12. Nobody Knows How the Forger Created the Shroud
There are plenty of mysteries from about the time of Medieval Europe that are yet to be solved. For example, the Voynich Manuscript has yet to be deciphered; it is a perpetual riddle that will continue to plague scientists. There are also the prophecies of Nostradamus that have an uncanny way of being fulfilled in modern times. The Shroud of Turin seems to belong to this private collection of Medieval mysteries. However, most of these mysteries don’t have the markings of a forgery.
The challenge for modern scientists in uncovering the forgery is that it had to have been made with methods that were far beyond the skills that artists would have had during the fourteenth century, the time to which it has been dated. The shroud was created meticulously, with extreme attention to detail that even today’s forgers would marvel. However, all of this begs the question as to why: Why would someone go through all of the trouble of creating such an elaborate forgery as a relic for peddling money, when he or she could have just used strips of cloth that were lying around the house? Moreover, if it was a forgery, why did the church treat it as if it was authentic?