A Global Forensic Analysis of the Elements of the Shroud of Turin: Compatibility Between the Evidences of Vital�ity and the Absence of Signs of Death on the Cloth by Dr. Miguel Lorente (miguellorente@supercable.es). Saturday, August 16, 1:45 p.m.�2:15 p.m. 

The hypothesis about surviving the crucifixion is not new. Most of these theories were based on isolated or few data that were taken as the key to interpret the rest of the signs. The global forensic analysis puts together the analytical and scientific data with other data (historical, documental, ...) to obtain a conclusion about the meaning of the information and the compatibility with the classical positions regarding this topic: the one that supports that the body was dead and the other one explaining that it was alive. 

Our work gets to the conclusion that the signs found on the Shroud of Turin are compatible with the fact that the person covered by the cloth was alive. We support this conclusion with two groups of data: 

ABSENCE OF SIGNS OF DEATH:

- The image shows stiffness, but the pattern doesn�t fit the laws and features of cadaveric stiffness. There is not a correlation between the theoretical time after death and the distribution of stiffness, especially if we considered its

irregular distribution in the different parts of the body (some joints are stiff and some others are not at the same time as a muscular contraction). The incompatibility with a dead body is more evident if we considered some other factor, such as the Brown Sequard Law.

- The presence of wounds in the hypostatic zones of the body should give a different pattern in the image and blood stains in the dorsal representation. The dorsal part of the body is full of wounds; in a dead body, blood would accumulate in the hypostatic parts that would produce a hemorrhage through the wounds in the back with a completely different pattern in blood stains and image. 

PRESENCE OF EVIDENCES OF VITALITY:

- Blood stain pattern: Both the features of the stains (location, distribution, length ... especially the ones from the nail wounds) and as the signs of clot retraction indicate physiopathological processes related to life.

- Hand position in the image with no visibility of the thumbs is compatible with metabolic alterations (hypocal�caemia) due to a traumatic shock: This process is only present in a living person and disappears after death.

- Muscular stiffness is explained by the same physiopathological process related to the traumatic shock better than by the cadaveric phenomena.

Our study and interpretation of the data reach an integral explanation of the individual elements that can integrate many of the partial and isolated elements and, consequently, analyse the events and meaning of the facts from a global perspective that can approach the classical positions regarding this topic.

 



 
 


 

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