Special monday night lecture: The Shroud of Turin

A SPECIAL EVENING LECTURE:

The Origin of the Shroud of Turin as evidenced by plant Images and by Pollen grains

The Shroud of Turin, the traditional burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, has been kept in the city of Turin (Torino), Italy, since 1578. It is made of fine linen, 4.35 m long by 1.1 m wide, bearing the full-length front and back images of a crucified man, along with many other less conspicuous images. Re-examination of pollen grains collected in 1973 and 1978 from the shroud, and investigations of plant images observed on several sets of photographs and on the shroud itself, enabled Prof. Avinoam Danin (the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Uri Baruch (Israel Antiquities Authority) to discover a few indicator plants. The identification of these plants has prompted the researchers to state the following:

The Shroud of Turin Existed before the 8th century
It originated from the vicinity of Jerusalem
The assemblage of plants became part of the Shroud in the spring months of March-April

To hear more about this topic, you are invited to attend the special evening lecture by Avinoam Danin, to be held on Tuesday, June 15, at the Renaissance Hotel. Time and lecture hall will be announced at a later date.

	Scanning Electron Micrograph of a pollen grain of Gundelia tournefortii (x1400). This species accounts for 36.4 % of the 250 pollen grains derived from the Shroud of Turin and studied by us.
	Marked images of leaves, petioles, and a flower of Zygophyllum dumosum observed on photos and negatives of the Shroud of Turin from 1899, 1931, 1978, and on the linen of the Shroud itself. (The illustration on the right is from Flora Palaestina 2: Pl. 363).