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DETAIL OF THE CLOTH

The frontal image shows the head and face of a man approximately 1.80 m tall with long hair, a split beard and a moustache. The more pronounced mass of hair on the left side suggests that the head was slightly inclined towards that side. Reddish spots are visible on the hair and face. The most characteristic spot is the one in the shape of an "upside down 3" in the centre of the forehead. The facial features are however marred by what appear to be various lesions: a deviated nasal septum, swellings under the eye, on the right cheek , on the upper lip and on the jaw .

 

You can see the two forearms crossed at the pubic bone with the left hand on the right wrist. Blood stains are evident on the left wrist and both forearms .

 

The dorsal image shows a series of blood streams from the nape of the neck to the neck. Numerous signs of flagellation are evident from the shoulders to the ankles. A transverse blood flow is also discernible in the lumbar region .

 

The dorsal image also shows the feet, especially the right one. In the central part of the right foot there is a decidedly darker area that corresponds to the wound of a nail . Two different streams of blood come out of it, one towards the toes and one towards the heel.

 

The Shroud is very old and, as with any other object of similar dating, it is very difficult to reconstruct its history. However, a centuries-old tradition has gradually been established that identifies the Shroud with the burial cloth that wrapped the body of Jesus after his death.

Before the fire at Chambéry, the Shroud showed the image of the body, frontal and dorsal, of a man with the signs of the crucifixion. The body images are imprinted in a delicate and nuanced way.

The copy of the Shroud of Lier (dated 1516) preserved in the Treasury of St. Gummaro in Lier, Belgium (Lierre in French) gives us an idea of what the Cloth looked like at the time.

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Below is the current image, retouched by the computer.

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In 1532 a fire that broke out in the Sainte-Chapelle in Chambéry (capital of the Duchy of Savoy where it was kept), caused damage to the Shroud, that is still visible today. Two years later the Poor Clare nuns of Chambéry restored it, closing the holes caused by the fire with patches that were removed in 2002.

The pre-reading video made on the occasion of the 2010 Exposition of the Shroud.

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

What is seen on the Shroud
1) Water stains
2) Missing parts
3) Charred lines due to the Chambéry fire of 1532
4) Damage caused by the Chambéry fire
5) Fabric folds
6) Burns before 1532
 7) Wounds due to the scourge
 8) Wound in the side
 9) Nail wound on right foot
10) Injuries due to sharp objects such as a helmet of thorns
11) Nail wound on left wrist
12) Blood stains

POSITIVE FACE OF THE MAN OF THE SHROUD

 

This photograph represents the face of the Man of the Shroud as it appears on the cloth. The color difference between light and dark areas is so small that the eye can perceive only the features of a human face in its entirety, while details are not easily identified and intelligible.

The imprints that define the somatic features of the face are dark in relief areas, such as the nasal pyramid and cheeks, while they are light in others, such as the orbital and maxillary areas. Blood stains are, by their very nature, darker in color. The image therefore presents a face with a brightness distribution exactly opposite to what we usually perceive, in which the most protruding parts are associated with lighter tones than those related to the less prominent anatomical areas. The Shroud image therefore behaves almost as if it were a photographic negative, except for the blood stains which are dark and, therefore, positive in intrinsic chromatic value.

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In the positive image of the Shroud the right appears on the left and the left on the right.

NEGATIVE FACE OF THE MAN OF THE SHROUD

 

This photograph, obtained by Giuseppe Enrie in 1931, represents the photographic negative of the Shroud's face. It is evident how the chiaroscuro is completely reversed and the spatial transposition is present, consisting of the exchange of the right side with the left and vice versa. Thus the light-colored cloth has become dark, while the spots corresponding to the anatomical areas in relief have been converted into light tones, with shades of intensity that follows the curvilinear shape of the face. Furthermore, the details that appeared on one side of the original image are now found on the opposite side. The photographic negative of the Shroud therefore shows the appearance of a man as we might observe him if he were in front of us. Even the bloodstains on the forehead, in the shape of an inverted three, and on the back of the head, in the shape of a two-sided one, now appear reversed in tone and spatial position. The inverted three in the positive photo, for example, appears as number three on the right side of the negative image.

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FACE IN POSITIVE COLOR - NAPE IN POSITIVE COLOR

The face of the man of the Shroud presents a notable series of contusive lesions that the forensic doctors have carefully studied. Some swellings have been identified, which seem to be identifiable as hematomas, particularly visible on the right half of the face, which appears more swollen than the left. In addition to these hematomas, other evident signs attributable to lacerated-contused wounds are found. In particular, these lesions are very clearly visible in correspondence with the orbital arches. The nasal septum is deviated, due to a fracture. Overall, the man of the Shroud appears to have been savagely beaten in the hours preceding his death. Furthermore, on the forehead, the nape of the neck and along the hair, numerous sinuous drips of blood can be seen, flowing from small diameter puncture wounds. These wounds, arranged radially around the head and which rise up to the top of the occipital cap, seem to have been caused by the imposition on the head of a helmet of sharp spines. The characteristics of the behavior of the blood flowing from the wounds have in some cases allowed us to distinguish the lesions of arterial vessels from venous ones. Particularly singular is the dripping in the center of the forehead flowing from a wound in the frontal vein, which follows the pattern of the wrinkles on the forehead caused by pain, giving rise to the characteristic É›-shaped image. Also noteworthy is the angle formed by the lines of the blood dripping from the same wound. It indicates two different positions of the body on the cross, as can also be deduced from the drippings coming from the wound on the wrist. The two dark horizontal lines that delimit the face are due to folds in the fabric.

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TRUNK IN COLOUR POSITIVE - BACK IN COLOUR POSITIVE

 

The skin of the trunk and back shows over a hundred excoriated ecchymoses, consisting of rounded and paired figures, about two centimeters long, also visible on the lower limbs. They appear to be lesions caused by the flagellum, a Roman instrument of torture, consisting of a wooden handle from which straps branch out, at the end of which are fixed small dumbbell-shaped weights placed side by side in pairs. In some places, the enveloping marks left by the leather straps are also visible. It is difficult to establish the number of lashes inflicted, since the number of scourge straps is unknown. However, it is likely that the torture was inflicted on a bent back and on the naked body, as the lesions are distributed over the entire body.

At the level of the left scapular and right suprascapular area, some roughly quadrangular-shaped bruises can be observed, attributable to the marks left by a heavy, rough object which is most likely the patibulum , the horizontal axis of the cross that the condemned sometimes carried on him to the place of execution.

On the right side of the chest there is still a large patch of blood 6 cm wide and 15 cm long, which comes out of an ovoid-shaped skin breach of about 4.5 cm wide and 1.5 cm high caused by a cutting agent that struck at the height of the fifth right intercostal space and penetrated deeply. The characteristics of this wound are important, as they show that it was inflicted after the death of the subject. The blood that comes out and runs down the back to the height of the kidneys, probably due to emptying of the thoracic cavity when the corpse was placed horizontally, appears surrounded by a serous halo dotted with reddish spots, as is the case with blood coming out of a corpse in which the serous part has already separated from the corpuscular part.

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HANDS IN POSITIVE COLOR - DETAIL OF THE WRIST IN POSITIVE COLOR

On the front image of the Shroud, the imprints left by the upper limbs are clearly identifiable. The arms (the image of which is no longer visible due to the scorching of the fabric caused by the fire at Chambéry) are stretched out, with a slight inward bend at the elbow joint, while the hands are crossed at the pubic region, with the left hand superimposed on the right. Long streaks of blood are visible along the forearms, starting from the wrists and rising to the height of the elbow. Their progression appears unnatural, as they seem to rise, against all laws of gravity, upwards instead of dripping, as would appear natural in a supine corpse. Their path, however, is explainable and natural, as they are streaks of blood formed when the body was hanging on the cross and therefore the wrists were higher than the elbows.

On the left wrist, a characteristic blood stain is clearly visible, formed by two diverging drips, with a relative angle referable to the two different positions assumed by the condemned man on the cross: the collapsed one and the raised one. The blood flows from an oval-shaped wound, referable to the injury from a sharp instrument, such as a nail, on which traction was exerted. Particularly worthy of interest is the location of this wound, which is not in the palm of the hand, as depicted in the iconographic tradition of the crucifixion, but in the wrist, exactly in a free space between the carpal bones that is called "Destot's space". The penetration of the nail in this area, according to the studies of the French surgeon Pierre Barbet, would lead to the lesion of the median nerve, with consequent flexion of the thumb inside the palm of the hand. This would explain the absence of the image of the thumbs on the Shroud. The insertion of the nail into the wrist and not into the palm of the hand corresponds to the safety requirements of fixing the upper limbs to the cross: the tissues of the palm of the hand cannot in fact support the weight of the body without tearing.

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ANTERIOR-POSTERIOR IMAGE OF THE LOWER LIMBS IN POSITIVE COLOR

The lower limbs of the man of the Shroud are clearly identifiable, both in the front and back figures. The characteristic signs of the scourge can also be seen on them. Both knees have abrasions, most likely due to falls, since in these areas, as well as on the soles of the feet, traces of soil have been identified. It should also be noted that the left knee has been fixed by cadaveric rigidity in a more flexed position than the right, so that the left limb appears shorter than the right in the image.

The feet are clearly visible in the rear imprint, while on the front one a blood stain is evident, but not the somatic imprint of the limb. The sole of the right foot is clearly impressed, while of the left only the rear part is visible, near the heel. This suggests that the crucifixion was carried out using a single nail and by placing the left foot on top of the right. On the sole of the right foot the exit hole of the nail can be seen, from which rivulets of blood depart that run down towards the toes, therefore due to the hemorrhage during the crucifixion. Others run down towards the heel, therefore coming out at the moment of deposition, when the body was in a supine position.

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BURNS AND PATCHES FROM THE CHAMBÉRY FIRE (1532)

Enlargement of one of the points damaged during the fire. The Shroud was then kept folded in a silver box. A piece of incandescent metal fell on the Sheet and pierced all the layers, destroying the fabric. This explains the symmetrical repetition of the characteristic triangular gaps. The two singed black lines that run along the sides of the figure imprinted on the Sheet are due to contact with the overheated wall of the box. The gaps were repaired by the Poor Clares of Chambéry in 1534, who sewed patches on them, recognizable by their different color compared to the Sheet, surrounded by a dark area, because it was strongly singed by the heat.

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WATER STREAMS

In order to handle the box and save the Shroud during the fire, it was necessary to use water, which penetrated inside the box itself, soaking almost all of the Sheet. The diamond-shaped areas that we see today on the Shroud represent the few areas that remained dry. Here too, the imprints appear repeated due to the play of folds. The serrated edge of the halo is due to the substances present on the sheet transported by the water.

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TRACES OF BURNING BEFORE THE CHAMBÉRY FIRE

On the Shroud there are still evident signs of rounded burns, also with a symmetrical course. However, the different arrangement compared to the burns of Chambéry suggests a different folding system. These burns certainly pre-exist the fire of 1532, as they are already documented in a pictorial copy of the Shroud of 1516, now preserved in Lierre, Belgium.

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THE GAPS AT THE UPPER CORNERS AND THE REPORTED STRIP

Along the entire margin that is conventionally indicated as the upper edge (the Shroud is in fact displayed with the front imprint to the left of the viewer) a strip of the same fabric as the Shroud was anciently sewn. The reason for this addition is unknown, although many hypotheses have been made. However, at the two extreme edges this strip has noticeable gaps, under which the Holland fabric appears. Even in this case, it is not known when and why this mutilation, which is certainly ancient, occurred. Immediately below the gap at the top left of the viewer is the area from which samples were taken in 1973 for commodity investigations on the fabric and in 1988 for radio-dating with the C14 method.

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