The Sudarium of Oviedo

Signs of Jesus Christ's Death

César Barta

• Publisher: Jenny Stanford Publishing
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000565560
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

The Sudarium of Oviedo throws new light on the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth. It provides a better understanding of the gospel John 20: 5-7 and some characteristics of the Shroud of Turin that explain since when the use of the Sudarium is known. During the past few decades, those interested in the Shroud of Turin have also been eager to know what this book reveals about the Sudarium of Oviedo, because it reinforces the possibility that both cloths were used on the same Man.

This book presents to English-speaking readers the research on the Sudarium of Oviedo, most of which has only been available in Spanish so far. It includes a thorough critical analysis and new unpublished studies. The bloodstained cloth is claimed to be a relic of Christ. This text discusses its trace through history, the many tests performed directly on it or on its samples, its devotional value, and its comparison with the Shroud of Turin.

Chapter 1 Introduction

In this chapter, a detailed description of the Sudarium of Oviedo is presented with its summary of use. We refer this cloth and other alleged sudariums to the Gospel of St John 20:7. Finally, we provide some perhaps unnoticed information about other interesting relics of Christ.

1.1 Description of the Sudarium: Size and Type of the Textile

There are many relics that claim to have come from Jesus Christ—perhaps too many. An analysis is necessary to determine if a relic is genuine or not¹. In the case of the relics of Jesus Christ, a conclusive analysis is not always possible. Hopefully, there are some exceptions. Among the relics that contain elements that allow scientific research is the Sudarium. It is one of the relics that allows the analysis of its features. In this book, the experiments and studies that lead to a conclusion will be presented. However, to facilitate understanding the following chapters, it is very useful to present some conclusions first.

Most of the scientific studies performed on the Sudarium of Oviedo (Sudarium in this book) have been carried out by the Research Team of the Spanish Center of Sindonology (EDICES from the Spanish name Centro Español de Sindonología). The story behind this group and its activities will be described later. At this point, it is enough to say that the contribution of these scientific studies to the knowledge of Christ’s burial has been conclusive enough.

¹ There are also secondary relics obtained by contact to genuine relics.

The Sudarium that is being preserved at the cathedral in the town of Oviedo, located in the north of Spain, is made of linen with dimensions about 83 cm × 53 cm. Fig. 1.1 shows a photograph of the Sudarium taken in 1989; on the right is Dr. Jorge Manuel Rodriguez Almenar, current president of the Centro Español de Sindonología (CES), and Dr. Teresa Ramos Almazar, professor of Legal Medicine, during the first observation of the Sudarium granted to the EDICES.

Figure 1.1 Jorge Manuel Rodríguez and Teresa Ramos measuring the Sudarium of Oviedo (© CES).

The photo gives the reader a first impression of the size of the Sudarium in comparison with a human. The members of the team are measuring the cloth in its old reliquary. The Sudarium is on the Holy Ark (chest) and they are in the Cámara Santa (Holy Chamber) at the Oviedo Cathedral. The layout of this place has changed now, as we will see later.

Let us now focus on the description of the Sudarium. The CES team made a geometrical study of this linen and proposed a reconstitution of the use of the Sudarium². The most conclusive result of the forensic research is that the Sudarium was used around the head of a person who died in vertical position (Fig. 1.2).

² Guscin, Mark. (1997). Le Soudarion d’Oviedo: Son histoire et ses liens avec le Linceul de Turin. RILT, 4. pp. 2–9.

Figure 1.2 Use of the Sudarium around the head of a corpse (© CES). [Note: The purpose of this image is only for showing the use of the Sudarium. It does not claim to represent the actual posture of the body on the cross. This note applies to every instance of this type of image.]

In this first phase when the Sudarium was applied on the corpse, the cloth wrapped the head of a man who remained in a vertical position after having died approximately an hour before. The Sudarium had one of its edges on the nape of the corpse. The rest of the Sudarium passed over the left ear of the corpse to cover the face. It did not reach the right ear and left it uncovered (Fig. 1.3 and Fig. 1.4). Near the right ear, the cloth was folded again to turn towards the face creating a second layer in front of the mouth and nose area. To understand the stains seen on the Sudarium, it is very important to note that there were two layers that collected the fluids that came out from the mouth and the nose.

Figure 1.3 Arrangement of the Sudarium on the head. Top view.

With some frames extracted from a video demonstration performed with a volunteer (Fig. 1.5), we try to explain how the Sudarium was used with the corpse still on the cross.

In this mode, the part of the Sudarium over the nape has received small stains of blood coming from wounds produced by objects with a sharp point. The part that covered the face received a mixture of blood and pulmonary edema that ran from the mouth and the nose: The corpse had both a beard and moustache.

Figure 1.4 Arrangement of the Sudarium on the head. Right ear view.

Figure 1.5 Frames from a video demonstration to explain how the Sudarium was used.

If the Sudarium of Oviedo was used for Jesus Christ, it was placed when He was still on the cross and it stayed until his arrival in the tomb. Just before the corpse was covered with the shroud, the Sudarium was removed and put aside close to the corpse in the sepulchre.

Now that we have a view of the use, we can show the cloth in some detail. Figure 1.6 shows the side that was in contact with the head. Near the left edge, at the lower part, we notice the stains that came from the nape. We can see, almost in the lower corner, a stain called the butterfly stain that was over the lock of hair falling on the upper back of the corpse. A little up, we see the small stains of blood that match with wounds of a crown of thorns.

Figure 1.6 Sudarium out of reliquary (© CES) and location of main features.

If we move our sight toward the middle, we pass over an area with a very faded stain to reach at the main stain near the middle. The lower part of this main stain was in front of the mouth and the nose. The upper part of this stain was in front of the forehead. The stain of the mouth is darker than the stain of the forehead.

If we look at the right side, we find a stain “symmetric” to the previous one. Between these two main stains, there is a fold that runs from top to bottom splitting in two parts near the lower edge. The cloth was folded by this fold when the two main stains soaked the Sudarium. This explains their symmetry. Moving to the right we find another faded stain that arrives to the edge on the right.

Apart from the fold associated to the symmetry; there are other folds that evidence how the cloth has been kept for centuries. Moreover, a group of folds at the upper corner at the right in an oblique direction point to the evidence of an ancient knot.

Furthermore, the Sudarium presents some contaminations that are not related with the primordial use of the linen: fungal and spore colonies, pollen, presence of wax drops, burns, fingerprints of carmine, traces of silver paint, remains of adhesives, environmental contamination, tears, etc.³ Their analysis will be the subject of later chapters.

³ Montero, F. (2007). Descripción Química y Microscópica del Lienzo. Oviedo relicario de la Cristiandad. Proc. II International Congress on The Sudarium of Oviedo, Oviedo. pp. 103–124. Also, Montero, F. (1994) Descripción del Lienzo Química y Microscópica. “Sudario del Señor”, Proc. I International Congress on The Sudarium of Oviedo, 1994. pp. 67–82.

Now let me describe a contamination that is perhaps the most astonishing of them. It is the remains of silver paint. On the right half of the cloth in the Fig. 1.6, between the symmetric stain and the right edge there are some lines and square angles that correspond to the outline of two rectangles of about 185 × 100 mm. The most realistic hypothesis of their origin is the contact with the bottom of a can which contained silver paint. We can reconstruct the fingerprint of the two simulated positions of the can on the cloth (Fig. 1.7). In this image there is also a visual magnification of one of the silver stains corners. The threads are crushed under the weight of the can. The silver nature of the stain was confirmed by an Energy Dispersive X-ray microprobe⁴. We can assume that a worker was commissioned to repair the frame of the reliquary of the Sudarium and he did not care about the cloth. This event perfectly shows the attitude of some relic custodians. In conversation with ecclesiastics during my research, I perceived, although rarely, that some of them were more concerned about the container than about the content. They were more...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Note
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The History of the Sudarium
• 3. Scientific Analyses
• 4. Blood on the Sudarium
• 5. The Calvary Sequence Undergone by the Corpse
• 7. The Shroud and the Sudarium
• 8. Was the Sudarium Used on the Man of the Shroud?
• 9. Liturgy for the Sudarium in the Church
• 10. Conclusion and Future of the Sudarium
• Name Index
• Subject Index