Stephen Jones found a link that will let you get a non-final version of Fanti’s paper free. That is probably close enough for most of us. If you are interested jump on over to Jone’s blog: Fanti, et al.’s, "Non-destructive dating of ancient flax textiles by means of vibrational spectroscopy" paper (unedited) can be downloaded free!
Here is what Stephen had to say:
In trying to work out how I would find it online at the library, I found the page "Vibrational Spectroscopy | Articles in Press | ScienceDirect.com"
About half-way down that table of contents page I found Fanti, et al.’s article, with a PDF download link.
I clicked on the link thinking it would pop-up a message saying I had to pay for the article. But much to my surprise it downloaded a PDF of the full text of the article:
I clicked on the link thinking it would pop-up a message saying I had to pay for the article. But much to my surprise it downloaded a PDF of the full text of the article with the proviso that it is unedited and the final published version may be different:
No comment ?
It will be interesting to read this. Thanks Stephen.
The material posted is raw, so we will have to wait for the full text.
I really wonder how this new alternative method for dating ancient textile will be hosted by real expert in the field of ancient dating (archaeologists, C14 dating experts, etc.). I have serious doubt that this method will be used a lot in the future. Maybe it could be used to back-up and confirm C14 dating tests ? I don’t see this going any further than a back-up test to a C14 test.
I disagree. Even this raw paper looks fairly persuasive, and Fanti appears to have done a thoroughly professional piece of research in this case. Gabriel has frequently commented on the suspect nature of C14 results in the case of textiles, and has advocated that other more reliable methods are available.
As I know Gabriel is not an expert in C14 dating and as I know, there is no other largely accepted method to date ancient textile than C14. And by the way, my comment was a question more than anything else. Only the future will tell if Fanti’s method will eventually be used by archaeologists, textile experts, C14 dating experts, etc. No one can tell about that right now.
And even if this method could be used on a large scale one day, that doesn’t mean Fanti’s dating result about the Shroud is valid. There are other important issues regarding that particular dating test that has not be addressed in the paper recently published like the representativity of the sample used.
Dating of Fanti’s Shroud sample is not cited in his paper. Very shrewd! He’s looking to get the method reviewed first, before he springs it!
If C14 is such an accurate dating test, then someone may like to explain why C14 dates the Sudarium of Oviedo to the 6th century. There’s a reasonably good case for the relic’s authenticity. If true it should date no later than the 1st century. I wonder what Fanti’s test would date it to? A 200 year tolerance within the 1st century would surely raise questions about the reliability of C14 tests on ancient textiles!
The link says the paper is unedited and the final published version may be different.
Quote from Dave : “If C14 is such an accurate dating test, then someone may like to explain why C14 dates the Sudarium of Oviedo to the 6th century.”
Occam’s razor would answer this : Simply because the Sudarium is a relic which was made around the 6th century !
And then by a process of logical induction the Shroud of Turin dates to the 12th-13th centuries?? Ha! Gotcha!
Not at all because except for the C14 test of 88, there’s no real conflicting piece of evidence that would suggest the Shroud is something else than the authentic shroud of Jesus. We cannot say so for the Sudarium. There are many conflicting pieces of evidence and the brownish aspect of the blood is only one of those.
I don’t pretend the Sudarium is a forgery done with a real human body for sure, but right now, this is an hypothesis that is truly possible (unlike the Shroud, which can highly unlikely be a false relic done with a corpse), especially when you consider the fact that there was a big market of false Christian relics during that period of time (around the 6th century). You just have to look at the Mandylion, which appeared during that time to be convinced…
I would think the logic of Occam’s razor would give the answer as; The C14 is in error. Simply because it is well known that there are a miriad of issues in dating materials and the chances of human error.
R
Since the check-up work done by Adler and Rogers, I think it is fair to say that the C14 dating of 88 gave most probably an inaccurate result because the sample used was not representative of the main body of the cloth. I Wonder if things are not the same for Fanti’s samples…
My dear father, God rest his soul, used a hollow-ground cut-throat razor for shaving most of his life. Every evening he would carefully hone it on a razor leather strop before shaving. Dr Occam’s razor is clearly losing its edge!