COLUMBUS - Carbon-dating tests that determined the Shroud of Turin isn't old enough to be the burial cloth of Jesus are flawed because some of the tests were done on patches of the original material, two researchers say.

        Patches woven into the shroud's fabric were created in the 16th century by a weaving technique that made them impossible to see, said Joseph Marino and M. Sue Benford, of suburban Dublin.

        The patches altered carbon-dating testing in 1988, and the original material could date to the first century, they said.

        The researchers hope their theory — first presented at an international gathering of shroud researchers two years ago — will provoke more research on the shroud.

        They say the theory is gaining attention now that Ray Rogers, one of the original scientists to study the shroud, has done his own tests and agrees with their theory.

        At least one other shroud researcher says the theory shows some promise.

        “I'm really attracted to it,” said Daniel Scavone, a professor emeritus of history at University of Southern Indiana who served on a committee of the international conference.

        The shroud is a strip of linen 13 feet long and three feet wide marked by an image of a man, which believers say was left by Jesus' body when he was taken off the cross.

        Housed in a Turin, Italy cathedral, the shroud has been shown to the public for limited periods. More than 1 million visitors viewed it in 2000, the last public showing.

        Ms. Benford said she first learned of the shroud in 1997 and started studying the possibility of patches on a hunch.

        “It was one of those "Aha!' moments,” said Ms. Benford, also the director of a nonprofit research organization that studies humane uses of animals in scientific research.

        She contacted Mr. Marino, a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest who's studied the shroud since 1977, and they began to research the idea together.

        They determined that a patch made by invisible weaving, a technique to splice fabric together and make a seam unnoticeable to the eye, could have been in part of the shroud used during the carbon tests. The tests showed that the flax in the linen was harvested between 1260 and 1390. The patch probably was used to mend unraveling edges, Ms. Benford said.

        Mr. Marino and Mr. Benford presented their theory at the Worldwide Congress Sindone 2000 in Orvieto, Italy, where Mr. Rogers heard the presentation.

        Mr. Rogers — a former scientist for Los Alamos National Laboratory and part of a group of Americans who conducted the first scientific study of the shroud in 1978 — spent more than a year testing the hypothesis by studying samples he had taken from the shroud in 1978, Mr. Benford said.

        Mr. Rogers said he was skeptical at first but now thinks the hypothesis is credible.

        “When I saw their original report, I thought that their hypothesis was unlikely, but it could be tested with the (thread) samples I had archived ... This motivated me to look at the old samples again,” Mr. Rogers said. “I was amazed to find that I had to agree with them.”

        Though other researchers had questioned whether the shroud has newer threads woven into it, this is the first theory that's been tested, said Mr. Marino, who works in the library at Ohio State University.

        The shroud is undergoing more tests, but it's not clear what is being studied.

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