Tomb of the Shroud

Some time ago Prof. Shimon Gibson, with colleagues Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. James Tabor, located a sealed tomb at the Akeldama Cemetery in the Ben Hinnom valley of Jerusalem, to the south-west of the Old City. It became known as the Tomb of the Shroud because the male body was wrapped in a simple white shroud and was unusual in that the body's bones had not been removed to an ossuary after a year, as was the normal practice at the time. The tomb doorway was found sealed and the skeleton was dated by C14 radio-carbon method to the first half of the first century CE. The remains were sent for medical analysis and the results, by Israeli, American and British scientists, have just been published. The results show that this is the first known case of a human shown to have been suffering from leprosy, a form of the skin disease psoriasis.

However the DNA analysis showed that the poor man suffering from leprosy, actually died of tuberculosis. The shroud in which he was contained was of a much simpler weave than the famous Turin Shroud, which was claimed to have wrapped the body of Jesus, and the experts have therefore suggested that this known shroud, of the time of Jesus, shows that the complex Turin one was of much later manufacture.

Stephen G. Rosenberg
Albright Institute, Jerusalem