Archive
Dog in this fight or pony in this race?
Because of Colin’s most recent comments about Rogers, bordering on conspiracy theory thinking, I thought it valuable to repost a posting from more than a year ago (January 9, 2012). But before repeating it, let me pull forward one particular paragraph:
Kim Johnson of [ the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry affiliated New Mexicans for Science and Reason] wrote the following in an obituary on Rogers: “He was a Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and tried to be an excellent, open minded scientist in all things. In particular, he had no pony in the ‘Shroud of Turin’ horserace, but was terribly interested in making sure that neither proponents nor skeptics let their scientific judgment be clouded by their preconceptions. He just wanted to date and analyze the thing. He died on March 8th from cancer. He was a good man, and tried his best to do honest science.”
And now, déjà vu again: Sciencebod, Do some homework on the Shroud of Turin (Or is Colin having a senior moment?)” Oh, I know, ad hom, ad hom, ad hom:
* * *
ColinB/sciencebod writes:
Hello again Dan
I keep asking myself how I could have been so misinformed re the date of reweaving on which you corrected me so comprehensively with you references to Margaret of Austria. Might it be because pretty well everything I have come across in reading states that the repairs, including reweaving were indeed carried out AFTER the 1532 fire, regardless of who commissioned them, e,g, this from a Reverend gentleman:
http://ecc-c.org/TurinShroud.aspx
So my original objection still stands – why go to all the trouble of invisible mending, in a corner, when there is massive fire damage elsewhere. In fact, why would anyone even think about mending before the fire, given that an unmended cloth, showing at least some of the ravages of time, would make for a more convincing holy relic…?
Kind regards
PS Have you seen my latest theory re mummified cadavers, like the ones in that Capucin Brno monastery that missus and I gawped at just two or three years ago.
Dear ColinB: You have got to be kidding me. This is how you change your mind, on the basis of one reference on a web page? Some “Reverend gentleman,” you say? Here is what your reverend gentleman says:
Physicist Ray Rogers, prior to his death, uncovered the reason why the Carbon14 tests were invalid. The Shroud had had invisible repairs, carried out by Poor Clare nuns, after the fire in 1532 in the chapel in Chambery, France. The samples for the Carbon14 dating had been taken from the area which was not the original Shroud. . . . Unfortunately, when the sample sites were chosen, the 1532 repairs were not known about and so it was an unfortunate and misleading coincidence that the samples that were tested came from the patch added by the Poor Clare nuns and not the original Shroud. It was therefore to be expected that the 1988 Carbon14 results pointed to a 16th century date.
Oh, my. You have got to be kidding. Not only is this reverend gentleman wrong, not only does he not know what he is talking about, you are utterly uninformed and naïve. Now these other four reverend gentlemen are holding up the cloth long before the carbon dating. You can see the patches in what is an old painting. Bet they knew!
Rogers, who was a chemist, not a physicist, did not uncover the reason. It was Joseph Marino and Sue Benford.
The fire was on December 4, 1532 in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambéry. The shroud was protected by four locks. With the fire going on, Canon Philibert Lambert and two Franciscans summoned the help of a blacksmith to open a grille. By the time they succeeded, a reliquary made by Lievin van Latham to Marguerite of Austria’s specifications had partly melted. The shroud folded inside was scorched and severe holes were formed by molten silver. Chambéry’s Poor Clare nuns repaired the Shroud beginning on April 16, 1534 and finishing on May 2, 1534 not 1532 as the reverend gentleman says. The nuns knew. From that day forward, the repairs were the most prominent feature of the shroud, more so than the faint image. To suggest that the 1534 (let’s be accurate) repairs “were not known about and so it was an unfortunate and misleading coincidence,” at the time of the carbon dating sampling is just laughable. In fact, if anything, the carbon dating protocol discussions frequently referred to the patches sewn on by the Poor Clare sisters.
Patches applied to the shroud in 1534 were obvious; as noticeable as leather patches sewn to the elbows of an old sweater. Would earlier repairs in 1531 (a plausible date from the historical records) or at any other time, have been so expertly done that that they would have gone unnoticed when the carbon 14 samples were cut from the cloth?
Rogers was actually very skeptical. According to Philip Ball of Nature, “Rogers thought that he would be able to ‘disprove [the] theory in five minutes.’” (brackets are Ball’s). Inside the Vatican, an independent journal on Vatican affairs, reported:
Rogers, who usually viewed attempts to invalidate the 1988 study as ‘ludicrous’ . . . set out to show their [Benford and Marino] claim was wrong, but in the process, he discovered they were correct.
It was close examination of actual material from the shroud that caused Rogers to begin to change his mind. In 2002, Rogers, in collaboration with Anna Arnoldi of the University of Milan, wrote a paper arguing that the repair was a very real possibility. The material Rogers examined was from an area directly adjacent to the carbon 14 sample, an area known as the Raes corner. Rogers found a spliced thread. This was unexpected and inexplicable. During weaving of the shroud, when a new length of thread was introduced to the loom, the weavers had simply laid it in next to the previous length rather than splicing. Rogers and Arnoldi wrote:
[The thread] shows distinct encrustation and color on one end, but the other end is nearly white . . . Fibers have popped out of the central part of the thread, and the fibers from the two ends point in opposite directions. This section of yarn is obviously an end-to-end splice of two different batches of yarn. No splices of this type were observed in the main part of the Shroud.
Rogers found alizarin, a dye produced from Madder root. The dye appeared to have been used to match new thread to older age-yellowed thread. In addition to the dye, Rogers found a gum substance (possibly gum Arabic) and alum, a common mordant used in medieval dying.
Several years earlier, a textile expert, Gilbert Raes (for whom the Raes corner is named), had been permitted to cut away a small fragment of the shroud. In it he found cotton fibers. Rogers confirmed the existence of embedded cotton fibers and noted that such cotton fibers are not found in other samples from anywhere else on the shroud. Cotton fibers were sometimes incorporated into linen threads during later medieval times, but not earlier, and not even as early as the carbon 14 range of dates. This, along with the dyestuff, suggested some sort of alteration or disguised mending.
In 2005, Raymond Rogers, after four years of study on this matter and months of peer review published his findings in the scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta. Go read it. Go study the real history of the shroud and shroud research. Find out how many scientists have confirmed the work Benford and Marino started and Rogers completed.
BTW: Ray Rogers, a distinguished chemist, was a Fellow of the prestigious Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Originally, the home of the Manhattan Project during World War II. It is now part of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
Rogers had been a charter member of the Coalition for Excellence in Science Education in New Mexico. He campaigned vigorously for the teaching of evolution, and against teaching creationism, in the public schools.
He also served on the Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board as a civilian with the rank equivalency of Lieutenant General. He had published over fifty scientific papers in ethical peer-reviewed science journals. He was a member of New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR), an organization affiliated with CSI.
Kim Johnson of NMSR wrote the following in an obituary on Rogers: “He was a Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and tried to be an excellent, open minded scientist in all things. In particular, he had no pony in the ‘Shroud of Turin’ horserace, but was terribly interested in making sure that neither proponents nor skeptics let their scientific judgment be clouded by their preconceptions. He just wanted to date and analyze the thing. He died on March 8th from cancer. He was a good man, and tried his best to do honest science.”
Rogers once wrote to The Skeptical Inquirer (letter was published):
I accepted the radiocarbon results, and I believed that the "invisible reweave" claim was highly improbable. I used my samples to test it. One of the greatest embarrassments a scientist can face is to have to agree with the lunatic fringe.
Colin, you tell me you are a real scientist. Then you change your mind because you read something on the web page of a reverend gentleman without checking it out. Are you a real scientist? I’ll believe you when you admit you are wrong on the patches.
Oh, that “latest theory re mummified cadavers.” You don’t mean theory Mr. Scientist. Really. Check out the facts about the images. Really. You might want to read Giulio Fanti’s, “Hypotheses Regarding the Formation of the Body Image on the Turin Shroud. A Critical Compendium,” in The Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, (Vol. 55, No. 6 060507-1–060507-14, 2011). It is a marginal paper but it does nicely summarize what many people before you have tried with a bit more science. There is a handy list that might allow you to call your wild-ass speculation a hypothesis (not theory, though) if you can meet some of the criteria.
Do some real home work.
Paper Chase: Nobody Goes to the Trouble. Oh, Yes They Might.
Colin Berry, by way of a comment, writes:
Nobody goes to the trouble of invisible, highly painstaking mending of an inconspicuous corner of the Shroud when there is major fire damage elsewhere that has been crudely patched. Rogers’ attempted demolition job on the C-14 dating offended common sense more than anything else…
No, it offends common sense to think that countless people in the world of shroud studies, those who agree with Rogers’ conclusions and those who do not, have simply ignored the reality that nobody goes to that much trouble to invisibly repair an “inconspicuous” corner of the cloth when there were all those crude patches elsewhere.
Unfortunately, there have been a few misleading newspaper accounts that confuse the repairs made following the Chambéry fire of 1532 with the repair Rogers identifies. But that doesn’t mean Rogers or any of us who study the shroud are/were confused.
We (all of us) reason that if before 1532, had a significant corner of the shroud been cut away for any reason whatsoever, including the taking of a part of a holy relic for its healing or talisman properties or so another church might have part of a relic (none of this was uncommon – in fact it goes on today even on eBay) and had the methods and skills been available to mend the not inconspicuous corner, it might well have happened. That is all that is needed to permit a scientific finding:
The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is
significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud (Rogers, Thermochimica Acta, 2005: 193).
But there is more in the fascinating story of Margaret of Austria. Read about her in New Historical Evidence Explaining the “Invisible Patch” in the 1988 C-14 Sample Area of the Turin Shroud by M. Sue Benford and Joseph Marino.
. . . The purpose of this paper is to: 1) characterize the state of the weaving art during the time period of the hypothesized C-14 sample-area patch; 2) describe the crucial role and passions for tapestries of the House of Savoy’s Margaret of Austria and her nephew/ward Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, which would have mandated an expert restoration to the Shroud following the removal of the large corner pieces; 3) to posit a plausible scenario illustrating how and why the invisible mending on the Shroud took place around A.D. 1531, including new evidence as to why the undocumented repair took place, who was the overseer of the work, and what became of the missing corner pieces.
Only after 1532, was the damage was so severe, that it is unlikely that an invisible repair would have been made. All bets would have been off, so to speak.
Paper Chase: Shroud Material Lost
A reader writes:
What happened to the 2003 proposal by William Meacham and Raymond Rogers to take about 30 mg of carbon dust and scrapings from the horrific so-called restoration in 2002 — now stored in glass vials — and subjecting it to radiocarbon dating. It is a mixture of carbonized and charred shroud material along with all manner of contamination.
While we can assume that the date would be unreliable, because of contamination, it could still be useful. Imagine what it would mean if the calculated age was significantly older than the age determined in 1988.
So what happened? Anyone know?
In view of this, I call your attention to Shroud Material Lost.
Comment Promoted: Do not blindly accept the results of the 1988 dating.
By way of a comprehensive comment, Joe Marino wisely advises:
There are still a lot of people who believe the 1988 tests prove the Shroud to be a fake. Perhaps most of those people won’t change their minds because they’re happy for the Shroud not to be real. But some people might change their minds if they’re informed of all the pertinent facts. If nothing else but for the sake of those people, I think it’s worth discussing why the dating was unreliable.
Gian Marco Rinaldi has posted some information from the Italian documentary “Night of the Shroud.” [See: The Carbon Dating of the the Shroud: Will we ever know what really happened?] Below is some information I put together that also includes data from that documentary:
We all know that Michael Tite, the overseer from the British Museum for the 1988 dating, took over for Teddy Hall when he retired and after some anonymous businessmen donated 1 million pounds to Oxford for ostensibly having proven the Shroud a fake. If nothing else, it just looks shady.
I’ve discovered some other relationships that also appear to be alarming along with many indications of political maneuvering. The Italian Documentary “The Night of the Shroud” made the following observations:
*On January 4, 1984, Teddy Hall wrote a letter to a member of the Academy, Prof. Porter to encourage the Vatican to allow C-14 testing. A copy of the letter was sent to the President of the Academy, Carlos Chagas and also to the Vatican. But the copy to the Vatican only contained the 1st page, which criticized STURP, but without saying why.
*Chagas later wrote Cardinal Ballestrero that everything was going fine but then turned around and wrote the Vatican saying there were problems with Ballestrero.
*In 1985, Harry Gove produced at the Trondheim C-14 conference a suggested protocol for the Shroud C-14 dating. Chagas let only another Academy member, NASA scientist Victor Canuto, to review the protocol.
*One person in the documentary said that Gove had Chagas in his pocket.
*In July 1985, after STURP submitted their test proposal, Chagas again had Canuto review it. Chagas reported as his own Canuto’s report, which criticized STURP’s proposal to do a C-14 in conjunction with 25 other tests.
*On July 13, 1985 Cardinal Ratzinger approved for a 2nd time STURP’s 26 test proposal.
*On July 22, 1985, Harry Gove met with Victor Canuto.
*During the Turin workshop meeting in September 1986, Chagas asked Canuto to come up with a summary of proposals. According to William Meacham, the text did not reflect what everyone had agreed upon. Luigi Gonella, Cardinal Ballestrero’s advisor, requested corrections be made but that wasn’t done. The text was not signed by anyone but was presented by Chagas as the agreement with Church authorities.
*Cardinal Ballestrero wrote a letter to the Vatican Secretariat of State regarding the strange behavior of Chagas.
*On May 21, 1987, the Secretariat of State said that there would be 3 labs, 3 samples and 1 sample site.
*On October 10, 1987, Cardinal Ballestrero made an official announcement regarding the number of labs and samples.
*Gove, upset at not being 1 of the 3 labs, contacted the Papal Nuncio, American Senators and the Ambassador to the Vatican, but to no avail.
*The 3 chosen labs all wrote letters to the authorities that were the exact wording of the letter that Gove had sent to the Nuncio, Senators & Vatican Ambassador. The letter from the Zurich lab was postmarked in Rochester, where Gove lived.
*The Secretariat of State informed Cardinal Ballestrero that only the C-14 test should be done.
*Only Cardinal Ballestrero and Michael Tite put the samples in the containers for the labs. (Although there was something like 22 hours of videotape, the putting of the samples into the containers was the only part of the procedures that wasn’t filmed.)
*About 2 weeks after the dating, Chagas was removed as President of the Academy. (I learned from another source that the announcement was made by a Msgr Renato Dardozzo, who will come up again shortly.)
*The late Professor Jerome LeJeune, a member of the Academy, publicly stated that further analysis of the C-14 results needed to be made.
This next part does not come from the Italian documentary. I discovered that Msgr. Renato Dardozzo was the Chancellor of the Academy (i.e, Chagas’ right-hand man). According to June 3, 2009 article in “The Guardian” (UK) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/03/vatican-central-bank) Dardozzo smuggled out more than 4,000 documents pertaining to the scandal-racked Vatican Bank. The article says, “It is interesting to note that Dardozzi’s motive for turning whistleblower was not unalloyed disapproval of the IOR’s unethical conduct. His decision to smuggle his secret archive out of the Vatican was motivated, at least in part, by anger at the Institute’s refusal to pay him a commission on the sale of a valuable real estate property near Florence. The unusual monsignor wanted to leave the money to his adoptive daughter, who health condition required expensive treatment.”
So, we have a financially-needy monsignor, who was the right-hand man to Chagas, alleged to be in Harry Gove’s pocket. If there was a million dollar pound donation available for the Oxford lab for ostensibly having proven the Shroud to be a fake, were there additional “donations” to pass around to key authorities to make sure that certain actions would take place for the C-14 dating of the Shroud? While there’s no hard proof, it once again looks suspicious.
I know an ex-NASA scientist who knows Victor Canuto. The scientist asked Canuto for the story about the C-14 dating–but Canuto wouldn’t tell him a thing.
With all of the above circumstances, the last thing that should be done is to blindly accept the results of the 1988 dating.
The Carbon Dating of the the Shroud: Will we ever know what really happened?
On May 5th, Gian Marco Rinaldi (see La Sindone di Torino) commented (comment #26) in the posting, Special Request from Hugh Farey:
From Jull’s letter, it is interesting that they dated each graphite pellet twice. I previously thought that they had obtained two pellets from each subsample. If the pellets were only four, and not eight, then the weight is compatible with about 1 mg for pellet and it is quite possible that they dated only two quarters of the total sample.
The results for each of the eight measurements are known (they were published by Remi Van Haelst).
As to Zurich, it was Bonnet-Eymard, I think, who said that they also had kept a spare fragment, but without a proof as far as I remember.
In the website of ETH Zurich (the Institute were the dating had been done) there are the photos of some of the subsamples, but not all. I have tried to reconstruct the jigsaw puzzle of the three fragments that are shown for the first half of the sample but have not succeeded. Any body will try? http://archiv.ethlife.ethz.ch/e/articles/sciencelife/turin.html
But for Zurich there is another problem. Two unpublished sheets of data, presumably a first version of the radiocarbon results, have appeared in an Italian documentary (La Notte della Sindone, The Night of the Shroud). Some of the results for Zurich are different from those that were published in Nature. I have published an article about these data in January 2013, but it is in Italian. I have already done an English transltion and it will soon be published on the internet.
Three days later the English Version of “Two sheets of data of unknown origin with presumed results of the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin” was online
In a separate email to me, Gian Marco Rinaldi writes:
As you will see, two data sheets have surfaced which are analogous to Tables 1 and 2 of the 1989 Nature report with the results of the dating but contain some discrepancies with respect to the published data. The discrepancies concern the Arizona data and especially the Zurich data. There are no discrepancies for the Oxford data.
The two data sheets have been shown in an Italian documentary, "La Notte della Sindone", without any comments. I have been in contact with the authors of the documentary, Francesca Saracino and Paolo Monaci, and have asked them about the provenance of the data sheets. Until now, it seems that they are not willing to provide any information. I think that they do not want to disclose the identity of the person from whom they have obtained the data.
Therefore I do not know if the unpublished data are "real" or have been invented by anybody for whatever reason.
You will see that, lacking any explanations, there is ground for suspicions about the conduct of the radiocarbon dating. In particular, for Zurich one might guess that in their second cycle of measurements the results for all the four samples (Shroud and controls) turned out to give younger ages with respect to the first cycle, possibly for a systematic error, and the measurements were repeated, if a portion of textile had been saved, or the results have been somehow altered or corrected in the published version. I do not myself claim that there have been any irregularities, but I think that it would be appropriate for Zurich to provide some explanation.
Already in March last, I had sent the manuscript of this English version to the authors of the 1989 Nature report, that is to those who are still alive and for whom an email address was available. Several of them have replied but had no relevant infomation to provide. In particular, I had written to Willi Woelfly and Georges Bonani of Zurich but they have not replied.
Best News Article on Fanti’s Methods
An article, Science Shines New Light on Shroud of Turin’s Age by Shaffer Parker, Jr. is perhaps the best article so far on Fanti’s methods and findings. It appears May 6th in The National Catholic Register.
The article explains Fanti’s methods with easy-to-understand terminology. For instance, here is a short explanation of how Fanti identified shroud fibers from other fibers on a vacuum filter.
It was on fibers from “filter H” that Fanti did most of his work. “I discovered a relatively simple technique to detect which linen fibers were from the shroud,” he said, “based on cross-polarized light used in a petrographic microscope. The shroud fibers show a coloration like a coral snake, probably because in the original preparation of the fibers they were beaten with rods.” More recent fibers, Fanti said, were prepared differently and therefore appear differently under a microscope.
The article addresses doubts about Fanti’s findings, as well. Then, as though there was nothing more to say about the Padua professor’s wrok, Parkers gives over several column inches to Joe Nickell’s general skepticism and a rebuttal by Barrie Schwortz.
While he rejects the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, Nickell insists that a shroud might be found that he could accept did come from the tomb of Jesus Christ, but its history from the grave to the present day would have to be completely documented. “And it could not have an image on it,” he added. “That implies a miracle, and as such takes it out of the realm of science.”
Or not. Is Nickell stuck in the 1990s?
Take the time to read Science Shines New Light on Shroud of Turin’s Age
An email from Professor Christopher Ramsey
Hugh Farey reports in a comment on an email from Prof. Ramsey (pictured):
As far as I am aware the whole material was used for the dating here – that is what the weighed components suggest – and we don’t have any remaining sample in our archives with these sample numbers. I think the position taken here was that we only had permission for dating and not other research – and at that time, the measurements needed as much material as possible. It is true that it is normal practice to retain some material for further checks in routine dating and we do normally do this – so I can see that other labs may have made different decisions.
Apparently Oxford needed at least 16mg to produce reliable results (they cut their 50mg sample into three). Strange that Tucson needed only 7mg.
The Arizona Radiocarbon Dating Lab and the Shroud of Turin
Now that the subject has been raised again, I thought some newer readers of this blog might be interested in reviewing some older posts about the Arizona radiocarbon samples. I forgot how much there was until I went to the archives:
- Radiocarbon & Much Ado About Nothing
- More About Jull’s Paper in Radiocarbon Journal
- Was the sample used in the Jull paper NOT from the Shroud of Turin?
- More on was the sample in the Jull paper NOT from the Shroud of Turin?
- More on University of Arizona and Jull’s Paper
- Even More on Suspicious University of Arizona Testing of the Shroud
- Joe Marino, Sue Benford and the Carbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin
- Radiocarbon & Much Ado About Nothing
- Mark Oxley’s Paper is a Must Read
- Link to Tyrer’s Significant Paper
- Arizona Radiocarbon Dating Samples of the Shroud of Turin
- Again, the Issue of Peer Review
- Peer Review of the Freer-Waters/Jull Paper Continued
The Arizona Samples of the Shroud of Turin
Hugh Farey wrote:
. . . Dr [A. J. Timothy] Jull [pictured] has confirmed that two of the four samples were indeed retained, and the other two were cut into two again, making four samples of between 5mg and 7mg for dating. I have not pressed him on whether this was actually sufficient.
Does anybody know how much the Oxford or Zurich labs used, or whether they too kept back half their sample for further research and/or confirmation of the results.
There were several other comments and then David Mo asked if Hugh had a problem with Dr. Jull’s answer. To that, Hugh wrote:
Not at present, no. I simply want to know how many mg of an unknown fabric was considered necessary to achieve a dating measurement in 1988. There is carbon dating submission advice online (http://www.ess.uci.edu/ams/Sample%20Submission%201.htm), from the University of California, currently asking for 2.5mg of dry weight carbon-rich organic material. If that was the case 25 years ago, then the dating procedures carried out by Arizona seem to me beyond reasonable reproach.
David Mo continued:
This is important information that you have obtained, Hugh. It changes many hypotheses. May we have some literal quotation from Jull’s writing/e-mail?
Thank you.
This is it, a lot of literal quotation, a fantastic contribution by Hugh to our knowledge about them samples in Arizona. Hugh comments:
In his email to me, Dr Jull writes [my notes in square brackets]:
According to the notes I have, there was originally stated to be 53.7mg (by the persons who removed the sample – I suppose Riggi and Tite) which was in two fragments.
[This measurement was therefore made in Turin.]
These were subdivided into a. 13.86mg, b. 12.39mg, c. 14.72mg and d. 11.83mg. Obviously, these total 52.8mg not 53.7mg. The discrepancy was attributed by us to a weighing error, when the original sampling was undertaken.
[These measurements were therefore made in Tucson. Jull assumes the Turin measurement was wrong. There may have been some drying out.]
You are correct that last two of the pieces (c and d, as labelled above) were used for the dating and they were subdivided into two – making a total of four discrete samples for dating.
[The mass of the 'extra sliver' was originally given as 14.2mg by Riggi, but it could be piece (a) above if it had dried. The mass of the largest tested sample could not have been more than 7.36mg.]
Each of these 4 samples was processed as separate samples. In each case, the resulting graphite was run twice, resulting in 8 independent determinations. I think that the 2 determinations on each sample were combined in the Nature paper, but that the original data was provided to Dr. Tite, who was coordinating the publication.
The remaining material was retained in case of future work to reproduce the results, as is normal practice in any laboratory.
[If so, then presumably the Oxford and Zurich labs did the same. I have not heard from Dr Ramsey or Dr Bonani yet.]
![clip_image001[6]](http://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/image12.png "clip_image001[6]")
For continuity, let’s try to keep the comments going at the Special Request from Hugh Farey posting and not have comments here.
Special Request from Hugh Farey
Hugh Farey writes:
Hi Dan,
I’ve been following your posts avidly as usual, but not commenting much as I’ve been over at James Randi commenting on carbon dating. I wonder if I could ask you or, via shroudstory . . . of the origin of the diagram of the carbon dating piece of material shown by Bryan Walsh at the 1999 Richmond Conference. It’s given in [Carbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin: Partially Labelled Regressors and the Design of Experiments] and is very detailed.
Joe, John, Colin, Thibault, Giulio, Adrie, Barrie, Russ, Dave, Max, Andy, etc. etc. etc. ???
Antonacci Proposing Molecular and Sub-Atomic Testing To Resolve Disputes Regarding the Shroud
This is a rather extraordinary press release that was issued, it seems jointly by Monograph Publishing and Mark Antonacci (pictured), for release today. I’m a bit concerned about factual accuracy when I read:
More than a century of scientific and medical analysis has eliminated all proposed naturalistic and artistic attempts to duplicate the Shroud’s unique, full-length images. Only two hypotheses to explain these unique images have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals:
1) The Corona Discharge hypothesis, by Dr. Giulio Fanti, who led scientists at the University of Padua in Italy to challenge previous C-14 or radiocarbon dating. Using three different methods to test fibers from various locations throughout the cloth, these scientists obtained an average date of 33 B.C. +/- 250 years.
2) The Historically-Consistent hypothesis by Mark Antonacci that not only accounts for all of the Shroud’s unique body image features, but also its radiocarbon dating and its numerous non-body image features, which other hypotheses do not even attempt to explain (http://www.testtheshroud.com).
Anyway, here is the press release:
Monograph Publishing: One of the world’s leading experts on the Shroud of Turin, author and attorney Mark Antonacci, is petitioning Pope Francis to allow 21st century technology to be applied at the molecular and sub-atomic levels to Jesus’ purported burial cloth. Results of these tests would prove or disprove its authenticity and resolve the current dispute regarding samples that recently dated the shroud to 33 B.C. +/- 250 years.
St. Louis, Missouri (PRWEB) April 18, 2013
This unique cloth has only been scientifically examined in a comprehensive manner once, 35 years ago. While this examination revealed extensive, startling information, a new generation of promising research has since developed that could acquire far more information. Molecular and sub-atomic technology, applied to the Shroud could reveal its age, the cause of its unique images, the identity of the man buried within it, if it is a forgery and whether a miraculous event occurred to the dead body wrapped within it.
Antonacci proposes that multi-spectral imaging be applied to the entire Shroud. This innovative technology could scan the Shroud in only six hours and scientists could then spend years analyzing its data. It could map the cloth and identify not just every fiber of every thread, but what is on every fiber. It could identify tissue at the molecular level, as well as individual chemical compounds. Further information at the molecular level could be acquired using similar technology, such as Molecular Spectroscopy.
More than a century of scientific and medical analysis has eliminated all proposed naturalistic and artistic attempts to duplicate the Shroud’s unique, full-length images. Only two hypotheses to explain these unique images have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals:
1) The Corona Discharge hypothesis, by Dr. Giulio Fanti, who led scientists at the University of Padua in Italy to challenge previous C-14 or radiocarbon dating. Using three different methods to test fibers from various locations throughout the cloth, these scientists obtained an average date of 33 B.C. +/- 250 years.
2) The Historically-Consistent hypothesis by Mark Antonacci that not only accounts for all of the Shroud’s unique body image features, but also its radiocarbon dating and its numerous non-body image features, which other hypotheses do not even attempt to explain (http://www.testtheshroud.com).
Both of these scientific hypotheses involve radiation and an extremely unusual or miraculous cause of these images. Many Shroud scientists conclude that radiation was the most likely cause of the Shroud’s images. If the radiation explained in Antonacci’s hypothesis occurred, its source was the body wrapped within the cloth. Multi-spectral imaging could demonstrate or refute this scientific hypothesis, along with all other proposed hypotheses to explain the Shroud’s images or its radiocarbon dating.
Scientists recognize that one form of radiation, neutron or particle, would create new C-14 atoms or isotopes within the molecular structure of the linen, blood, limestone and other material that was on the Shroud or present at the time of the radiation. Scientific tests sponsored by The Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation (RSF) demonstrate these C-14 atoms survive heat, age and all pretreatment cleaning methods and would still be present today. If the Shroud was irradiated with neutrons, this event would necessarily refute the cloth’s radiocarbon dating because it would add C-14 atoms within the cloth’s molecular structure, making it appear much younger than its actual age.
New technology could demonstrate or refute that this event occurred! Neutron radiation not only creates new C-14 atoms, but also creates Cl-36 and Ca-41 atoms which virtually do not exist in nature. If such an event occurred, these rarest of atoms would still be present within the molecular structures of the linen, blood, or other irradiated material. The presence of these atoms, well above their infinitesimal natural levels, could only result from neutron radiation, which could not be generated by humans until the 20th century.
Interestingly, all three atoms (C-14, Cl-36 and Ca-41) are created by neutron radiation at rates that are known to scientists. Thus the amount of neutron radiation received by the Shroud, and the date this miraculous event occurred, can be calculated by scientists with the same accuracy as C-14 or radiocarbon dating. These tests could even be conducted on the original limestone walls of Jesus’ reputed burial tomb(s).
Antonacci has recently begun a direct appeal to Pope Francis, who has a Masters Degree in Chemistry to approve the application of molecular and sub-atomic testing methods to the Shroud of Turin. These tests, in combination with many prior test results and studies, could prove or disprove with objective, independent evidence that:
1. Particle radiation irradiated the Shroud of Turin linen, its blood and other material;
2. Particle radiation emanated from the length, width, and depth of the dead body wrapped within the cloth;
3. The event occurred in the first century to a first century cloth;
4. The event happened inside Jesus’ burial tomb.Mark Antonacci, President
Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation
314-704-0537 – cell
636-938-3708 – office
markantonacci(at)testtheshroud(dot)comAbout The Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation (RSF):
The RSF designs, advocates and funds some of the most sophisticated scientific testing of the 21st century. For the last two decades it has supported a variety of scientific research and information relating to the age, origin and authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.About Monograph Publishing:
Monograph Publishing is a multi-dimensional company based in St. Louis, Missouri specializing in high quality publications, design, fine art prints and photography. http://www.monographpublishing.com
Oh, by the way, I think it is now well established that Pope Francis does not have a masters degree in Chemistry, not that it matters.
John Klotz unpacks details about the 1988 debacle
In Waiting for the for the Mail: the Ubiquitous and Not-So-Right Reverend David Sox, John Klotz writes:
The fact that he had advance knowledge of the results of the Carbon dating is some evidence of the extent to which the protocols were violated by the labs. One interesting fact: Sox claims he has a letter from Fr. Rinaldi stating he was no longer relying on the Shroud to prove his faith. Sox’s implication was that Fr. Rinaldi no longer accepted the Shroud as genuine. He was a skeptic. A bridge too far, to say the least.
John points out:
As a matter of fact, Judgment Day by Walter McCrone is now available from Amazon Kindle. There seems to be an explosion of old Shroud books now on Kindle including Harry Gove’s skeptical book published in 1998. One comes away with renewed respect for STURP. It is subject to bitter attack even as its science seems to escape the authors’ understanding, or discussion. I just regret that Sox’s book isn’t there. Perhaps I should check under farce.
The thing about Kindle: the books are cheaper, never out of print and never in short supply.
Love this tidbit from John:
Also, while describing the STURP team as a group of religious fanatics in 1988, in his 1998 article Sox described the STURP team (most of whom he claimed to know) as "a couple of Episcopalians, a Rotarian, one or two agnostics and a sprinkling of Catholics."
Sales and Amazon Reviews of Fanti’s New Book
In the last few days we may have withnessed the most explosive Shroud of Turin book announcement ever. At Amazon Italy (amazon.it), Giulio Fanti’s Il mistero della Sindone. Le sorprendenti scoperte scientifiche sull’enigma del telo di Gesù ranks #17 among book on Christianity – half of the books ahead of it are about the new pope – and ranks #284, overall, among all books. Surprisingly, there are no customer reviews, yet. But then, again, Amazon.it is small compared to amazon.com; even the number one ranked book on Christianity in Italy (specifically about Francis) has only one customer review.
The publisher’s description says so little. Here is a Bing translation from Amazon Italy:
"A mystery of the cross and light" quell’inspiegabile and irreproducible body image imprinted on the cloth is testimony to the passion and death of Jesus, but also of his resurrection. The words spoken by Pope Benedict XVI returned to the Shroud whole truth that scientific research had tried to resize. In 1988, in fact, with carbon dating l4, scientists determined that the Shroud dated from the Middle Ages. Today, thanks to a multidisciplinary work promoted by the University of Padua and lasted fifteen years, the team led by Giulio Fanti shows that the radiocarbon dating has been distorted by environmental contamination, and goes right back to the early death of Jesus that traces of dust, pollen and spores from the Middle East to direct, that the body has been depicted on the linen violence told in the Gospels of the Passion, and the image was produced by the exceptional radiation developed at the time of the resurrection. This book, co-written by Fanti and Saverio Gaeta, is the account of a discovery and the story of the extraordinary historical events of the most precious and revered relic of Christianity.
That’s it? Anything from anyone reading the book?
Giulio Fanti’ Tie
Anyone remember the following quotable comment from a discussion last August to a posting entitled, “Giulio Fanti Responds. Are you listening Yannick and Colin?” Giulio had written a rather long posting for the readers of this blog defending the use of Academic Journals, a Nigeria-based publisher of open access journals that normally charge authors to publish their articles. Colin Berry wrote in response:
Only an intense, highly localised corona discharge could have produced the image we see. I refer to Giulio’s tie…
I found the above quote because I was reviewing older postings about scientific journals after receiving an email from UMASS-chem1:
Giulio Fanti, by publishing his book, has subjected himself to intense examination in the near future. He must publish an English language account of his research in a reputable scientific journal as soon as possible. You and the media tell us he intends to. Giulio is telling friends that a paper has already been accepted. That concerns me. Paulette yesterday and Gabriel in past comments are right in their assessments. Gilulio’s paper needs to be in a journal with a respectable JCR rating. If Giulio publishes in a questionable journal he could harm the reputation of shroud science for a long time.
Paulette had written:
Reputable scieentific journals don’t like to publish scientific work that has already been published in books or elsewhere. It used to be that shroud science was published in good journals with solid JCR ratings. Lately, much has been published in dubious journals like JIST or open access vanity journals like those from Academic Journals, which charge authors.
and in another comment . . .
This is all one step removed from TV ads that proclaim “scientists have discovered” this or that that will make you thin or grow some hair. After all this publicity, this is one time that we need enough public information from Giulio Fanti to enable other scientists to confrim his work.
Gabriel had written last August:
Dan, the problem here is not whether we are in favour of an open access system for science. The problem here is that this journal does not belong to the JCR, unlike the papers by Adler, Pellicori and a long etc and as a result, peer-review is not guaranteed at all. That said, we can discuss about the contents- after all we do it all the time with anything published on the Shroud, don’t we?- but please, don’t call it science YET. (corrected)
Let’s just say I am taking my time . . .
Michael Gryboski, a reporter for the Christian Post has written an article: Uncertainty Abounds Regarding Latest Turin Shroud Claims. Given that I am extensively quoted, I am extensively quoting the story:
As the world hears about the latest evidence that the Shroud of Turin may have been the burial cloth of Jesus, some have expressed uncertainty about the latest claim.
Giulio Fanti, a professor from the University of Padua, and Saverio Gaeta, an Italian journalist, have recently published a book arguing that the shroud did indeed exist during the time frame of the life of Jesus.
Dan Porter, who oversees a news blog about the shroud, told The Christian Post that from what he knew the research was based on "new methods that have not been peer-reviewed yet for publication in a reputable and ethical scientific journal."
"I know Giulio Fanti personally and I know him to be an honest researcher. Frankly, I would have preferred it if he had sought peer-review before writing his book," said Porter. "Unfortunately that can be difficult where science meets religion. Let’s just say I am taking my time and seeking opinions from others before deciding."
Porter also told CP that regarding the whole issue that the shroud "may be the real burial cloth of Jesus."
"The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial," said Porter.
"Years ago, as a skeptic of the shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential."
Purported to be the cloth that Jesus was buried in after the crucifixion, the Shroud of Turin first appears in the historical record around the year 1360 at the Diocese of Troyes in France. It was eventually moved to the Turin Cathedral in Northern Italy in 1578.
Much debate has existed over the authenticity of the shroud, including whether or not it was from the first century and how the famous image appeared.
In 1988, carbon dating tests were performed on the shroud, which placed its origins in the Medieval era. However, many, including Fanti, have claimed the results were faulty due to laboratory contamination.
Oh, go ahead and read the rest of the story and see what Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, told the post.
Recommended: Barrie Schwortz on CNN
Amongst all the hoopla, I missed linking to this earlier. This is a very significant interview with Barrie Schwortz, founder and editor of Shroud.com with CNN about the appearance of the shroud on TV again, the failure of the carbon dating, the unsolved mystery of the image and the new iPhone app. Click HERE or on the image to watch this four minute segment.
Res ipsa loquitur: The facts speak for themselves.
![clip_image001[4]](http://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/clip_image00141.jpg?w=309&h=206 "clip_image001[4]")
This is from a very important posting by John Klotz in his blog, Living Free. Read the whole posting. The following, pretty much the last third of the posting, should give you an idea why:
The Shroud.com story also carries an attack by the Turin authorities on Fanti’s claim that he had carried out tests on a fibers of the Shroud obtained from (ta da) Ray Rogers. The Turin authorities not authorized the fibers to be transferred. The Fanti research was thus unauthorized.
But now the plot thickens considerably. In his 2005, Rogers published a paper in Thermahemica Acta that specifically stated how he had received samples of the carbon related to the carbon dating area of the Shroud:
“[I] received 14 yarn segments from the Raes sample from Prof. Luigi Gonella (Department of Physics, Turin Polytechnic University) on 14 October 1979. I photographed the samples as received and archived them separately in numbered vials. Some of the samples were destroyed in chemical tests between 1979 and 1982, but most of the segments have been preserved.” Thermochimica Acta Volume 425, Issues 1-2 , 20 January 2005, Pages 189-194
At that time, Gonella was the duly appointed Scientific Adviser to the Archbishop of Turin. In the same paper, Rogers further reported:
“On 12 December 2003, I received samples of both warp and weft threads that Prof. Luigi Gonella had taken from the radiocarbon sample before it was distributed for dating. Gonella reported that he excised the threads from the center of the radiocarbon sample.”
I do not feel I can comment currently on Fanti’s “Mystery of the Shroud.” As of yet there is no English translation available. But I can comment on this: Roger’s 2005 statements are a “past recollection recorded.” While it was not contemporaneously recorded, it certainly is evidence of an chains of possession which began with Prof. Gonella, now deceased.
It may be that the authorities in Turin do not wish to authenticate Fanti’s work by denying official confirmation of his samples authenticity. Yet, in law they have a principal of evidence expressed in Latin: Res ipsa loquitur.” The facts speak for themselves.
John C, Klotz
Now read the whole posting. I agree with it.
Of provenance, chain of custody, proper care and suitability of samples
To trust or distruct, that is the question.
A reader writes:
You can not question the provenance, chain of custody, proper care and suitability of the samples used by Fanti without also, again, asking the same questions about the C14 samples.
And Stephen E. Jones wrote in a comment to another posting:
In reply to [a comment by Colin Berry who wrote, “]It was understanding that “tufts” were taken from the cope, not a neat 8.1cm x 1.6cm rectangle.[“]
I said nothing about a “rectangle” let alone “a neat 8.1cm x 1.6cm” one. That is Colin’s own straw man. They were just “threads” from “tufts” taken from the cope of St. Louis d’Anjou:
“The Cluny Museum was contacted but refused to be involved. `…They got scared …’ as Evin remarked later. So he and one Gabriel Vial went along to the Basilica of Saint-Maximin at Var and pulled some tufts out of the cope known to have been worn by St. Louis d’Anjou (d. 1297). A postal strike intervened so Vial had to hurry to Turin himself and hand his “control sample” to Tite himself on the very day of the cutting of the sample from the Shroud: 21 April 1988. … Confronted with the importunities of an excited Vial, the imperturbable Tite divided his offering into three parts which he placed not in cylinders but in envelopes for the three laboratories as an apparently unexpected but later very useful “Sample 4″ – threads from the cope of St. Louis d’Anjou (d. 1297).” (D. J. McDonnell, “The Great Holy Shroud Dating Fraud of 1988,” 4 November 2003).
But it had to be enough linen in those threads for the three C-14 laboratories to carry out a valid C-14 dating, otherwise they would not have been valid controls.
And each of the three C-14 laboratories subdivided their postage size sample of the Shroud several times (one was 9 times from memory), and each subdivided sample had to have enough linen to do a valid C-14 dating. From memory the Shroud samples were reduced to threads anyway, so that they could be pre-treated more thoroughly. A self-styled `Sciencebod’ if he thought about it (even if he had not bothered to READ about it) should have realised that the C-14 labs did not do their tests on the `rectangle’ of Shroud linen that they were each given.
So if the Shroud is authentic (as all the evidence, apart from the 1988 radiocarbon dating, points to), then an explanation is needed for how three C-14 laboratories `just happened’ to agree on a C-14 date range, 1260-1390, the mid-point of which, 1325, `just happened’ to be about 25 years before the Shroud appeared at Lirey in the 1350s.
A not unreasonable explanation is that, faced with a public relations disaster, of three C-14 labs all using the then new AMS method, and with literally a million pounds then riding on Oxford’s AMS test being successful, and with the labs being unable to come up with a consistent, publishable, C-14 date, with some of the C-14 sub-samples yielding a C-14 date of 1st century, and other sub-samples yielding a C-14 date of 16th century (due to an invisible repair with cotton-which Oxford lab actually discovered after Arizona had done its test), the three labs all agreed to use a 13-14th century date range, the midpoint of which was just before the Shroud first appeared in the European historical record. And one way to do that was use some of the dates that the 13th century cope of St. Louis d’Anjou had yielded.
It used to be a trump card argument in favour of the 1325 +/- 65 years C-14 date, that if the Shroud was 1st century, then how did it `just happen’ to yield a a mid-point date that was a mere 25 years before the Shroud appeared in the undisputed historical record? But that argument cuts both ways: if the Shroud IS 1st century (as the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence points to), then how did it `just happen’ to yield a mid-point date that was a mere 25 years before the Shroud appeared in the undisputed historical record?!
Therefore, I stand by my point (without necessarily saying or believing that that is what happened): “…no one can absolutely prove that the Shroud samples tested by the three C-14 laboratories in 1988 were not switched, for the sample from the 13th century cope of St. Louis d’Anjou …”
[Colin Berry had written] “It should be easy enough therefore to shoot down this latest unhelpful attempt to muddy the waters of science by going back to the cope to see if there’s a missing rectangle.[“]
See above on the “rectangle” being Colin’s own straw man. I repeat that I said nothing about a “rectangle” being taken from the cope of St. Louis d’Anjou, and nor does my argument require it: “tufts” and “threads” from that 13th century linen cloth sufficient for three C-14 labs to each perform a valid C-14 test, will do just fine.
Common Sense for Today
Thibault Heimburger writes in a comment:
1) FANTI’S BOOK:
- Even if one does not share Fanti’s views about the Body Image Formation Process ( me included), for the first time (after Rogers and the vanillin) a team of scientists provided some evidences that the TS is much older than the age given by the C14 using many different tests: spectroscopy (Raman and FTIR) and precise mechanical tests (5 parameters) on TS fibers and many linen controls of known age. All the results are statistically consistent.
The final result of all the tests gives a result in the first century for the TS (I can’t provide the details).
From a strict scientific point of view, these findings have to be discussed among experts and I don’t know if the results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal (I hope so). But in any case, these results have to be considered as they are. They have absolutely no link with radiations or CD’s hypotheses.
- I can say you with certainty that Fanti’s TS sample is genuine, even if it is not an official sample. During the C14 sampling, some samples cut by Riggi were kept in safe, given to the 3M foundation and Fanti’s TS sample is one of them. I know the precise location of Fanti’s sample.
2) GONELLA AND THE C14 TESTS:
Gonella: obviously CB is completely wrong. Gonella himself was a perfect honest researcher and the fact that only a single sample taken in the worst location had been used for the C14 dating came from Chagas under the pressure of the C14 laboratories. I have Gonella’s letters and papers.
3) Rogers C14 threads came also from unauthorized samples. However, there are several evidence that they truly came from the “center of the C14 sample” but for the moment I am waiting for a final confirmation before writing a paper.
Thibault.
Giulio Fanti: The Image of a Man Who Lived Between 280 BC and 220 AD
Giulio Fanti, after requests by me and others, has released the following material related to his new book and granted permission to us to use it as a press release “where they think opportune.”
Here is opportune. So here it is. There is a lot to discuss and as always comments are most welcome:
PRESS RELEASE
- The Holy Shroud shows a not reproducible double image of a man who lived from 280 BC and the year 220 AD (rounded to the nearest tens), period compatible with the documented presence of Jesus in Palestine.
- The carbon 14 dating performed in 1988 is not statistically reliable.
- Mineralogical investigations on dusts vacuumed from the Shroud, show the coincidence in dozens of items with those made of dust picked up in Jerusalem and under the Holy Sepulchre.
- DNA studies on the same samples show an exposition of the Shroud to the middle East region.
These are the sensational results reported in an Italian book entitled "IL MISTERO DELLA SINDONE – Le sorprendenti scoperte scientifiche sull’enigma del telo di Gesù (THE MYSTERY OF THE SHROUD – The amazing scientific discoveries on the enigma of the Jesus’ cloth) edited by Rizzoli and written by Giulio Fanti and Saverio Gaeta.
The studies led by Professor Giulio Fanti have been performed by the Universities of Padua, Bologna, Modena, Udine, Parma and London.
These studies show methodological errors in the radiocarbon data released in 1988 by three laboratories (Tuxon, Oxford and Zurich), who subjected to Carbon 14 test samples of the Shroud, placing it an age between 1260 and 1390.
Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermic measurements at the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua studies the Shroud from fifteen years and thanks to a multidisciplinary project on the Shroud assigned to him by the University of Padua in 2009 (54,000 euro) has had the possibility to obtain these results.
By means of this project it has also been possible to study and partially reproduce the doubly body image of the Shroud. Dozens of tests have been conducted in 2010-2013 in the Laboratory of High Voltages of Padua University to explain the origin of the mysterious image. If we want today to reproduce a quite similar image on a fabric in 1/2 scale, we require a voltage of about 300,000 V, but according to the american scientist Igor Bensen, a voltage of 50,000,000 would be necessary for the Shroud body image in a 1/1 scale.
Now Fanti focused his studies on the dating of the Shroud. After robust statistical analyses in collaboration with the Universities of London (Anthony Atkinsons), Parma (Marco Riani) and Udine (Fabio Crosilla), he has shown, through robust statistics, the origin of the difference of more than 200 years between the laboratories of Arizona and Oxford in the response of carbon 14 on the Shroud.
A statistical model has highlighted the systematic tendency to change: if for a few centimeters of fabric there are differences in 200 years, it’s easy to think that there are thousands years of variations along the nearly 4.5 m of the Shroud, possibly caused by the mysterious energy that produced the image.
To date the Shroud using alternative methods both Raman and FT-IR tests have been used to obtain two different chemical datings with the collaboration of professors Anna Tinti and Pietro Baraldi respectively of the universities of Bologna and Modena.
In addition a multiparametric mechanical method have been used at Padua University after the construction of a new ad-hoc machine capable to acquire the results of loading and unloading cycles of single linen fibers.
Using a petrographic microscope Fanti was able to separate Shroud linen fibers from dust particles vacuumed from Shroud; the fibers have been mounted on suitable supports and then, with Dr. Pierandred Malfi performed tests of tension and compression after analizing about a dozen of antique fabrics (from bandages of mummies Egyptians of 3,000 BC, linens of Masada (Israel, 70 AD) and Medieval tissues up to recent ones.
Five mechanical parameters (tensile strength, Young’s modulus in direct and reverse cycle, loss factor and loss factor in reverse cycle) have been selected to obtain five different age-dependent curves of the samples.
After this Fanti has measured the corresponding mechanical properties of the Shroud finding the corresponding point on the scales just determined. Combining the five mechanical results, the following date for the Shroud results: 400 AD with an uncertainty of plus or minus 400 years at a 95% confidence level.
With Raman and FT-IR spectra the Italian team measured the concentration of particles of particular atomic groups of flax fibers. At the same confidence level, the first produced the date of 200 BC with an uncertainty of plus or minus 500 years, the latter that of the 300 BC with swings forward and back of 400 years.
Combining the two chemical methods with the mechanical one it results a mean date of 33 BC with an uncertainty of plus or minus 250 years at 95% confidence level that is compatible with the period in which Jesus Christ lived in Palestine.
In reference to the mineralogical investigations, the dust vacuumed from the Shroud revealed traces of limestone and clay minerals showing high iron content that is consistent with dust present in Palestine.
Pollen analysis has revealed the permanence of the Shroud in the Middle East/Mediterranean regions with the presence of typical pollen grains (for example the Cedar of Lebanon).
Note: Although Giulio invited editing to correct English mistakes, I chose not to do so in order to avoid the possibility of introducing errors.
Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
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