Is this the face of Christ? A new study reignites the argument that the Shroud of Turin, from which this impression was taken, is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.

A 1988 carbon-dating study determined that a piece of the shroud was created between A.D. 1260 and 1390. Ever since, the conventional wisdom has been that the shroud, which resides in Turin, Italy, was a medieval fake.

But new tests show that the piece that was tested is of a different material from the rest of the shroud, says chemist Raymond Rogers—it was a patch added in medieval times. Published in the journal Thermochimica Acta, the findings greatly increase the possibility that the shroud may be as old as Christianity itself.

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