1) The Shroud shows nail marks through the wrists of the crucified man.

The first crucified man was discovered in 1968 at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, one of Jerusalem's northern suburbs. Prior to this, crucifixion was believed to have involved nails through the hands, not the wrists. Thus medieval portaits showd Jesus with nail marks through his hands. Thus, anyone trying to make a forgery in the medieval period would not have put nail marks through his wrists.

2) The shroud shows no thumbs

French doctor and early Shroud researcher, Barbet, performed experiments to explore the biological mechanisms of crucifixion. He performed many experiments on cadavers and found that when a nail was driven through the part of the wrist known as Destot's space, it touched the median nerve, causing the thumb to draw inward to the palm.

3) Pollen found on the Shroud could only have come from Jerusalem around the time that Jesus was crucified, even specific to the time of year.

Werner Bulst, in a response to the late Dr Frei, made the observation:

"...Pollen from 58 species of plants...less than one third grow in Frane or Italy...[This] astonishing...small number of European species can be explained by the history of the Shroud in Europe, for, normally kept in a closed reliquary, the Shroud was protected from pollen contamination. Only on special occasions was it exposed in the open...The spectrum of non-European species is highly astonishing...There is only one place where all of these plants - with the exception of three...grow in a very small radius: Jerusalem... This cannot be an accident...pollens could have been carried to Europe on winds...but a transport of pollens from the Middle East is highly improbably."

4) The image was formed by a blast of energy

Microscopic examination of the Shroud has confirmed that the image is NOT formed by paint and is also 3D. It appears to have been caused by a scorch, due to a blast of energy, and penetrates only the outermost surface of the Shroud fibres. Attempts to recreate the scorch pattern using a heated bronze model could not duplicate the image, and the histogram of colours for the forged image was very different to that of the original.

The best of forgers, with the latest equipment, have been consulted and are unable to produce a convincing duplicate.

When Secondo Pia make his photographs of the Shroud, he found that the negatives of his photos showed the Shroud in greater detail. He thus had discovered that the Shroud itself is a negative image. If the Shroud had been the result of a medieval forger, that forger would have had to predict the invention and method of photography and would have had to be able to paint a negative of the image. That further begs the question of "Why"?" Why would a forger make a negative image? Furthermore, even modern painters (who are aware of photographic negatives) would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to paint a convincing negative image.

Also, the Shroud image is a 2D wrap of a 3D image. This present additional challenges to a forger. However, modern computer software has been deployed to recreate a 3D model of Jesus's face from this 2D wrapper image.

The blood was on the cloth before the image was created, which again indicates it's authenticity. No forger in those times would have put blood prior to doing the forgery. It's only with modern technology that this was discovered.

Some scientists now are coming to the conclusion that the Shroud image is holographic and that the Shroud contains the information that explains the nature of the resurrection process itself. This is a profound and highly significant discovery which we will no doubt learn more about in time. For an age of atheism and scepticism, could the Shroud be God's way of using science to reveal himself to an unbelieving world?

5) The link with the Sudarium

The Sudarium of Oviedo, or Shroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained cloth, measuring c. 84 x 53 cm, kept in the Cámara Santa of the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain.[1] The Sudarium (Latin for sweat cloth) is thought to be the cloth wrapped around the head of Jesus Christ after he died, as mentioned in the Gospel of John (20:6-7)

Doctors Jose Villalain, Jaine Izquierdo & Guillermo Heras of University of Valencia & Oviedo scholar Mark Guscin using infrared and ultraviolet photography and electron microscopy have shown that both the Sudarium and the Shroud of Turin have touched the same face.

6) Coins on the eyes

It all began at NASA in 1978. At this time researchers Jackson, Jumper and Stephenson wanted to test the capacities of their VP8 new computer, specially for three dimensional extrapolation, so they submitted the face on the shroud for analysis. The image obtained, now famous, distinctly revealed two circular protrusions on the eyelids. The experts immediately made a connection with an ancient custom which advocated the placing of coins on the eyes of the dead to keep them closed. Archaeological excavations have confirmed this tradition. Skeletons from the first and second century C.E. have been found with a coin in each eye-socket at Jericho and at En Boqeq.

Everything then happened very quickly. The following year Professor Francis Filas, a teacher at Loyola University of Chicago, made an enlargement of the image of the left eye and noticed a strange curved shape with traces of letters above it. Intrigued, he went to a ancient coins expert from Chicago, Michael Marx, who concluded that it was probably the image of Pilate's lituus coin.

In 1980, an electronic analysis performed in the Overland Park Laboratory in Texas confirmed not only the soundness of Professor Filas' findings, but also allowed the admission of evidence of another coin on the right eye, without however being able to identify why precise details were absent. Other researchers, Alan and Mary Wanger, took up the investigation in 1985, applying the technique of polarised light superimposition; they though they detected on the left eye coin the three ears of barley encircled with faint traces of letters: this indicated that it could be the coin minted in year 29.