Inquest on the Shroud of Turin

Book excerpt: The author presents evidence which he believes proves that the Shroud of Turin "is actually the creation of a clever medieval artist. . . . Nickell traces the historical, iconographic, pathological, forensic, and physical and chemical investigations of the purported relic. He {describes} the microchemical tests that {he believes} revealed artists' pigments on the image and tempera paint in the areas claimed to be bloodstains . . . . {The author attempts to demonstrate that the} 'photographically negative' image {of the shroud} can actually be convincingly simulated by means of an artistic technique employed in the Middle Ages."