The Shroud of Turin.
Shroud
notes transcribed from information given at the exhibit.
In 1954
Francis L Filas SJ., of Loyola University in Chicago, examing enlargments of
the phtographs taken by G Enrie in 1931, discovered the imprint of the letters
U C A I on the right eyelid.
1978,
scientists.including John P Jackson and Eric J Jumper, working with
NASA's VP-8 3D Image Analyser also
discovered what appeared to be raised, button-like shapes over each eye.
Three years
later, Fr. Filas, working with Michael Marx, an expert in classical coins,
interpretated the letters he had identified in 1954 as part of the inscription
UCAI from TIBERIOUS CAISAROS.
They also
found a lituus design (an augurs's staff), Filas concluded that this was a
dilepton lituus, a coin minted by the Procurator Pontius Pilate between 29 and
32 AD under the Emporor Tiberias.
Though the
Lepta (plural of lepton) minted in Palestine were Roman-produced coins, the
inscription of TIBERIOU KAISAROS. Was the C, where a K would be expected, a
mispelling?
This was a
problem that seemed to preclude postitive identification until a actual
dilepton lituus was discovered with the errant spelling. Several more have
since been found. The anomoly, therefore, actually gives credence to the
identification of the coin. The word Lepton means 'small' or 'thin' and in
Roman times a lepton was always a low value coin, ususally the smallest
available denomination of another currency.
The Roman
mite was informally called lepton in the Greek speaking parts of the Roman
Empire: this use is found in the New Testament.
The Lituus
was the wooden staff which the augurs held in the right hand: it symbolised
their authority and their pastoral voation. It was raised towards heavens while
the priests invoked the gods and made their predictions. Legend records that
Romulus used it at the itme of Rome's foundation in 753 BC. It is interesting
to note that the bishop's crozier used in present times is the direct
descendant of the lituus.
A fairly
frequent symbol from the Roman religion of the time, the simpulum was a little
ladle provided with shaft and handle. The priests used it to taste the wine
which they poured on the head of an animal destined for sacrifice, after which
the soothsayer was empowered to examine the animal's entrails for signs and
portents sent to men by gods through the medium of the interpreter.
This wasn't
the first time that the simpulum appeared on Roman coins, but it was the first
time it figured alone: a fact that renders Pilate's coins all the more
distinctive, not only in the context of Judea but in relation to all the other
coins of the Empire.
