Commonalities between the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo

Medical Examiner, EDICES Director (Spanish Sindonology Researh Centre Team), Spain

Abstract

In 1989 EDICES (Spanish Sindonology Research Centre Team) started researching about the Sudarium of Oviedo, developing the pioneer research started in the sixties by Monsignor Giulio Ricci, who was a member of the Papal Curia and President of the “Roman Centre of Sindonology”^aa

Ricci, G. L’Uomo Della Sindone é Gesú, 2^a Edición, 1969.

, furthermore, he was a scholar of the Gospel of Saint John, the reading of chapter 20, Bible verses 4-8: “⁴ They were running together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and was the first to arrive at the tomb.⁵Bending down to take a look, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he didn’t go in.⁶Following him, Simon Peter entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there.⁷He also saw the face cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. It wasn’t with the other clothes but was folded up in its own place.⁸Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.” This made him look for a second funerary linen used to wrap the corpse of Jesus of Nazareth. This seek led him to the Sudarium of Oviedo. The similarity of the shape of the stains and its size with the Shroud of Turin made him think that he had really found the relic which Saint Joan mentions. From the Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Medicine point of view, all the information discovered by the scientific research is compatible with the hypothesis that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo covered the corpse of the same person.