St. Louis, Aug. 2 - An analysis of pollen grains and plant images
taken from
the Shroud of Turin, believed by many Christians to be the
burial shroud of
Jesus, places the cloth's origin in or near Jerusalem
before the eighth
century, scientists said here today.
The finding appeared to contradict radiocarbon dating tests that in 1988
led
a group of experts to put the origin of the cloth at between A.D. 1260
and
1390 and to conclude that the shroud was most likely a medieval
forgery. But
revisionist scholars have raised many doubts since then.
The rectangular linen shroud, which bears faint traces of a man's face, is
one
of the most venerated objects in the Roman Catholic Church, although
the
Vatican, after the 1988 tests, said it appeared to be inauthentic.
Avinoam Danin, a botanist at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, said at a
news conference at the 16th International Botanical
Congress here that
flowers and other plant parts apparently were placed on
the shroud, leaving
pollen grains and imprints. Analysis of the
grains and the images, he said,
identified them as coming from species
that could be found only in the months
of March and April in the Jerusalem
region.
The pollen of one plant, a thistle called Gundelia tournefortii, was
especially abundant on the cloth, and an image of the plant was identified
near the image of the man's shoulder. Some scientists say this may
have been
the species from which Jesus's crown of thorns was plaited.
Two pollen grains of this species were also found on
another ancient fabric,
called the Sudarium of Oviedo, which many
believe to be the burial face
cloth of Jesus. A first century origin for the face cloth has been
documented, the
scientists here said, and it has been in the Cathedral of
Oviedo in Spain
since the eighth century. The shroud has been kept in Turin,
Italy, since 1578.
Both the Sudarium and the shroud appear to carry type
AB blood stains, and
the stains are in a similar pattern, Dr. Danin
said. "There is no way that
similar patterns of blood stains,
probably of the identical blood type, with
the same type of pollen grains,
could not be sychronic, covering the same
body," he said. "The
pollen association and the similarities in the blood
stains in the two
cloths provide clear evidence that the shroud originated
before the eighth
century." He did not offer a more specific date.
Dr. Danin noted that the 1988 analysis was performed on
a small corner of the
cloth, while the new one involves the whole shroud
and compares with a cloth
known to exist before the eighth century.
The sample may have been contaminated, said Alan D. Whanger, of the Duke
University Medical Center. The sample came from a water stained,
scorched
edge of the shroud, he said, and carbon could have been added to
the cloth,
obscuring the true date of its origin. Also, living fungi
and bacteria have
been found growing inside the fibers, he said, possibly
contaminating the
sample.
