The linen cloth bears a faint imprint of a man, on the front and back, and is believed by many Catholics to be the shroud which Jesus was wrapped in after his crucifixion.
Now a Catholic scientist has told the Telegraph he believes the evidence against its authenticity as a holy relic to be insufficient.
Professor Liberato de De Caro said: “If I had to be a judge in a trial, weighing up all the evidence that says the shroud is authentic and the little evidence that says it is not… I could not declare that the Shroud of Turin is medieval.
“It would not be right, given the enormous quantity of evidence in favour of it.”
Professor de Caro conducted an X-ray of the shroud, which bears markings consistent with the injuries of crucifixion, as well as blood around the head where Jesus was pierced with thorns.
In the 1970s and 80s, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) concluded that the markings on the fabric were bloodstains. They were deemed to contain haemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells which delivers oxygen.
The stains also gave a positive test for serum albumin, the most abundant protein in human blood plasma.
In 1981, in its final report, the STURP team wrote: “We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist.”
The dating of the shroud has been previously unclear, with many attributing it to the medieval era. Yet recent testing, based on the humidity levels the linen had experienced suggest it was compatible to cloths dated AD 55-74.
Tim Andersen, research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told the Daily Mail: “Decades of scientific testing and peer-reviewed articles on it, that conclusion has never been demonstrated. Rather, the evidence has continually pointed away from any known forging techniques.”