Advance Research in Sciences
[ ISSN : 2837-5777 ]
Multiple Dating of the Turin Shroud: Data Synthesis and Comments
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua, Italy
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Abstract
T his paper summarizes and comments on the various results obtained regarding the age of the Turin Shroud or Holy Shroud (TS) since 1988 when a radiocarbon dating declared that results provided “conclusive evidence” of its mediaeval age. This result, far from conclusive, has been debated for several decades also because it may influence religious aspects. In fact, if the Relic were dated to the 1st century A.D., it would validate everything written about Jesus Christ, up to His Resurrection. On the other hand, if dated to the Middle Ages, it would indicate that it is an artifact, albeit one produced in a way that remains scientifically inexplicable up to now. Therefore, the great interest in determining the age of the TS has led to various datings, also using alternative and, in some cases, entirely innovative methods that produced an age of the 1st century AD. In this article, the discordant results are discussed, also considering the lightness detected in the 1988 result (because the selective radioactivity of the TS was not evaluated), incompatible with other chemical-physical and mechanical results, proposing a solution that could reconcile all the apparently heterogeneous results and leading the TS to a probable age of the 1st century AD.
