of Charny also died impoverished, and his widow gave the shroud to Louis of Savoy.
In 1464, Pope Sixtus IV gave his support to the authenticity of the shroud, but it was over a century before it was sent to Turin. Borromeo saw it there in 1578, and Francis de Sales, who was then an assistant bishop, was one of those who were privileged to hold it during an exhibition in 1639.
Controversy continues to rage fiercely around the Mandylion as one piece of data continually seems to contradict another. In 1973, for example, threads from the Mandylion were scientifically examined at the Belgian Institute of Textile Technology in Ghent. Professor Gilbert Raes was in charge at the time. Rather surprisingly, traces of cotton were identified among the linen from which the shroud was largely woven, and this suggested to Raes and his colleagues that the linen had been made on a loom that was also used for weaving cotton. Cotton was apparently grown and used in Egypt and most of the Middle East in those days, but not in Europe. Raes also discerned herringbone patterns in the weave. These were characteristic of work done in Egypt and the Middle East two thousand years ago. The Associate Professor of Egyptology at Turin University in the 1970s was Silvio Curto, and it was his considered professional opinion that the cloth could indeed be two thousand years old.
Additional supporting evidence comes from Max Frei, a Swiss forensic scientist. Frei had had considerable botanical experience and was intrigued by the tiny pollen grains adhering to the shroud. In 1973, he categorized almost fifty different varieties of pollen clinging to the fibres of the Mandylion. More than thirty of the varieties he identified were found only in Palestine, the Turkish Steppes, and the area around Constantinople. Fifteen or sixteen varieties of pollen were identified as European, and some researchers argued that these grains could have become embedded in the Mandylion while it was being exhibited between 944 and 1204. As far as can be ascertained, it is highly unlikely that the shroud left European Christendom after being shown at Lirey by Geoffrey Senior’s widow in 1357.
Members of an organization known as “The Shroud of Turin Research Project” were allowed to make a close and detailed examination of it in 1978. Their report included comments about the precise size and structure of the Mandylion. It felt silky to the touch; the colour was like that of mature ivory; and the whole thing felt surprisingly light. The cloth, as they measured it, was approximately four and a half metres long and just over a metre wide. There is a distinct strip roughly ten centimetres wide on the left side; otherwise, the cloth looks as through it was woven as one single piece. The mysterious image on the Mandylion dispels the pale Victorian Sunday School image of “Gentle Jesus.” The man of the shroud was almost six feet tall and powerfully built. In life he probably weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. As far as expert opinion can go based on so faint an image, he would have been around thirty-five years old.
The image on the shroud is very difficult to make out. Its details become much clearer in photographs and it is more easily understood at a distance than close up. The pigment — whatever it is — that is responsible for the image seems to touch only the outer fibres of each individual thread. The marking penetrates only three or four fibres down into the thread itself. Most experts are convinced that the more densely coloured areas give that appearance, not because the colour is deeper, but because the coloured fibres are more numerous in those darker areas.
In 1532, there was a disastrous fire in the Chambery Chapel, where the shroud was kept inside a silver case. The heat was sufficient to melt the silver, and consequently the molten metal dripped through, leaving scorch marks on the shroud. The nuns of the Poor Claire Order devoutly repaired it. They sewed some fourteen large triangular patches, along with seven or eight smaller ones, to repair the holes that the fire had caused. There is much to commend in the courage of the two Franciscan priests who risked their lives saving the Mandylion and who preserved it from further damage by soaking the silver case with water as soon as they were clear of the fire. The aftermath of that trauma is still visible on the Mandylion today. Scorch marks, small holes caused by the molten silver, and what are presumably water stains after the silver box was doused are still visible. Another attempt — this time deliberate — to destroy the Mandylion took place in 1972, when an intruder burst into the chapel and tried to set fire to the holy relic. The asbestos inside the shrine saved it.
In 1898, the shroud was photographed for the first time by Secondo Pia. In his midforties, Secondo was a lawyer by profession but had won a number of prizes as a photographer. In 1898, electric lighting was still something of a novelty, and its results for an amateur photographer were likely to be uncertain. Pia first tried an exposure of fourteen minutes, and then with a later picture gave it twenty. It was about midnight, while he was working in his darkroom, that Pia was totally dumbfounded (his own description of his feelings) as the face of the shroud began to appear. Only then was it realized that the image on the shroud was a negative. The discovery that Secondo made was so impressive that the old box camera he used for that photograph is still to be seen in the Holy Shroud Museum in Turin.
In 1931, some exceptionally good exposures were made by Giuseppe Enrie, accompanied by Secondo Pia, who was by then well into his seventies. A young priest who was present with the two photographers went on to become Pope Paul VI.
Doctor Pierre Barbet and Professor Yves Delage brought their special knowledge to bear on the mystery of the Mandylion almost a hundred years ago. Both medical experts agreed that the man who had been laid to rest in the shroud was one who had well-developed muscles and had been used to hard work. They detected unmistakable signs of rigor mortis but maintained that there was no evidence of corruption. Again, in the opinion of these two medical examiners and others, the wounds as shown on the Mandylion were anatomically accurate. The lacerations of the scalp and above the brow suggested to them that the crown of thorns, unlike the circlet that religious artists normally portrayed, was more like a cap. Medical experts estimated the lance wound that penetrated the heart as being approximately five centimetres long by just over a centimetre wide. In the opinion of the experts, the wound had been made posthumously. The blood flow had simply run downward with gravity and had not spurted as it would have done if a living body had been penetrated in that way. Additional medical evidence would indicate death from asphyxiation, which is concomitant with crucifixion, as the victim is unable to breathe. The man of the shroud had bruises and cuts on the knees, which would indicate at least one heavy fall, and further marks on the back indicate, or suggest, that something heavy had been carried. Again, the medical evidence points to these back injuries having been inflicted after the scourging, because the whip marks had been modified and distended by this later, larger injury. Medical evidence in connection with the scourging suggested that well over a hundred blows had been inflicted, that two executioners had been involved, and that the wounds were of a type that would have been inflicted by the notorious Roman flagellum.
More recent — but equally controversial — evidence has suggested a completely different theory: the shroud probably originated in 1307, and was used to cover the tortured body of Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. According to this theory, the fearless Templar leader was nailed to a door by his depraved interrogators, and the door was then slammed repeatedly. De Molay was then wrapped in the cloth that later became the Mandylion, or Holy Shroud of Turin. The medical evidence pointed to the man in the shroud as being tall and muscular. That description would fit a powerful fourteenth-century warrior-priest like Jacques. The theory is fascinating, but inconclusive. The mystery of the Mandylion remains unsolved, but it is one of the most mysterious objects on the planet. As a special stop-press item, it is relevant to note that archaeologist Dr. Shimon Gibson has recently discovered a shroud in a tomb near Jerusalem dating from the first century A.D. It may provide vital comparative evidence for accurately dating the Turin Shroud.
CHAPTER FOUR:Alexander of Abonoteichous
The curious alleged miracles and mysteries and the strange artifacts and mysterious objects that were the property of Alexander of Abonoteichous (one of the weirdest miracle mongers of the second
