In preparing her now often-cited study, archaeologist Eugenia Nitowski relied on her knowledge of image formation. She knew that "temperature can mean quite a bit" in creating the right conditions for an image transfer from a human body onto a piece of cloth. She said she purchased four 14-foot lengths of fine linen cloth from Belgium with a herringbone weave that mimicked the shroud.

She then prepared a medical mannequin using boiling water infused with chemicals present at death ("bloody sweat" featuring AB negative blood) and poured it inside to mimic the heat-stroke conditions she believes were present in Jesus before death (body temperature up to 108 degrees) and the post-mortem "fever" that can raise body temperature another 1 to 11 degrees.

The mannequin was wrapped in the linen cloth and placed in the tomb four different times, she said, using four different body temperatures from 110 to 115 degrees.

The mannequin was then placed in the tomb and left for 30.5 hours. The interaction of the "body" and its accompanying heat and chemicals with the alkaline limestone rock created something of an alkaline "fizz" that acted on the cellulose of the shroud fibers to create "something like a mild scorch," Nitowski said. The technical term is "mercerization."

Researchers also placed first-century coins over the "eyes" of the mannequin, she said, the same thing some believe happened with the body that was covered by the shroud. The conditions created a transfer of the coin image onto the linen shroud, she said, along with an image that included a head, body, the side of one foot and an ankle.

Nitowski said the experiments showed it is possible that "a real human body in a real tomb under the same circumstances of death of Jesus Christ will create an image on cloth" as moist limestone particles adhered to the cloth and were heated by the relatively high temperature of the crucified body. Though what Nitowski said she saw and videotaped during her two-week tomb experiments didn't result in an image nearly as detailed as the Shroud of Turin, she said her findings were detailed in a report for Cardinal Ballestrero, Archbishop of Turin.

The work inside the tomb also involved the chemical composition of limestone dust that Nitowski said is found in tombs near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, and was found not only in her work but on the shroud itself.