This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The Shroud of Turin, a mysterious linen cloth with a haunting image of a crucified man, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus, is a 2,000-year-old relic, a new study reveals.

That would make it possible that it is such a significant relic, contrary to other studies that have dated it hundreds of years newer.

A report from Newsweek said the journal Heritage has published a study by Italian researchers that ascribed the two-millennia-old age to the cloth.

"The Shroud, which has long been the subject of intense scrutiny, features a faint image of man that some believe is the body of Jesus miraculously imprinted onto the cloth. While the latest study does not discuss the question of whether or not the artifact was indeed Jesus' burial shroud, the authors did find that its age is roughly consistent with his time," the report explained.

A radiocarbon study done in the 1980s suggested the linen dates to the 1200s or 1300s A.D., which would be about the time of the artifact's first appearance in France, the report said.

But experts who worked on the study outlined by Heritage said the tests might have been flawed due to contamination of the tested material.

The report explained the newest details: "Such arguments revolving the contamination hypothesis have previously been challenged as well. In the Heritage study, lead researcher Liberato De Caro, from the Institute of Crystallography in Italy, and colleagues employed a novel method for dating ancient linen threads by inspecting their structural degradations using a technique known as Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering. This was applied to a small sample from the Shroud, which currently resides in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy."

The study said the results showed the cloth was "compatible" with results from other linens dating to about 55-74 A.D.

The report said since the results differ from the conclusions of earlier carbon-dating, more tests are needed.

WND columnist Jerry Newcombe this year reported on the cloth, 14 feet by 3 feet, that "contains the image of a man who was badly scourged, was crucified, wore a crown of thorns and was stabbed in the chest with a Roman lance. Of course, all of these wounds fit what the Bible says happened to Jesus. Is the Shroud of Turin Jesus' actual 'clean linen shroud' given to Him in death by Joseph of Arimathea?"

He reported at the time experts, like the late Alan Whanger, M.D., of Duke Medical Center, confirmed the Shroud is "the most intensely studied single object in existence. There are probably 67 different fields of scientific and academic interests that have looked into the Shroud in one way in another."

Further, he confirmed it is scientific proof "something so extraordinary happened that there doesn't seem to be anything else in human history that would fit."

Newcombe also reported on a challenge:

"British filmmaker David Rolfe issued a million-dollar challenge: Make an accurate replica with the means available to a supposed Medieval forger, and you can win a million dollars."

The deadline for that challenge already has passed.

It was The Shroud of Turin Research Project that already has confirmed the image "is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist."

Further, the image is a photographic negative, 500 years before photography was developed.

Also, WND reported several years back that a researcher explained how the Carbon-14 dating used on the linen was faulty. The testing apparently used material that was used to repair the Shroud after a fire in the 16th century.

Those who suggest it is Jesus' burial cloth have explained the image was embedded into the fibers by a process that has not yet been explained, possibly a surge of energy.

Matthew 27:57-60 records: "When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed."

The Shroud is a sepia-colored cloth woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils with the front and the back image of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin.

Other researchers have said there are bloodstains that came from someone who was suffering extreme injury and pain.