Dating the manufacture of the Shroud of Turin : An exercise in basic iconography

Abstract

This paper refutes the recent spate of attempts to invalidate the 1988 carbon dating results which indicated with a 95% certainty, that the Shroud of Lirey-Chambery-Turin was manufactured from flax plants that grew sometime between 1260 and 1390. An attempt will be made to show how the iconography employed in the image of a tortured and crucified man as found on the Shroud of Turin corroborate the carbon dating results quite precisely, thereby confirming that this artefact is mediaeval and not a product of the first century CE.