Fun and Story for Everyday provides an interesting posting on the shroud. There are a couple of factual errors but other than that it is a good article:
1) will be published online ahead of print publication. Actually that was published by the Journal of Optics of the Institute of Physics in London, on April 14, 2004.
2) The shroud has been kept rolled up in a silver casket and has been on display only five times in the past century. Actually, it is no longer kept rolled up or in a silver casket. It it stored flat in an inert gas, temperature controlled, fire proof chamber.
3) The next display will be in 2025. Actually that has been changed to 2010.
Here is the posting:
The ghostly image of a man’s face has emerged on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen believed to have been wrapped around the body of Jesus after he was crucified, scientists say. The discovery, using new digital imaging techniques, adds new complexity to one of the most controversial relics in Christendom.
The study, which will be published online ahead of print publication in the Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, examined the back surface of the famous handwoven linen. The front side of the shroud, which carries the smudged outline of the body of a man, has been venerated as proof that Christ was resurrected from the grave, yet dismissed by others as a brilliant medieval fake. While a multitude of scientists have investigated the front side of the shroud, the back side has remained hidden for centuries beneath a piece of so-called Holland cloth.
Nuns had sewn on the cloth in 1534 to protect the shroud after it had been damaged by fire. And researchers only fully scrutinised the cloth’s back surface in 2002, when the 14-foot-long linen was unstitched from the Holland cloth during a restoration project. To the naked eye, the back surface of the shroud showed almost nothing, apart from a peculiar stitching that Dr Mechtild Flury-Lemberg, the Swiss textile expert who performed the restoration work, identified as a style seen in the first century AD or before.
The back surface, however, was photographed in detail and the pictures published in a book by Monsignor Giuseppe Ghiberti, one of the Church’s top shroud officials. At the end of the restoration, a new reinforcing cloth was sewn back in place, hiding the shroud’s reverse side once more. "As I saw the pictures in the book, I was caught by the perception of a faint image on the back surface of the shroud. I thought that perhaps there was much more that wasn’t visible to the naked eye," said Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermic measurements at the University of Padua and the study’s lead author.
Imaging the face
Fanti used sophisticated image processing based on direct and inverse Fourier transform, enhancement and template-matching techniques on Ghiberti’s pictures to uncover the image of a man’s face. Lying behind the known image of the bearded man bearing the marks of crucifixion, the new image had a striking 3-D quality and matched the known face in form, size and position.
"Though the image is very faint, features such as nose, eyes, hair, beard and moustache are clearly visible. There are some slight differences with the known face. For example, the nose on the reverse side shows the same extension of both nostrils, unlike the front side, in which the right nostril is less evident," Fanti said. But the enhancing procedure did not uncover the full body image as it appeared on the front side. "If it does exist, it is masked by the noise of the digital image itself. But we found what it is probably the image of the hands," Fanti said.\
The presence of a face on both sides of the shroud would seem an obvious feature in case of a fake: when making a print onto a cloth, paint soaks the cloth’s fibres and also reaches the back side. "This is not the case of the shroud. On both sides, the face image is superficial, involving only the outermost linen fibres. When a cross-section of the fabric is made, one extremely superficial image appears above and one below, but there is nothing in the middle. It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features," Fanti said.
Shrouded in mystery
Scientific interest in linen cloth began in 1898, when lawyer Secondo Pia photographed it. The negatives showed the image of a bearded man with pierced wrists and feet, and a bloodstained head. In 1988, the Vatican approved carbon-dating tests. Three laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona, concluded the shroud was medieval, dating from 1260 to 1390, and not a burial cloth wrapped around the body of Christ.
But since then a growing sense that the radiocarbon dating might have had substantial flaws has emerged among shroud scholars. Fanti’s finding matches a hypothesis postulated in 1990 by Dr John Jackson, a U.S. physicist who conducted the first major investigation into the shroud in 1978. Jackson speculated the presence of a faint image on the back surface of the shroud, only in correspondence to the frontal image. The history of the cloth has been steeped in mystery. It has survived several blazes since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a mysterious fire at Turin Cathedral in 1997.
The shroud has been kept rolled up in a silver casket and has been on display only five times in the past century. When it last went on display in 2000, more than three million people saw it. The next display will be in 2025. via
Source: Fun and Story for Everyday: Turin shroud shows another mystery face
The shroud image bears multiple facial images, as does the Guadalupe image, and there is no doubt that it was produced in a similarly paranormal manner. From a distance, when the image is turned upside down, one can see what appears from contemporary descriptions and depictions to be the face of the apostle Paul looking downward and grimacing in pain. His eyes are quite close together, his beard and hair dark, and his hairline receding. He is not the male model type. There seem to be flames leaping up from around his shoulders. The contrast with the handsome, serene face of Jesus is striking. In the photo shown at the following link, where some see a flower, there is actually another face which resembles the recently discovered second face. Moreover, this third face is a frontal view with a side view overlaid on it, and the pattern repeats (to the left) as if in a series of angled mirrors.
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/flower3.jpg
Its exciting to think that this bit of cloth may have been the actual cloth that was wrapped around christ himself. However some so-called “christian” religions are HUGE on using relics, and miss the point that the important FREE gift of Christ and the apostles was the Bible – and they are given away free.
*sigh*
I can certainly understand that True Believers WANT this Shroud of Turin to be the authentic burial cloth of Christ. However, I am NOT one of them. This was proven to be a fake, phony and a fraud, in 1988, by means of carbon dating. CASE CLOSED!
“We have shown the shroud to be a fake,” Teddy Hall, the director of Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art said following carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin in 1988. “Anyone who disagrees with us ought to belong to the Flat Earth Society.”
Barry, that should have been the end of it. The big piece of cloth with two life-size images, front and back, of an apparently crucified man was not—could not be—the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. Science had just proven that. It originated, so the scientists said, in the Middle Ages sometime between 1260 and 1390, or thereabouts.
Two decades later, people are still trying to prove the Shroud is fake. And we should wonder why. One reason is that the carbon dating has been shown to be invalid. Ray Rogers, who had accepted the carbon dating, decided to disprove a crazy explanation from what he called the lunatic fringe. The crazy idea was that the Shroud had been mended and the samples were from that mending job. What Rogers discovered was that the crazy idea seemed to be right. He concluded that the sample used for carbon dating was not representative of the cloth. It was chemically different. Moreover, one of the chemical differences, the amount of vanillin, provided a new clue about the cloth’s age. Samples from the main part of the cloth, unlike the carbon 14 sample area, did not contain any vanillin. If the shroud was only as old as the radiocarbon date, it would have plentiful vanillin. The Shroud was at least twice as old. It might be 2000 years old. After a lengthy peer review process, his findings that the carbon dating was wholly invalid were published in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta. This was also confirmed by John L Brown, a forensic materials specialist at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia and by Robert Villarreal and a team of nine scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Additional articles appeared including one in Chemistry Today that showed that the sample used was completely invalid.
One of the claims by proponents of authenticity is that even with modern technology, no one has been able to reproduce the images. British physicist Philip Ball repeated pointed this out in Nature. While true, it doesn’t mean that someone won’t figure it out, someday.
But that is not all. Several historians argue, I think correctly, that history strongly suggests authenticity. The arguments are about as good as most ancient history gets. Even so, definitive proof is elusive.
Case closed is simply not the case. Also, you should be aware that many true believers, primarily fundamentalist Christians, DO NOT WANT the Shroud to be real.
Hey, WHATEVER fits YOUR needs. WHATEVER floats YOUR boat. Comedian George Carlin called God (Jesus?), “The Invisible White Man in the Sky.” Outside of the Shroud of Turin, there is NOTHING that exists to prove that Jesus EVER lived. The story of Jesus belongs in Aesop’s Fables, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Believing, brings people comfort. I know that. More power to ’em! I’m an Atheist, but I love Christmas!! The decorations! Even the Nativity Scene! It’s a BEAUTIFUL story! Easter is coming, I’m gonna’ bring baskets of candy to my friends! Yeah, I’ll help the cash registers turn!! However, our home planet, Earth, has been here for about eight billion years. Organized religion? About two thousand years. DO THE MATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Barry, I don’t mind that you are an Atheist. And I miss George Carlin who was a great comedian. But I’m afraid that in you I’ve encountered a non-thinking, fundamentalist Atheist. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old, not eight billion. Organized religion has been around longer than Christianity, which, BTW, has only been truly organized for about 1600 years or so.
Okay, Episcopalian, since YOU are too lazy to do the math, I’ll do it for you. Draw a straight line across a blackboard, we’re going to make a timeline.
If we place the creation of the earth (4.5 billion years, 8 billion years, twenty billion years, WHATEVER!), at the far left side of the timeline, where would we put the creation of organized religions (okay, we’ll leave out Christianity, it’s too recent)?
On the FAR right side of the timeline, THAT’S where.
Somewhere in the middle of the timeline, we’re going to put the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, even though organized religion (The Bible, Old Testament) tell us that they were never, here.
It’s funny, but bones, fossils and footprints tell a far different story, but Moses and the Burning Bush are our final authority on this subject (he says with tongue pressed firmly in cheek!).
So, HOW does organized religion get around this HUGE disparity in time when it comes to Creation?
It tells us that the age of the earth is six thousand years, that’s how.
You know, Moses, the Burning Bush, God, Adam and Eve, the Serpent, Noah and the rest of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Yup, I AM a non-thinking, fundamentalist Atheist, and proud to be one, too!!!
I can SURE distinguish between history and hokum, though!!
Barry, I am enjoying this conversation but I’m a bit confused by what you think the beliefs of “organized religion” are. I rather think that if you spoke with an Episcopal priest, a Catholic priest, or most clergy persons in mainline Protestant churches, they would have no problem with your timeline. The Bible is not a science book or a history book. Of course there were dinosaurs. Evolution took place over millions of years. The Bible is metaphorical in the sense that you are trying to argue that we Christians believe it in a literal sense. No we don’t.
I’m glad you can distinguish between history and hokum. I think we probably agree on all the details. Even so, I believe in God. Barry, who are you reading? Could we discuss where you are getting your philosophical insights?
I am a dedicated catholic, I feel impelled to give my testimony because one needs to witness to the truth where and when necessary. In 1981 I was very privileged to have had a vision of our lord Jesus Christ in a historic church that was dedicated to St.Peter and St.Paul, I saw our Lords face, so sad.And the crown of thorns on his head so clear was this vision i could see the string of thorns encircled many times and the thorns so clear as if one would be pricked by them, I was totally awestruck and as you can imagine this vision took me from being a christian with many question marks to a fervent believer, after the vision i went to my mothers home when i went in to her living room i told my mother of my wonderful vision and was overwhelmed to discover that my mother had a copy of the shroud of Turin on her wall.I immediately said to my mother, this is Jesus Christ, this is who i saw actually as he is. It is him. The holy shroud image is that of Jesus Christ, I can’t prove it but i would lay my life on this because it is true. I have since 1981 had many other experiences which have also confirmed to me the authenticity of the holy shroud and that it is of our Lord Jesus Christ. One day it will be recognised as true and venerated as the wonderful relic that it is, and i look forward to that day. Yours in Christ … Fred
Fred Ablitt, in my oppinion ,there is no doubt that the shroud of turin is the same shroud that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus as in the gospel of Mark chapter 15 verses 42…46. Pope Benedict xv1 recently in Turin stated himself that the holy shroud of turin is like a photograph,positive and negative, he also said it is a burial cloth which enshrouded the corpse of a crusified man, and corresponds to what the gospels tell us about Jesus. I personaly believe that there is a whole stack of evidence to back up the holy shroud of turins true authentisity , but the real problem is that one still needs to look at the whole situation with the eyes of faith ,through an open mind,which is where most non believers stumble because they then have to accept that the God they dont believe in might actualy exist, which totaly contradicts there views, and puts there non beliefe to the test. In my view the real problem is that when true authentisity is being debated with those who dont believe in the existance of God, they inevitably wont take into consideration anything that might oppose there views, so in reality there is a stalemate, they then base there whole analysis on desisions they have made according to there own human ability to judge which is prone to error, using no more than tests to detemine age, carbon dating which has been proven unreliable, in the tests that have been carried out on the holy shroud of turin, so i ask those scientists lets look at this with an open mind, with a full compleate and unbiased analysis of all the evidence without exeption, then a true and fare conclusion can start to take place, if only for the sake of common sence…YOURS IN CHRIST…FRED…