The Shroud was not stretched over a body, but over a sculpture

The Shroud of Turin, a linen sheet bearing the visible image of a man, is the result of a cloth stretched not over a body, but over a bas-relief sculpture . This is according to a 3D simulation published in the journal Archaeometry, which confirms the hypothesis of a medieval artifact that had been advanced for some time, starting with a study published in 1989 that dated the Shroud to a period between 1260 and 1390. The analysis was conducted by Brazilian expert Cicero Moraes, known for his three-dimensional reconstructions of the faces of many historical figures, from Anthony of Padua to Francesco Petrarca. One of his most recent works, published in June 2024, reconstructed the face of Irhoud , the oldest Homo sapiens discovered to date, who lived 315,000 years ago. "The image on the Shroud of Turin is more consistent with a bas-relief matrix ," Moraes told Live Science. "Such a matrix could have been made of wood , stone , or metal ," the expert added, "and pigmented , or even heated , only in the contact areas , producing the observed imprint." Using 3D simulation tools, Moraes compared two scenarios : in the first, a virtual sheet was draped over a reconstructed human body , while in the second over a bas-relief sculpture . The results show that the second scenario corresponds almost exactly to photographs of the Shroud , while the cloth placed on the human body produced a much more distorted image. Italian expert Andrea Nicolotti, professor of History of Christianity at the University of Turin, also agrees with Moraes' conclusions, but he emphasized on the website Skeptic.com that the study doesn't actually say anything new. "Cicero Moraes is right, but his research isn't particularly revolutionary ," Nicolotti says. "For at least four centuries," he notes, "we have known that the bodily image on the Shroud certainly could not have been created through contact with a three-dimensional body."