In 1988, Pope John Paul II allowed scientists to take a sample of the Shroud for radiocarbon dating. This technique estimates how old something is by measuring the decay of carbon.

Scientists cut a small strip from the top left corner of the Shroud, 1 centimeter by 8 centimeters. Then they divided that strip in half. One half was then divided into three smaller pieces. These were sent to labs in Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona for destructive testing.

The scientists published their findings in the prestigious journal “Nature.” They dated the cloth to between 1260 and 1390 AD. This meant the Shroud was only about 700 years old. Almost immediately, news headlines around the world declared, “Shroud of Turin shown to be a fake.”

But this result contradicted years of other scientific research and scholarship.

The debate over radiocarbon testing continues to this day. In 2019, a paper published in the Oxford peer-reviewed journal “Archaeometry” raised serious concerns about the 1988 testing. Experts said the results indicated the sample tested was not representative of the whole cloth. Therefore, the test results were not valid. The sample used for testing likely contained materials from later repairs, so it may not have reflected the true age of the whole cloth.

Scientists are still trying to determine the age of the Shroud. They’re developing multiple new testing methods that don’t damage the Shroud by cutting off samples. Early results support that the Shroud is from the first century. But other peer-reviewed studies would have to verify this conclusion. These new discoveries could bring us closer to knowing the true age of the Shroud.