Confusion over tests on Turin Shroud

By Peter Jennings
CONFUSION has ariscn over the publication of the full results of the scientific tests done on the Shroud of Turin in 1978.
The results were due to be released last month by members of the Shroud of Turin Research Project. However this week the project had still not published its findings.
Mr Ian Wilson, chairman or the British Society for the Turin \Shroud, said he did not know the reasons for the delay and described the situation as "a mess".
Other results of tests done by scientists in Italy were also expected in October but they haven't appeared either.
Meanwhile. new evidence which could support the authenticity of the Turin Shroud as the cloth in which the dead body of Jesus was laid was given to members of the British Society for the Turin Shroud in London last week.
Mr Peter Freeland, a Fellow of the Institute of Biology and a member of the Royal Society group on biotechnology. said during a short lecture to the societ\ that the Shroud appeared to show ,i circumcised male organ beneath the hands in the position he would expect to find it if the Shroud bears the authentic image of a man.
"When a dead body is laid out the hands do not normally cover
the genital region. lithe Shroud is the product of an artist I would imagine he would show the hands very coyly folded over the genitals but the genitals do appear visibl•-, on this image."
Mr Freeland, who is Head of Biology at Worth School, added that an artist in the 14th century would not have dared to paint a naked Christ.
An an interview with the C'atholic Herald, Mr Freeland was critical of the scientific project investigating the Shroud. He questioned some of the results of the current round of experiments.
"Many of the scientists are at variance with each other. I would like to see a proper scientific evaluation made. Honest research has been done but people's judgements have been influenced by the positions they took before they undertook the research."
Referring to Dr Walter McCrone. the American scientist who believes that the Shroud is a medieval fake, Mr Freeland said that Dr McCrone's approach was not the bio-medical approach which ought to have been used to distinguish blood from non
btplooprdoa. c'h'Iltufwaans varier e xnpl expert tc h w hhoe considered the Shroud a work of art and sought to find what particular tempera had been put onto it.
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