DNA analysis has revealed various traces of animals, plants, and humans on the Shroud of Turin.
This religious relic, measuring 4.4 meters long and 1.1 meters wide, is revered as a piece of cloth traditionally believed to have been wrapped around the body of Jesus Christ. It was first mentioned in 1354 in France, and for the past five centuries it has been kept in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.
In 1988, radiocarbon dating, along with ion-accelerated mass spectrometry, dated the Shroud between 1260 and 1390, ruling out its connection to Jesus Christ.
In 2015, Professor Gianni Paracaccia of the University of Padua in Italy, along with his colleagues, first suggested that the tissue might have originated in India. More recently, an international team led by him conducted a genetic analysis on the same samples collected in 1978, according to the preprint server bioRxiv.
The analysis revealed significant DNA diversity, including:
Domestic and agricultural animals such as cats, dogs, chickens, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and horses, in addition to wild animals such as deer and rabbits.
Fish such as grey mullet and Atlantic cod, along with ray-finned creatures and marine crustaceans, as well as flies and insects such as dust mites, skin mites and hard ticks.
Plants such as carrots, types of wheat, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes, are crops that arrived in Europe after voyages to Asia and the Americas.
Human DNA belonging to a large number of people, including the researchers who handled the shroud in 1978, is believed to be about 40% of Indian lineage, which, according to the researchers, may reflect historical interactions or the importation of linen from the Indus Valley region.
Scientists pointed out that, due to frequent contact over the ages, it is impossible to isolate the original DNA of the Shroud.
For his part, Professor Anders Goetström of Stockholm University believes that the results of the 1988 radiocarbon dating are reliable, and there is no reason to doubt the French origin of the Shroud during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
He concluded by saying:
"The Shroud has its own history as an important artifact, and this history is perhaps more interesting than the mythical origin, which is not supported by scientific evidence."
