THE mystery surrounding one of the world’s most famous religious relics may finally be solved, according to new research.
The Shroud of Turin, a length of linen believed to have been used to wrap Jesus after his death on the cross, draws thousands of faithful visitors every year.
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The cloth bears the image of a man after Crucifixion, leading believers to claim it was the very shroud that bore Christ’s body.
Yet it has been the centre of controversy and debate for centuries.
Sceptics suggest the shroud is nothing more than a hoax dating to the Middle Ages.
But a new study published in the journal Archaeometry seems to have put the debate to rest.
Brazilian 3D digital designer Cicero Moraes used digital modelling software to reach his final conclusion.
He believes the shroud was never wrapped around Jesus’ body, based on a study using 3D imaging tech.
“The Shroud’s image is more consistent with an artistic low-relief representation than with the direct imprint of a real human body,” he wrote.
Moraes argues that the imprints on the linen could only have been made by a sculpture, not an actual person’s body.
For his research, Moraes compared two different digital 3D bodies.
One was that of a human body, and the other was a low-relief sculpture.
He then used 3D simulation tools to digitally drape a shroud over each of them.
Moraes compared both to pictures of the Shroud of Turin.
He found that the low-relief sculpture was a worthy match for the centuries-old relic, while the one based on a human was more distorted.
This is down to a phenomenon called the Agammemnon Mask Effect – named after a wide death mask found in Greece.
The effect sets out that if someone pressed their face against a paper towel, it would be wide and distorted – and would not accurately reflect the individual’s features.
Moraes told Live Science: “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.”
Accusations that the Turin Shroud is a fake have been around since its first recorded mentions in the 14th century.
More recently, carbon dating analysis has placed its likely time of creation somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD.
Moraes thinks it is likely the shroud was made in a funerary context, and is a “masterpiece of Christian art”.
He wrote that it is “plausible to consider that artists or sculptors with sufficient knowledge could have created such a piece, either through painting or low relief”.
However, it’s unlikely that Moraes’ work will being an end to speculation over the shroud’s veracity.
University of Padua professor Giulio Fanti has claimed in a study that the blood stain patterns offer evidence that the shroud is the real deal, according to the New York Post.
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