Traces of possible Byzantine coins have been found on the Holy Shroud of Turin pushing back a 1988 carbon dating of the relic to the fourteenth century, according to Padua university and US researchers in a new study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage. The date-changing discovery was presented at the Conference on the Holy Shroud in Canada.

The study led by Giulio Fanti and Claudio Furlan detected electron, a rare and ancient alloy of gold and silver with traces of copper. At the same time, the study examined the percentage of these elements in Byzantine coins of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and found a "full correlation", the researchers said. Therefore, contamination of the linen with the elements in the coins was hypothesised by Fanti.