The Shroud of Turin is the fourteen-foot linen burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It bears a miraculous image of His holy body and stains of His blood. Since 1578, it has been located in the royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin, Italy. This diagram is to help explain to the viewer what they are seeing. There is a faint image of a body that had been laid lengthwise on one half of the shroud while the other half had been doubled over the head to cover the whole front of the body from face to feet. The images show the wounds of Jesus, including thorn marks on the head, lacerations (from flogging) on the back, and bruises on the shoulders. The Shroud survived a fire in 1532, which caused burn marks and water damage, and has since been patched. In 1898, Secundo Pia photographed the Shroud and discovered that the negative image is actually the positive, and vice versa: When one looks at the Shroud with the naked eye, one sees a light yellow-brownish figure of a man; but when one looks at a photographic black and white negative, he can see the image in greater detail. Specialty apps such as “Negative Photo: Photo Inverter” allow you to view negative images in real-time as positive images. This app, and others like it, can be used on the Holy Shroud with your phone. On iPhones and iPads, go to Settings>Accessibility>Display & Text Size>Classic Invert (turn On). Then open the camera and view the Shroud in reverse on your screen.
