A reader, in referring to Colin Berry’s newest hypothesis, writes:
I didn’t get it. How does just pressing a hot statue into a linen cloth with sand underneath get you a halftone? I asked a friend who I was sure could answer. Let me paraphrase what he told me:
It may be possible. If it is, it could explain the 200nm thinness and the halftone. Think of the hemicelluloses, since it is exothermic, acting like a binary operative. If a fiber gets enough heat the highly conductive hemicelluloses ignites and burns to completion for the exposed length of the fiber. It is now a dark-pixel, albeit not the shape of a pixel but acting like one. But if there is not enough heat to ignite it it stays a white-pixel. Where there is more pressure, like at the tip of the nose, there is more conduction of heat and thus more fibers are triggered, ignited or turned on, so to speak. That is how you get your half tone.
I know he has done some experimenting. What is he finding out? Is the hemicelluloses really all that different than the rest of the fiber? If it burned would it confine itself to the crowns. And wouldn’t it be black or very dark? Where are the close up photographs that show halftone? Has he actually looked at anything under a microscope? How carefully and thoughtfully has he conducted and documented his experiments? This initiating selective pyrolysis of hemicelluloses on that opposite side, the so-called Giuilo Fanti phenomenon, is a real stretch. He can talk about enough thermal energy to push it over that Arrhenius activation energy hump, and sound brilliant, but has he done it. Or is he just talking a good game?
We need to see results. The last thing we want is some newspaper reporting once again that a scientist has figured out how the shroud was faked. Didn’t the shadow shroud guy get national attention but refuse to let scientists see his work.
Nathan Wilson showed his Shadow Shroud to CBS News. He published a website and claimed a great deal. He still gives lectures. But he refused to let a chemist at the University if Idaho, not but a mile away, look at his work. Yet, today, thousands of people claim that Nathan Wilson proved that the shroud was a fake.
I give Colin a lot of credit for experimenting. I would like to see results that support what he contends.
Another issue is that the half-tones in the Shroud show great detail, which shouldn’t be the case if they are simply the result of burnoff in a radius around the areas of a statue that were in direct contact. Also, the edges of the Shroud image are pretty well-defined, which you likewise wouldn’t expect. And as always, we have to remember that a purported forger couldn’t possibly have been deliberately trying to make a 200nm image, or to create detailed half-tones that would only be really apparent under photo negativity with contrast enhancement, so we have to imagine them sort of stumbling into whatever method we are imagining them to have used. I’m also skeptical that hemicelluloses coated linen fibers would actually burn in the way described under a hot statue, but only experimentation can show for sure.
“Another issue is that the half-tones in the Shroud show great detail, which shouldn’t be the case if they are simply the result of burnoff in a radius around the areas of a statue that were in direct contact.”
Deuce: you seem to be assuming limited points of contact. That might be true at the millimetre level, inasmuch as it is the exposed crowns of the threads lying slightly proud of the surface that are preferentially scorched (almost impossible to explain in any radiation model). But it is not true at the gross level if a deliberate attempt had been made to stamp a hot 3D replica into linen in such a way as to get maximal contact between metal and cloth (e.g, by pressing into a bed of sand to push cloth up against every relief feature of the replica, including the more deeply recessed ones like eye sockets)
So when you talk about burnoff in a radius about points of direct contact, can we be clear about one thing.? It is burnoff on a sub-millimetre level, enough to encircle a fibre, but not enough to move very far along the axis of the fibre. To quote Fanti et al : “The extinction distance of the colour along a fibre is of the order of 0.1mm”.
Fanti et al(2010)
Yup, just 0.1 mm, which may be an impressive 500 times the image thickness (200nm), but is only one third the thickness of the fabric (0.3mm). So you must dispense with any idea that those tenuous microfibrils of hemicellulose igniting (well, pyrolysing to be more accurate) at the microscopic level means that they fizz along macroscopic lengths of fibre, enlarging and indeed wrecking the image. They don’t, since they meet obstructions, like the ends of those elongated tracheid cell walls. At best they break up sharp image outlines, making them look slightly more soft-focus (especially when processed with 20th century photography), and making the image look less like it had been branded-on by a cowhand.
Yes, I agree that more experimentation is necessary, and naturally look forward to receiving a £ multi-million grant from one or other Shroud foundation to advance this vital work, if only get me out from under my wife’s feet in the kitchen…
If the burnoff from a point of contact is only .1 mm, then this idea ceases to be an explanation for large, visible half-tone effects in the first place.
? The image that we recognize as that of a crucified man is a negative facsimile copy from a hot template, in which all the features are scorched into linen by direct contact.
Naked eye examination shows the scorching to be confined to the crowns of the threads, where one thread loops over another, exactly as expected for conduction, a method of heat transfer in which no air gap is permissible.
It is only at the microscopic level of individual fibres (200 per thread) that we see the half-tone effect, reflecting an either/or phenomenon – untouched or charred. That is due to the activation energy “hump” plus some crucial information I have previously cited, namely that hemicellulose pyrolysis, unlike that of cellulose, at least under aerobic conditions, is exothermic (in other words, once started – once over that Arrhenius activation energy hump – it progresses until there is no more hemicellulose within the immediate vicinity to burn up. The immediate vicinity in this instance being of microscopic – not macroscopic- dimensions…). I hope that clears up your difficulty re short v long range effects.
This is not an adequate explanation either. He is suggesting that pressure somehow resulted in a greater concentration of darkened fibers such as the tip of the nose. Yet we already know that the image is NOT pressure sensitive since the image intensity is the same on the dorsal image which would have borne the full weight of the body…or in this instance, the alleged statue which was no doubt made out of metal to be an even conductor of heat. Can you imagine the weight of that thing? Have you picked up a bronze bust? Kim Dreisbach had several in his collection. They are heavy…I can’t imagine the weight of a full bronze body. I don’t think there is any doubt that heat would cause a pressure sensitive effect, even if placed on sand. The dorsal image would have a different density versus the frontal where the cloth was simply draped over the front of the supposed statue. Any experiment to relicate the shroud in this fashion must replicate the entire shroud otherwise it is irrelevant.
I have no strong views, Russ, on whether or not the front and rear aspects were obtained from the one statue, or from separate bas reliefs. But there is one thing about which I am fairly confident, which is that whatever was used, it required thumping the object down into a bed of sand or similar in order to get a good thermal imprint. Since the hammering had to be done quickly, I would guess heavy tampers were used, say a trio of workers each with a heavy log. That’s assuming that the object had been heated to a modest temperature for light imprinting (testing beforehand with a scrap of linen) so as to be certain of producing a sepia-tint than charcoal-black image.
The weight of the “body”, dare one say dead weight, is/was almost certainly irrelevant. If you try small-scale modelling, as I have:
thermal imprinting
you will find that branding onto linen requires a considerable amount of applied pressure, over and above the weight of the body assuming, once again, that modest temperatures are used (to preclude any risk of burning a hole through expensive linen). But the replica then scorches only the crowns of the threads, which in fact is the crucial giveaway “signature” on the Shroud image, demonstrating beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt to my mind that it was produced as the result of contact/heat conduction, with no air gap, as distinct from electromagnetic radiation of any description at a distance, (Dr. Di Lazzaro et al please note).
Russ’ assertion (as if it were a fact) that “the image is NOT pressure sensitive since the image intensity is the same on the dorsal image which would have borne the full weight of the body…” is quite misleading, as it may just SEEM the image is not.
Actually, in the hypothesis the Shroud is Rabbi Yeshua’s, his corpse might well have been laying not so much on its back as FIRT ON ONE SIDE AND THEN ON THE OTHER SIDE when the image formation process occurred. THE IMAGE MIGHT WELL BE PRESURE SENSITVE. This would imply his stiff rigid corpse tightly wrapped up in line sheets/cloths to have rested in extra height (on two stones) and been subjected to a specific purifying and drying-up halakhic ritual (soaking of the lengthy interior shroud with warm water mixed with the ashes of the Red Heiffer to purify the rabbi’s shed innocent blood much unfairly sentenced to death by the Sanhedrin + myrrhic-aloetic fumigation of his corpse).
Do you also assume that the blood was somehow applied prior to this alleged imprinting? All observations are that there is no image under the blood indicating it was applied first followed by the image. Also, we know now with certainty that the Shroud today is the same one stolen from Constantinople in 1204. Historical references would indicate the artist who crafted the Hungarian Pray Manuscript was an eye-witness to that cloth sometime between 1160 to 1170. It had obviously been there for some time as well. Does your theory have any precedent in the Byzantine era? The western fascination with relics and all the consequent fakes largely started after the 4th Crusade.
Well. I leave it to you and others to debate the age of the Shroud. The only dating that interests me is the one that is confirmed unequivocally by carbon dating. If you think the three labs were given13th century or more modern fabric, then the answer is obvious – urge the Turin custodians to release fresh samples, taken randomly (from non-image areas, naturally; one can always make good the damage by that amazingly-invisible weaving). Oh yes, and test the blood stains too while about it…
Correct placement of blood is made a lot simpler in a face-down sand bed system. One does a dry run, more correctly a cold-run with an unheated template first, noting where the metal leaves an imprint, then trickles on blood at the appropriate locations (obtaining fresh unclotted blood would be no problem, given that bleeding was standard medical practice, indeed considered a cure-all for a vast number of ailments). The blood could be allowed to clot and dry first, to avoid it sticking on the hot template.
The absence of any image beneath the blood stains is a knockout blow for the heated bas relief hypothesis in my opinion. Had the blood been present on the cloth during application of the heated template this would have lead to its thermal degradation, at least to a point where this would be detectable through microscopic and spectroscopic analysis. No such decomposition has been found, apart from the areas damaged by the 1532 fire and a number of other post-image formation incidents.
Accepting this, the only possibilities left are that the template was cut to ‘skirt’ any areas where the blood would be later applied. Alternatively, after application of the blood to the cloth, perhaps this was shielded, using some technique, from the heat of the bas relief. For either option though , you have to ask why on earth would a medieval forger do such a thing when he can far more easily imprint the image and then overlay the blood. He gains absolutely nothing by complicating things in this way. Certainly, his intended victims would not know the difference.
Coupling this with the anatomically correct antemortem and postmortem blood flows with discolorations and the high bilirubin content due to trauma, you’d have to say it is very unlikely that a forger could have just trickled blood to the appropriate parts of the cloth. Why would he bother go to these lengths since as we know medical knowledge was very limited at the time?
So colin this is what I understand you propose; Someone with an immense talent in sculpturing, sculptured a perfect ‘rendition’ of a tortured crucified man. Then cut this sculpture precisely in two, then with a bed of sand and with the sculpture heated (to a precise temperature across the whole surface, no less) this meaning no temperature differences across the whole surface could be tolerated whatsoever, then painted anatomically perfect blood flows and marks on this sculpture, then somehow pressed this sculpture into this sandbed “repeatedly”(with EVEN and considerable pressure across all surfaces at once), and just long enough for the linen to be scourched only to a depth of .0002…give or take on ALL image surface…then repeated the process for the back image, …Do I have this right?
All those things may be problems for you, Ron. My mind is on other problems – the ones that address scientific principles…
But I’d just say one thing: if you want to work with a 200nm layer, then try gilding with gold leaf, or illuminating a manuscript (11th century technology and earlier). if you want to generate an even thinner (10nm) layer effortlessly, then run an angle grinder over a sheet of aluminium to remove its surface layer. Your 10nm oxide film – the one that will protect it against further corrosion – forms spontaneously within minutes, probably seconds.
Actually Colin, none of those things seem like huge problems to me as they may well be all possible, but improbable. I was actually serious in my asking if I was correct in my understanding of your method.
The reason I see it as being improbable, other then the complexity of such an intricate and difficult process being completed, is the simple question of why a forger would go to all that trouble when simply wrapping a human covered partially with some lightly acidic mixture would have been a much simpler way and would easily fool the religious masses of the day and even maybe right up to the time the strange negativity of the Shroud was discovered.
R
“…just long enough for the linen to be scorched only to a depth of .0002…give or take on ALL image surface……”
200nm is the thickness of the primary cell wall (PCW) with its especially vulnerable pockets of hemicellulose. Provided one conducts the branding operation at a temperature that one knows (through careful monitoring with test strips of linen) will produce no more than a light scorch, then the pyrolysis will be confined to that superficial layer.
That highly selective scorching is a reflection of two complementary and accidental factors that work in the forger’s favour. The first is botanical structure, with the most vulnerable hemicellulose being in the PCW on the outside of each fibre – and secondly chemical, or rather thermochemical, i.e. the tendency of hemicellulose to “ignite” so to speak at light scorch temperatures and to continue pyrolysing to completion until ALL the hemicellulose in that region or pocket of a fibre has been used up. It is that “all-or-nothing” effect, at the level of INDIVIDUAL fibres, centred on crown fibres that lie slightly proud of the surface and the first to make physical contact with hot metal – that can explain the curious half-tone effect, regardless of whether the scorch is faint or a bit more prominent, as already discussed.
So no particular skill is required, except for Goldilocks-style temperature-testing of the template to ensure it is neither too low (no visible scorch) nor too high (giving a charred rather than caramelised appearance).
Colin nos ha mostrado en su blog:
1.- Que la quemadura realizada con la máscara de metal sobre el lino NO tiene ningún parecido con la máscara de metal que la produce.
2.- Que la imagen 3D de la quemadura tiene todavía MENOS PARECIDO con la máscara de metal y está HORRIBLEMENTE distorsionada.
3.- Que ello EVIDENCIA que esa técnica NO funciona.
4.- PESE a ello insiste en contarnos “una película de romanos”, pues todos conocemos que los metales calientes chamuscan las telas……
5.- Ya que MACROSCÓPICAMENTE su experimento NO funciona, podía al menos mostrarnos el aspecto MICROSCÓPICO de la quemadura …….
6.- ¿Y dice Colin que las experiencias de Di Lazzaro son ciencia Mickey Mouse?
Technology can always be fine-tuned, say by using a flatter bas relief to reduce distortion. Scientific principles on the other hand cannot be fine-tuned, far less re-invented.
Ask yourself this, co. Why should the Shroud image have a front, a back and no sides? Does not a burial shroud envelope a body through 360 degrees. Is that not the purpose of a shroud – to conceal the entire corpse from view, insects etc? Does that not suggest to you that the Shroud was a forgery made either from from bas relief templates, or maybe, just maybe, from a bronze statue from which fairly shallow impressions were taken separately from front and rear?
Oh, and don’t forget that the 3D imaging is infinitely tuneable between valleys and peaks. There is no “correct” answer. One selects the settings that give the most pleasing result (without having the original against which to compare).
Bla, bla, bla…….
Estimado Colin, la distorsión de Mercator NO puede eludirse en ninguna imagen de contacto.
Lo han demostrado los intentos FALLIDOS de Broch, de Blanrue, de Nickell, y eso que era tan SOLO sobre el rostro…… sobre el cuerpo completo la distorsión habría sido HORRIBLE.
El propio Garlaschelli, que utilizó un modelo humano, tuvo que terminar “quemando a mano” con una mezcla de azul de cobalto y ácido SULFURICO , a modo de pintura, para evitar las DISTORSIONES.
No mezcle usted “la velocidad con el tocino”.
Utilice una máscara de ROSTRO HUMANO NORMAL y enséñenos unos resultados que superen las distorsiones.
En tanto no muestre eso, hace usted ciencia-ficción……..
Let Colin go on. I have a suspicion that through the absurdity of his arguments he may wind up showing the Resurrection was more probable.
I was thinking the same! But I also think we will have to wait quite awhile, since colin’s methods are based on “scientific principles”, whilst leap-frogging fine details.
R
Well, it’s not for me to say why our forbears chose to do things the way they did, Ron. Maybe they had more experience than you or I as to what was needed to give a convincing end result that silenced the sceptics.
There is nothing in the least bit “strange” about a negative image if it looks for all the world like a scorch. A scorch from a branding iron, say, is ALWAYS a negative of the pattern on the iron. Branding of livestock (and slaves) has been around for at least 2000 years – probably a good deal longer if the truth be told. Now had a scorch-like image been a positive, that would have been remarkable…
I guess I didn’t phrase it right, in that not till Pia’s photos of 1898, showed there was a strange ‘positive’ hidden away in the Shroud, but I get the feeling you already knew what I meant.
I also think your first statement completely shirks a very important aspect when dealing with the Shroud especially with your insistence that someone would or could possibly do back then, what you claim in your experiments!….Why, is an important question: Why would someone go to all that trouble when much much simpler relics were being accepted at the time?. Most definately this Shroud would not be “convincing” to the medieval mind, being as unorthodox as it is, as some of it’s depictions go against the ‘then’ common beliefs, not to mention artistic depictions of the day.
R
Sure, they are interesting questions you ask, Ron, and don’t imagine for a moment that they are not ones that tempt me to mix-it.
But I think it better if stick to wearing my science hat. Someone who took exception to my views on the scientific non-essentials (as I would see them) might be less inclined to take the scientific arguments seriously. Where internet forums are concerned (my sole route of communication on scientific matters) one has to protect the brand … Does that sound presumptious, precious even? Yup, I thought so. I’ll try to rephrase that when I have a minute to spare…
You say “no such decompoisition has been found”. The blood is so extensively degraded, whether by time, heat or other means, that there have been serious doubts raised as to whether it really is blood – something I personally would not want to get into without seeing all the data. I have to say though I think you are a little careless with your words. Raymond Rogers, for example, made an exceedingly brief statement to the effect that the blood could not have been heated since it “did not evolve hydroxyproline on mild heating”. Given that hydroxyproline is a white crystalline amino acid with a high melting point as organic compounds go (274 degrees Celsius with decomposition) one would not expect it to be evolved by any kind of heating, mild or severe.
The more I read about the blood tests, the more I feel as though I had stumbled into a strange territory far from the kind of biochemistry and clinical chemistry I acquired when I worked in hospitals and medical schools. I have yet to see any hard evidence that the blood contained any bilirubin at all, far less the vast amounts that were supposed to ‘neatly account’ for the bright red colour of supposedly aged “blood”, and supposedly a signature of massive haemolysis and jaundice occasioned by acute physical trauma. If there were a Booker Prize for science fiction, I know who I would nominate…
Fair enough – but again you are deflecting from the real issue here. One more time Colin, do you or do you not agree that the absence of image fibres underneath the blood stains presents a real problem for the heated template hypothesis?
Why should it be a real problem just because someone decided to do something in one order rather than another? Are you a mind reader – able to read the mind of your distant forbears? I certainly am not.
Sure I could speculate, and say that a decision was made to apply the blood first, then let it dry, then bake it on with the hot template to make it turn from red to brown – like the colour change on cooking red meat. That way one avoids red, or dark red-brown dried blood overlaying an image and risk having folk say – “that blood looks too fresh for a centuries old relic. “The more degraded the blood looks – the better?
But that is pure speculation, and the science does not hinge on what you or I may think had passed through the minds of folk at the time of the Crusades, the “search for the Holy Grail” etc…-
Sorry, to clarify from my previous post, this is in the context that surely it would have been much easier for a forger to first imprint the image and then apply the blood. Any other approach would be impractical.
This is becoming reductio ad absurdum!
One has to admire Colin’s sense of commitment to a conviction. But his efforts seem to be misdirected. Has he succeeded in persuading any other scientist of high standing of the credibility of this idea? Whereabouts is the evidence or record for this amazing bas relief, constructed with all its accurate anatomical details? Why would anyone bother? Any fraudster doing a cost/benefit study on the project would have found something more lucrative to do.
I can’t help feeling that if he was only prepared to abandon the fraud idea, he might become the first scientist to actually identify the process by which a traumatised dead body wrapped with myrrh and aloes might leave a lasting image on a linen cloth! Try it with hamsters or rabbits! The absence of a lateral image is tantalising. But maybe they didn’t have enough light or enough time to tie him up properly.
On the other hand I suppose it’s possible he may discover a new lucrative process for linen thermal printing!
Daveb: back in the 80s I was the first to claim that a particular form of resistant starch (RS3) twhich i showed behaved physiologically as dietary fibre was short, not long-chain alpha-glucan. The resident starch expert at my place of work said I could not possibly be correct. I was then invited to give a paper at a Kelloggs symposium. One of the UK’s biggest cheeses in starch chemistry got up and also said huffily I could not possibly be right. All I could do was show the data from experiments (and shortly thereafter published) using a special “debranching” enzyme that chops up starch into small fragments, and showing how it could be used to give bumper yields of RS3. There are currently about three different groups attempting to patent my “debranching” technology – something you can quickly confirm by googling if so inclined. Try (starch pullulanase debranching patent) as search terms and look for my surname if you don’t believe me.
There were at least two other occasions in my career when I was the first to be onto something, and when the initial reactions in house or the wider world ranged from cool to hostile to uncomprehending. Being in a minority of one for months, sometimes years, is something one has to get used to as a scientist.
So yes, if you know any scientists, then do please get them to look at the hemicellulose theory (which incidentally is not mine exclusively — you will see hints of it in the excellent Fanti etc al paper (2010) that I cited earlier).
There is one key characteristics concerning the the Shroud image for which folk – and that includes scientists too, especially that ENEA team with their ludicrous uv lasers -have developed a blind spot, and which to my mind demonstrates with scarcely a shadow of doubt, that the image was produced by physical contact with a hot surface. Am I the only one on the planet to see what is staring us in the face, and has been for YEARS and YEARS? If no one comes up with the correct answer this morning, then I shall devote a post on my new Shroud site to the crucial signature of scorching by contact/heat conduction, and be tempted to say more rude things about Di Lazzaro et al and their stand-up comedy version of science.
Colin: Let’s be clear that I can have no doubts whatsoever concerning your abilities as a research chemist and scientist, who has scored some remarkable successes and break-throughs in the face of aggressive opposition from the conventional wisdom of the day. You are certainly not the first to do so. Spectacular success in any walk of life is seldom achieved without having to face down the opponents of new ideas, and also rising above one’s failures.
You are clearly certain the image is a scorch. You therefore seem to have ruled out any other kind of natural process that might result in a human corpse generating the image, say by some kind of as yet unknown photo-sensitive action.
I think the problem that most of us have with that concept, is that we cannot conceive that anyone in medieval times, would be capable of constructing any kind of sculptural model, with all the accurate forensic evidence we now know the image contains. This leaves aside the unlikelihood that anyone would be sufficiently motivated to construct such a bizarre model.
I think we know that a human corpse could not reach the temperatures required for a scorch without considerable evidence of heating damage to its features. There is none!
If you are successful in demonstrating that the cloth image is caused by a scorch, and we know that this cannot have been any natural process, there is only one conclusion possible.
Reluctantly, we would have to say that the image was caused by contact scorching resulting from the Resurrection of the Shroud man. What other possible conclusion could there be?
First, let’s be clear about one thing, daveB. The image IS a scorch, and one moreover produced by thermal degradation (pyrolysis). Pretty well all the evidence – physical and chemical points to that – its superficiality, its concentration on fibre crowns, its colour, the absence of any chemical residues, its mechanical weakening of the affected fibres, the ability to reproduce yellow or brown coloration at will with the simple application of modest heat, e.g. an electric iron, the ability to bleach with a powerful reducing agent (diimide). The only downside that I can see is the lack of fluorescence, but nobody checked that out when the image was new and fresh, as I discussed on my own site recently:
Why it’s a scorch
Yet those who reject any idea that the Shroud is a medieval fake tend also to react strongly against the description of the image as a scorch. Why is that?
The answer is simple: by adopting that term they fear that a mundane connection will be made between the image and the most obvious means by which it would be produced in the medieval era – i.e. by direct contact with a hot template.
We then see the absurdity of a group of scientists (who should know better) reeling of reasons as to why the image defies modern science, yet overlooking or downplaying the key signature of a contact scorch – namely preferential coloration of the crowns where one thread loops over another, with crowns then slightly proud of the surface, and thus the first to make contact with a hot object.
I hesitate to say it, but those scientists – and many folk here, are quite simply IN DENIAL. If they cannot explain the selective scorching of crowns – as I can – then they should stop criticizing my use of the term “scorch”, and better still start to produce some good arguments AGAINST the image being a contact scorch. “Scorch” I would suggest is an empirical term meaning coloration produced by exposure to heat.
How did Di Lazarro and colleagues imagine that any kind of radiation would be capable of selectively targeting the crowns at a distance? Even with their highly improbable (some might say comedic) high energy uv, the radiation would have to be in the plane of the cloth, just clipping the tops of the crowns.
Here is a concluding comment from Fanti et al (2010): “The characteristics of superficiality described here in detail, coupled with other particular characteristics of the TS body image described elsewhere, could lead to a more reliable hypothesis of body image formation”.
So here’s a retired science bod who is responding to that challenge. I have proposed an hypothesis that I believe accommodates, or has the potential to accommodate, most if not all the known attributes of the Shroud image (blood etc can wait for another day). what’s more it incorporates what I consider to be unique features, designed to address particular points or criteria, notably:
1. The presence of loosely packed fibrils of pyroloysis-susceptible hemicellulose in the outermost primary cell wall, with no impairment of access by the kind of highly ordered arrays of cellulose fibrils that exist in the secondary cell wall.
2. The exothermic nature of hemicellulose pyrolysis (probably aided by limited oxidation and CO2 production) such that once initiated the hemicellulose reacts to completion, at least that which is immediately accessible. This either/or effect probably explains the curious half-tone effect.
3. The restriction of pyrolysis to the primary cell wall could explain the 200nm superficiality of the scorched zone.
4. The selective scorching of crown threads, indeed a few surface fibres in those threads, is exactly what would be expected of scorching by close contact (no air gap) with a hot object.
5. The negative image is exactly what one would expect from a branding technology, i.e. applying a heated template to a surface, with temperature chosen to produce a light and superficial scorch on linen. there would be left/right and light/dark reversal. Any image of a human face, thus produced, would look alien and unappealing until returned to a positive by modern photography.
It is not good enough for ” passive spectator scientists” to say that it’s all been done before. No, the groundwork has been laid, and there have been promising lines of investigation, notably John Jackson’s with heated statues, but which in my view were prematurely abandoned, especially as Jackson showed that his scorched-on image had “encoded 3D information”. ANY scorch can be rendered in 3D, by twiddling the different gain controls (which is NOT science, but a branch of applied mathematics – matrix transormation).
And though i hesitate to say it, I think the time has come to say candidly to all those who jib at my term “scorch” and to dismiss “scorching by contact/heat conduction” as the most probable mechanism of image formation to be told in no uncertain terms that THEY ARE IN DENIAL.
If they don’t like the hypothesis on offer, then there’s a simple remedy – suggest a better one (but make sure it’s a scientific one if you want the senescent ear of this old science bod).
Sorry about the blue.Seems I did not properly close an html tag on a link, which has failed to appear, and like everyone else, have no ability to edit, needless to say.
That’s one hell of a large link to your site Bod!! …I personally accept your apology. Anyways, before you start accusing everyone of being in denial, don’t you think it would be prudent to atleast show even a tad of evidence to your claims/hypothesis, whatever you want to call it? …That means please reproduce an image with all the attributes found on the shroud image. You don’t need any huge grant here, as you will be using only materials available to a 14th century prankster, right?…..just saying!
R
Ron, as I have said before, I don’t feel in the slightest bit obliged to produce a facsimile copy of the Turin Shroud, any more than I have to produce a facsimile copy of the Mona Lisa to prove it was painted with brush and oils.
My self-imposed brief is simply to take on the Di Lazzaros and others who say that the Shroud image defies modern science, and that nothing short of high energy uv radiation, (focusing system unspecified) stands any chance of reproducing its “unique” set of characteristics. For the last few weeks I have been addressing those allegedly unique characteristics, and finding they are nowhere near as mysterious as stated (e.g. “encoded 3D information”). In fact ALL, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, as far as I can see, are fully explainable in terms of boring old conventional physics, chemistry and botany.
And here we have the crucial admission that it can’t be done. Sorry folks there’s nothing to see here and you won’t be seeing any arts and crafts to demonstrate these castles in the sky. He’s too intimidated to actually get in the arena. It’s up to everyone else to prove his negatives.
Shame. Just when I was starting to warm (again) to this site. Time methinks to take another break (during which Dan will maybe see fit to lift the pre-moderation on my comments too).
I’m not talking about making a copy of the Shroud, just produce an image on linen with the same superficiality, chemical footprint, colour and detail. I don’t expect an artistic copy, use any miniature model you want! Do your sandbox thing, forget Di Lazzaros and get moving. But remember everyone will have the right to scrutinize your findings.
R
Well, what do you expect? You have all these great ideas but not the will to demonstrate them? You are full of hubris yet very shy when you’re own words are trained back upon you to show the fly in your ointment. You want love and respect, show a little.
I’m all for rigorous debate on the scientific merits but gosh, at some point you gotta show something beyond mere words.
The detailed forensic evidence would be beyond the understanding of any medievalist or ante-medievalist, regardless of whether their names were Leonardo da Vinci, Philon of Byzantium or Heron of Alexandria. Had to be a traumatised crucified corpse. Any modest heat to produce a scorch mark would result in heat damage to the body’s features. No such heat damage evident in the image.
If scorch –> Resurrection! No other conclusion possible!
Need to exclude all other possible processes that might have produced the image!
Colin, of course its a problem and I have to say I’m really surprised that you dismiss this in such an offhanded way. You mentioned Ray Rogers making a brief statement (ref http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers5faqs.pdf) to the effect that the blood could not have been heated since it “.. still evolves hydroxyproline on mild heating”. In the same reference he goes on to say “.. and the cellulose crystals are largely undistorted. Image and control fibers show identical crystal properties. The image is not a scorch. The cloth was not heated, not even boiled in oil.” This presents an important fact about the composition of the blood and one that directly contradicts the bas relief hypothesis. Rogers goes further: “The image-formation mechanism did not damage, denature, or char the blood. The blood can be removed with a proteolytic enzyme. The blood produced hydroxyproline at low temperatures in the pyrolysis/ms spectra. It was never heated significantly. Image formation had to be a low-temperature process.”
For the bas relief hypothessis to be tenable Ray Rogers had to be wrong. Was he?
Yes, Chris, Ray Rogers was wrong, utterly and totally wrong, on both points, as I have said before somewhere in that welter of words that your namesake accuses me of inflicting on this site, failing to provide him and possibly others here too with the feel-good factor they seek.
Colin’s observation that coloration is concentrated on the crowns of the topmost fibres must I think be significant, and has to be the signature of some kind of contact process, if indeed it was a process. I suspect he might well be correct in saying that it couldn’t be radiation, as radiation would give a more pervasive result extending to other fibres, and beyond the crowns.
However, Rogers was insistent that it wasn’t a scorch, as the blood could not have been heated. The apparent lack of chemical residues, I take to mean refers to the absence of any foreign material applied to the linen, and not byproducts from whatever happened to the linen (oxidation?).
I feel that little headway will be made as long as the assumption of a fraudster at work is maintained. The forensic evidence argues too strongly against it. I have to reject the template hypothesis.
I think we must look for some other contact process being involved, if it indeed it was some kind of natural process. I’ve made the observation elsewhere that pressed dried flora will leave an image on paper after a period of time. I wonder what that process is, I don’t think its mere absorption.
I can’t help feeling that somehow there must be some kind of photon exchange between the object and the linen, but I’m starting to get out of my depth. Whatever it was, it didn’t leave a lateral image. Was the linen somehow photo-sensitized during the wrapping process. 100 pounds of a myrrhic-aleotic mixture sounds fairly potent?
If a natural contact process cannot be identified, we must remain in the dark about it, and be left with the only other logical inference that can be made.
I have gone through 30 boring minutes of Colin trying to explain his scorch theory , yet he refuses to try to replicate it at all. He knows that if he could replicate it there would be a zillion atheist organizations that would fund him yet he won’t do it. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it is a duck. This is the lamest excuse not to do it.in other words alot of hot air
Let’s also not forget the unique xray qualities on the hand, mouth and parts of the skull. If colons theory had any merit someone like Joe nickel would have been on this asap as his organization has the funding to do this. Alas another shroud forgery theory will fall by the waist side with barely a thump
Maybe I’m a better experimentalist than I am a raconteur, Bob. :-(
If so, then take a look at my latest post with the 8 photographs. Some might think the latter speak for themselves – with scarcely a word of explanation needed, well-articulated or otherwise….
8 photos
Yup. I began by repeating Paolo Di Lazzaro’s experiment with the heated coins (for starters) but unlike him investigated a range of temperatures and/or contact times, which seemed the commonsensical thing to do – if one’s into the business of making what I now refer to as scorchographs… Did you know that the Turin Shroud is a scorchograph? ;-)
As others have said and I will repeat once again Colin if it were this easy it would have been attempted again. The fact that not even organizations he’ll bent on disproving the shroud are even giving your theory merit says it all, believe me if it did they would be knocking down your door with no need for u to try to sell it to them. It’s convenient that you didn’t even answer my question on the xray aspects of the shroud. That alone debunks your theory even if your theory is true (which I don’t believe because you refuse to put your money where your mouth by reproducing it for us, oh I forgot, you don’t feel like doing that). So now we have a theory which you refuse to put into action, and which even the staunchest skeptics of the shroud won’t even bother with?
Colin what’s wrong with this picture? Oh yea I forgot, they are all wrong and you are right? Is this what you would call good science Colin?
Another thing that debunks this is the sudarium of Oviedo. The Hungarian pray codex pushes the shroud back to the late 1000’s but the fact that forensic experts determined that the sudarium and shroud both covered the same body makes your theory even more rediculous. The sudarium’s history is indisputable going all the way back to the late 500’s.
Your theory starts to look even less plausible then it allready is.
It’s rediculous that skeptics who have been trying to debunk the shroud for years don’t understand yet that what makes the shroud unique is all of it’s amazing aspects put together.
I have to say, Bob, that I don’t care one little bit for your hectoring style. Without it, you would have had some thoughts on those long bony-looking fingers by now. Reluctantly, because I try to avoid vexatious people (Desiderata) who put fellow site visitors under duress for holding the wrong opinions, I shall give you a brief response (correction, it’s really intended more for others on the site who might be genuinely interested in hearing my views rather beating me up).
Just because the hands and maybe (?) parts of the skull have an “x ray quality” does not mean they really are x rays. Why is the thumb not better visualised if an X-ray, instead of being a vague blur that some folk rationalise as a retracted thumb? Why are the feet or other parts of the body with fairly superficial bones, e.g. the arms, not also possessed of an X-ray quality?
There are many possible explanations for those bony-looking fingers. Each depends on the supposed mechanism of imaging. Until one has a supposed mechanism, it is pointless speculating, unless, that is, one thinks the phenomenon under investigation provides clues to mechanism.
X-rays as the source of imaging radiation? Not even those ENSA guys went into such high frequencies with their excimer lasers. How would those X-rays be focused? And what would serve as X-ray film? Plain old linen? Hospitals could save themselves a fortune by recycling old bed sheets…
The simplest explanation for those fingers in terms of known physics is that a bas relief template had bony fingers, or – for those overlong fingers- that the thermal imprinting process went awry, maybe as a result of slippage between cloth and heat-retaining template to cause multiple overlapping imprints that simply registered as “too long”. There are others too, but each requires its own qualifying assumptions. Now then, where’s that Occam’s razor?
Sorry Colin, I may not be a scientist but I have a keen eye ‘-) …Just a quick glance at your coin images and 3d renderings, to me, basically blows your “scorchograph” theory out of the water. Even the lightest of scourges shows extreme penetration of the cloth and the pseudo-3d photos are lacking in detail with very little 3d aspect. Compared to the 3d rendering of the Shroud you posted, with scourge marks. Notice something in that picture? Look how an almost perfect 3d rendering is produced by the image itself, it’s actually quite ghostly, unlike the undetailed mounds created by the scourges. I have to agree with Bob, if you had anything serious happening here, there would be plenty of folk out there willing to finance further experiments. But the truth is you are no closer then anyother ‘debunker’ I personally have come across. Bob is also correct in that you must ‘consider all the aspects of the shroud image’ when formulating a possible mechanism; (superficiality with a true 3d rendering are the main ones). I don’t think you have, in this case.
R
Ron thank you for pointing out the lack of 3d detail in the coins. Let’s also throw in the vanillin tests as a final blow to this pseudo-scientific theory of colins. The fact that it tested negative for vanillin showed ray Rodgers that the shroud was much much older than the now invalidated c-14 dating test. In fact the vanillin tests match up to much older date (ray rogers stated between 1300 and 3000 years old and stated that this could actually be the burial shroud that wrapped around Jesus. This matches up well with the dead sea scrolls that also came back negative on the vanillin tests.
I know Colin, maybe little green men from mars with advanced technology did it.
Where on earth did you get that notion about “extreme penetration” Ron? Wrong, wrong wrong. I have an entire spectrum of scorches on the one piece of fabric, from a black burn hole right down to images that a virtually undetectable – all simply achieved by moving the same coin to new places as it cools down. Scorching is a smooth continuum – that’s plain common sense – or ought to be!
As for the poor 3D visualisation on the coins – well yes, but they have only the slightest bas-relief. The deeper your bas relief, the better the imaging – look at the banner that appears at the top of all my posts – a scorchograph from that W.African trinket.
You guys really must stop setting the bar too high on the basis of pettifogging detail. It’s the scientific principle that counts and matters of down-to-earth practicality, like how does one ensure one gets a reasonably legible scorchograph recognizable as a full-length man without risk of over-scorching? I have an answer to that (natch) – and it ain’t rocket science…
Colin I’m not refuting your idea that scourching can be done to different levels (intensities/spectrums), whatever, that IS common sense but from the pictures you posted, as I mentioned before; even from the faintest of the scorches it can be seen (quite easily) that the scourch penetrated the linen much deeper then what is found on the Shroud! …Which is the most important and telling aspect of the image!!. Mind you I find your theory intriguing almost to the point where you have me thinking on possible remedies to issues you are coming across. Like maybe the pseudo bas-relief didn’t actually have to have direct contact to scourch the topmost layer of the fibrels but brought down to a very minimal spacing? But alas that is only one aspect of the image to consider, you still have not worked out the blood marking issue which is probably the next most important aspect of the Shroud image which cannot be taken lightly.
R
Oh almost forgot to mention; With your most faintest of scourches, notice anything? The detail is lost completely. The scourches seem to loose detail progressively as they get lighter/fainter with less depth. This is obviously not the case with the Shroud image, where even scourge marks, marks not able to be seen by the human eye alone, are present. Then there is the blood again, but more precisely the trickle of blood running off of the one elbow. How or why would some medieval forger pull that off or even consider it as a detail???
R
Sure, Ron, the image on the Shroud is said to be confined to a superficial layer just 200nm thick, which corresponds to the thickness of the primary cell wall of a flax fibril.
Whilst I have no means of ensuring that any visible scorch marks that I create on linen are of that thickness, and no more, I have reason to believe I am in the right ball park. Why?
If one overlays a sheet of linen with a dried sheet of epidermis stripped from the scale leaf of an onion, which is just one cell thick (i.e. two cell wall thicknesses plus intermediate cell contents) one can produce an intense scorch on that epidermis with virtually no effect on the underlying linen (except where a protruding screw head on the template broke through!):
intense scorches can be highly superficial
So forgive me if I am relaxed about dimensions at the cellular of subcellular level. When you have handled sheets of single plant cells, and find them as easy to deal with as thin tissue paper – then things suddenly acquire a different perspective.
Scorches CAN be highly superficial. It is a matter of conjecture as to why, but it could be that the eye overestimates the extent to which a structure is damaged by a scorch. A faint visible coloration may simply require the introduction of relatively few chemical double bonds into the surface structure, sufficient to absorb a little incident blue light from the visible spectrum, scattering blue-deficient light which our amazing eyes perceive as faint yellow or brown. A little scorching can go long way in image-making terms.
Colin you wrote: “As for the poor 3D visualisation on the coins – well yes, but they have only the slightest bas-relief. The deeper your bas relief, the better the imaging ” This is totally wrong if applied to the 3D partial blood stained coin images I detected on the Shroud: the non blood-stained parts of the coins are NOT recorded at all. If their are really partial coin images on the eye areas, your theory just cannot work.
Correction “If there are”
Coins in the eyes? Isn’t that purely conjectural, like so much else that litters this topic? As for blood, it’s a subject I would not wish to get involved with unless -or until – that blood were to be carbon-dated… Sorry it that seems like a wet blanket, but science can only address testable hypotheses …
I used the strict methology of an eidomatic-numismatic reading grid based on the blood pattern analytical technique. Forensic numismatics and blood pattern analysis are definitely not conjectural all the more so as blood decals of ancient coins (such as Pilate coins) “behave” like fingerprints.. Collin, I do understand in your eye it should be conjectural lest you had to admit you just missed something along the forensic-numismatic line…
Collin, actually have you ever thought your “scorchgraph” hypothesis might well be part and parcel of that “so much else” that litters this topic?
…And in my 2011 Torun paper, I demonstrated there really are partial bloodstained coin images on the eye areas…
What I think no longer matters, Max. Once a hypothesis/theory is in the arena, it either acquires a life of its own, independent of its originator(s) or it dies the death for lack of interest or credibility.
Collin, I do agree with you. If I am right, your are wrong and if the forensic fingerprint system is wrong, it still does not mean you are right.
On second thought: Collin, what about interesting and credible long time errors having a life as if of their own? What about die hard recieved ideas?
Yes, Max, I could mention one or two myself that have hung around and queered the pitch, especially those that have severely set science back (like a few centuries or more). Methinks it would be impolitic of me to wax eloquent – or simply indignant – on that score right now ..Be that as it may, I now have some chores to attend to. Goodnight.
Again, Colin has failed to answer my question on the soft xray aspects of the shroud image. Is it because it blows his theory right out of the water?
Again, Colin failed to answer the question of the indisputable forensic evidence of the connection between the shroud and sudarium the pushes the shroud date to theate 500’s.
Again Colin failed to answer the question of the vanillin test of the shroud which convinced ray Rogers that this could very well be the shroud that wrapped the body of Christ.
Colin the only thing I agree with you on is that if a theory is rediculous that it will died out. I’d say that this theory is ready to be relegated to the dust bin alongside the Davinci and Walter Mccrone’s paint theory.
So what will your next theory be on the shroud image ? :)
Bob, to be fair to Colin and actually to our forebears, there is no reason to think, that a ‘scourched’ forgery could not have been produced even in the 5th or earlier centuries. So some of your points bear no weight against Colin’s ‘scourch’ theory, in particular. I also agree with Colin in his statement that Di Lazzaros UVU experiments actually do not tell us much about the image formation (except maybe that superficiality can be achieved by uvu) and it definately does not eliminate anyother method of image formation!…We just don’t know enough about the Shroud. Much more needs to be studied!…I’ve stated this before actually. But in saying that, I do not agree with Colin that the image formation mechanism is as non-mysterious or as simple as he proposes, otherwise it would have been figured out by now, and I also think Colin’s ‘theory’ has a long way to go before it comes anywhere near being respectable or plausible. There are far too many variables to deal with in producing an image in his proposed fashion and he asks us to believe, at the same time, some ancient forebear had the ‘knowledge of the ages’ in which too conjure this hoax up and bring it too completion. Meaning, completing a scourch image is one thing, but completing the complexity of the image we see on the Shroud is another. This includes all aspects; The forensically perfect blood flows, the travetine dirt, the unorthodox artistic style, the near perfect 3D aspect etc; etc; ….these things Colin is NOT keeping in mind, to everyone’s bewilderment and I think to true scientific procedure.
R
Colin again professor emeritus whanger stated that those aspects seem to be caused by long X-rays . Please forgive me if I take his word for it since he is an expert in his field and has seen many xray photos over yours since you are not an expert in this field at all and just making baseless conjectures with no evidence to back it up. I know maybe you can submit your assertion for peer review . Do you have even one research paper or theory on the shroud submitted for peer review ?
As a large photo of the shroud was brought to Ohio university many dentists recognized this aspect instantly , especially looking at the sinuses, teeth and gum. The fantastic part of this is that when they talked about how they made X-rays of the inside of the mouth they had to place the object inside the mouth and have the X-rays go from inside out.
This right here gives a compelling reason to think that the source of xray emission had to have come from the inside of the body coming out, in the same way a dentist takes an xray of a persons mouth.
I don’t get the remark about recycling old bed sheets , but then again if denying the work of experts that all have peer review work done on the shroud and you don’t even have one peer reviewed work done and you can’t even put your theory to the test what does it say about your theory.
Remember the shadow shroud theory? He claimed it was how the shroud was done, but he like you couldn’t pass the muster when it came to putting the theory to work in the real world.
I’m not putting you down buddy, I’m putting this theory down because it’s just filled with anecdotal wishful thinking and nothing solid .
If it was you would have millions of dollars of funding from atheist organizations alone.
You the saying “put up or” well you know the rest. By the way the retractable thumbs were also talked about by medical and forensic experts who are known in their field and all agree with the findings as to why the thumbs retracted and this knowledge could not have been known by anyone back then much less to have the nail mark through the wrist instead of the hand.
You still haven’t answered my question about the vanillin tests and the indisputable connection between the shroud and thevsudarium of Oviedo taking the shroud back to a minimum 500’s and possibly to the time of Christ.
Sorry, Bobsmith, but I have neither the time nor patience for people who adopt your kind of hectoring tone on public forums. You try constantly to belittle and browbeat, which is bad enough for anyone, but especially to someone like myself who has stated quite clearly, again and again, that he is a retired science professional. I don’t expect deference – just ordinary everyday courtesy.
For your information I have published in both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed journals – the choice depending on circumstances – whether hard data – which one expects to be closely scrutinised – or addressing more controversial issues.
Nutrition Bulletin the periodical of the British Nutrition Foundation, published an article of mine in 1988 that is still in demand (at a price) despite being non-peer-reviewed. Check this link to the abstract and you will see that it has the word “controversial” in its title. So stop trying to teach your grand(father) to suck eggs…
Resistant Starch – A Controversial Component of Dietary Fibre”
Yup, I do finally have an answer for those “x ray” elongated bony fingers, which came suddenly this morning, but intend now (sorry Dan) to put it up as a comment on my own blog (latest post) by way of protest. I’ll provide a link later in the day.
You know something, Bob. You could learn a lot from Ron’s friendlier debating style.(I’ll be back to you later, Ron).
Please see Comment No.3 on my most recent post.That’s only if you can stomach my spasm of iconoclasm regarding those long bony fingers (and much else besides ;-).
Shroudie Semtex
Colin again the experts have examined the shroud and haven’t found any problems with the anatomical figure, and since you don’t have any peer reviewed literature on the shroud please excuse me if I take the side of peer reviewed science over an amateur that is pretending to be an expert who won’t even put his money where his mouth is and demonstrate a working model live.
Now allow me to correct myself when I claimed the hands and skull show xray qualities because it is much more then just the hands and skull in fact if you go through some of the peer reviewed work such as Gus accetti MD, and John jackson of NASA here.
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/accett2.pdf
Accetti was brave enough to swallow radioactive material to show this aspect of the shroud . He and Jackson show that the human radiation model is very compelling in showing how this particular aspect of the image could have come about.
It’s funny Colin that all you have been presenting are theories and conjecture and no peer reviewed literature while the shroud experts have the peer reviewed literature to back them up.
Your theories seem to parallel the theories of shroud skeptics like Walter Mccrone, and Joe nickel in that they (like you) refuse to submit your work for peer review.
At least mccrone started submitting his work for peer review, but took them off when he didn’t like what the peer review board was saying.
Colin it’s easy to prove me, e ergo e else here and the peer review passed work of the experts.
Just recreate that image based on you highly imagined theory. To me a scientist that’s so interested in proving a fraud yet won’t put his money where is mouth proves that he doesn’t really believe the malarkey that he is saying.
In which peer-reviewed journal did that paper appear, may I ask?
Again, Bob, you should stop trying to teach your grand(father) how to suck eggs. You simply don’t know the half of it – as shown by your promoting that travesty of science as “peer-reviewed” research. That noisome pdf, fit only for the nether regions of the internet, might be better be described as black comedy. It’s scriptwriters (sadly RIP in at least one case) were playing to a particular gallery that was only remotely connected with science.The real target audience was not fellow scientists at all. Maybe you missed that, not being a science professional. It was conceived as end-of-term entertainment, pandering to the tastes of an audience seeking thrills, mystery and imagination.
Yes, your link is simply a pdf document with nothing on it to say when or where it was published, much less that it was ever peer-reviewed, As far as I can tell from googling, the work was presented at Shroud symposia in 1998 and 1999 in Dallas, Texas and Richmond, Virginia respectively, and has never appeared in any reputable scientific journal. Just for the record – anyone can submit a paper to a conference. It may need approval by the symposium organizers to appear on the programme, but is unlikely if ever to be peer-reviewed, if only that the initial submission is likely to be in the form of an abstract. As for the full post-conference write-up, I know from my own experience of having given papers at dozens of conferences that it is usually checked for no more than length and typographical errors – and NEVER refereed. A conference paper is regarded as a preliminary, not substitute, for proper publication.
Your pdf has giveaways to being a symposium piece – if only the spelling of technetium, sodium iodide, and the use of a non-scientific length measurement. That’s quite apart from the fact that it is one of the wackiest pieces of pseudo-scientific kitsch I have ever encountered in some 50 years of research and teaching. Sure,is uses a tool of science – hard gamma radiation taken internally – but only as a Japanese exponent of hara kiri might employ a Samurai sword to address life’s little problems. Science – some 400 years of it or more- is the loser, with its blood and guts left strewn all over the floor