Nice, neat summary from jonam mk in Madurai,Tamil nadu,India:
The Shroud’s images are superficial and fully contained within a thin layer of starch fractions and saccharides that coats the outermost fibers of the Shroud. The coloration is a caramel-like product or the product of an amino/carbonyl reaction. Where there is no image, the carbohydrate coating is clear. There is also a very faint image of the face on the reverse side of the Shroud which lines up with the image on the front of the cloth. There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.
Pretty much what I think. Actually those are my exact words. That is the world of blogging. And it is fine with me. A link would have been nice, something like http://www.shroudstory.com/faq/
Well said Dan–both post and comment!
Jonam wrote: “There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.”
French Shroud scientist Marcel Alonso wrote: “The hypothesis of the double superficiality of the [face Shroud] image (Fanti, Rogers, 2005) is belied by the image in transmitted light taken by Riggi in 1988. [To the sole exception of the right side of the Shroud man’s long flowing hair], the image shows that it does exist in the thickness of the fabric.” In spite of image enhancement, most of the left side of the face actually does not even clearly appear on the backside of the long linen cloth.