A Scientist in Turin claimed on 10-04-98 that he identified the Jesus's blood group as AB after tests on the Turin Shroud. Pierluigi Baima Ballone, Professor of Forensic Medicine said the blood tests were revealed in his book. The Shroud: The Proof (Sindone: La Prova) was to be published the following week.

The Photographic negatives of the cloth in 1898 revealed the image of a man bearing the marks of crucifixion. Carbon dating tests carried out in 1988 showed that the cloth was dated from 13th or 14th centuries.

The Pope has described it as "an object worthy of veneration" but has stopped short of declaring it genuine. The shroud goes on show until June 14th 1998 in Turin Cathedral. It is a length of yellowing ancient linen measuring just over 14ft by 4ft and made of fine tightly woven herringbone twill. It bears scorch marks of several fires, notably one at Chambery in southern France in 1532.

The "Shroud of Jesus" first recorded as the property of the family of Goffredo de Charny, a Crusader knight, from whom it passed to Savoy family and subsequently the Italian royal dynasty in 1578. It was kept in the Guarini Chapel of Turin Cathedral for 300 years in a silver casket dating from 1694.

It was in 1898 in the age of Victorian science, that "proof" appeared: a lawyer from Asti, Secondo Pia, who was an early amateur photographer, was allowed to photograph the sacred cloth for that years Universal Exhibition. Pia was staggered to find that when he developed the picture, the negatives revealed the image of a man 5ft 10in tall, with marks of crucifixion on his hands and feet, a wound in his side, and bruises and cuts on his face and body.

Fire once again nearly destroyed it exactly a year ago. The fire broke out just before midnight on April 11th 1997, as a two year restoration of the Guarini Chapel was nearing completion. A state dinner was in full swing next door in honour of Kofi Anan, The UN General secretary. There were food warmers, generators, spotlights and heaters amid the tangle of scaffolding and electricity cables.

Whatever caused the fire, it spread rapidly from the Palace to the Cathedral, and the chapel was engulfed in flames. A fireman called Mario Trematore earned national fame by unhesitatingly running through the flames and smashing the bulletproof glass protecting the silver casket with a pickaxe.

"The force was in the cloth" he said afterwards - a remarkable statement from a man who according to friends, is matter of fact. "God gave me strength to save the holy shroud." The casket and its precious contents emerged from the smoke and flames in front of 3000 weeping spectators, including Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini the present Archbishop and its official custodian.

Pier Luigi Ballone, a professor of forensic medicine and Nello Balosino, a professor of computer science, say they have detected the faint impression of on the cloth of a Roman coin they say bear the letters TIB and CAI for Tiberius Caesar, and LIS: L for year 1 for 10 and S for six - the 16th year of Tiberius’s reign or AD29 by modern reckoning, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea.

Professor Balossino has compared the coin with Palestinian coinage of the same period in the British Museum, and points out that it was common Hebrew practice to place coins on or near the eyes after death.

According to Maria Grazia Siliato an archaeologist who published a book on the shroud last year, there is barely detectable Greco-Latin writing round the face reading "Jesus, the Nazarene".

Don Guiseppe Ghiberti, deputy head of the Turin Commission for the Display of the Shroud says the shroud not only shows the likeness of the man who was wrapped in it, it also shows marks of blood on the forearms and around the waist, with evidence of 50 blows.

He deduces that there were two flagellators one on the right and one on the left with orders to hit the man on all parts of the body except near the heart. The cuts and scratches on the forehead and nape make one think of the crown of thorns on Jesus’s head. There is also evidence of bruising on the shoulders from carrying the crossbar.