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Library

More than 2,400 papers, studies, articles and newsletters, almost all from the archive at shroud.com, which Barrie Schwortz built and kept from the 1990s until his death in 2024. Start with the 25 key readings, then search by word, filter by topic, and go straight to the original.

Start here: 25 key readings, both sides

Chosen so a skeptical reader meets the strongest work on each side, in roughly the order the debate unfolded.

  1. Summary of STURP's Conclusions Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), 1981

    the STURP team's official verdict. It is the baseline every later debate starts from.

  2. Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin, A Summary of the 1978 Investigation L.A Schwalbe, R.N. Rogers, 1982

    the peer-reviewed technical summary of the 1978 tests.

  3. A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin J.H Heller, A.D. Adler, 1981

    the main chemical case that the stains are real blood and the image is not pigment.

  4. Correlation of Image Intensity on the Turin Shroud with the 3-D Structure of a Human Body Shape J.P Jackson, E.J. Jumper, 1984

    the origin of the 3D and cloth-to-body distance claim.

  5. Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin P. E. Damon, D. J. Donahue, 1989

    the Nature paper dating the linen to AD 1260 to 1390. This is the core skeptical evidence.

  6. Authentication of the Turin Shroud, The: An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology William Meacham, 1983

    an archaeologist frames how authenticity could even be judged, with critics' responses alongside.

  7. Image Formation and the Shroud of Turin Emily A. Craig, Randall R. Bresee, 1994

    a proposed medieval artistic technique, which shows how a forger might have worked.

  8. Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands Gary Vikan, 1998

    an art-historical skeptic's case, with the researchers' rebuttals on the same page.

  9. Is The Shroud of Turin a Medieval Photograph? A Critical Examination of the Theory Barrie M. Schwortz, 2000

    tests the popular "medieval photograph" theory.

  10. Evidence for the Skewing of the C-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin Due to Repairs Joseph G. Marino, M. Sue Benford, 2000

    the origin of the "invisible reweave" hypothesis.

  11. Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin Raymond N. Rogers, 2005

    the strongest peer-reviewed challenge to whether the 1988 sample is representative.

  12. The Invisible Mending of the Shroud in Theory and Reality Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, 2007

    the 2002 restoration's textile expert argues against the reweave idea.

  13. Investigating a Dated Piece of the Shroud of Turin Rachel Freer-Waters, Timothy Jull, 2010

    the Arizona lab re-examines its own sample and finds no repair.

  14. Microscopic and Macroscopic Characteristics of the Shroud of Turin Image Superficiality G. Fanti, J.A. Botella, 2010

    how superficial the image really is, a key constraint on any explanation.

  15. Superficial and Shroud-like coloration of linen by short laser pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, 2012

    the best laboratory attempt to reproduce the colour, and its limits.

  16. Blood on the Shroud of Turin: An Immunological Review Kelly P. Kearse, 2012

    a careful appraisal of how strong the blood claims really are.

  17. From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin. The Metamorphosis and Manipulation of a Legend Andrea Nicolotti, 2014

    a skeptical historian on the "Edessa = Shroud" early-history link.

  18. There is no mass spectrometry evidence that the C14 sample from the Shroud of Turin comes from a "medieval invisible mending" Marco Bella, Luigi Garlaschelli, 2015

    a skeptical peer-reviewed rebuttal of Rogers.

  19. Uncovering the sources of DNA found on the Turin Shroud Gianni Barcaccia, Giulio Galla, 2015

    the DNA evidence, which shows heavy contamination from many regions.

  20. A BPA Approach to the Shroud of Turin Matteo Borrini, Luigi Garlaschelli, 2018

    a skeptical bloodstain-pattern experiment. Read it with `hermosilla-2019-commentary-borrini-m-garlaschelli`, a reply in the same journal.

  21. Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence From Raw Data Tristan Casabianca, Emanuela Marinelli, 2019

    the 1988 raw data, released and reanalysed.

  22. Statistical and Proactive Analysis of an Inter-Laboratory Comparison: The Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin Paolo Di Lazzaro, 2020

    an independent statistical check of the 1988 results.

  23. The Earliest Pilgrim Badges Produced for the So-Called 'Shroud of Turin' Ian Wilson, 2021

    peer-reviewed study of the 14th-century Lirey badges. It anchors the cloth's first secure appearance.

  24. A New Document on the Appearance of the Shroud of Turin from Nicole Oresme: Fighting False Relics and False Rumours in the Fourteenth Century Nicolas Sarzeaud, 2025

    a newly found 14th-century source calling the cloth a fraud (listing-only link).

  25. Analysis of textile fragments from the 1988 radiocarbon samples of the Turin Shroud Rachel Freer-Waters, A. J. Timothy Jull, 2026

    the newest lab analysis of the dated fragments.

The full library

2405 papers shown

In memory of Barrie M. Schwortz (1946 to 2024)

Barrie Schwortz was the official documenting photographer of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project. He was Jewish, began as a skeptic, and spent the rest of his life making the research available to everyone, for free, at shroud.com. Most of this library exists because he kept it. We dedicate this page to him.

Want to go further? The shroud.com archive, the official site of the Archdiocese of Turin, and Wikipedia's Shroud of Turin article, which leans skeptical and is a good test of your conclusions.