Not only is the Turin Shroud a medieval fake but it is one of 40 so-called burial cloths of Jesus, according to an eminent church historian.
Antonio Lombatti of the Università Popolare in Parma, Italy said the false shrouds circulated in the Middle Ages, but most of them were later destroyed.
He said the Turin Shroud itself – showing an image of a bearded man and venerated for centuries as Christ’s burial cloth – appears to have originated in Turkey some 1,300 years after the Crucifixion.
In a research paper published in the scholarly journal Studi Medievali, Lombatti says the shroud was given to French knight Geoffroy de Charny as a memento from a crusade to Smyrna, Turkey, in 1346. The de Charny family are the first recorded owners of the shroud.
Carbon tests carried out in Oxford in 1988 firmly dated the material to 1260-1390.
Antonio Lombatti of the Università Popolare in Parma, Italy said the false shrouds circulated in the Middle Ages, but most of them were later destroyed.
He said the Turin Shroud itself – showing an image of a bearded man and venerated for centuries as Christ’s burial cloth – appears to have originated in Turkey some 1,300 years after the Crucifixion.
In a research paper published in the scholarly journal Studi Medievali, Lombatti says the shroud was given to French knight Geoffroy de Charny as a memento from a crusade to Smyrna, Turkey, in 1346. The de Charny family are the first recorded owners of the shroud.
Carbon tests carried out in Oxford in 1988 firmly dated the material to 1260-1390.