Shroud of Turin Research Project
Encyclopedia
The Shroud of Turin Research Project (often abbreviated as STURP)
refers to a team of scientists which at the late 1970s early 1980s performed a set of experiments
and analyses on the Shroud of Turin
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is...

. STURP issued its final report in 1981.

The origins of the group go back to the experiments of physicist John P. Jackson,
thermodynamicist Eric Jumper and photographer William Mottern in 1976. Using the
ideas invented in aerospace science for building three dimensional models from images of Mars, Eric Jumper built initial devices to test the photographs of the Shroud of Turin.
These were the first experiments relating to the shroud performed by scientists.

In March 1977, Jackson, Jumper and Mottern invited a few other scientists to join them to
form a team for the analysis of the Shroud. The first meeting took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

. The group had no official sponsorship and the scientists funded their own activities. They also managed to arrange gifts and loans of technical equipment whose value was estimated at over $2 million.

Nuclear physicist Tom D'Muhala headed STURP. Apart from Jackson, Jumper and Motten the team included thermal chemist Raymond N. Rogers, and Roy London and Roger Morris, all from Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

. Other team members included Don Lynn of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

in Pasadena, biophysicist John Heller, photographers Ernest Brooks and Barrie Schwortz, optical physicist Sam Pellicori and electric power experts John D. German and Rudy Dichtl, as well as forensic pathologist Robert Bucklin. STURP included no experts on medieval art, archaeology or textiles.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the shroud in Turin, it was displayed to the public in Turin from August 27 to October 8, 1978, with about 3 million visitors attending the exposition under bullet-proof glass. For the next 5 days after the exposition the STURP team analyzed the shroud around the clock at the royal palace adjoining Turing Cathedral, some scientists sleeping while others worked. A team of European scientists headed by Luigi Gonella supervised the activities. The team gathered sticky tape samples of material from several points on the surface of the shroud.

STURP team members continued their research after access to the shroud and published many of theirs results in scientific journals and proceedings. In 1981, in its final report, STURP 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 blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved."


STURP ended its activities in 1981.
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