My favourite theory regarding the Shroud of Turin is the Leonardo da Vinci hypothesis.
He was the ultimate Renaissance man - studying anatomy, designing a rudimentary helicopter and creating some of the most admired paintings of the age.
But could Leonardo da Vinci also have perpetrated history's greatest art forgery?
That's the suggestion of one expert, who claims that Leonardo was responsible for faking the Turin Shroud.
Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York, claims that the image is a self-portrait of Leonardo, which was made using a crude photographic technique.
Using computer scans she found that the face on the Turin Shroud and a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci share the same dimensions.
'It matched. I'm excited about this,' she said. 'There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this Shroud's face.'
He would have hung the shroud's fabric over a frame in a blacked- out room and coated it with a substance to make it light-sensitive, just like photographic film.
When the sun's rays passed through a lens in one of the walls, Leonardo's 3D model would have been projected on to the material, creating a permanent image.
Shroud researcher Lynn Picknett said: 'It is spooky, it is jaw-dropping.
'The faker of the shroud had to be a heretic. He had to have a grasp of anatomy and he had to have at his fingertips a technology which would completely fool everyone until the 20th century.' - www.dailymail.co.uk...
Also...
Shroud of Turin replicated by Italian scientist using ancient techniques may prove the relic a fake
An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.
Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the Middle Ages.
An archive negative image of the Shroud of Turin (l.) is shown next to one recreated by an Italian scientist (r.).
They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.
The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.
They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.
Personally I think this is an open and shut case, the evidence against it being Jesus is enormous. Was it Leonard da Vinci? Possibly. Is it a fake? Definitely.
Another great presentation though mate
A star for effort and a flag because people need to see how it's done.
