The rogue classicist in his blog posting, Capitoline She-Wolf: 12th Century, uses Shroud of Turin as a new compound conceptualization word. Is Shroud of Turin on its way to become a concept noun for bad carbon dating? Bad science?
This seems to be a followup to a little brouhaha that rearose back in November (see, e.g., in the Telegraph: Romulus and Remus symbol of Rome could be medieval replica) which I don’t think we got around to blogging about. Folks should read Dorothy King’s post from the time: The Capitoline Lupercalia … I think the objections remain. The Corriere della Sera piece mentions radiocarbon dating again, but they’ve done some statistical shifting (i.e. it doesn’t appear they’ve done new tests, but they’ve fudged the numbers … I can’t really find anything on this at the USalento site). The Gulf piece mentions thermoluminescence as well, but I’m not sure how that would apply in this situation. Whatever the case, we seem to be on the cusp of turning the Capitoline She Wolf into the Shroud of Turin of the Classics set …
Actually, this is good English word derivation. And it tends to classify the carbon dating problem as a screw up. Now there is an interesting compound concept word: screw up.
The point of datation and C14 is something that from time to time comes up in this blog.
It is really important because finding an accurate alternative to the c14 test would mean
an important step forward.
In this line, I have recently come across a peer-reviewed paper (1) by one of the STURP members which to my surprise, has been widely ignored and even in shroud.com is only tangentially commented.
It mentions that the ratios of deuterium/hidrogen and two isotopes of of oxigen can contribute to determine the geographical origin of any linen. In combination with the more recent results obtained (2) with trace elements I think it truly represents
a scientifically solid and promising path.
This would incorporate to the datation strategy followed so far, the geographical view of determination of linen origin.
(1) DeNiro, MJ, Sternberg, L.D., Marino, B.D., Druzik, JR. Relation between D/H ratios and O18/O16 ratios in cellulose from linen and maize. Implication fro paleoclimatology and for sindonology. Geochimica et Cosmochimica acta, vol. 52 pp. 2189-2186.1988.
(2) Takako Inoue, Kengo Ishihara and Kyoden Yasumoto.International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology Vol. 22 No. 2/3, 2010 pp. 174-186