'The Real Face Of Jesus'

London, March 31 (ANI): Using the latest 3-D computer technology, a team of digital artists has created what they claim is the real face of Jesus - and he's nothing like the man depicted in Renaissance paintings.

The image of Christ was made using the Shroud of Turin, the linen sheet believed to have been laid on the body of Jesus in his tomb.

Months of painstaking work went into the reconstruction, which is the first of its kind.

The results were recorded by The History Channel for a two-part documentary, The Real Face Of Jesus, broadcast this week.

"If you want to recreate the face of Jesus and you want to get the actual face of Jesus, you only have one object and that's the shroud," the Telegraph quoted Ray Downing, lead artist on the project, s saying.

"I have a lot of information about that face and my estimation is we're pretty darn close to what this man looked like," Downing added.

Downing said that the face they have created looks very different from the image on the Shroud because it has been transformed from 2-D to 3-D.

"The shroud wasn't hanging on the wall - it was wrapping a corpse. The face is hidden in there. By imitating those distortions we could take the image and put it back into shape and figure out what the face looked like. It gave us a blueprint," he said.

The Shroud of Turin itself has been a subject of debate.

In 1988, carbon dating tests appeared to show that the material dated back to between 1260 and 1390, suggesting that it was a medieval forgery.

The relic is going on display at Turin Cathedral in Italy next month. (ANI)