1	Flora of the Shroud of Turin Avinoam Danin
2	The Shroud of Turin, the traditional burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, is made of fine linen measuring 435 cm long by 110 cm wide. Left photo is a negative print of the right one
3	Chrysanthemum coronarium, a common plant in Israel, the image of which seems to be on the Shroud
4	An image of a flower (in fact, an inflorescence) of a plant resembling Chrysanthemum as seen on the Shroud (left) and illustrated in the book Flora Palaestina (right)
5	The head area of the Shroud with plant images observed on a photo made in 1931 (see Danin et al., 1999). The plant images are faint and marked red on an overlay. A few of them were detected directly on the Shroud in March 2000.
6	Gundelia tournefortii, an important geographical indicator, the image of which is near the man’s shoulder
7	A flowering head of Gundelia tournefortii where flower groups seen at the axilles of short and stiff spines
8	The image of Gundelia tournefortii flowering head with faint images of the long subtending leaves and dots at the tip of several stiff spines
9	The author’s finger points to the image of G. tournefortii on the Shroud when he saw it directly in March 2000
10	The front image of the Shroud displaying points where Dr. M. Frei (1978) sampled pollen grains using transparent sticky tapes
11	A pollen grain from Frei collection determined at early stages of research as Gundelia tournefortii. However, modern investigations by Prof. Dr. T. Litt, Univ. Bonn suggests that further investigations are needed before pollen grains can be named at a species level
12	Pollen grains of G. tournefortii as seen through a Scanning Electron Microscope. There are more, sharper and narrower “spines” per unit-area of the profile than on the pollen grain of the previous photo
13	The chest and shoulder area of the Shroud where Gundelia image is shown on the right with two red- and a green arrows; on the low left the image of a leaf of Zygophyllum dumosum indicated
14	The chest area with the Z. dumosum leaf (1). This photo is twisted 90⁰ right as compared to the previous photo. Another leaf without the pair of leaflets is seen right of the first leaf
15	The previous area with Zygophyllum dumosum leaflets (L), petioles (P) and flower (F) images shown with a black overlay. On the right an illustration of the plant from Flora Palaestina
16	A branch of Z. dumosum in February with old and new leaves
17	A Z. dumosum shrub on the Judean Desert escarpments above the Dead Sea
18	The world distribution map of Z. dumosum, an endemic plant of Israel, Jordan, and Sinai
19	Distribution map of Gundelia tournefortii from A. Danin’s data base. Each dot represents a square of 5 x 5 km where the plant is recorded
20	Distribution areas of G. tournefortii and Z. dumosum which share a boundary line at the Jerusalem – Hebron area
21	Cistus creticus, the image of which is seen on the Shroud as well, and grows in the meeting zone of the previous two other indicators only west of Jerusalem
22	Distribution map of Cistus creticus assisting the geographical indications that people could put fresh stems of the three indicators near or on the body of the man of the Shroud only in the Jerusalem – Hebron area
23	A table from the book “Flora of the Shroud of Turin” (Danin et al., 1999). The common blooming time of the plants, the images of which are seen on the Shroud, is March - April
24	The “Sudarium of Oviedo”, showing blood stains, the morphology of which is highly similar to the blood stains on the head area of the Shroud of Turin. They are assumed to have covered the body and head of the same person. Seen in Oviedo since the eight century, the Sudarium helps dating the Shroud to before the eight century. For details see J. Bennett (2001) Sacred Blood, Sacred Image, the Sudarium of Oviedo.
25	A negative photo of the head area. The arrow indicates fruits of Pistacia lentiscus with the stem feeding them
26	A close-up of the P.lentiscus fruits on a positive photo of the Shroud. The other dark dots, with less sharp boundaries, are interpreted as fruits of other Pistacia species
27	A close up of the Shroud photo from A. Whanger’s (CSST) presentation displaying the high similarity between the peduncle with three fruits and low-right peduncle on the illustration of P. lentiscus in Flora Palaestina
28	Fruiting stems of a P. lentiscus shrub in the Autumn
29	Large dots near the P. lentiscus site and dark lines with small branches in ca. 90⁰angle. Interpreted as fruits, peduncles, and pedicels of other Pistacia species (e.g. P. atlantica and P. palaestina), with a sample of such fruits and pedicels (on the white paper) derived from a shop in Old Jerusalem
30	Spices in a shop at the market of Old Jerusalem with Pistacia (BUTUM) tray. The owner told me that he harvests the fruits every year near Hebron in late Autumn and sells them throughout the year
31	A close up of the Pistacia tray. The “plant and man of the Shroud” were wrapped in Spring, as indicated by the blooming time of a few plants (slide 22). Therefore, the fruits of the three Pistacia species were available in that season only in a similar shop
32	A pseudo three dimensional photo of the Shroud (the negative photo is almost superimposed on the positive photo), displaying many dots that are interpreted as Pistacia fruits. The validity and purpose of these fruits, added in hundreds to the enshrouded body, need further investigations
33	The plant images on the Shroud resemble prints of “corona discharge” (or Kirlian photography) of plants prepared by Mr. O. Scheuermann and sent to A. Whanger. The left image here is of a Chrysanthemum sp. prepared by Scheuermann
34	Images of Berberis sp. fruiting stem and a rose leaf produced (by O. Scheuermann) by electronic emission on photographic paper. He used “Van-der-Graaf-generator” as a high voltage source for the creation of corona discharge images. Plant morphology features created experimentally here : 1. Star-shaped dark dots at the tip of spines on the Berberis stems. 2. Fleshy fruit of Berberis looks dark and full. Spines with dots are seen in slides 8 and 12 at the tips of spines in the G. tournefortii flowering heads. The fruits of P. lentiscus, slides 24-26, should be compared to the Berberis’ fruit.
35	Rose leaf with prominent teeth at leaflets margins and almost white centers. The Chrysanthemum sp. inflorescence clearly displays the ray florets, each with dark margin as the rose leaflets, tubular central florets seen as dots at the center, and a white space around them at the depression among the two florets kinds
36	Summary 1. There are plant images on the Shroud of Turin, the traditional burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, in addition to the well known man’s image. 2. Plant images were studied on high quality photos of the Shroud taken in 1898, 1931, 1978, and seen directly on the Shroud in March 2000. Three of these were selected as geographical indicators as they grow only in the east Mediterranean area. 3. The boundaries of the distribution areas of the indicators are congruent in a narrow belt between Jerusalem and Hebron; only here people could bring fresh plants and put them on the dead man’s body. 4. The flowering plants brought and laid on the body inside the folded Shroud share blooming time in March-April. 5. Following the tight relationships, due to blood-stains morphology, with the Sudarium of Oviedo, the Shroud of Turin existed already in the 8^th century. 6. There are experimental indications that radiation resembling electric discharge was involved in the formation of images on the Shroud of Turin. 7. The study of pollen grains sampled by Dr. Frei does not enable recognition of types at the species level and demands new collection of pollen and their study in contemporary methods and equipment.
37	References List of Publications and presentations concerning The Shroud of Turin by A. Danin and collaborators Danin, A. 1998. The origin of the Shroud of Turin from the Near East as evidenced by plant images and by pollen grains. III Congresso Internazionale di Studi Sulla Sindone “Sindone e Scienza: Bilanci e Programmi alle Soglie del Terzo Millennio” Torino, 5-7 June, 1998. Danin, A. and Baruch, U. 1999. The origin of the Shroud of Turin from the Near East as evidenced by plant images and by pollen grains. Abstracts of the 7^th Int. Conf. of the Israel Soc. for Ecol. and Env. Qual. Sci. p. 61. Danin, A. 1999. The Flora of The Shroud of Turin. In conjugation with the XVI International Botanical Congress, at St. Louis, Missouri August 2-7, 1999. Danin, A., Whanger, A.D., Baruch, U. and Whanger, M. 1999. Flora of the Shroud of Turin. Missouri Botanical Garden Press. 52 pp. Danin, A. 2000. Micro-traces of plants on the Shroud of Turin as geographical markers. In: S. Scannerini, P. Savarino (eds.) The Turin Shroud, past, present and future. Torino, Sindon pp. 495-500. Danin, A. 2000. Il mio incontro con la Sindone. Il Telo 1(2): 14-16 Danin, A., and Baruch, U. 2001. Floristic indicators for the origin of the Shroud of Turin. In A.D.Adler, I. Piczek, and M. Minor (eds.) The Shroud of Turin / Unraveling the Mystery / Proceedings of the 1998 Dallas Symposium, Alexander Books, Alexander, North Carolina p. 202-214. Danin, A. 2001. Floristic indicators for the geographical origin of the Shroud of Turin. In: Second Dallas International Shroud Conference. Dallas, Texas, 25-28 October 2001. Danin, A. 2001. Indicazioni floreali per l’origine geografica della Sindone di Torino. Il Telo II(5-6):12-21.
38	A message to the reader When compiling the present lecture I used photos that served me in lectures that I gave several time on the interesting issue of the Shroud of Turin. I was using plant encoded information and distribution maps of these plants to try and solve one or a few of the questions concerned with this special object. There are thousands of pages written about the Shroud of Turin and naturally I could focus only on my contribution. However, we already wrote several comprehensive articles and a book (Danin et al., 1999), where much of the history of the Shroud is recorded. I thank Prof. Alan Whanger and his wife and devoted collaborator Mary Whanger for including me in their team dealing with the endeavor of researching into the secrets encoded in the Shroud of Turin and waiting for investigation. Alan kindly gave me most-close up photos of the Shroud of Turin presented here. Their organization CSST with the special help of the Niemans enabled most of my research on the Flora of the Shroud of Turin and I take this opportunity to thank them.
39	Reading of a chapter from Isaiah (in Hebrew) at the private display of the Shroud to attendants of a scientific meeting, with Cardinal S. Polleto, the interpreter, Don G. Ghiberti, and A. Danin