Turin shroud 'could be 3,000 years old'
A chemist who worked on testing of the Shroud of Turin says new analysis of the fibre indicates the cloth that some say was the burial linen of Jesus could be up to 3,000 years old.
The analysis, by a scientist who was on the original 1978 team that was allowed to study tiny pieces of the cloth, indicates the shroud is far older than the initial findings that suggested it was probably from medieval times.
“I cannot disprove that this cloth was the burial shroud that was used on Jesus,” said Raymond Rogers, a retired chemist from the University of California-operated Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
“The chemistry says it was a real shroud, the blood spots on it are real blood, and the technology that was used to make that piece of cloth was exactly what Pliny the Elder reported for this time,” Rogers said.
“But you’re never going to find out if it was used on a person named Jesus,” said Rogers, whose findings were published in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta.
The Vatican, which does not claim that the shroud is authentic, said today it had no comment on the new testing.
