Glossary

Sindon. Greek, σινδών: fine linen, or a garment or sheet of it. Mark 15:46 says Joseph of Arimathea bought a sindon (the accusative form, sindona) and wrapped the body in it. Sindone is the Italian word for the Shroud. Bible

Sudarium. Latin, a face cloth or sweat cloth. John 20:7 describes a separate cloth that had been on the head. The Sudarium of Oviedo, in Spain, is a bloodstained cloth venerated as that face cloth, by tradition since the ninth century and on record since 1075. Bible

Ostension. The public exposition of the Shroud. From the Latin ostendere, to show. Ostensions in the modern era: 1898, 1931, 1933, 1973 (television), 1978, 1998, 2000, 2010, 2013 (television), 2015, 2020 (online). Chronology

STURP. The Shroud of Turin Research Project, the American team formed in 1977 that examined the cloth in October 1978 and published its conclusions in 1981. Roster

STERA. The Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, founded by Barrie Schwortz, which holds the copyright to his 1978 photographs and runs shroud.com. Schwortz memoriam

VP-8 Image Analyzer. An analog device made by Interpretation Systems of Lawrence, Kansas, from 1972, that converts the brightness of an image into height and displays it as a rotatable relief. Used on aerial photographs and X-rays. The instrument on which the Shroud's three-dimensional encoding was discovered in 1976. Schumacher

Herringbone twill, three-to-one. A weave in which each weft thread passes over three warp threads and under one, with the diagonal reversing at intervals to make a zigzag. The Shroud's weave. Tyrer

Z-twist. The direction in which a thread is spun, so that the fibers slant like the middle stroke of a Z. The Shroud's threads are Z-spun. Excavated Judean linen of the first century is typically S-spun. Shamir

Retting. Soaking flax stems in water to rot away the soft tissue and free the fibers. Linen takes up iron from retting water, which is one explanation for the iron oxide particles on the cloth. Heller and Adler

Tape lift. A sampling method in which adhesive tape is pressed to a surface and lifted off with whatever fibers and particles adhere. Used by Frei for pollen and by Rogers for the 1978 chemistry samples, with a tape made by 3M and a pressure-measuring applicator. Rogers 2005

X-ray fluorescence (XRF). A non-destructive method of finding which elements are present in a material by their response to X-rays. Used across the cloth in 1978. Not sensitive to very thin layers. XRF 1980

Ultraviolet fluorescence. The glow some materials give off under ultraviolet light. Lightly scorched linen fluoresces; the Shroud image does not. Miller and Pellicori

Serum. The clear, pale-yellow fluid that separates from blood as it clots. Serum rings around clots on the Shroud fluoresce under ultraviolet. Heller and Adler

Bilirubin. A yellow breakdown product of red blood cells, raised by trauma and by liver disease. Reported in high levels in the Shroud blood by Alan Adler. Adler 1986

Halftone. An image in which tone is produced by the density of equal marks, as in newspaper printing, rather than by varying darkness. The Shroud image is a halftone at the fiber level. Heller and Adler

Radiocarbon dating. Dating organic material by the decay of carbon-14. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), used in 1988, needs milligrams; the older method needed grams. Nature 1989

Invisible mending, or French reweave. A repair technique in which new threads are spliced into a worn textile so that the repair does not show. The basis of the 2005 argument that the 1988 sample was not original cloth. Rogers 2005

Maillard reaction. The browning reaction between sugars and amines, as in toast. Raymond Rogers' proposed natural mechanism for the image. Rogers 2002

Mandylion. The Image of Edessa, a cloth bearing the face of Christ "not made by hands," kept at Edessa and then Constantinople until 1204. Ian Wilson proposed it was the Shroud, folded. Guscin

Pray Codex. A Hungarian manuscript of about 1192 to 1195, in Budapest, containing a drawing of the entombment that proponents say shows the Shroud's weave and poker holes. History

Poker holes. Four groups of small burn holes in an L shape, predating the 1532 fire. History

Holland cloth. The linen backing sewn onto the Shroud by the Poor Clares in 1534 and removed in 2002. Poor Clares

Guarini Chapel. The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, designed by Guarino Guarini and completed in 1694, between Turin Cathedral and the Royal Palace, where the Shroud was kept until the 1990s. Damaged by fire in 1997, reopened in 2018. Fire 1997

Flagrum. A Roman whip with lead or bone weights on the thongs. The scourge marks on the Shroud match its pattern. Bucklin

Judicial homicide. Robert Bucklin's phrase for the manner of death shown on the cloth, in the language of an autopsy report. Bucklin