Ślady krwi na Całunie Turyńskim : analiza materiałowa od mikro do nanoskali

Modern experimental methods of materials science including optical and electron microscopy (SEM, ESEM, HRTEM), X-ray spectroscopy (EDX, WAXS), Raman and FTIR spectroscopy used in investigations of structures of new materials can be also successfully applied for analysis of archeological, cultural heritage and art objects. An interesting example of such analyses are investigations of microscopic fibers and particles taken previously from areas attributed to the blood on the Shroud of Turin. Detailed analyses performed by a number of research groups published in 2015–2017 are reviewed. They confirmed previous hypothesis on blood authenticity and discovered new evidences indicated a violence hidden behind the death. In particular, the presence of old red blood cells was documented by Lucotte [20], of bile pigment biliverdin by Laude and Fanti [28], of iron oxide cores of ferritin bounded to nanoparticles of creatinine by Carlino et al. [31]. The last result is typical for patients with severe polytrauma indicating at the unexpected nonoscopic level a tremendous suffering of the victim wrapped in the Shroud of Turin. Bigger particles of mineral pigments: ochre (iron oxide) and vermillion (mercury sulfide) were also found but they can be easily distinguished form blood particles using environmental electron microscopy ESEM with the back-scattered electrons detector [24]. The statistical analysis of a sample composition made by Fanti and Zagotto [24] indicated that 90–95% of the observed volume corresponds to the blood and only remainder represents inorganic pigments. Thus, it was proposed [24] that the original human blood on Shroud stains was much later reinforced by red pigments using a color dust without any binder and this hypothesis can easily explain controversies between previous results of different researches.