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This is the famous Shroud of Turin .
An artefact thet many believed could conclusively prove the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ .
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Despite the protestations of various Christian researchers , there
is absolutely no evidence that the Shroud existed before it was put on public display in a small church in the French town
of Lirey in 1357 . The cloth with its apparent image of the crusified Christ was lent to the local church by Jeanne de Vergy
, the widow of Geoffrey de Charney , a minor nobleman who had died in the previous September .The people of Lirey were not
slow to realise the importance of this great relic and occasion was honoured by the striking of a special medal bearing the
arms of both Geoffrey and Jeanne .
The "negative" image of the bearded
face will forever be associated with the popular image of Jesus Christ. Radio-carbon dating identified the cloth as medieval
more than a decade ago, but, desperate not to lose the Shrouds religious significance as one of the worlds most potent relics,
many people continue to challenge this scientific evidence.
Bradford University lecturer Robert Lomas and colleague Christopher
Knight claim they can link science and history to prove that the face on the shroud is that of a priest whose followers helped
Scotland to win independence from England in the 14th century.
"The scientific facts leave me in no doubt," says Dr Lomas, a physicist
who now lectures in Information Systems. "The cloth was used to wrap Jacques de Molay, the leader of a monastic order known
as the Knights Templar and whose followers were given refuge by Robert the Bruce."
It appears that the victim in the shroud
had been nailed up with his right arm over his head and his left arm thrown out sideways. According to the blood flow on the
lower arms of the image, and a dislocated thumb and right shoulder (which have been verified by medical experts), Lomas has
worked out that the victim in the shroud was crucified by nailing him to a door which was slammed open and shut, causing excruciating
pain. On the point of death, when he was taken down, soaring temperature and sweat would have produced metabolic acidosis
- with lactic acid causing a fibril yellowing reaction on the cloth.
Knight, who studies social behaviour and belief systems,
says the shroud would have been de Molays own. "Templars were part of the pre-Christian Jerusalem Church
which carried out symbolic death and resurrection ceremonies. Priests in the order would carry shrouds for this purpose."
When they were denounced as heretics by Pope Clement in 1307, hundreds of Templars in France were rounded up and tortured
by the Paris Inquisition.
"De Molay was accused of denying the divinity of Christ so its logical
that they would have subjected him to a re-enactment of the suffering of Christ - including a copycat crucifixion," says Lomas.
"The final act of mockery would have been to use his own shroud."
Meanwhile, so legend has it, many Templars
fled to Scotland, where Robert the Bruce gave them refuge .In 1314, three months after de Molay was finally put to death,
Bruce made his stand at Bannockburn .
According to family records of the St
Clairs of Roslin, William de St Clair was part of that charge. He went on, it is said, to become leader of the Scottish Knights
Templar after Bannockburn and one of his titles - again according to family records - was "Knight of the Cockle".
As for de Molay, there is no recorded
mention of the shroud until it was publicly shown for the first time in 1357 in the French town of Lirey by the widow of Geoffrey
de Charnay. His uncle had been a Templar and had been burnt to death together with Jaques de Molay in 1314. "Coincidental
or what?" says Lomas.
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