Sept 20, 2016

The complete underside of the Shroud of Turin had been hidden from observation for more than four centuries until the summer of 2002, when the Holland cloth was unstiched during the restauration of the Shroud.

While the underside was completely accessible, it was photographed, which provided the first ever complete photographs of the underside of the Shroud. These photographs were published in a few books, in particular by Opera Diocesana Preservazione Fede (ODPF).

The following photograph (Figure 1) presents the middle section of the underside of the Shroud where the bloodstains from the back of the head and torso, the face, and front torso, are visible. There is no perceptible image as can be seen on the well-known front side. Some researchers claimed that a dim image of the face appears on this underside, but this is controversial. Figure 2 shows a close-up view of the face region of the underside.

Such a photograph allows a deeper study of how the image was formed or not formed. For example, the obvious observation is that no perceptible image can be seen on the underside, which entails that if paint was ever used to produce the image on the front side, it could not have been painted the usual way, because paint would have transferred to the underside by capilarity. Another example is the amount of blood transferred on the underside from the bloodstains in the hair region of the front side. No major amount can be seen on the underside, which is coherent with the bloodstains realy coming from the hair.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Ulysse Chevalier, a French historian, was involved in the newly created controversy of the first photographs of the Shroud, taken by Secondo Pia in 1898. He wrote several history papers and monographs claiming that the Shroud was not authentic. Ulysse Chevalier was mostly interested by the history of the Shroud and pay little attention to the physical characteristics of its image, but in one of his monograph [1](p. 19), he claimed that the photograph taken by Secondo Pia did not show the correct side because Chevalier thought that the bloodstains and the hands were inverted. That is, Secondo Pia would have taken a photograph of the side that had a dim image, creating its enigmatic appearance, and that the other side would have a brighter image, which would not have its enigmatic image and better show that it was a painting. Chevalier's contention was wrong as the underside has no perceptible image but mostly only bloodstains.

1. Ulysse Chevalier, Le Saint Suaire de Turin/Histoire d'une Relique, Alphonse Picard Editeur, 1902. (External link To Google Book)