ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Shroud of Turin, the 14-foot linen revered by some as the burial cloth of Jesus, may have indeed been woven around the time of his death, rather than during the Middle Ages, researchers say.
A microscopic layer of bacteria and fungi may have thrown off carbon dating of the shroud and all other ancient fabrics by hundreds, even thousands, of years, a team from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio reported Tuesday.
``This means that at present time, the radiocarbon dating of ancient textiles is not a reliable test,'' said one of the researchers, Dr. Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a pediatrician and archaeologist. ``This is going to produce a big, big revolution.''
The findings were presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Society of Microbiology.
A geochemist whose tests concluded that the shroud was woven between 1260 and 1390 said he is confident his findings will stand.
``We'll look into it, but we've been through this before,'' said Paul Damon, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. ``We have dated linen from the pharaonic dynasties. We've dated Coptic linen. And there's never been any question. The dates come out very reasonably.''
The Shroud of Turin has been enshrined at Italy's Royal Chapel of Turin since 1578, though the Roman Catholic Church has never claimed it as a holy relic.
The cloth bears the faint yellowish negative image of the front and back of a man with thorn marks on the head, cuts on the back and bruises on the shoulders.
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