Shroud of Turin reveals
images of two crowns of thorns
By Professor Alan D. Whanger, M.D. and Mary W. Whanger
Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin,
Durham, NC-  USA.

History of the Shroud of Turin from 544 A.D >>

March 2003 -- A new discovery on the Shroud of Turin by Alan and Mary Whanger, major researchers on the Shroud since 1979, shows the image of a second Crown of Thorns, one of the most famous objects in history. 

In 1987 they identified the image of a large bonnet-style Crown of Thorns over the right shoulder of the Man of the Shroud. The recently identified second Crown is a circlet which matches the size and shape of the traditional and well-known Crown of Thorns in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which is a woven band of rushes with no thorns.

These discoveries help to authenticate the Shroud of Turin as well as to provide important historical and archaeological evidence.

The unique second Crown is the one the Whangers feel was mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John that was plaited by the Roman soldiers and placed on Jesus' head to mock him as King of the Jews. In all of history, there is no mention of a crown of thorns in connection with any individual other than Jesus.

A major factor in the discovery of each of the Crowns was the identification of the images of thorns and thistles among the large number of floral and other non-body images that are found on the Shroud. These have been the focus of much of the Whangers' image analysis research using many very high-grade somewhat enhanced photographs of the Shroud. They have shown that the images on the Shroud are complex radiation images, mostly resembling electrostatic or corona images which are faint, partial and fragmented.

They identified the images of the large Gundelia tournefortii thorn which makes up the bonnet-like Crown, sprigs of the Zizyphus spina-christi thorn still embedded in the back of the neck, and multiple thistle images. The identity of all these and about twenty other floral images has been confirmed by Dr. Avinoam Danin, Professor of Botany at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and world authority on the flora of the Near East. Also, many have been confirmed by the identification of their pollen grains on sticky tapes taken from the Shroud in 1973 and 1978 by Dr. Max Frei.

The Crown of Thorns was reportedly found by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, when she opened the traditional tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem in 326. It was also reported in the Royal Treasury in Constantinople in 1201, and was taken to Paris in 1238 by King Louis of France. The historical descriptions are often vague, but in 1350 there was a Crown of Thorns described in Paris and a second one in Constantinople.

Examination of the bloodstains on the Shroud shows about 40 puncture wounds extending from the mid-forehead to the low back of the neck. The only way to produce this pattern would be for the individual to have two crowns of thorns on his head at the same time.

The Whangers conclude that the recently identified Crown is the "King's Crown" of the Scriptures which had thorns and thistles stuck into a woven band worn over the back of the head like the Roman Emperor.

In pondering why there was a second Crown of Thorns, they finally concluded that the Roman soldiers put it together to mock the multi-tiered bonnet-like crown of the Jewish High Priest.

Thus the Shroud gives evidence that Jesus was doubly mocked as both King and High Priest during the Crucifixion.

The findings of the images of the thorns and thistles, which are common in Jerusalem, and of the objects in the shapes of two Crowns of Thorns made by some type of radiation process about 30 hours after the death of the scourged and crucified Jewish man shown front and back all help to authenticate the Shroud and its image as indeed that of Jesus of Nazareth at the pivotal moment in human history.

Professor Alan D. Whanger  M.D. (adw2@acpub.duke.edu) and Mary W. Whanger.  Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin, Durham, NC USA. for more information visit: www.shroudcouncil.org

History of the Shroud of Turin from 544 A.D.

by  Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York  http://www.shroudstory.com/
 

In 544 AD, in the city of Edessa, a folded burial cloth bearing an image, believed to be of Jesus, was found above a gate in the city's walls. We know from various sources that the cloth was a burial shroud with a faint full-body image of Jesus and bloodstains positioned on the image. The image was variously described as a reflection, produced by sweat and divinely wrought. There is even some indication that the image was thought to be negative.

On August 15, 944 AD, the Image of Edessa was forcibly transferred from Edessa to the Byzantine capital city of Constantinople. It clearly was a burial cloth with a full image and bloodstains. The following records are particularly useful in developing an accurate picture of the cloth:

• a sermon by Gregory, archdeacon and referendarius of Hagia Sophia Cathedral given August 16, 944

• a Greek ceremonial text written in 960

• a text by Nicholas Mesarites, the overseer of the imperial relic treasury in Constantinople in 1201

• a letter by the crusader knight Robert de Clari in 1203

Other documents have since been found in the Vatican library and the University of Leiden, Netherlands, confirming this impression. (The Codex Vossianus Latinus Q69 and Vatican Library Codex 5696, p. 35.):

Illustrations in an 1192 a codex, known as the Hungarian Pray Manuscript, show Jesus being prepared for burial and the scene of the empty tomb. The drawing depicts several features consistent with the Shroud of Turin: the unique herringbone twill, a specific pattern of burn holes that antedate the much later fire in 1532 which nearly destroyed the Shroud, Jesus depicted naked with his hands crossed before him, hands with no visible thumbs.

In 1204, French and Venetian knights of the Fourth Crusade besieged the city and on April 13 entered and looted the city. The Edessa Image certainly seems to have been among the treasures taken by the looters.

About a year after Constantinople was plundered, Theodore Ducas Anglelos, in a letter to Pope Innocent III wrote: "The Venetians partitioned the treasure of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after His death and before the resurrection."

Many sacred objects were preserved in Venice, in France and elsewhere. In 1207, Nicholas d'Orrante, the abbot of Casole and the Papal legate in Athens, wrote about relics taken from Constantinople by French knights. Referring specifically to burial cloths, he mentions seeing them "with our own eyes" in Athens.

After that time, the trail runs cold on the Image of Edessa. In 1356, Geoffrey de Charny, a French knight and descendent of a prominent knight of the Fourth Crusade, displayed a burial shroud that he claims is the burial shroud of Christ. That shroud is now the Shroud of Turin. It they are one in the same, if the Shroud of Turin is the Image of Edessa -- and there is good reason to think so -- then no records have been found to empirically link it to 1204. But there is some evidence that the cloth may have been in Besançon, France prior to 1356.