Shroud of Turin Blog

Giulio Fanti writes:

. . . In the meantime you can read the attached answer to the comments of Gian Marco Rinaldi that you have already translated and put in your blog (please inform me if you can’t read the attachment).

And be patient because, as I wrote, within few weeks it will appear a paper of mine on a respected scientific journal regarding FT-IR and Raman dating of ancient textiles.

Here is the attachment. It was provided to me by Giulio as an automatic translation of comments he had already written pertaining to the book review written by Gian Marco Rinaldi. I have included it below, having copied the text from an attached Microsoft Word document (docx) and pasting it into the blog. Because of its length, you may need to click on the “Read more” link to see the entire text. (UPDATE: Or you may click on AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION replica rivista Fanti -spedita- QUE for a PDF file that includes the Italian version).

UPDATE 2: Giulio sent along a revised version of the translation after noting some criticism. I have replaced the old one below. I have left the PDF version unchanged.

AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION (With Revisions)

Padua, April 11, 2013

Comments to the article by Gian Marco Rinaldi:

<Shroud: the "alternative dating" by Giulio Fanti>

Author: Giulio Fanti

Tags: alternative dating, Shroud, Gian Marco Rinaldi, systematic effects

Premise

I first thank the editors of Query for giving me the opportunity to clarify a few points below touched by the perhaps too brief article (hereinafter called Article) entitled <Shroud: the "alternative dating" by Giulio Fanti> written by Gian Marco Rinaldi.

I also thank the author for the gratuitous insult "bad science", highlighted in the "Tags". Insult not only directed the work done by Giulio Fanti and his collaborators from other reputable universities, but also at the Ateneo Patavino which funded the research, and indirectly to the prestigious journal that has accepted and will shortly publish an article on chemical dating of ancient fabrics based on Raman spectroscopy and FT-IR.

However, I can forgive the gratuitous insult because probably due to unsuitable interpretations of a text not read in the details and too simplified in the discussion of the scientific issues, since it is addressed to the general public.

It would have been better if the Article was written only after a more careful reading of the data that will be contained in future scientific articles in journals that are not typical of popular books such as "The mystery of the Shroud: The amazing scientific discoveries on the enigma of cloth of Jesus "(Rizzoli, 235 p., € 18) wrote with Saverio Gaeta (hereinafter called the Book). But now I feel compelled to clarify immediately a few points raised by Article, postponing any more detailed discussions after the reading of scientific papers mentioned above.

Systematic effects

The Article contains the following statement "It is announced the forthcoming publication of an article in the scientific journal, but just from now we can doubt the results." This attitude seems to show some prevention against the presented results perhaps because they are not consistent with the thesis that you would like to demonstrate. Of course if you make studies that are goal-oriented towards the target you want to achieve, these studies become subjective and thus of no scientific value. A serious scientist should first objectively analyze the data in his possession and then to venture to make a few comments only after obtaining the corresponding objective results.

The reason given for having to "doubt the results" seems thus explained: "The concerns are inherent in the very nature of the method used.", But is not considered the fact that much of the work done to develop the reliability of alternative dating has focused its exploration of possible systematic effects (later criticized by Article) that could alter the results of mechanical and chemical dating.

In fact, the research at the University of Padua did not concern only these alternative methods of dating but it has also considered other, such as the corresponding systematic effects due to environmental factors. Only these three methods, FT-IR, Raman and Multi-Parametric Mechanical were considered valid to run dating of textile samples that, after suitable measurements based on parallel analyses also of microscopic type, these data resulted reliable, because characterized by uncertainty sufficiently small. The other methods studied were therefore eliminated.

It is also to note that the analysis of environmental effects on textile samples imposes that some of them are not suitable for these methods of dating. Preliminary studies of various details also using visual inspection with an optical microscope can in fact impose to discard a priori various archaeological samples contaminated by environmental factors.

The Article shows rightly that "changes may proceed at different speeds depending on several factors." and it was just the object of this analysis that allowed the preventive identification of these dating methods discarding other methods because too much affected by alterations. It is obvious that any alteration of the properties of the samples may still cause some small deviation of the result, but these changes were considered in the statistical analysis that led to the final uncertainty of the order of the century. These uncertainties can be reduced in the future if we adopt a more appropriate procedure for the selection and cleaning of the samples.

The Article also states that " the degradation of cellulose is not a clock that proceeds at the same velocity (like it is the decay of radiocarbon)." This is true within the limits just discussed, but also I have to add that the radiocarbon method presents various uncertainties and that it is not always reliable especially if it is used with fabrics which may have suffered environmental contamination such as to generate supply of carbon 14.

It is just the case of the Shroud whose double body image imprinted there is still scientifically not explainable nor reproducible. Many hypotheses of image formation is based on intense radiation (radiation in the broad sense as a phenomenon acting at a distance) and I do not think that we can a priori rule out the hypothesis of a possible enrichment of carbon-14 caused by a radiation still not well defined and of natural origin. For example, it is just of a few decades, the discovery of X-rays and gamma collimated associated with the birth of supernovae and ipernovae that penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere and that could have caused both the body image formation and the enrichment of carbon-14 .

In this respect it should be remembered that in flax there is roughly one carbon 14 atom of one million of carbon 12 atoms and that the addition of one carbon 14 atom in the same amount of carbon 12 atoms, maybe coming by a nitrogen atom of the flax hit by a neutron, would change the radiocarbon date of the order of a thousand years. It is therefore advisable to repeat a radiocarbon dating of the Shroud only after finding out clearly what phenomenon could have produced the double image on the Shroud. Here is also explained the importance of developing alternative dating methods that may indicate a more reliable age of the Shroud.

Results

To obtain the results described in the book we have had to first determine the calibration curves linking the various chemical and mechanical properties analyzed to the historical date of the samples, along with the measurement of the corresponding uncertainties. In the Article it is written that "Fanti has procured some antique fabrics from different eras approximately known." It should be noted that the ages are determined on the basis of their assigned uncertainty.

For example, the 11 textiles on the table on p. 98 of the Book, report time intervals more or less extensive depending on the method used for the determination of the corresponding historical epoch. Sample no. 9 (Coptic tissue from the mummy of Fayum, Egypt) was dated in the range between 544 AD and 650 A.D. (Confidence level of 95%) following a radiodating carbon; instead the sample n. 3 (the end of the Old Kingdom Egyptian fabric) has been dated from the Egyptian Museum of Turin in the range from 2700 BC and 2100 BC on the basis of historical and stratigraphic information.

The Article observes, "that the results cover a very wide range, from 300 BC 400 AD," but 700 years of range are really comparable with the 600 years interval assigned to the Egyptian Museum of Turin sample no. 3. So, even now, without the improvements that can be made, the dating methods proposed may be of interest to museums who want to verify the antiquity of textile samples not clearly located in a certain historical period.

In reference to the comment: "Considering the extremes of the confidence intervals, it would range from 700 BC to 800 AD ", the range is now extensive and can be reduced by making improvements to the method proposed, but this range is already a step forward compared to traditional dating performed in museums that rarely consider statistical confidence intervals as it was done in this case.

Precisely for this reason connected to the relatively wide confidence interval, the age of the Shroud was determined by performing an arithmetic average of the results obtained from the three independent alternatives dating. Future technical improvements of the methods, based on the cleanliness of the sample and the method of extraction of flax fibers will reduce the uncertainty assigned to the date of the samples.

In reference to the dating of the Shroud is to observe a surprising result: all three methods, of course, independent of each other, Raman (200 BC ± 500), FT-IR (300 BC ± 400) and Multi-Parametric Mechanical (400 AD ± 400) provide results that are compatible with one another in reference to the level of confidence of 95%. What is curious it is that just the first century AD, which includes the date of the death of Jesus of Nazareth, is the only century common to the three dating.

It then reads: "The dispersion would be even greater for the first series using the original result, it was 752 BC ± 400. "This statement is not completely correct because we cannot speak of dispersion in statistical data (i.e. related to the repeatability and reproducibility) in reference to known systematic effects that are not treatable with the same statistical methods with which have determined the confidence intervals. In fact, the quantity defined systematic effect is used to change the historical date of finding measured.

The Article continues: "This correction is somewhat arbitrary." This statement may be acceptable if we discuss why it was made a correction of 452 years instead of 437 years. Given that the uncertainties involved are of the order of the century, we can add that we have tried to round up the data. The assertion of the Article is not acceptable if we discuss in terms of a wider range of years for systematic effects that were not invented but that are calculated on the basis of experimental data that will be made available to the scientific community.

It is then formulated the following criticism that seems very appropriate: "it is not known at what temperature and for how long the cloth of the Shroud has been heated as a result of the fire." Although it is clear that there are no scientific data on thermal measurements of Chambéry’s fire, you can set some limits. For this reason, as is reported in Paper on p. 99, Stefano Dall’Acqua of the University of Padua has performed several experimental tests in the oven on linen-like Shroud to determine which pairs of time-temperature can cause yellowing greater, equal or less than that detectable on the Shroud. At this point it was not difficult to establish the upper limit of time-temperature which may have undergone the Shroud during the Chambéry fire: 200 ° C for two hours.

The following observation: "It should be noted that, if he made a correction to the first method, Fanti had to make a correction for the third method which with similar heating tests found that they produced an apparent age" of a few centuries " perhaps due to a hasty reading of the Book, deserves further comment. At p. 100 it is explained that the systematic corrections caused by the effect of fire are negligible compared to the uncertainty inherent mechanical method, evaluated over a period of time ranging from more or less 400 years. It is also highlighted in the Book the fact that the effect of the fire was further reduced by the particular position from which they were collected fibers Shroud under analysis.

Instead on p. 90, in the case of FT-IR analysis, with reference to the deviations produced by systematic effects in the case of linens exposed to fire, one speaks of several centuries. These have therefore necessitated a correction of the measured data.

Better not to comment on the accusation, veiled by a "maybe" Article: "Maybe Fanti has decided to rejuvenate the result of the first series, he was too old than the time of Christ, but he chose not to further rejuvenate the result of the third series, 400 AD, because it was already too young. "This statement wrongly suggests that" perhaps " the data have been tampered in order to achieve a certain goal-result. If you wanted to get such a result at the expense of professional ethics, it would not have been required years of hard work aimed at finding the Truth!

The reliability of the methods

The three methods proposed, Manual Multi-parametric, Raman and FT-IR are new and therefore amenable to improvements, especially as regards the cleaning and extraction of the samples, which may reduce the uncertainty in the assessment of the age of the historical samples.

It seems that the Article directly a priori attacks these alternative dating methods labeling them as unreliable, probably forgetting that from a few years there are method based on similar techniques. One example is the dating method of the cellulose of the wood used by the Museum of Art and Science in Milan and described by Gottfried Matthaes that is based on techniques FT-IR (http://www.spectroscopyforart.com/index-ita . htm and http://www.spectroscopyforart.com/DescrizioneMetodo-ita.htm).

They may seem tendentious in the Article the following statements: "… I believe that the results are not reliable, not for any doubts about the origin of the material, but because of the inadequacy of the methods used." "… You can imagine some differences in storage conditions such as a strong bleaching process, and the Shroud had stories more lively. " "We have also a more concrete reason to think that the fibers of the Shroud used by Fanti were in poor condition." "These uncertainties mean that the methods used by Fanti are inherently unreliable."

Indeed, as has already been said, much of the research on alternative methods of dating has not only focused attention on the search for possible correlations between certain chemical and mechanical properties with the corresponding date of the historical sample considered, but also it centered attention on the possible effects of various environmental contamination such as temperature, humidity, the mechanical and chemical action that suffered the sample during the centuries and the presence of impurities of various kinds both organic and inorganic. It is therefore not true to say in the Article: "Fanti says that he has conducted tests to assess the" systematic effects "of various factors, but in practice he has only made the correction that we saw for the first series.". These are the corrections that have been explicitly mentioned in the informative text, but the literature that will followed it, will best describe these systematic effects.

Conclusion

The international scientific community, accepting the first work on the subject of alternative dating of plant tissues, seems to enjoy a lot of these new methods proposed, but the Article seems in the opposite direction and has to be over with statements that do not seem very scientific, "So with these methods if you get a date in contrast with other knowledge, must doubt the result. "

In this case, the only result seems to be in reference on the radiocarbon dating of 1988 (Nature, http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm) that finally declared a medieval date the Shroud; incidentally "conclusive evidence" reported in the conclusions of the article by Nature does not seem suitable to the scientific statement because it does not seem to leave room for possible future research.

The result in 1988 was challenged by different perspectives also of methodological type recently published an article by robust statistics on magazine (Statistics and Computing http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007% 2Fs11222-012-9329 -5 # page-1) that has cast severe doubts on medieval dating of the Shroud because statistically unreliable.

Based on dubious and lacking justifications it seems the Article reference to the statement: " We have two reasons to think that the fabric of the Shroud was made around 1300 they are the radiocarbon dating and the historical fact of his first appearance. On the other hand, we have no reason to suggest that the Shroud is the first century. "

Since the Article with this statement comes from the strict experimental science I feel entitled to embrace other fields of knowledge in commenting on this statement that perhaps deliberately ignores the results of several studies also published in the book.

Apart from the dating results Raman, FT-IR and mechanical multi-parametric the Article defines as "unreliable … the inadequacy of the methods used" and the historical references from the early centuries AD, also mentioned in the Book. There are several indications that the Shroud is prior to 1300.

For example, we must not forget the texture of the Shroud extremely valuable to "herringbone", but performed on a hand loom with obvious defects and jump stop and wires of varying thickness even more than the 50% obtained manually because in ancient times. In agreement with the biblical book of Exodus, the Shroud’s threads have a twist "Z" instead of the more common twisting "S" because addressed to high-ranking religious person.

We must not forget the full compatibility between what is observed on the Shroud and what we read in the Gospels that was not easy to be played by a Medieval artist; for example lacerated and contused wounds caused by the scourge marks are not easy to explain to this day. That’s why famous scientists such as Eberhard Lindner did not hesitate to appoint "scientific Gospel" the Shroud.

From the early centuries A.D. the iconography of Christ takes typical features of the Shroud face that would not explain except in reference to artists who have not had the opportunity to observe the Shroud. The book adds some interesting detail: for example, we recently found a gold Byzantine (Solidus of Justinian II, the period) of the seventh century AD, depicting the face of Jesus Christ, with interesting additional details (-a: crooked nose because the cartilage fractured as a result of a stick;-b: long hair asymmetrical like"payot", i.e. the side curls Orthodox Jews) that reflect the particular characteristics of the Shroud face.

It seems rather absurd to think of a hypothetical medieval artist who was able to play a double body image that up now cannot be explained, especially in the microscopic details, and he was also aware of many details of Christ’s face unknown in the Middle Ages, but showed in coins and icons of the early centuries AD, only came to light in modern times.

At this point even applying Occam’s Razor, from numerous knowledge about the Shroud, the most likely hypothesis is that the most important relic of Christianity has really wrapped the body of Jesus Christ, bringing impressed his unique "photography ".

PDF Version with Italian Version Included: AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION replica rivista Fanti -spedita- QUE

He writes by way of a comment to When it Comes to the Shroud of Turin, Has Peer Review Lost its Luster?, a prior posting in this blog:

As I write as a historian for two university presses (OUP and Yale University Press), I am always subject to peer review, on my proposals themselves, on my drafts and on my final versions. I am also asked to comment, as probably one of three ‘reviewers’, on proposals sent in. In the vast majority of cases I see the peer reviews on my own work although they remain strictly anonymous and often i am able to clear up points reviewers have disagreed with to the satisfaction of my editor (who makes the final decision on publication as with most academic journals). It is a system that works well.

I am not a scientist but there does seem to be a genuine problem, accepted by many contributors to this site, relating to the provenance of samples from the Shroud. I leave it to others to comment but I am always amazed that Ray Rogers’ work on the 1988 samples is described as ‘peer-reviewed’ when he fails to provide any supporting evidence that the fibres he used were genuinely those cut off by Gonella. He suggests that they have not come to him directly so there is every possibility that they might not be the originals or have been contaminated on the way. There is even talk on this site of an intermediary who passed on materials. So who are the ‘peers’ who considered Rogers’ paper acceptable? Was he able to provide them with further evidence he chose not to publish publicly that convinced them of the authenticity of his fibres?

On a separate note, it would seem important to know where these fibres are now, following Rogers’ death. Who actually owns them? Is anyone authorised to pass them on to an independent laboratory specialising in textiles to see if Rogers’ findings might be replicated?

This posting is derived from the first two comments of a previous posting:

Gian Marco Rinaldi has written a critical review of the third chapter of Giulio Fanti’s book. This chapter deals with the new dating methods he employed. The review is in Italian.

Hugh Farey has provided a very useful translation of the above mentioned review into English (with software assistance and editing).

Hugh writes:

Gian Marco’s review is comprehensive and detailed, and I hope he will not mind my presenting a translation of some important passages below. I started with Google Translate, and carefully worked my way through re-interpreting anything that was literally non-sense. I notice that Dan often uses Bing. Does anybody have any reason why one is better than the other. Google has a tendency simply to ignore negatives, I find, which can completely alter the sense of a passage, which Bing comes up with weird and whimsical idiomatic translations of passages which don’t require it.

Anyway, here goes:

After a quick summary of what the book is and its reception, Gian Marco says..

* * * Review Begins Below the Line * * *

In fabric over time the cellulose in the fibers is altered and degrades. The more time that passes, the greater the alteration. By measuring, in a fabric of unknown age, some parameter that is related to the degree of alteration, and comparing it with the values of the same parameter in ancient fabrics of known ages, the age of the unknown tissue can, in principle, be estimated. This would work if it were not that alterations may proceed at different speeds depending on several factors. In short, the degradation of cellulose is not a clock that always ticks at the same rate (as it is does with the decay of radiocarbon). To take a trivial example, if I meet someone and observe her dress, I can try to figure out if the dress is new or old, looking more or less if it is worn, torn, faded or crumpled. But I can not correctly estimate the age if I do not take into account various other factors such as the quality of the fabric, the conditions in which it was stored and how and how much was used.

The new results.

Fanti has obtained some antique fabrics from different eras of approximately known date. He conducted three sets of measurements using three different methods. In the first and second series he measured certain alterations of cellulose using spectroscopic methods – Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. For spectroscopic analyses Fanti turned to two more professors, Anna Tinti of Bologna and Pietro Baraldi of Modena. In the third series he measured a set of mechanical parameters, for example the behavior of fibers under tension and the breaking load (with the assistance of a doctoral student, Pierandrea Malfi).

In each series, from measurements on samples of known age, Fanti has constructed a calibration curve, which represents how the trend varies with age. Then he measured the same parameters on the Shroud and derived an estimate of its age by making a comparison with the calibration curve.

Fanti says that he has not found in the literature similar calibration curves for these three methods, and supposes that they have been introduced by him for the first time.

There were nine ancient fabrics used in compiling the calibration curves, with ages from 3000 BC to 1000 AD. Five were from Egypt, three from Israel and one from Peru. He also used two modern fabrics of recent manufacture.

The confidence intervals at 95% for the origin of the fabric of the shroud with the three methods were respectively: 300 BC ± 400 and 200 BC ± 500, 400 AD ± 400. Averaging these values, Fanti arrived at a final result to 33 BC ± 250 and is satisfied that this interval includes the time of Christ.

We see that the three results cover a very wide range, from 300 BC to 400 AD. Considering the bounds of the intervals of confidence, the dates extend further, from 700 BC to 800 AD.

The dispersion would be even greater if Fanti had used his original result for the first series, which was 752 BC ± 400. However here Fanti has made a correction, trying to take into account the effects of the fire of 1532 in which the Shroud was involved, and moved the date from 752 BC to 300 BC. This is based on measurements made on a recent piece of fabric which has been subjected to heating. This correction is somewhat arbitrary. On the one hand it is not known at what temperature and for how long the cloth of the Shroud has been heated by the fire. On the other hand the effects on a new fabric manufactured using modern technology may be different from the effects on the Shroud, also taking into account that the damage triggered by the fire may have worsened over the centuries.

It should be noted that, as he made a correction for the first method, Fanti should also have made a correction for the third method, as results from similar heating tests of modern materials produced an apparent aging “of a few centuries” using this method. However it seems that Fanti decided to rejuvenate the result of the first series, whose original results came out too old, but preferred not to do the same to the third series, whose original results came out too young.

All tests were conducted on individual fibers of flax. These are the ‘elementary’ fibers which make up the threads. The fibers are thin and have a diameter of about 10 or 20 micrometers (thousandths of a millimeter). Thread is manufactured by the twisting together of fibers in the spinning process. Any section of thread may contain a hundred or so fibres.

There is no guarantee that the methods are reliable

The factors that affect the apparent aging of a fabric are variable in nature. We can cite the light, the conditions of temperature and humidity, the presence of dust, exposure to various chemical agents, and mechanical stresses. Also factors that seem insignificant can accumulate a significant effect if continuing for centuries. For example, a linen fabric which is folded can produce damage to the fibers in the bends (which is why today the Shroud is kept fully extended to prevent further damage). In general, the processes of degradation can be very slow and are not easily simulated with laboratory experiments.

Hypothetically, you can imagine some differences in the conditions of preservation of the Shroud compared to other fabrics. The weather conditions, temperature and humidity, were different in Europe from in Egypt or Israel. In particular, moisture is harmful to fabrics and the Egyptian climate is probably drier than the French or Piedmontese. The methods of processing flax in Europe in the 14th century may have been different from those of ancient Egypt, such as the bleaching process. The comparison fabrics probably rested for centuries in a tomb and then remained in the warehouses of a museum, while the Shroud has had a much more lively history, especially in the early days. It was transported here and there, both before and after the transition to the Savoy. It was folded and unfolded, and later rolled up on a tight cylinder and unrolled. It was involved in a fire. It was mended. It was exposed to light outdoors, and to the fumes of incense or candles or torches. Perhaps it was brushed to clean it.

Also there may have been unknown episodes in the history of the Shroud, especially in the period before 1500, which have had a measurable effect today.

Fanti says he has conducted tests to assess the “systematic effects” of various factors, but in practice he has only made the correction that we saw for the first series.

These uncertainties mean that the methods used by Fanti are inherently unreliable because it can not be excluded that there were influences of factors known or unknown, with effects difficult to assess. So, if his methods result in a date that differs from that obtained in other ways, it is necessary to doubt the result. We have two reasons to think that the fabric of the Shroud was manufactured around 1300, the radiocarbon dating and the historical fact of its first appearance. On the other hand, we have no reason to suggest that the Shroud is from the first century. The only “evidence” of antiquity adduced by Shroudologists is in the (non-existent) fingerprints of two coins of Pontius Pilate!

However, there is a more concrete reason to think that the fibers of the Shroud used by Fanti were unsuitable for testing.

In two television interviews, Fanti was shown withdrawing a fiber from a piece of fabric. He separated out a thread and pulled out a fiber with tweezers. But this is not the way in which he got the fibers of the Shroud. He did not have a piece of fabric, or even pieces of intact thread. He used a dust collection made by Giovanni Riggi di Numana in 1978.

It should be noted that from 1534 to 2002 the cloth of the Shroud was continuously fastened with stitching to another linen cloth for support. In 1978 Riggi unstitched some sections on the edges and stuck in the cavity a vacuum cleaner with which he collected dust in cotton filters interposed along the tube outlet. Years later, some of these filters were made available to Fanti. From these filters, in particular the one designated as “h”, Fanti took the material for his analysis.

Together with dust of various kinds were also fragments of fibers of the shroud, in addition to flax fibers of the support fabric, cotton fibers from the filters and possibly other fibers of uncertain origin.

We can assume that any fibers of the Shroud collected from the vacuum extractor had deteriorated more than the fibers still enclosed in the threads. Fibers have, in the course of time, detached from the back of the Shroud and become trapped inside the cavity between the cloths, but those that have would be either weaker or more damaged than those which remained in the threads. For example they could be fibers that originally came from areas of stitching or burning or soaking in water or any other places that had suffered damage for some reason.

In addition to the fibers that had already become detached in the past, Riggi’s vacuum cleaner could have detached others while it was working, and those fibres, too, would be weaker or more damaged than those which remained. Fanti’s material is thus shown to be unrepresentative in being particularly deteriorated, so it is no wonder that the age he calculated is more apparent than real.

In a 2008 article Fanti showed photographs of many fibers collected by filters of which he had already come into possession, including those from filter “h”. We saw that the fibers were very short, averaging about a millimeter. Usually linen fibers are somewhat longer. So those used by Fanti were small fragments derived from the breakage of fibers which were already integrally fragile. In his book Fanti does not say how long the fibers from his comparison tissues were, but he may provide more detail in a future publication.

After they were collected in 1978, the fibers remained on the filters for several years, together with the rest of the dust and dirt sucked in. The individual fibers were exposed to dust on all sides.

Earlier than 2008, fibers were collected from Fanti’s filters using adhesive tape. Photographs were obtained showing the fibers on the tape. Fanti does not say if these fibres were used for his present experiments, but if they were they had remained in contact with the glue for a time of perhaps several years and then a solvent may have been used to remove them from it. We hope to find more information on these procedures when Fanti’s next article appears.

However they were obtained, Fanti then observed them at length under a microscope. The aim was to separate the flax fibers from the Shroud from those coming from the cloth support or from those of cotton or other origin. Looking into the microscope, Fanti says, he was able to distinguish the fibers of the Shroud not only from those of other material, but also from the linen fibers of the fabric support. For observation under the microscope, the fiber must be illuminated and, if it is not on a tape, somehow manipulated.

In short, the Shroud material used for the experiments was not the most fortunate. In his book Fanti makes no secret that the fibers of the Shroud which he used come from Riggi’s filters but does not comment on the risks implicit in the fact that these fibers have had a more complicated history than those freshly extracted from other fabrics containing intact threads. We can only note Fanti’s own words concerning the third method, the mechanical one, with reference to his experiments on the comparison fibres. (p. 85):

“In some cases, in fact, fibers taken from particular parts of a thread which had been more exposed to the environment and mechanical actions such as rubbing, showed a structural weakening, due to probable microcracks, which sometimes lead the mechanical method to result in dates with amplitude shifts of up to a thousand years.” Such is the true accuracy of this method. Two fibers taken from the same thread can produce dating with a difference of a thousand years. Fanti continues:

“To avoid incurring similar problems of measurement, the fibers used to perform the mechanical tests – and thus the determination of the curves of dating – were taken from their fabric in a similar way to those used to pick up the fibers from the Shroud.”

I do not know if Fanti means that he extracted fibers from his comparison fabrics with a vacuum cleaner, at least for the third series, but in any case he could not select the fibers that had separated in time from the points of greatest wear and tear that had built up for centuries.…

For my part, I think that there is no reason to doubt that the material used by Fanti really comes from the filters of the vacuum cleaner used by Riggi in 1978. It is known that Riggi kept the filters and later on several occasions had bestowed portions of the material to others. Today Riggi is gone, but I do not think that Fanti has made false declarations about the origin of the fibers examined by him.

I would also add that I can not know if Fanti has correctly identified the fibers of the Shroud, distinguishing them from other fibers collected from the extractor, such as those of cloth or filter support, but that would be material of a more recent age than the Shroud itself and not could provide a dating at the time of Christ. In short, I believe that the results are unreliable, not for any doubts about the origin of the material, but for the inadequacy of the methods used.

This is copied from a PDF file, “Official Statement from the International Centre of Sindonology” in English, Spanish and Italian. It resides at www.shroud.com and may be found from Late Breaking News. (The picture is not part of the file):

Referring to the news about the release of the volume “The Mistery of the Shroud” by Rizzoli, written by Giulio Fanti and Saverio Gaeta, supposedly dealing with research carried out on Shroud material, the International Centre of Sindonology has expressed reservations about the approach of the book to the theme. According to the International Centre of Sindonology, the volume has approached the subject through the analysis of some cloth samples which can not be proved to belong to the Shroud fabric as they can not be traced.

As far as this is concerned, the International Centre of Sindonology refers to the official statements about the “experiments and analysis concerning the Holy Shroud” made when analogous research was attempted on material supposedly belonging to the Shroud. Those statements were made on behalf of the Holy See, owner of the Shroud, by Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini in September 1995 and Cardinal Severino Poletto on 4th May 2009, “Papal Custodians of the Holy Shroud”.

Turin, September 1995

More and more reports are being published about experiments carried out on Shroud
material aiming to check the results of the tests conducted with the Carbon 14 method in
the summer of 1988. This purpose may be legitimate, and the Church recognizes to every
scientist the right to carry out appropriate research in their field of science. However,
given the circumstances, it is necessary to point out that:

a) no new sample of material has been taken from the Holy Shroud since 21st April 1988,
and according to the Holy See and the Custodian of the Holy Shroud it is highly unlikely
that a third party may be in possession of any residual material from that sample;

b) if such material exists, the Custodian reminds everybody that the Holy See has not
given its permission to anybody to keep it and use it and he therefore demands to give it
back to the Holy See;

c) it is not possible to know with any degree of certainty whether or not such experiments
were carried out on material coming from the fabric of the Shroud. Therefore, the Holy
See and the Papal Custodian declare that no serious value can be recognized to the
results of those alleged experiments;

d) this is evidently not the case of the research carried out on material taken for the tests
in October 1978 and following the explicit authorization of the Papal Custodian;

e) within the climate of mutual trust established with scientists, the Holy See and the
Cardinal Archbishop of Turin encourage scientists to be patient until a clear and
systematically planned research programme is arranged.

Giovanni Card. Saldarini
Archbishop of Turin

And there is this, too: Official statement of the Papal Custodian of the Holy Shroud, Mons. Cesare Nosiglia in English, Spanish and Italian.

Over at NPR, Alva Noe asks and answers, Do We Know How Life Began? Not Really, and quotes Peter Godfrey Smith’s review over at the London Review of Books of Thomas Nagel’s recent book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.

Got that? It doesn’t matter; just read the quote or click for more::

How did life first happen? How did it begin? We don’t know. As Peter Godfrey Smith puts it, in his elegant review of Thomas Nagel’s recent book: "We still know very little about how life began, and it is hard to assess whether this problem will eventually yield to ‘normal science’ or whether a more dramatic innovation is needed."

The philosophical implications are there. Imagine a new age of reason when ‘normal science’, like mythology before it, is replaced by something even more dramatic. Quantum? What?

Is the ‘dramatic innovation’ the proper domain of the Shroud?