Open Letter to John Dominic Crossan

For More Information See: Shroud of Turin Story
 

Plant Images and Pollen Grains on the Shroud

During a 1999 conference of the prestigious Missouri Botanical Society in St Louis, Missouri, Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading authority on the flora of Israel, along with Uri Baruch, a pollen specialist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, reported that the combination of pollen spores lodged in the Shroud’s surface, as well as floral images mysteriously “imprinted” on the face of the cloth, could only have come from plants growing in a restricted area around Jerusalem.

Pollen identification is a common method used in criminal forensics to determine where an object has been geographically. Max Frei, a Zurich criminologist, had previously identified a total of 58 different pollens on the Shroud from the area around the 1) Dead Sea and the Negev, 2) the Anatolian Steppe of central and western Turkey, 3) the immediate environs of Constantinople, and 4) Western Europe. Danin and Baruch confirmed much of Frei’s work. They also confirmed some previous floral image identifications by Oswald Sheuermann, a German physicist, and Alan Whanger, a professor at Duke University.

The most significant plants that Danin and Baruch identified and reported on are:

Chrysanthemum coronarium: This is one of the most prominent plant images on the Shroud. It is not a very strong geographical indicator in that it is a widespread Mediterranean species. It is, however, a good temporal indicator since it blooms between March and May. This suggests that the image was formed at that time of year.

Zygophyllum dunosum: This is the second most prominent floral image on the Shroud. The phonologic stage of bloom, as seen on the Shroud, indicates that it was cut or picked sometime between December and April. This plant grows only in the Sinai, a small area of Jordan adjacent to Israel, Jerusalem, and an area of Israel south of Jerusalem.

Gundelia tournefortii:  In addition to faint imagery, there are also a very significant number of pollen spores for this species on the Shroud. Such large quantities of pollen grains, of this otherwise insect-pollinated plant, can only be explained by physical contact with the Shroud.  Gundelia blooms in Israel between March and May. This plant also grows throughout Turkey, Syria, northern Iran, northern Iraq, and in northern Israel. The southernmost edge of its growing region is Jerusalem.

Cistus creticus: Numerous pollen grains tend to confirm a fuzzy image of this plant on the Shroud’s surface. This is considered a very high geographic indicator since it only grows in Israel along the Mediterranean coast areas and the higher elevations east of the coast, but only as far in that direction as the old city of Jerusalem.

Capparis aegyptia: This plant grows only in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai. According to Danin and Buruch, “Flowering buds of this species begin to open about midday, opening gradually until fully opened about sunset. Flowers of this species, seen as images on the Shroud, correspond to opening buds at three to four o’clock in the afternoon.”

The last four plants on the Shroud are significant because, as Danin and Baruch report, “[the assemblage] occurs in only one rather small spot on earth, this being the Judean mountains and the Judean Desert of Israel, in the vicinity of Jerusalem.”

Travertine Aragonite

Joseph Kohlbeck, Resident Scientist at the Hercules Aerospace Center in Utah, and Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, examined embedded dirt particles taken from the Shroud’s surface.  The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone.  Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of samples taken from the Shroud with samples of limestone from ancient Jerusulem tombs.

The chemical signatures of the Shroud samples and the tomb limestone were identical except for some minute fragments of organic cellulous linen fiber that could not be separated from the Shroud samples.  Kolbeck acknowledges that this is not absolute proof that the Shroud was in Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world – though none are known and it is statistically unlikely any will be found – where travertine aragonite has the identical trace chemical composition.

Textile Studies

Methchild Flury-Lemberg, a leading authority on historic textiles and the former curator of Switzerland’s Abegg Foundation Textile Museum, has reported strong similarities between the Shroud’s fabric and fragments of cloth produced in the Middle East about 2,000 years ago. According to Flury-Lemberg, the cloth’s finishing, its selvage, and a very distinctive joining seam, all closely resemble unique ancient textiles found in tombs of the Jewish palace-fortress Masada. The Masada fabrics have been reliably dated to between 40 BCE and 73 CE. Flury-Lemberg’s detailed analysis of the Shroud’s fabric – an exceptionally fine quality, z-twist, 3-over-1-herringbone patterned linen cloth – is evidence that it was manufactured in the Middle East on a Roman-period Egyptian or Syrian loom.

The unique, nearly invisible seam is particularly interesting and telling. The seam is about 8 centimeters from one edge. It appears that the cloth was cut lengthwise to remove some of the fabric’s width and then expertly and very distinctively seamed in a way that preserved the selvage (the finished edges produced on the loom). This nearly invisible style of seaming is consistent with the Masada fabrics and is unknown in medieval Europe.

Previously, Gilbert Raes, of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium, identified the herringbone twill as a pattern that was common in the Middle East during the first century. Raes had also discovered that the Shroud’s fabric contained, within the weave itself and thus possibly introduced on the loom, microscopic traces of a Middle East cotton variety known as Gossypium herbaccum. The evolving Talmudic traditions (Mishna) permitted linen to be woven on looms used for cotton but never on looms used for wool. While loose wool and even twentieth century nylon fibrils have been found on the Shroud, no wool has been found woven into the cloth as would likely be the case for looms in medieval Europe. Because the wool and the nylon are loose, they are likely contaminants. Flury-Lemberg’s and Raes’ evidence strongly suggests that the fabric of the Shroud of Turin is a Middle East fabric used in Israel around the time of Jesus.