Plant DNA Found on the Shroud of Turin Points to Centuries of Contamination, Study Suggests

ROME — A new genetic study has identified traces of DNA from a wide range of food plants on the Shroud of Turin, the linen cloth that some Christians venerate as the burial shroud of Jesus. The findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the artifact has been extensively handled and exposed to diverse environments over the centuries.

The research, posted in March 2026 as a preprint on the scientific platform bioRxiv, was conducted by an international team led by Gianni Barcaccia, a geneticist at the University of Padua in Italy. Using metagenomic techniques, the researchers analyzed microscopic biological material collected from dust and fibers sampled from the cloth in 1978.

They detected fragments of DNA from more than a dozen plant species. Carrot (Daucus carota) DNA was the most prominent signal, followed by wheat (Triticum aestivum). The team also identified genetic traces of crops such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts and bananas, as well as fruits including almonds and citrus.

Some of these plants are native to the Americas and were introduced to Europe only after the late 15th century, a detail that researchers say points to relatively recent contamination. The diversity of biological material, they argue, reflects the cloth’s long history of human contact, environmental exposure and movement across regions.

“Our findings reveal a complex biological record shaped by centuries of interactions with people and ecosystems,” the authors wrote in their report.

The study does not attempt to determine the age or authenticity of the shroud. The authors emphasized that metagenomic analysis cannot establish whether the cloth dates to the first century or to the Middle Ages, nor can it isolate original biological traces from later contamination.

The Shroud of Turin has been the subject of intense scientific and religious debate for decades. Radiocarbon testing conducted in 1988 by three independent laboratories concluded that the cloth dates to between 1260 and 1390, placing its origin in the medieval period. That conclusion has been widely accepted among many historians and scientists, though it has been challenged by some subsequent studies using alternative methods.

The new DNA analysis, still awaiting peer review, reinforces a central difficulty in studying the artifact: its long and complex history has likely introduced layers of biological material that obscure any original signals.

For many scholars, the findings underscore the likelihood that the shroud is a product of the medieval era, while for believers, it remains an object of faith whose significance extends beyond scientific verification. []