What are the Poker Holes and why are they significant?
In
1532, the Shroud was almost destroyed by a fire in a church in the
French town of Chambéry. There are many scorch marks and large burn
holes in the fabric. But there are some other burns that are not from
that fire. These existed on the cloth before 1532.
How do we know the Poker Holes existed
before 1532?
The holes are arranged in four L-shaped patterns of four holes each. They are often called poker holes because of speculation that they may have been caused by someone thrusting a hot poker into the cloth as some sort of ordeal by fire. There is no basis whatsoever for imagining that this is how the holes were made. It is more likely that the burn holes were caused by spilled burning incense, oil from an oil lamp or embers from a brazier.
The
poker holes are very significant because they are clearly drawn into an
illustration in a document known as the Hungarian Pray
Codex. This
document dates to 1192, while the Image of Edessa was still in
Constantinople; to a time before the earliest possible date determined
by carbon dating.
See: Illustration from the Pray Codex