SIDESTRIP
© Stephen E. Jones[1]
This is "Sidestrip," part #20 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 24Aug15a.
[Contents #2] [Previous: Selvedges #11] [Next: Seam #21]
- A linen cloth #10
The Shroud is actually two pieces of cloth: the main body of the Shroud and a sidestrip joined to it by a seam[2]. The sidestrip is about 8 cm. (3.1 in.) wide[3] and runs down the left-hand side of the Shroud (looking at it with the man's image upright)[4]. The man's image is located wholly on the main body of the Shroud[5]. In 1973 textile professor Gilbert Raes (1914-2001) determined that the sidestrip is the same 3:1 herringbone twill weave linen as the main body of the Shroud[6].
[Right (enlarge): The sidestrip can be seen running down the entire left hand side of the Shroud, except for missing pieces at each end[7].]
The sidestrip is incomplete in that 14 cm. (5.5 in.) and 36 cm. (14.2 in,) are missing from the bottom and top ends respectively[8]. There is no historic record of when these missing sidestrip pieces were removed from the Shroud[9]. The salt content of waterstains from the 1532 fire indicates that the pieces were missing before that fire[10].
Depictions of the Shroud being exhibited over previous centuries show it being held by clergy from those corners[11]. Those corners would have been
[Left: (enlarge): Engraving by Carlo Malliano in 1579 of a previous exposition of the Shroud, showing two bishops holding the cloth by its top and bottom left hand corners[12].]
the points of maximum stress, so presumably they became torn and the missing pieces were cut off and given away as relics[13].
It had been previously thought that the sidestrip was from a different piece of cloth which had been added to the main body of the Shroud to centre the man's image on it[14]. But later x-rays showed that "every thread in the weave of the Shroud is continuous through the seam and matches its corresponding sidestrip thread in position, thickness, and intensity"[15]. Therefore the sidestrip and main body of the Shroud must have been cut apart lengthwise and immediately rejoined, as was pointed out by Gabriel Vial (1917-2005) in 1989[18] and by Ian Dickinson (-2015) in 1990[19]. But this seemed to make no sense, so it was proposed that the sidestrip and the main body of the Shroud were not separate pieces of cloth and the seam apparently joining them was a tuck forming a tube through which a rope or pole had passed to aid suspension of the Shroud for display[20].
However, ancient textiles conservator Mechthild Flury-Lemberg (1929-), in preparing the Shroud for its Exposition in 1998, removed the blue satin surround that had been sewed on in 1868 by Princess Clotilde of Savoy (1843–1911) and confirmed that the sidestrip and the main body of the Shroud are in fact two separate cloths joined by a seam[16].
It is unlikely that the main body of the Shroud and the sidestrip existed separately for a time and were later reattached[17]. In 2000 Flury-Lemberg pointed out that looms in ancient Egypt and Syria
[Above (enlarge): Flury-Lemberg's explanation of how the cloth from which the Shroud came was originally woven much wider. The wide cloth was then cut lengthwise into four (or three initially) pieces. Then the two pieces bordered by the selvedge (shaded) were joined together by a seam to form the Shroud cloth[21].]
could be up to 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) wide[22]. She therefore proposed that:
"... for the production of the Shroud a length of fabric, 350 cm wide and 440 cm long, would have been cut first into two sections, 104 and 9 cm wide, each one having a selvage [sic] and a cut edge. The cut edges would then have been sewn together to form the Shroud of 114 cm width with two selvages at both lengthwise edges. The remainder, 230-250 cm of the original width of fabric could then either be cut again to make two more similar pieces of cloth, with two cut edges each which needed to be hemmed; or be used for other purposes. In this way a weaver could obtain several pieces of cloth by using the laborious weaving process only once ..."[23]The middle panel or panels which were seamless would have been valuable in the first century as the basis for a Roman tunica inconsutilis (seamless garment)[24]. Jewish priests also wore coats, woven of fine linen (Exodus 39:1,27) which were seamless[25]. Jesus himself wore a seamless tunic (chiton arraphos) which was too valuable for the four-man Roman crucifixion squad to divide amongst themselves, so they gambled for it (John 19:23-24)[26].
These features indicate production of linen cloth in a major, sophisticated, cloth-making `factory' of the kind that existed only in the Roman era, never in the Middle Ages[27]. By contrast even the largest medieval cloths up to the fifteenth century, tapestries, were narrow, between 1.5 and 6 feet (0.5 and 1.8 metres) wide[28]. For example, the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry which depicts the events
[Above: The Battle of Hastings (1066) in the Bayeux Tapestry[29].]
leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, is 68.38 m. (224.3 ft) long but only 0.5 m (1.6 ft) tall[30].
"During the Middle Ages I do not know of any reason for the use of looms of that kind of width. Tapestries during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were very small - only between three and six feet high - compared to their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century counterparts, precisely because of the looms, the tapestry's height indicating its loom's width. And the tunica inconsutilis was only produced in ancient times, never in the Middle Ages. I doubt that there would have been a linen factory on that kind of scale in the Middle Ages. If you find linen bed sheets from that time (which is rare), you will find a seam in the middle of the sheet. Two loom pieces will have been sewn together at their selvedges to make them wide enough for the bed"[31].So proponents of the medieval forgery theory, in addition to all its other problems, would need to explain why the 8cm wide sidestrip was cut from the main body of the Shroud, and then reattached to it, such that every widthwise weft thread in the main body of the Shroud, continued through the sidestrip. And without recourse to Flury-Lemberg's 3.5 metre extra-wide loom explanation, unless they can show that there were such extra-wide looms in the Middle Ages!
Moreover, that the two pieces of linen, which became the main body of the Shroud and the sidestrip, when cut and rejoined, equalled two Assyrian cubits (as we saw in "Dimensions") is strong evidence that the dimensions of the Shroud were no medieval accident[32]!
And unless the Shroud's flax was harvested in the Middle Ages[33], then again the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud[34] is wrong!
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]
2. Flury-Lemberg, M., 2001, "The Linen Cloth of the Turin Shroud: Some Observations of its Technical Aspects," Sindon, new series, No. 16, December, pp.55-76, 56; Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK, p.1; de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London, p.109. [return]
3. Baima-Bollone, P. & Zaca, S., 1998, "The Shroud Under the Microscope: Forensic Examination," Neame, A., transl., St Pauls: London, p.6; de Wesselow, 2012, p.108. [return]
4. de Wesselow, 2012, p.109. [return]
5. Schwalbe & Rogers, 1982, p.41. [return]
6. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.69; Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, No. 1, pp.3-49, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co: Amsterdam, 1982, p.41; Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, p.98; de Wesselow, 2012, p.108. [return]
7. "Shroud of Turin," Wikipedia, 17 April 2021. [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.162. [return]
9. Adler, A.D., Selzer, R. & DeBlase, F., 1998, "Further Spectroscopic Investigations of Samples of the Shroud of Turin," in Adler, A.D. & Crispino, D., ed., "The Orphaned Manuscript: A Gathering of Publications on the Shroud of Turin," Effatà Editrice: Cantalupa, Italy, 2002, pp.93-102, 93. [return]
10. Adler, A.D., 1998, "Concerning the Side Strip on the Shroud of Turin," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.87-91, 89. [return]
11. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, pp.25, 100. [return]
12. "Books," Geocities, October, 2009. [return]
13. Adler, 1998, pp.90-91. [return]
14. Wilson, 1979, p.71; Baima-Bollone & Zaca, 1998, p.7. [return]
15. Adler, 1998, pp.88, 90; Schwalbe & Rogers, 1982, pp.41-42; 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.72. [return]
16. 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]
17. Flury-Lemberg, 2001, p.59. [return]
18. Morgan, R.H., 1989, "Paris Symposium report - part I," Shroud News, No. 55, October, pp.5-23, 21-22. [return]
19. Dickinson, I., 1990, "Preliminary details of new evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud: Measurement by the cubit," Shroud News, No. 58, April, pp.4-8, 7. [return]
20. Tyrer, J., 1983, "Looking at the Turin Shroud as a Textile," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 6, March, pp.35-45, 43; Morgan, R.H., 1997, "Symposium at Nice," Shroud News, No. 102, June, pp.3-23, 18; Wilson, 1998, p.72. [return]
21. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, p.73. [return]
22. Wilson, 2000; Flury-Lemberg, 2001, p.58; Wilson, 2010, p.72; de Wesselow, 2012, pp.109-110. [return]
23. Flury-Lemberg, 2001, p.58. [return]
24. Flury-Lemberg, 2001, p.58; Wilson, 2000; Wilson, 2010, p.72; de Wesselow, 2012, p.110. [return]
25. de Wesselow, 2012, p.110. [return]
26. Dickinson, 1990, p.8; Flury-Lemberg, 2001, p.58; Wilson, 2010, p.72; de Wesselow, 2012, p.367 n.48. [return]
27. Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, p.41; Wilson, 2010, p.76. [return]
28. Wilson, 2010, pp.76-77. [return]
29. "File:Normans Bayeux.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 10 October 2020. [return]
30. "Bayeux Tapestry," Wikipedia, 16 April 2021. [return]
31. Flury-Lemberg, Email to Ian Wilson, 30 April 2009, in Wilson, 2010, pp.76-77. [return]
32.Dickinson, 1990, p.7. [return]
33. Gove, 1996, pp.264, 300; Wilson, 1998, p.7; de Wesselow, 2012, p.13. [return]
34. Damon, P.E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16th February, pp.611-615, 611. [return]
Posted: 18 April 2021. Updated: 12 September 2021.
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