A Chara, - Regarding Paul McNamee's letter (April 18th) on the Shroud of Turin in which he refers to the carbon dating carried out on the shroud in 1988, the results of the carbon dating concluded that the shroud dated back to somewhere between 1260-1390 AD and is thus much to new to be the burial linen of Jesus Christ.
This evidence has since been under intense scrutiny by a team led in 1996 by Dr. Leoncio A. Garza Valdes and Dr. Stephen J. Mattingly of the University of Texas. The team concluded that the shroud of Turin may in fact be centuries older than that stated by the 1988 testing, due to the shroud's fibre being coated with bacteria and fungi which have been growing on it for centuries. The carbon dating process may have sampled the contaminants as well as the fibres' cellulose.
The results of 1988, therefore, don't seem to be "invalidating the mountain of evidence for its authenticity" as Mr. McNamee seems to suggest, and it seems that further testing will have to be done on the shroud before we can come to any conclusion. - Le meas,
9 Merlyn Road
Dublin 4