Selvedges: The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Sheet of Jesus! #19

The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Sheet of Jesus!
SELVEDGES
© Stephen E. Jones[1]

This is "Selvedges," part #19 of my online book, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Sheet of Jesus!" For more information see the Cover #1, Contents #2 and Preface #3, of this series. See also 11Sep15.

[Contents #2] [Previous: Colour #11] [Next: Sidestrip #20]

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2. A linen cloth #10
3. Selvedges #19

A selvedge is a weaver finished edge at the long sides of a woven cloth

[Above[2]: Bottom right corner of the Shroud (with the frontal image in the lower half and the man upright), showing a section of the right side (apparent left because of mirror-reversal[3]) selvedge and the bottom edge hem.]

as it grows lengthwise on a loom[4]. The weaver binds the raw long edges of the lengthening cloth on the loom to prevent it from unravelling or fraying[5]. Only the two long edges of the Shroud have a selvedge[6].

The coarse linen Holland cloth backing attached to the Shroud by Chambéry's Poor Clare nuns in 1534[7] and the blue satin surround sewed on by Princess Clotilde of Savoy (1843-1911) in 1868[8], had prevented photographs a thorough examination and of the Shroud's edges[9]. That was until 1978 when during the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP)'s examination, Turin microanalyst Giovanni Riggi (1935-2008), unpicked a section of the backing cloth to view the man's image from the Shroud's underside[10]. Riggi discovered "rows of invisible stitches approximately 2 cms apart [that] run parallel to the main longitudinal axis" and "the colour of the thread used for this stitching blends in perfectly with the threads of the Shroud itself, and ... cannot be detected by the naked eye[11]. The French textile specialist Prof. Gabriel Vial examined the Shroud at the time of the 1988 radiocarbon dating[12]. and prepared a technical report on the cloth[13]. He found that the selvedges were comprised of two double threads and their construction was "quite unusual"[14] such that he had never seen on an ancient cloth before[15]. Ancient textiles conservator Mechthild Flury-Lemberg in preparing the Shroud for its Exposition in 1998 (see Dimensions #12), removed the blue satin surround and found that the two double thread selvedge was exactly the same as that of fragments found at Masada[16], the Jewish fortress that was overthrown by the Romans in AD 73-74 and never occupied since[17]!

Problem for the forgery theoryLeading Shroud sceptic Antonio Lombatti, does not dispute Flury-Lemberg's diagram of stitching found at Masada, being identical to that found on the Shroud but he claims, without evidence, that, "... at Masada they were found many different types of stitching ... and there is nothing strange if one of them has even been used in the Middle Ages for the Shroud"[18]. But if that was true, there would be other medieval cloths which have stitching identical to that found at Masada. And why would that stitching identical to that found at Masada be only on the Shroud? We have already seen that the Shroud's dimensions are very close to the 8 by 2 Assyrian standard cubits of Jesus day (see again Dimensions #12). And we shall see further evidence from the Shroud's cloth itself, that it is in fact a first-century, Middle-Eastern burial shroud, consistent with the "linen shroud" in which the Gospels record Jesus' body was buried (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53)!

To be continued in the next part #20 of thia series.

Notes
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of this post (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
1a. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.71. [return]
2. Extract from Latendresse, M., 2010, "Shroud Scope: Durante 2002: Vertical," Sindonology.org. [return]
3. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.31. [return]
4. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.72, 315. [return]
5. Wilson, 2010, p.315. [return]
6. Wilson, I., 2000, "`The Turin Shroud - past, present and future', Turin, 2-5 March, 2000 - probably the best-ever Shroud Symposium," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 51, June. [return]
7. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, p.23. [return]
8. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, p.161. [return]
9. Wilson, 1998, p.71. [return]
10. Wilson, 1998, p.71. [return]
11. Wilson, 1998, pp.71-72. [return]
12. Wilson, I., 1990, "Recent Publications," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 26, September/October, pp.11-18, 14. [return]
13. Vial, G., 1991, "The Shroud of Turin: A Technical Study," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 38/39, Mar/June, pp.7-20. [return]
14. Vial, 1991, p.12. [return]
15. Morgan, R.H., 1989, "Paris Symposium report - part I," Shroud News, No. 55, October, pp.5-23, 22. [return]
16. Wilson, 2010, p.74. [return]
17. "Masada: First Jewish-Roman War," Wikipedia, 18 October 2020. [return]
18. Lombatti, A., 2009, "The Shroud and the Judaism of Jesus' time," CICAP, 2 March. Translated from Italian by Google. [return]

Posted: 19 October 2020. Updated: 18 April 2021.