Bruno Latour begins his work Iconoclash with a description of Italian firemen risking their lives to break the glass protecting the Shroud of Turin so that they could rescue it from the flames as the cathedral burned.  The image on this cloth has fascinated people for millenia.  It has been an object of devotion, declared an object of veneration by the Pope, and an object studied intensely by scientists in an attempt to determine its age and its origins.  To enhance our understanding of the possible meaning of this image for humankind, I invite you to read the Wikipedia article on the Shroud of Turin:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin.