Experts have made a sensational claim that the Shroud of Turin is stained with the blood of a torture victim.
If true, this would support the claims the artefact was used to bury Jesus, contradicting claims that the famous image of a face was painted on by forgers during the dark ages.
Elvio Carlino, a researcher at the Institute of Crystallography in Bari, Italy, says the tiny particles "have recorded a scenario of great suffering, whose victim was wrapped up in the funeral cloth."
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These particles had a 'peculiar structure, size and distribution', according to University of Padua professor Giulio Fanti.
"Hence, the presence of these biological nanoparticles found during our experiments point to a violent death for the man wrapped in the Turin Shroud," he added.
The origins of the shroud and its images are the subject of intense debate among theologians, historians and researchers.
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The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud, but it is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy.
In 1988, a radiocarbon appeared to call bullshit on it. The test dated a corner piece of the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390. The shroud's first known exhibition was in France in 1357.
The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 by 1.1 metres. Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, brownish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin.
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Reddish-brown stains are found on the cloth, showing various wounds that, according to proponents, correlate with the crucifixion.
The bloke appears to have a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle: which fits with the common idea that Jesus looked like a teenager who only listen to metal.
Although the alleged faceprint is hard to make out in standard light, the image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative.
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