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T h e T u r i n S h r o u d
Note: it was not my intention originally to cover the Turin Shroud; first, because the object has spawnes such controversy that a detailed coverage would fill a few large books, and second, because I generally prefer to let matters of belief out of my gaming sessions (as not everyone's sensibilities are the same).
And yet, occultists, mystics and general crackpots have shown during the years such an interest in the Shroud, weaving it in the occult history of the town, that ignoring it would severely limit the scope of this collection of data.
What follows is a run-down of the chief elements of the Holy Shroud fact and legend.
Much of it comes form a detailed Reuters article, with subsequent additions and corrections.
The whole thing is dedicated with affection to the Strange Aeons "Old Timers".
The Turin Shroud is a fragile, yellowing linen cloth measuring 4.4 by 1.2 metres (14.5 by 3.9 feet) on which a ghostly full-length image of the front and back of a man is visible as if in a photographic negative. According to some sources, the image first came to light 100 years ago when a photographer, Secondo Pia, took the first picture in 1898. And yet frescoes and pictures dating from well before that portray the shroud showing the image on it.
The Shroud, which some Christians believe is nearly 2,000 years old, is believed to have been brought to France from the Middle East during the crusades in around 1356.
In 1453, it became the property of the Duke of Savoy, who took it to the French town of Chambery, his feudal seat, on the french side of the Alps.
Later, the House of Savoia (or Savoy) took it to its seat new in the city of Turin in 1578
[currently the Shroud is papal property as king Umberto II (exhiled) bequeathed it to Pope John Paul in 1983]
The Turin Shroud is kept in a silver casket that was housed in the Guarini Chapel and later behind the high altar of Turin's cathedral, or Duomo, a little off Piazza Castello and sharing a corner with the former Royla Palace.
The first thing anyone looking at the Shroud sees are triangular patches added after a fire in 1532, water marks and stains. The image itself appears on closer inspection like a photographic negative of a bearded man with shoulder-length hair and his hands folded. Some of the marks look like blood stains.
The first to notice anything particular about the Shroud was Second Pia (1855-1941), the first man allowed, in 1898, to take photographs of the Shroud. The Savoia family (at the time the owners of the relic) only gave their permission after much boot-licking and arm-twisting on the part of Pia and his higly-placed supporters (including Baron Manno, head of the Shroud commission).
Pia decided to work by night, and used two electric lamps to which were added frosted glass filters (supposedly to correct the uneven light diffusion). Two attempts were needed to get the images (50x60 cms plates).
The first attempt (May 25th 1898) failed because, after a short time in front of the projectors, the heat caused the frosted glasses to crack.
A second attempt had to be made three nights later, placing thicker frosted glass farther from the projectors.
So the definitive photos were taken on the night of May 28th 1898, starting at 9.30 P.M., and as we know show the _negative_ image of a shape that has been taken by some to be that of Jesus Christ.
Marks corresponding with Gospel descriptions of Christ's crucifixion -- including a crown of thorns, the sign of lashes and a lance wound in the side -- are also visible. There are no
signs of decomposition -- consistent with the Church's teachings that Christ was resurrected after three days.
According to recent anthropometric studies, the man was 1.77 metres (5 feet 10 inches) tall, weighed 70 kg (154 pounds) and was aged 30-35.
Analyses have found type AB blood from a man on the cloth.
No one has proved conclusively how the image -- which is three-dimensional, heat-resistant and apparently indelible -- was transferred onto the cloth.
The image was at one time attributed to master Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, but most scientists now say it cannot have been painted or printed. One theory is that an image slowly
emerges after a body has come into contact for a time with a cellulose material, such as linen.
The most controversial analysis of the Shroud's authenticity was carried out in 1988 when scientists in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona, conducted carbon-dating tests. Their
sensational verdict was that the Turin Shroud dated between 1260 and 1390 -- suggesting to many that it was a mediaeval fake.
Some scientists say traces of pollens from plants growing around Jerusalem at the time of Christ's crucifixion have been found on the Shroud. Others say contamination of the cloth over the centuries -- from water damage and fire, for example -- were not sufficiently taken into account and could have distorted the results of the carbon dating tests.
The Shroud has according to some led a charmed life, narrowly escaping destruction by fire three times. Burns, scorch marks and repairs carried out after a serious fire in 1532 are still visible. While by many these hair-breadth escapes can be axplained by faith, and others simply call upon the statistical laws to explain the facts, a much less ortodox interpretation is the so called "magical-initiatory" interpretation.
According to the supporters of such theory, the Shroud - independently from its religious significance - is a mystical beacon contrasting the many sources of darkness in town.
The talismanic meaning of the Shroud, according to some, comes from the fact that it reunites in a single object the four elements (Earth to generate it, Water and Air through which it travelled, Fire that is the spirit of the man represented on its surface).
Connected with the above-mentioned interpretations is the theory that sees in a discharge of nuclear energy the cause that put the image on the Shroud in the first instance.
From this point on, the reason for the discharge has been variously identified with extraterrestrial activities (the Shroud-Man would be an alien or an atom-powered android), aural energy (and connected Kirlian experiences), kundalini, unknown physical processes and the like.
Another theory - as much apocriphal as the others - connects the Shroud of Turin with the Templars (that in fact had one of their houses in Moncalieri, just across the river in the Turin Hill) and the unconfirmed theories that place the Holy Grail nonetheless under one of the town's major churches (La Gran Madre, on the other side of the River from piazza Vittorio).
Researches led by doctor Marcello Canale and his staff in the Forensics Medicine Department of the Genoa University, the DNA traces found on the Shroud belong to a woman, and not to a man (or not only to a man).
Various causes have been pustulated to expalin this, ranging from the unwilling contamination of the shroud hypothesis to the "a being above mundane male/female distinctions" interpretation.
The
Healing Touch - according to this legend, a man that touched the
Shroud
in 1532 to save it from a fire was severely burned by the contact, but later
he was healed by an angel and received the power to heal the others by touching
them.
The Blinding
Light - in various instances, persons touching the Shroud
with mischievous intent were according to the legend blinded by a white light
and fled. Such tale is related, for instance, about a group of French officers
during the war in 1556.
