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REPORT

PBS 'Secrets of the Dead' Buries the Truth about Turin Shroud

JOE NICKELL

lthough science and scholarship forger's confession—were treated in ulous Easter-season audience. The fol- have demonstrated that the straw-man fashion: presented as virtu- lowing facts are an antidote to diat sci- is a medieval ally the sole impediment to authenticity. entific and historical revisionism: A Knowledgeable skeptics were avoided. fake, die-hard shroud endiusiasts con- • The shroud contradicts the Gospel tinue to claim otherwise. Just in time of John, which describes multiple for Easter 2004 viewing, a PBS tele- cloths (including a separate "napkin" vision documentary that aired over the face), as well as "an hundred Wednesday, April 7, gave diem a pound weight" of burial spices—not forum to state their conviction that a trace of which appears on the die image on the doth is a first- cloth. century picture—miraculous or oth- • No examples of the shroud erwise—of ' crucified body. linen's complex herringbone twill As part of the Secrets of the Dead weave date from the first century, series, the "Shroud of Christ?" when burial cloths tended to be of presentation was a study in pseudo- plain weave in any case. science, faulty logic, and the sup- • The shroud has no known his- pression of historical facts. Omitted tory prior to the mid-fourteenth were mention of die contrary gospel century, when it turned up in the evidence, the reported forger's con- possession of a man who never fession, and the microanalytical explained how he had obtained the analyses that showed the "blood" most holy relic in Christendom. and "body" images were rendered in • The earliest written record of tempera paint. Unsubstantiated die shroud is a bishop's report to claims were presented as fact, and Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stat- the radiocarbon results—which ing that it originated as part of a dated the cloth to die time of the faith-healing scheme, with "pre- Instead, viewers were subjected to the tended " being staged to defraud astonishingly absurd notion of an an his- credulous pilgrims. Joe Nickell Ph.D., is CSICOP's Senior torian named Nicholas Allen diat the Research Fellow and an expert on the • The bishop's report also stated that image was "the world's first photograph." Shroud of Turin. He is author of Inquest a predecessor had "discovered die fraud (The technique was supposedly invented on the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus and how die said cloth had been cun- to make a fake shroud and then conve- 1983, 1998) and numerous articles, ningly painted, the truth being attested niently lost for subsequent centuries!) including "Blooming Shroud' Claims" by the artist who had painted it" (empha- The intellectual incompetence or (, NovJDec. 1999) sis added). outright dishonesty of the show's pro- and "Pollens on the Shroud': A Study in • Although, as St. Augustine lament- ducers is matched only by that of the ed in the fourth century, Jesus' appear- Deception" (SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Summer 1994). PBS executives who foisted it on a cred- ance was completely unknown, the

8 luly/Augusl 2004 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER shroud image follows the conventional (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of allows the preponderance of evidence to artistic likeness. Arizona). The results were in dose agree- lead to a conclusion: the shroud is the • The physique is unnaturally elon- ment and yield a date range of A.D. work of a medieval artisan. The various gated (like figures in Gothic art), and 1260-1390, about the time of the reported pieces of the puzzle effeaivdy interlock there is a lack of wraparound distortions forgers confession (ca. A.D. 1355). and corroborate each other. In the words that would be expected if the cloth had Defenders of the shroud's authentic- of Catholic historian , enclosed an actual three-dimensional ity have rationalizations for each damn- who brought to light the documentary object like a human body. The hair ing piece of evidence. For example, they evidence of the Shroud's medieval origin, hangs as for a standing, rather than assert that microbial contamination "The history of the shroud constitutes a reclining figure, and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs. • The alleged blood stains are un- naturally picture-like. Instead of mat- ting the hair, for instance, they run in The intellectual incompetence or outright rivulets on the outside of the locks. Also, dried "blood" (as on the arms) has been dishonesty of the show's producers is matched implausibly transferred to the cloth. The only by that of the PBS executives who foisted blood remains bright red, unlike gen- uine blood tli.it blackens with age. it on a credulous Easter-season audience. • In 1973, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the "blood" to a battery of tests—for chem- ical properties, species, blood grouping, etc. The substance lacked the properties of blood, instead containing suspicious, might have altered the radiocarbon date, protracted violation of the two virtues so reddish granules. although for an error of thirteen cen- often commended by our holy books, jus- turies, there would have to be twice as • Subsequently, the distinguished tice and truth." much contamination by weight as the microanalyst Walter McCrone identi- For more information on the Shroud fied the "blood" as red ocher and ver- cloth itself! Beginning with the desired of Turin and other allegedly miraculous milion tempera paint and concluded answer, they work backward to the evi- images of Jesus of Nazareth, visit the new that the entire image had been painted. dence, picking and choosing and—all "Miraculous Self-Portraits of Jesus?" • In 1988, the shroud doth was radio- too often—engaging in . Feature Exhibit on the Skeptiseum carbon dated by three different laboratories In contrast, the scientific approach (www.skeptiseum.org). A Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience— Cruise the Caribbean with Secular Humanists and Skeptics!

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SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July/August 2004 9