Turin Shroud Exhibition

Turin Shroud Exhibition

A full-size copy of the world-famous Shroud of Turin is coming to Derby Cathedral and will be on display from Saturday 9 March to Sunday 7 April.

The Shroud of Turin exhibition includes a beautiful 15 foot replica image which is a photograph printed onto cotton by an American photographer, Barrie Schwortz, who was the official photographer at the STuRP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) examination of the Shroud in 1978.

The genuine Shroud of Turin which shows the image of a man who has been crucified is preserved with great reverence in the Cathedral of Turin and the full-length replica is very rare.

The exhibition has travelled widely and has been on display at Westminster Cathedral, Dublin Pro-Cathedral and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

Pam Moon the curator of the exhibition said:

“It is possible to get an idea of the Shroud from television pictures, books, magazines and newspapers articles, but seeing it in its entirety is very challenging and moving.”  

One of the purposes of the exhibition is to show how brutal crucifixion really was and to tell the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. The exhibition includes original Roman nails, a replica whip and a spear.  And there are information boards about art, history and the latest research on the Shroud.

No-one understands how the image appears on the Shroud.  The STuRP team discovered it is not a painting; not a photograph and not a scorch but they could not determine the cause of the image.  In December 201, Italian scientists attempted to “identify the physical and chemical processes capable of generating a colour similar to that of the image on the Shroud” by using short bursts of ultra violet light, using lasers.  They managed to re-create a small section of cloth with some of the properties of the Shroud (at least at a microscopic level) by this method.   They concluded that “some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength)” created the image on the Shroud of Turin.   As ultra violet lasers were not available to medieval forgers it opens the possibility that the Shroud is actually Jesus’ burial cloth, the image being created at the point of resurrection.

There will be a talk by Pam Moon inside the Cathedral on Tuesday 12th March, at 18:30 which is free to attend.

Find out more here