Forensic experts detail piercing wounds, lacerations, bruises, contusions, and abrasions
Forensic experts indicate that the body images show medically realistic details of piercing wounds, lacerations, bruises, contusions, and abrasions that are medically accurate.
The mans arms are modestly folded at the wrists. On the arms can be seen rivulets of blood. On the mans chest, between the fifth and sixth ribs, is an elliptical gash from which the blood flowed under the mans lower back.
Wounds where the man was nailed to the cross are very clear.
The details are so accurate that medical experts realize they demonstrate a knowledge of pathology that was not understood in the medieval era; not by artists, not by crafters of fake relics, and not by the best medical minds of that age. It remains a mystery how such medically-accurate detail, in both the front and back images, have been imprinted on the cloth.
There are dozens of dumbbell shaped welts and contusions. The patterns, shapes and size of the wounds are consistent with a Roman flagrum, a whip of short leather thongs tipped with bits of lead, bronze or bone which tear into flesh and muscle.
There is blood, presumably from the flagellation, and even a bit of tissue thought by medical experts to be a torn-out bit of muscle.
The angles of attack -- the way the marks fall on the mans back, buttocks, and legs -- suggests that the man was whipped by two men, one taller than the other who stood on either side of the victim.
The man may have been forced to wear a crown of thorns. That seems a logical explanation for the numerous puncture wounds about the top of his head. From the wounds and drops of blood, it seems to have been a rough bunch of thorns, or a cap of thorns, and not a wreath shaped crown of thorns so common in artistic depictions.
There are details on the shroud that suggest falling and non-whipping beating: a severally bruised left kneecap, a dislocated or possibly broken nasal cartilage, a large swelling around the right eye socket and cheekbone.
There is the puzzling fact that there are significant abrasions on both shoulders. On the shoulders, welts from the apparent scourging are abraded as if rubbed over. It has been suggested that this is from carrying the patibulum, the crossbeam of the cross.
