Blood Transfer to the Shroud of Turin: The Washing Hypothesis Revisited

The Shroud of Turin is an important archaeological artifact that has been suggested to represent either the burial cloth of the historical Jesus of Nazareth or a clever hoax created during the medieval era. Previous studies have established that authentic blood components are present within the wound areas and shown that numerous serum borders exist, indicative of clotted blood being transferred to the cloth. Controversy exists regarding whether the body would have been washed prior to envelopment in the burial shroud. It has been suggested that Jewish burial customs would have prohibited washing of the body under these circumstances; in this case, resultant blood transfer would likely have occurred either when the blood was relatively fresh and in a liquid or gelatinous state, or after having dried and being remoistened via a high humidity, cave tomb environment. Alternatively, it has been proposed that the body was washed, followed by post-mortem emission from wounds, which were then transferred onto the cloth. Indeed, post-mortem blood has been found to rarely coagulate under these conditions, making such transfer possible even hours after death. The current study demonstrates that inhibition of coagulation precludes the formation of serum borders in bloodstains, an observation which is incompatible with what is observed on the Shroud. These data indicate that it is unlikely that the primary blood transfer mechanism involved washing of the body and subsequent post-mortem emission from wounds.