For centuries, various controversies (carbon dating, image creation) have dogged the Shroud of Turin.  But Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, chimed in today with what he thinks is the final word.

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390.  Skeptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.  But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.

Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.  They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid.  A mask was used for the face.

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.  They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

Images (above and below) from Garlaschelli’s recreated shroud are on the right.

 
In Reuters: Italian Scientist Reproduces The Shroud Of Turin