Test may date Turin Shroud

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 8

Test may date Turin Shroud

NZPA Los Alamos; New Mexico A sensitive dating test might show that the Shroud of Turin could have been used as burial cloth in the first century, but it will not be possible to prove it was used to bury Jesus of Nazareth, according to a Los Alamos scientist.

The Shroud, believed by some to be the burial cloth of Christ, may be subjected to carbon-14 dating tests this year if the necessary permission is granted, said Robert Dinegar, a scientist at Los Alamos scientific laboratories and an Episcopalian priest. Mr Dinegar said that no evidence had yet been uncovered that indicated the Shroud of Turin was a hoax.

Investigation, he said, had shown evidence consistent with the history and origin of the cloth ... in times and places traditionally associated with it. If the carbon-14 tests

show the Shroud, kept in a cathedral in Italy, was of tLt right age, then “we have a piece of cloth that could have been used as a burial shroud,” he wrote in the February issue of an Episcopalian magazine, the “Living Church.” The Archbishop of Turin, who has • custody of the relic, is inclined to give permission for the tests, Mr Dinegar said. But the archbishop wants word from a higher authority, the pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome.

Mt Dinegar said the proposed test involved use of carbon-14 dating techniques which, until recently, could not be performed without destroying a large sample of the material being studied.

Mr Dinegar wrote that new developments in the carbon-14 test enabled researchers to use a smaller piece of material than previusly required while getting a -tore accurate date.