S&V - Page 124
Can the shroud of Turin itself reveal its origin? It is a serge of unbleached linen cloth woven with rafters in « fish-bones », at 3 points for 1 (a wire of weft passes alternatively under three wire of warp, then one).

In 1973, professor Gilbert Raës, director of the laboratory of technology of fabrics of the university of Ghent, in Belgium, discovered some cotton fibres in the weft of the linen cloth. They belong to the species Gossypium herbaceum. a plant cultivated in the Middle East. A clue which is not enough, according to the researcher, to deduce its origin : the tiny cotton traces can be brought accidentally, in particular if the shroud were put in contact with cotton fabrics.

Gabriel Vial, former expert of the international Center of studies of the antique textiles, which also studied the relic at the end of the 80s, recalls that some traces of polyester, wool, elastomer and other anachronistic pollution have been discovered on the shroud...

From the characteristics of weaving, is it possible to date it, failing to locate it geographically? The linen cloths with rafters are rare, a fortiori those of serge 3:1 and, according to Jean-Theo Flamme, posterior at the XIV century.

For this former expert of the Belgian institute of scientific research for industry and agriculture, the weaving of the shroud of Turin inevitably implies the use of a horizontal weaving loom with 4 pedals : « it is impossible to obtain otherwise a piece of more than 1000 wires per framework, which weighs 230 g per m2 », he specifies. « Whereas, this type of weaving loom invented by the Chinese (probably a little before V century) is appeared in the Middle East only from VI century. »

He also specifies that « the argument according to which the bleaching of the linen after weaving observed on the shroud would date it back before the VII century does not hold. The proof : this technique is used still today »...

VSD - Pages 26-27
The structure of linen cloth is very particular and seldom met in Europe. Similar specimens were found in ancient Syria. The serge with rafters in fish-bones and the manufacture of the cloth point required a weaving loom with four pedals, a weaving mode frequent in Syria at the first centuries, but also later. The expert analysis of the fabric also made it possible to discover traces of a cotton characteristic of the Middle East. On the other hand, no wool trace was found; that could be explained by a Judaic law which prohibited to use the same weaving loom for fibers of animal origin and those of vegetable origin.

Moreover, the technique of bleaching after weaving, not very used after VIII century, makes think that the fabric could be manufactured in the first centuries. Another disconcerting detail: the dimensions of the linen cloth correspond to exact multiple integers of Jewish cubit, measuring unit in force in Palestine at the time of Jesus. A new interesting element was recently highlighted: the side seam that one finds on the shroud (to 9 cm of the higher edge) is of the same type, very particular, which those found on fabrics coming from Massada, a city destroyed by the Romans into 74. All these indices, if they do not constitute an absolute proof, lean nevertheless for a probably ancient and Middle-Eastern origin of the relic.