sample from a single area was taken.
The sample that was taken was also taken from the one area all involved scientists had agreed should be avoided as it showed the most dirt and handling damage.
Another reason the area had been excluded as a sampling area was that it was the one area of the Shroud that generally fluoresced under ultra-violet light, indicating a non-similarity to the main body of the shroud which did not fluoresce.
The sample was cut from the corner of the Shroud where the "Raes sample" had been cut 14 years before.
The sample was approximately 1 cm by 7 cm in length and was cut parallel to the long side of the Shroud.
Approximately “…1 cm of the new sample had to be discarded because of the presence of different colored threads that were not similar to the main body of the shroud.” (Where did these foreign threads, interwoven into the sample, come from? - Swordmaker)
Five sub-samples of approximately 1cm x 1cm were cut from the remains of the single original sample cut from the shroud. (For clarity and understanding, let's designate them A to E alphabetically, from the selvage toward the center of the shroud).
The primary sample and the sub-samples were micro-photographed before being packaged and sent for testing.
Sub-samples A and E were sent to the Arizona C14 Lab, B went to Oxford, D to Zurich, and C was retained as a control for future investigation and was untested.
The sub-samples, although chemically cleaned were not microscopically examined or chemically tested, nor were the fibers compared to fibers from other areas of the Shroud by any of the labs.
The C14 Tests were completed and returned results that suggested an origin date for the flax that was in the cloth of 1260 to 1390 AD, with a degree of accuracy of plus or minus ~25 years on each sample.
This spread of possible origin dates of 180 years (1260 minus 25 to 1390 plus 25) should have raised a red flag as the material was supposed to be homogenous and should have all tested within a plus or minus ~75 year spread. In fact, none of the samples' range of confidence overlapped the range of confidence of another in a manner that statistically would indicate the samples were homogenous. This strongly suggested that the samples were, in fact, not homogenous.
Sample A tested younger than sample B which tested younger than Sample D which tested younger than Sample E. The closer the sample was to the center of the Shroud, away from the selvage, the older it tested.
Sample A and Sample E, the samples with both the youngest and oldest reported ages were both tested by the Arizona Lab.
Post C-14 testing and examination of microphotographs of the Primary sample showed a faint demarcation area running somewhat diagonally from the right side of the selvage end (A) to the leftward side of the sample closest to the main body of the shroud (E).
Examination of threads from the retained sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample have an "S" twist.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample have a "Z" twist.
Examination of threads taken from main body of the Shroud all have a "Z" twist.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample are somewhat (3-5%) thinner in diameter, on average, than threads from the average thread thickness of sample's right half or from the body of the Shroud.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample have Cotton intertwined with the Flax.
Examination of threads from right half of the sample (C) and from the main body of the Shroud have no Cotton intertwined with the Flax.
Examination of threads from the retained sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample are encrusted with a plant gum containing alizarin dye extracted from Madder Root, a technique developed in 16th Century France.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and from the main body of the Shroud are not encrusted with the dyestuff.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample contains up to 2% Aluminum. Chemical testing shows this Aluminum is from Alum (hydrous aluminum oxide), used after the 16th Century as a mordant, a drying agent for retting of cloth.
Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and threads from the main body of the Shroud contain no Aluminum.
Chemical testing of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample Flax's Lignin shows significant levels of Vanillin (> 40%).
Chemical testing of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and threads from the main body of the Shroud contain no Vanillin... indicating an age greater than 1300 years.

From an article in Thermochimica Acta: "A linen produced in A.D. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. The Raes threads, the Holland cloth [the shroud's backing cloth], and all other medieval linens gave {positive results from] the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the radiocarbon laboratories reported."
Microscopic examination of the slightly diagonal demarcation area of the sample (C) shows spliced threads, clearly delineating the changes from Left to Right sides of the sample.
Skillful weavers in Europe in the 16th Century used a technique now called French Invisible Reweaving to repair tapestries and arras cloths. Contemporary reports state the method was close to "magical" in the ability to repair damaged cloth. This technique involved spinning and dying thread to closely match the original, splicing the new threads into old threads on the cloth, and reweaving the newly extended threads into the material to match the weaving of the original.
The diagonal demarcation line on the original sample is located so that sample (A)'s suspect (non-similar) threads compose approximately 60% of the sample material. Sample (B)'s suspect (non-similar) threads compose approximately 55% of the sample material. Sample (C)'s, 50% (non-similar) observed and tested. Sample (D)'s, 45%. And Sample (E)'s, (non-similar) 40%. Conversely, threads similar to the main body compose the following approximate percentages of the samples from A to E: 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, and 60%.
The Shroud underwent repairs after the severe damage from the fire in 1532. Perhaps the corner where the Raes and 1988 C14 test samples were taken was also repaired.
Harry Gove, the inventor of the nuclear accelerator technique that was used to carbon date the Shroud, when asked "How old would a the polluting material have to be to skew the C-14 date of material known to be 1530 AD to show an tested age of 1350 if the polluting material composed 50% of the sample by weight?" He did some calculations and stated, "First Century, give or take 100 years."

The conclusion of the peer reviewed article in Thermochimica Acta states:

"The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud."

Thus, the 1988 Carbon 14 Testing has been invalidated because the person who took the sample, literally, at the last hour, changed the agreed sampling protocols and took the sample from an area that had been patched, probably in 1532, with contemporary prepared linen thread that had been spun on a spinning wheel that had also spun cotton, then retted with alum, and dyed with alizarin dye from madder root, all done with 15th century technology. The tests were accurate for what they tested: a melange of old and newer material that gave the reported a date that is inaccurate for both the old and the new. It is merely coincidence that the false date of the combined old and new happened to coincide with the first display of the Shroud in Lirey France. The repaired area is not the same as the main body of the shroud and tests are invalid.

New C14 testing should be allowed because there are now a lot of loose samples available since the ill advised "restoration" where they cut away the burned edges around the scorches from the 1532 fire.

I can tell you that there was an unauthorized C-14 test done on one of the threads taken during the 1978 STURP examination and the results were 1st Century, with a degree of confidence of 50 years because the sample was so small.

May I suggest you forget the website you keep repeatedly linking and do some reading of the peer reviewed scientific and scholarly articles on the Shroud? They are mostly available from Barrie Schwortz's website Shroud.com. Barrie was the official photographer of STURP... and he is Jewish. Daniel Porter has put together some of the best and current data in a good popularization of the Shroud information which is more accessible than the scientific papers. Daniel Porter is Freeper Shroudie, and his series of Websites, including Shroudforum.com, Shroud Facts Check, and Shroud Story are an excellent resource based on the latest science.. not on the 30 year old, non-peer-reviewed data from McCrone who ignored agreed protocols on handling Shroud samples which resulted in compromised samples, published his "findings" in a non-peer-reviewed journal (his own vanity publication, "The Microscopist," of which he was both publisher and editor), refused to submit his work for peer-review, and has actually attempted to sabotage other researchers by first, dragging his feet, and then sending them samples that were NOT exemplar of the bulk of samples he had in his possession.

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