![]() "Also, the sub-genus level of taxon that has been reached is not near enough to the species level that is needed to determine the area of origin for each plant." "The plant DNA could be from many sources, and there is no way of finding the right source," Enevold told Live Science in an email. ![]() The new study suffers from the same issues that made past studies of pollen on the shroud unreliable, said Renée Enevold, a geoscientist at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark who has analyzed ancient pollen in the past. Īs far as the plant DNA goes, "they've done a good job, and they've identified a number of species that mean, broadly speaking, nothing at all," Farey told Live Science. "In my opinion, it is hard to believe that in the past centuries, in a historical interval spanning the medieval period, different subjects - such as priests, monks or nuns, as well devotees and other subjects of Indian ancestry - have had the possibility to come in contact with the shroud in France and/or Turin," Barcaccia said.īut the new results don't settle questions about the shroud's authenticity, said Hugh Farey, editor of the British Society of the Turin Shroud newsletter. That finding suggests that the shroud was manufactured in India before somehow making its way to Europe, as Indians had little contact with Europeans at the time of its origin. The oldest DNA snippets (which tend to be shorter because DNA breaks down over time) are found in many places on the shroud, and come from genetic lineages typically found only in India, Barcaccia said. "One of the most abundant human mitochondrial haplotypes, among those discovered on the shroud, is still very rare in western Europe, and it is typical of the Druze community, an ethnic group that has some origin in Egypt and that lives mainly in restricted areas between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine," Barcaccia told Live Science in an email. Still, the strongest genetic signals seemed to come from areas in and around the Middle East and the Caucasus - not far from where Jesus was buried, and consistent with the early folklore surrounding the object. The genetic lineage, or haplotype, of the DNA snippets suggested that people ranging from North African Berbers to East Africans to inhabitants of China touched the garment. The team also sequenced the human mitochondrial DNA (DNA passed from mother to child) found in dust from the shroud. European spruce trees Mediterranean clovers, ryegrasses and plantains North American black locust trees and rare East Asian pear and plum trees all left their mark on the cloth. The plant DNA came from all over the world, the researchers reported Oct. ![]() ![]() In the current study, Barcaccia and his colleagues analyzed dust that they vacuumed from the shroud that contained traces of both plant and human DNA. The neutron burst not only would have thrown off the radiocarbon dating but also would have led to the darkened imprint on the shroud. So geologists have argued that an earthquake at Jesus' death could have released a burst of neutrons. What's more, the Gospel of Matthew notes that "the earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open" after Jesus was crucified. (Isotopes are forms of an element with a different number of neutrons.)īut critics argued that the researchers used patched-up portions of the cloth to date the samples, which could have been much younger than the rest of the garment. 1390, lending credence to the notion that it was an elaborate fake created in the Middle Ages. Centuries later, in the 1980s, radiocarbon dating, which measures the rate at which different isotopes of the carbon atoms decay, suggested the shroud was made between A.D. 1353, when it showed up in a tiny church in Lirey, France. However, the Catholic Church only officially recorded its existence in A.D. 1204, the cloth was smuggled to safety in Athens, Greece, where it stayed until A.D. After crusaders sacked Constantinople in A.D. 30 or 33, and was housed in Edessa, Turkey, and Constantinople (the name for Istanbul before the Ottomans took over) for centuries. Īccording to legend, the shroud was secretly carried from Judea in A.D. Though the Catholic Church has never taken an official stance on the object's authenticity, tens of thousands flock to Turin, Italy, every year to get a glimpse of the object, believing that it wrapped the bruised and bleeding body of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. On its face, the Shroud of Turin is an unassuming piece of twill cloth that bears traces of blood and a darkened imprint of a man's body.
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