Fresh tests on Shroud of Turin
Date: Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 (CDT )
Topic: Ancient History
 The Oxford laboratory that declared the Turin Shroud to be a medieval fake 20 years ago is investigating claims that its findings were wrong. The head of the world-renowned laboratory has admitted that carbon dating tests it carried out on Christendom's most famous relic may be inaccurate.
Professor Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said he was treating seriously a new theory suggesting that contamination had skewed the results. Though he stressed that he would be surprised if the supposedly definitive 1988 tests were shown to be far out - especially "a thousand years wrong" - he insisted that he was keeping an open mind.
The development will re-ignite speculation about the four-metre linen sheet, which many believe bears the miraculous image of the crucified Christ. The original carbon dating was carried out on a sample by researchers working separately in laboratories in Zurich and Arizona as well as Oxford. To the dismay of Christians, the researchers concluded that the shroud was created between 1260 and 1390, and was therefore likely to be a forgery devised in the Middle Ages.
Even Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, the then Cardinal of Turin, conceded that the relic was probably a hoax.
There have been numerous
theories purporting to explain how the tests could have produced false
results, but so far they have all been rejected by the scientific
establishment.
Many people remain convinced that the shroud is genuine.
Prof Ramsey, an expert in
the use of carbon dating in archeological research, is conducting fresh
experiments that could explain how a genuinely old linen could produce
"younger" dates.
The results, which are due
next month, will form part of a documentary on the Turin Shroud that is
being broadcast on BBC 2 on Easter Saturday.
David Rolfe, the director
of the documentary, said it was hugely significant that Prof Ramsey had
thought it necessary to carry out further tests that could challenge
the original dating.
He said that previous
hypotheses, put forward to explain how the cloth could be older than
the 1988 results suggested, had been "rejected out of hand".
"The main reason is that
the contamination levels on the cloth that would have been needed to
distort the results would have to be equivalent to the actual sample
itself," he said.
"But this new theory only
requires two per cent contamination to skew the results by 1,500 years.
Moreover, it springs from published data about the behaviour of
carbon-14 in the atmosphere which was unknown when the original tests
were carried out 20 years ago."
Mr Rolfe added that the
documentary, presented by Rageh Omaar, the former BBC correspondent,
would also contain new archeological and historical evidence supporting
claims that the shroud was a genuine burial cloth.
The film will focus on two
other recorded relics, the Shroud of Constantinople, which is said to
have been stolen by Crusaders in 1204, and the Shroud of Jerusalem that
wrapped Jesus's body and which, according to John's Gospel, had such a
profound effect when it was discovered.
According to Mr Rolfe, the
documentary will produce convincing evidence that these are one and the
same as the Shroud of Turin, adding credence to the belief that it
dates back to Christ's death.
Copyright: Telegraph
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