Image Formation and the Shroud of Turin

Both the first written historical record and modern radiocarbon analysis date the cloth known as the shroud of Turin to the 13th or 14th century. Interestingly, many people have remained convinced that the cloth was used as the burial shroud of Jesus and thus must be approximately 2000 years old. The primary reason usually cited for this belief is the inability of scientists to explain how a 13th or 14th century artist could have created the image on the cloth that is continuous tone, exhibits fine detail without brush strokes, is a negative image, and accurately represents an abundance of three-dimensional information. In this paper, we will show how the carbon dust drawing technique used by medical illustrators can be modified to produce images exhibiting numerous features of the Turin cloth. We compared images formed using the technique with image attributes reported for the Turin cloth and showed that the dust transfer technique is able to form images more similar to the Turin cloth than any previously described technique. Because tools, materials, and concepts required to use the drawing technique have been available for centuries, we concluded that a 13th or 14th century artist could have created the image on the cloth known as the shroud of Turin.