imageOLD NEWS: Andrea Tornielli writing March 9, 2012,  in Vatican Insider:

The Shroud of Turin, the linen sheet which, according to tradition, Jesus’ body had been wrapped in and carries the imprint of a man who was crucified in the same way described in Gospels, is still a mystery. A recently published study has concluded that the most likely hypothesis for the explanation of the origin of the image imprinted on the shroud is radiation, particularly the “corona discharge effect.”

This is according to Giulio Fanti, Professor of Professor of Mechanical and Thermic Measurements at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Padua who has been carrying out research on the Shroud for a number of years. The academic has presented the results of his study in an article that has just been published by the Journal of Imaging Science and Technology.

. . .

The article scientifically examines all core hypotheses, comparing them to 24 of the Shroud’s unique characteristics, deemed to be the most important of the more than one hundred features published up until recently in international scientific journals. The first hypotheses formulated by researchers who analysed the first photographs taken of the Shroud in the early 1900’s are being reviewed and examined. For example the theories which attributed the formation of the depicted figure to chalk or ammonia, to the effect of lightening or a mould containing zinc powder. “I therefore took the most sophisticated of all the hypotheses into consideration, such as those relating to the diffusion of gas or to the Shroud’s contact with the body that had been wrapped in a sheet soaked in aromas and various other substances,” Professor Fanti said.

“During my research – Fanti went on to say – I also considered the possibility of the combination of more than one mechanism in the image’s formation, returning to the ideas of those who, as of the second half of the last century, started to doubt the authenticity of the Shroud and therefore started suggesting image reproduction techniques used by medieval artists.”

You may recall that we discussed this on December 26, last year: New Paper in JIST by Giulio Fanti: Regarding the Formation of the Body Image on the Turin Shroud

It was not well received by some: Not happy with Giulio Fanti’s Paper in JIST

I must say I find the paper very unconvincing. And I haven’t seen any emerging support for it in the two and a half months since the it was published.