Historians, including those in the Church - often embarrassed by phony relics - argued it was a painted fake. It was realized that what was on the cloth’s surface was itself like a photographic negative - lights and darks were reversed. The face, which had looked wide-eyed and owl-like, was serene with eyes closed. Details not clear on the cloth’s images were, in the negative plate, vivid and real. But locals, believing they were miraculously made, paid homage, as the cloth made its way by bequeath and acquisition to Turin in 1578, where it lies today, formerly owned by the Italian monarchy, now the Catholic Church.īut it wasn’t until 1898, and the first photographs of the linen were taken, that real controversy began. The images of a crucified, long-haired man on its surface were, and are, not well defined, more smudgy than lifelike. The family of a Crusader began exhibiting it then, according to documents, as the Shroud of Christ brought back from the Holy Land. The 14-foot-long shroud can be traced to at least 1354, when it appeared in a church in Lirey, France. And while authenticity is certainly still in debate, the burden of proof now - at least on the Shroud’s inexplicableness - has shifted to the doubters. If authentic, the ancient linen cloth with mysterious images of a crucified and tortured corpse on its fibers is tangible proof to many Christians of Jesus’ rise from the dead. Like it has so many times in its long, tortured history, the Shroud of Turin is again, this Easter 2011, resurrected.
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