Inside BAR

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Mysteries swirl around the Shroud of Turin. How old is it? Where did it come from? What produced the haunting image that appears on the linen’s surface, that faint yellowish image many believe is of the wounded and bloodstained Jesus as he came from the cross? Although the identity of “the man of the shroud” may never be known with certainty, science may now have the tools to determine the shroud’s age, its place of origin, and even whether or not the famed image could have been produced by a crucifixion victim whose agonies had just ended.

Recently, an array of scientific techniques has been applied to linen fibers from the shroud in an attempt to solve its mysteries. In this issue, two experts who have conducted some of these tests present a new theory: Moist limestone particles from a Jerusalem tomb, adhering to the shroud and heated by the high temperature of a traumatized body, modified and discolored the cloth. Archaeologist Eugenia L. Nitowski and crystallographer Joseph A. Kohlbeck team up to present their theory in “New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin.”

Nitowski, now Sister Damian, of the Discalced Carmelite order, has excavated at Tell Hesban in Jordan and has made extensive studies of ancient tombs in Jordan and Israel. Kohlbeck, a specialist in optical crystallographic techniques, is Resident Scientist at Hercules Aerospace, in Magna, Utah. In his work on such defense weapons as the Polaris, Minuteman, Trident and MX missiles, Kohlbeck has developed a unique optical microscopic and crystallographic laboratory at Hercules.

Avraham Eitan, Director of Israel’s Department of Antiquities, in an interview with BAR editor Hershel Shanks (“BAR Interviews Avraham Eitan”) addresses the knotty problems of illegal excavating and of the Antiquities Department’s failure to permit scholars access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Eitan also describes his recent excavation of an isolated and architecturally unique seventh-century B.C. structure south of Jericho. Eitan hints that the well-planned structure may be an Israelite high place with altars destroyed by King Josiah as part of his religious reform and centralization of worship in Jerusalem. According to the Bible, Josiah slew the priests of the outlying high places on the very altars they had served and burnt their bones on the altars (2 Kings 23:20); Eitan has found human skeletal remains in his excavations of this possible high place.

Archaeologist Rudolph Cohen, who has excavated so many sites in the Negev that his Israeli colleagues call him “king of the South,” interpreted a chain of more than 20 excavated ruins as “The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern Border,” BAR 11:03. Further excavations at some of these sites, however, made it necessary to redate three of these structures to the Persian period. Cohen presents the new findings in “Solomon’s Negev Defense Line Contained Three Fewer Fortresses,” arguing that the reduced total does not weaken his overall identification of the defense system.

Not all archaeologists agree with Cohen’s identification of the Negev structures as Solomonic fortresses, however. Israel Finkelstein, in “The Iron Age Sites in the Negev Highlands—Military Fortresses or Nomads Settling Down?” proposes that Cohen’s “fortresses” are really habitations and not Solomonic. According to Finkelstein, simple adjoining rooms were built in rings around open spaces where flocks could be gathered at night.

Finkelstein, who teaches at Bar-Ilan University, has become a familiar name to BAR readers who have read his two recent feature stories: “Shiloh Yields Some, But Not All of its Secrets,” BAR 12:01, and “The Southern Sinai Exodus Route in Ecological Perspective,” BAR 11:04 (with Avraham Perevolotsky).

As the dialogue between Cohen and Finkelstein demonstrates, identifying an archaeological site can be a tricky business. At Mt. Ebal, archaeologist Adam Zertal discovered a stone structure that he claims is an Israelite altar, perhaps built by Joshua. But Tel Aviv University scholar Aharon Kempinski disagrees; he says the structure is just a farmhouse that was later turned into a watchtower (see “Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal?” BAR 11:01; “Joshua’s Altar—An Iron Age I Watchtower,” BAR 12:01; and “How Can Kempinski Be So Wrong!” BAR 12:01). The Zertal-Kempinski debate continues in Queries & Comments, with Kempinski’s analysis of Zertal’s “19th-century Biblical archaeology scholarship.” Tel Aviv University archaeologist Anson Rainey also takes a swat at what he calls Zertal’s “wishful thinking.”

At his death in 1981, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s charismatic general and statesman, left a fantastic archaeological collection. The most stunning pieces were highlighted in “The Dayan Saga: The Man and His Archaeological Collection,” BAR 08:05. Recently, the collection opened at the Israel Museum amid controversy concerning its acquisition and exhibition (BARlines).

Mysteries swirl around the Shroud of Turin. How old is it? Where did it come from? What produced the haunting image that appears on the linen’s surface, that faint yellowish image many believe is of the wounded and bloodstained Jesus as he came from the cross? Although the identity of “the man of the shroud” may never be known with certainty, science may now have the tools to determine the shroud’s age, its place of origin, and even whether or not the famed image could have been produced by a crucifixion victim whose agonies had just ended. Recently, an […]