At a conference sponsored by the Shroud Science Group at Ohio State University this weekend, the Los Alamos National Laboratory presented findings that the 1988 test results were flawed because the samples tested came from a portion of cloth that may have been added to the shroud during medieval repairs.

The shroud's historical record dates back to 1349, when a French knight wrote to the pope of his possession of a cloth he described as the burial shroud of Christ. In 1978, a team of scientists led by Jackson conducted a series of tests on the shroud, including X-rays and chemical analyses. They concluded that the shroud was not painted, dyed or stained and that the blood stains were real. But those findings did little to quell the controversy surrounding the shroud. ...