COULD THE TURIN SHROUD BODY IMAGE FORMATION BE EXPLAINED BY MAILLARD REACTION?

Abstract

Nowadays, after more than twelve decades of studies involving many scientists from all over the world, we do not know the originary chemistry of the Shroud of Turin. This state of affairs is due to the uncertainty between two possibilities. The first one, deduced by Heller and Adler, asserts that the surface chemistry is linen cellulose structure. The two scientists have obtained this result by microanalysis of the samples extracted from the Linen of Turin. The second one, deduced by Rogers and subsequently studied with Arnoldi, supports the hypothesis that the linen threads were, in origin, covered with a thin layer of impurities. Also this result has been experimentally obtained. In fact, by microchemical tests, using iodine on thread pieces of the Shroud linen, it was detected the starch impurities presence. This study is an attempt to analyze the Rogers’ hypothe-sis: a Maillard reaction between amines (nitrogen compound with a free –NH2 group), coming through the corpse wrapped in the Linen of Turin and reduced sugars, due to the manufacturing procedure, present on the surface of the above linen cloth. Therefore, as it has already affirmed, we have two different visions. How-ever, we must take also into account that the second one hypothesis needs, at same time, the presence of amines and the absence of aromas and/or burial ointments. The aim of this our study is to see if the above hypothesis (the one of Rogers with Arnoldi) is able to yield on the linen a color distribution characterized by a I(z) correlation between the intensity of color and the cloth-body distance, as it occurs to the Shroud of Turin.