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Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?
In 1988, carbon dating of the world's most famous Christian relic revealed that it was a mediaeval or Renaissance forgery. Yet many questions remained. How could a hoaxer of 500 or more years ago have created an image that appears so astonishingly lifelike when seen in photographic negative? How was such an image formed? And who would have dared fake the Holy Shroud of Jesus? Setting out to answer these questions, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discovered that the faker was none other than Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist, scientist, inventor - and hoaxer - whose innovations are acknowledged to have been centuries ahead of his time. They also reconstructed Leonardo's secret technique - becoming the first ever to recreate the Shroud image. Now revised and updated, sensationally the new 2006 edition of Turin Shroud presents the long-lost hard evidence to link the Shroud of Turin directly with Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps this is even his 'confession' to having faked Christianity's most sacred relic, which will astonish both believers and sceptics alike, and present a new challenge to historians of both art and photography.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 27, 2013
When you look at the image on the Shroud of Turin, who do you see? The religious among you will say Jesus. But others might be a bit more sceptical. The Shroud of Turin has fascinated the world for hundreds of years. It has been acclaimed as a miraculous proof of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection by the Catholic Church, yet there have always been those who have doubted its authenticity.
The Church has never been able to answer some basic questions like: ‘How was it created?’ and ‘If it was created at the time of the Resurrection, how is it that there are no records of its existence before the fourteenth century?’ And now in this age of science, modern research techniques have thrown up some even thornier questions. (excuse the pun!)
At the turn of the twentieth century the first photographs were taken of the shroud and they revealed something truly mysterious. Although the image is vague to the naked eye, when seen in a photographic negative it astonishingly takes shape. The image is in the negative. This was taken by believers as the ultimate proof of its authenticity. How could such an image have been faked back in the fourteenth century? Yet when the Church finally conceded to allow carbon dating of the Shroud the findings were that the cloth was most likely created somewhere between 1260 and 1390.
The possibility that the Shroud is a fake became even more than likely, yet still the question remained. How was it created, and by whom? Any suggestion that the image has been painted onto the cloth has had to be ruled out. Close examination shows that while the bloodstains have been painted on, the image of the body has not been. In fact it has been formed by some kind of scorching of the cloth which, however, does not penetrate through to the other side.
The authors of this book believe they have the answer to this enigma which they reveal in one of the book’s alternative subtitles: How Leonardo da Vinci Fooled History. They believe that the face of the Shroudman, as they call him, does not belong to the body, but is in fact the face of Leonardo himself.
Their thesis brings in Alchemy, the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, the Johannite Heresy, and the ways and means by which Leonardo could have produced what they believe to be the first photograph using technology known at the time.
Why would he have done it? Was he commissioned by the Church to recreate the Shroud after an earlier version was lost? Was it a statement of da Vinci’s own heretical beliefs? Or could it have been as a joke on the Christian world which, for hundreds of years, has been solemnly crossing itself before his image?
Although I am almost convinced that Leonardo created the Shroud, while this book does give a good overview of all the ins and outs of the debates that have raged over the Shroud, I think it still leaves many of the most troubling questions unanswered. Perhaps that is because the authors would like you to read their follow-up books – The Templar Revelation, The Sion Revelation and (most intriguing of all) The Stargate Revelation!
The Church has never been able to answer some basic questions like: ‘How was it created?’ and ‘If it was created at the time of the Resurrection, how is it that there are no records of its existence before the fourteenth century?’ And now in this age of science, modern research techniques have thrown up some even thornier questions. (excuse the pun!)
At the turn of the twentieth century the first photographs were taken of the shroud and they revealed something truly mysterious. Although the image is vague to the naked eye, when seen in a photographic negative it astonishingly takes shape. The image is in the negative. This was taken by believers as the ultimate proof of its authenticity. How could such an image have been faked back in the fourteenth century? Yet when the Church finally conceded to allow carbon dating of the Shroud the findings were that the cloth was most likely created somewhere between 1260 and 1390.
The possibility that the Shroud is a fake became even more than likely, yet still the question remained. How was it created, and by whom? Any suggestion that the image has been painted onto the cloth has had to be ruled out. Close examination shows that while the bloodstains have been painted on, the image of the body has not been. In fact it has been formed by some kind of scorching of the cloth which, however, does not penetrate through to the other side.
The authors of this book believe they have the answer to this enigma which they reveal in one of the book’s alternative subtitles: How Leonardo da Vinci Fooled History. They believe that the face of the Shroudman, as they call him, does not belong to the body, but is in fact the face of Leonardo himself.
Their thesis brings in Alchemy, the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, the Johannite Heresy, and the ways and means by which Leonardo could have produced what they believe to be the first photograph using technology known at the time.
Why would he have done it? Was he commissioned by the Church to recreate the Shroud after an earlier version was lost? Was it a statement of da Vinci’s own heretical beliefs? Or could it have been as a joke on the Christian world which, for hundreds of years, has been solemnly crossing itself before his image?
Although I am almost convinced that Leonardo created the Shroud, while this book does give a good overview of all the ins and outs of the debates that have raged over the Shroud, I think it still leaves many of the most troubling questions unanswered. Perhaps that is because the authors would like you to read their follow-up books – The Templar Revelation, The Sion Revelation and (most intriguing of all) The Stargate Revelation!
February 5, 2016
The famous relic named or known popularly as Turin Shroud is not a relic after all, but a photograph, made during renaissance or thereabouts, using process and chemicals well known since antiquity. This in short is the conclusion of the book, presented with compelling evidence and arguments but very badly written in most part, especially the first few chapters until they go into the personal attacks they had to suffer in the process of working on the research.
This is the book telling about the research, sifting through evidence, experiences of various interactions with diverse people involved in the process, and a conclusion arrived at about the mystery of the Turin Shroud presented with compelling evidence of part of the fact and good arguments but not quite conclusive ones about the identity of the person responsible for the relic or artifact.
The duo went through some horrendous opposition of the sort intended to terrify them into shying away from any conclusion away from the official position that the relic is a true shroud of no one other than the church object of worship, a position not held up by scientific evidence - ironically the carbon dating test was officially supported by church with intention of proving the relic as true, which in fact cannot be done even if the artifact is two millennia old precisely - since the carbon dating proved that it was only about eight or so centuries old, give or take a century or two at most.
Towards the end the writers recount how there was a mysterious fire with equally mysterious hour of delay in calling for firemen post the evidence that not only this is not a true relic but in fact it is a photograph, proven by many recreations of the process involved in what could have been the way it was made during renaissance using a camera obscura, recreations by many persons independent of one another.
The fire might have or might have been intended to damage the artifact so far as to declare it officially destroyed so that no further examination can be made, since such an examination or even a casual viewing might further not only convince the general populace of the fact that it is a photograph but might raise questions about the complicity of the church in producing the forged relic in the first place for the sake of power over people's minds and financial gain in more than one way.
(Monday 22 November 2010)
..........................................
If one would like to know about the general history facts and reasoning on the subject, this is not quite the book one should begin with.
One generally picks up a book of this sort for information about what is going on, what is known, and so forth. Opinions and biases of writers are bound to come in, but good writers and thinkers manage to sift through what is known and go with some reasonable logic to their conclusions and manage to present them in their work with some credibility. That last part is somewhat missing or at least garbled in this work.
Less than halfway through one manages to see the pattern that continues consistently - the duo has arrived at some conclusions and are presenting them as fait accompli from almost page one, without going through the process of reason or logic for benefit of the reader. It begins to look like a session of bashing up some other writers and thinkers and more, on the whole, and it is not clear why since the thinking process of this duo is obscure.
Often they object to the thinking or logic or conclusions of others with huge gaps in their own logic for doing so, and it is repeatedly this sort of confusing material that brings one to suspect that the whole idea is to bash up the reader with a great deal of emotionally charged diatribe without much logic until one gives up and agrees with the writers - a typical tool of gossip sessions of afternoon coffee sessions.
.............................................
The idea here seems to be that since one cannot pooh pooh scientific evidence that has gone against the faith about the shroud and the identity of the shrouded, then of necessity there must be someone to pay the price, pay for the demolition of faith of millions those that have been following the line set out by Rome, even if the line is general and not specific in this matter.
And who better to pay for it than the most brilliantly intelligent of the geniuses of renaissance, the mysterious artist who also was a scientist and thinker par excellence, of not only his time but amazing even today with his various sketches of inventions of his own, the one recently shot into fame due to a painting and its coded messages, "the" Leonardo Da Vinci?
So here is a book to hit him with accusation of fooling everyone, for which every other possible thesis must be first and foremost discredited if not ridiculed.
...............................................................
As for the shroud, it remains mysterious to the writers as it is to perhaps everyone else (or we would have had huge headlines about the solution to the puzzle) - how the image formed, how it remained on one side, why it seems to be that of someone crucified but is merely from renaissance according to carbon dating, who could then have done it in what way that is unknown today and cannot be replicated, and more - if it indeed is genuinely from two millenia ago, where was it all this while?
But the last is begging the question in many ways, including the loyalty of church to the actual person (and his relatives) of the worshiped figure on the cross - what with various writings of last quarter of a century and discoveries of church dictating definite versions of the story and wiping out not only other versions but any trace of anyone who could possibly be a clue to the other versions, possibly the real ones at that, it is more than possible that such possessions had to be in hiding.
For instance many of faith find it troubling to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - and this is silly, since the only thing that DVC demolishes is the official version of the story, not the question of divinity. But the official version has been forced with burning alive of people daring to think independently and during centuries before Science established her reign as the alternative alter for intellectuals of west, and this divide has created havoc. Persecution of Galileo and others did not help.
..............................................
Even if the shroud were to be proven scientifically to be two thousand years old this does not prove whose it was, to begin with, since the crucifixion was not limited to one person but quite commonly used to punish all sorts of those that went against the occupation of the land by Rome. The shroud if it is two millennia old still could be anybody's, logically and scientifically speaking, unless there is more proof of the identity of the shrouded.
Such identity could come from DNA, in two ways - one, with living relatives, and second, with a known grave and body therein. Even this might be not conclusive enough evidence, the second that is, since such a tomb and grave ought to be known for all this time and not suddenly discovered now or disclosed without overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Living relatives, for which there is such overwhelming evidence pointed at although not conclusively established, what with the various persecutions through centuries by church and yet the new discoveries of various manuscripts in places unsuspected when they could and would have been destroyed, is another matter.
Quite possibly there are living relatives in spite of the persecution through centuries including holocaust and pogroms and general hounding of his people - for that precisely is what Jews are after all, his people and possibly descendants of relatives - but such a discovery and establishing of such a fact would be threatening to church and power of church just as much today as it has been since the crucifixion; so it is highly unlikely such evidence would come forth.
And so there goes any possibility of establishing the shroud through DNA even if carbon dating were to either confirm age of the shroud or to be bypassed for some convincing reason.
..................................................
Really, though - why this obsession with scientific proof of something that is clearly a matter of faith, of spiritual realm?
To begin with science has demolished the possibility of shroud being two thousand years old with carbon dating - but even if another one of the right age were to be found, so what? It could be of anyone crucified, of which there were plenty.
On the other hand the formation of the image seems to baffle science, but quite likely there were processes then known - possibly even today known except in west where inquisition wiped out knowledge - that might form such image either due to shroud being real or with some other process. The writers here go on (and on and on) discrediting any such thought, but really all that comes to is that they are discrediting it and something else still might be out there, not widely known yet, which is what the solution to the puzzle is. (Ok, so it is not oil and myrrah, how about this other spice?)
....................................................
And most of all - why does faith need scientific proof?
If the shroud - this shroud, or any other so declared - is not real, so what? If the resurrection was a story made up later, so what? If he were really married as a young male from a respectable family then ought to have been, and fathered a respectable number of progeny - so what? If there is divinity in someone, and it is innate rather than a human achievement, why should it be wiped out with something so natural to all life?
An artist, a scientist, a person of tremendous achievement in one or more realms can very well have a normal - or at least relatively normal - family life; and so could one with a spiritual facet. Why is it necessary for humans to determine that a divine being could not just as well do so?
.............................................................
There is of course another possibility - that crucifixions went on during inquisition, destroying any evidence of any sort that might threaten the power of church by methods other than burning people in public. The shroud might be real, and belong to another age, whether to a divine being or a mere human.
And then there is the widely known factor of the legend about his having traveled to India twice - one, his missing years between boyhood and sudden appearance shortly before crucifixion; second, post crucifixion, when he vanished - and there is the Himaalyan village that claims to have known, always, that he arrived and lived there, and there is the grave there that they claim to have known was his, known all these centuries.
............................................
Faith ought not to cling to scientific proof of something material, or possibility that someone after all did have children.
Spiritual realm is not enclosed in faith, whether it be blind faith dictated by some authority with power or faith given some crutches with a story and some relics.
Science has to do with an intellectual working out, of reality - and spiritual can only be higher, more inclusive of possibilities, than intellectual.
Faith is only one factor of spiritual realm, and not necessarily something to need crutches for.
(Wednesday, October 6, 2010)
...................................................
This is the book telling about the research, sifting through evidence, experiences of various interactions with diverse people involved in the process, and a conclusion arrived at about the mystery of the Turin Shroud presented with compelling evidence of part of the fact and good arguments but not quite conclusive ones about the identity of the person responsible for the relic or artifact.
The duo went through some horrendous opposition of the sort intended to terrify them into shying away from any conclusion away from the official position that the relic is a true shroud of no one other than the church object of worship, a position not held up by scientific evidence - ironically the carbon dating test was officially supported by church with intention of proving the relic as true, which in fact cannot be done even if the artifact is two millennia old precisely - since the carbon dating proved that it was only about eight or so centuries old, give or take a century or two at most.
Towards the end the writers recount how there was a mysterious fire with equally mysterious hour of delay in calling for firemen post the evidence that not only this is not a true relic but in fact it is a photograph, proven by many recreations of the process involved in what could have been the way it was made during renaissance using a camera obscura, recreations by many persons independent of one another.
The fire might have or might have been intended to damage the artifact so far as to declare it officially destroyed so that no further examination can be made, since such an examination or even a casual viewing might further not only convince the general populace of the fact that it is a photograph but might raise questions about the complicity of the church in producing the forged relic in the first place for the sake of power over people's minds and financial gain in more than one way.
(Monday 22 November 2010)
..........................................
If one would like to know about the general history facts and reasoning on the subject, this is not quite the book one should begin with.
One generally picks up a book of this sort for information about what is going on, what is known, and so forth. Opinions and biases of writers are bound to come in, but good writers and thinkers manage to sift through what is known and go with some reasonable logic to their conclusions and manage to present them in their work with some credibility. That last part is somewhat missing or at least garbled in this work.
Less than halfway through one manages to see the pattern that continues consistently - the duo has arrived at some conclusions and are presenting them as fait accompli from almost page one, without going through the process of reason or logic for benefit of the reader. It begins to look like a session of bashing up some other writers and thinkers and more, on the whole, and it is not clear why since the thinking process of this duo is obscure.
Often they object to the thinking or logic or conclusions of others with huge gaps in their own logic for doing so, and it is repeatedly this sort of confusing material that brings one to suspect that the whole idea is to bash up the reader with a great deal of emotionally charged diatribe without much logic until one gives up and agrees with the writers - a typical tool of gossip sessions of afternoon coffee sessions.
.............................................
The idea here seems to be that since one cannot pooh pooh scientific evidence that has gone against the faith about the shroud and the identity of the shrouded, then of necessity there must be someone to pay the price, pay for the demolition of faith of millions those that have been following the line set out by Rome, even if the line is general and not specific in this matter.
And who better to pay for it than the most brilliantly intelligent of the geniuses of renaissance, the mysterious artist who also was a scientist and thinker par excellence, of not only his time but amazing even today with his various sketches of inventions of his own, the one recently shot into fame due to a painting and its coded messages, "the" Leonardo Da Vinci?
So here is a book to hit him with accusation of fooling everyone, for which every other possible thesis must be first and foremost discredited if not ridiculed.
...............................................................
As for the shroud, it remains mysterious to the writers as it is to perhaps everyone else (or we would have had huge headlines about the solution to the puzzle) - how the image formed, how it remained on one side, why it seems to be that of someone crucified but is merely from renaissance according to carbon dating, who could then have done it in what way that is unknown today and cannot be replicated, and more - if it indeed is genuinely from two millenia ago, where was it all this while?
But the last is begging the question in many ways, including the loyalty of church to the actual person (and his relatives) of the worshiped figure on the cross - what with various writings of last quarter of a century and discoveries of church dictating definite versions of the story and wiping out not only other versions but any trace of anyone who could possibly be a clue to the other versions, possibly the real ones at that, it is more than possible that such possessions had to be in hiding.
For instance many of faith find it troubling to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - and this is silly, since the only thing that DVC demolishes is the official version of the story, not the question of divinity. But the official version has been forced with burning alive of people daring to think independently and during centuries before Science established her reign as the alternative alter for intellectuals of west, and this divide has created havoc. Persecution of Galileo and others did not help.
..............................................
Even if the shroud were to be proven scientifically to be two thousand years old this does not prove whose it was, to begin with, since the crucifixion was not limited to one person but quite commonly used to punish all sorts of those that went against the occupation of the land by Rome. The shroud if it is two millennia old still could be anybody's, logically and scientifically speaking, unless there is more proof of the identity of the shrouded.
Such identity could come from DNA, in two ways - one, with living relatives, and second, with a known grave and body therein. Even this might be not conclusive enough evidence, the second that is, since such a tomb and grave ought to be known for all this time and not suddenly discovered now or disclosed without overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Living relatives, for which there is such overwhelming evidence pointed at although not conclusively established, what with the various persecutions through centuries by church and yet the new discoveries of various manuscripts in places unsuspected when they could and would have been destroyed, is another matter.
Quite possibly there are living relatives in spite of the persecution through centuries including holocaust and pogroms and general hounding of his people - for that precisely is what Jews are after all, his people and possibly descendants of relatives - but such a discovery and establishing of such a fact would be threatening to church and power of church just as much today as it has been since the crucifixion; so it is highly unlikely such evidence would come forth.
And so there goes any possibility of establishing the shroud through DNA even if carbon dating were to either confirm age of the shroud or to be bypassed for some convincing reason.
..................................................
Really, though - why this obsession with scientific proof of something that is clearly a matter of faith, of spiritual realm?
To begin with science has demolished the possibility of shroud being two thousand years old with carbon dating - but even if another one of the right age were to be found, so what? It could be of anyone crucified, of which there were plenty.
On the other hand the formation of the image seems to baffle science, but quite likely there were processes then known - possibly even today known except in west where inquisition wiped out knowledge - that might form such image either due to shroud being real or with some other process. The writers here go on (and on and on) discrediting any such thought, but really all that comes to is that they are discrediting it and something else still might be out there, not widely known yet, which is what the solution to the puzzle is. (Ok, so it is not oil and myrrah, how about this other spice?)
....................................................
And most of all - why does faith need scientific proof?
If the shroud - this shroud, or any other so declared - is not real, so what? If the resurrection was a story made up later, so what? If he were really married as a young male from a respectable family then ought to have been, and fathered a respectable number of progeny - so what? If there is divinity in someone, and it is innate rather than a human achievement, why should it be wiped out with something so natural to all life?
An artist, a scientist, a person of tremendous achievement in one or more realms can very well have a normal - or at least relatively normal - family life; and so could one with a spiritual facet. Why is it necessary for humans to determine that a divine being could not just as well do so?
.............................................................
There is of course another possibility - that crucifixions went on during inquisition, destroying any evidence of any sort that might threaten the power of church by methods other than burning people in public. The shroud might be real, and belong to another age, whether to a divine being or a mere human.
And then there is the widely known factor of the legend about his having traveled to India twice - one, his missing years between boyhood and sudden appearance shortly before crucifixion; second, post crucifixion, when he vanished - and there is the Himaalyan village that claims to have known, always, that he arrived and lived there, and there is the grave there that they claim to have known was his, known all these centuries.
............................................
Faith ought not to cling to scientific proof of something material, or possibility that someone after all did have children.
Spiritual realm is not enclosed in faith, whether it be blind faith dictated by some authority with power or faith given some crutches with a story and some relics.
Science has to do with an intellectual working out, of reality - and spiritual can only be higher, more inclusive of possibilities, than intellectual.
Faith is only one factor of spiritual realm, and not necessarily something to need crutches for.
(Wednesday, October 6, 2010)
...................................................
March 27, 2017
The authors present some compelling evidence, I think, although half of the book also reads like a list of grievances against the existing scholarship on the Turin Shroud, nearly descending into Lone Gunmen-type conspiracy theorist rant. An interesting read overall, but perhaps not for casual readers like me who have no strong, vested interest in the subject matter.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2011
Interesting
December 13, 2025
One Very In-depth Story about the Reality of the Shroud of Turin
I really enjoyed and learned a lot from all the research done to write this book. Knowing the real truth behind this astonishing artifact makes it even more interesting. Though as with everything else Christians tried to use to prove some legitimacy for Christianity and a real Jesus, this book doesn't. Though it should make one more appreciative to the absolute genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. Considering just how backwards the church was and is, it always makes one feel better knowing some people prefer truth and knowledge over pulp fiction. Da Vinci was one of those people. Willing to defy morons and advance mankind in the sciences.
I really enjoyed and learned a lot from all the research done to write this book. Knowing the real truth behind this astonishing artifact makes it even more interesting. Though as with everything else Christians tried to use to prove some legitimacy for Christianity and a real Jesus, this book doesn't. Though it should make one more appreciative to the absolute genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. Considering just how backwards the church was and is, it always makes one feel better knowing some people prefer truth and knowledge over pulp fiction. Da Vinci was one of those people. Willing to defy morons and advance mankind in the sciences.
February 18, 2022
The authors have a good theory about how this "shroud" was produced, and this theory has the advantage of explaining how the image on the shroud is flat, something impossible if there was a body wrapped in it! And a genius like Leonardo da Vinci is the perfect candidate for devising a way to doing it...In any case, the shroud cannot possibly be what the "shroudies" claim that it is, i.e the linen that was used to wrap the body of Jesus!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews