Pam Moon has just today published a new paper, The Feet of Christ? : Douse Water damage from the 1532 Fire, the Lier Shroud and the Missing Corners at The Shroud of Turin Exhibition website. (As before the paper is a PNG image file. Links to a PDF version are on the web page but are not yet implemented. Pam, in an email, indicated that she was working on it).
The first paragraph introduces us to the paper’s objective:
This paper suggests that douse water used to put out the fire which almost destroyed the Shroud in 1532 obscured some features that were once visible on the Shroud of Turin. The feet of the Man on the Shroud are no longer distinct. Also the elbows arc no longer visible because of douse water rather than fire damage. This paper compares the feet and elbows of the Shroud of Turin with the Lier Shroud. The Lier Shroud, painted in 1516 is an artistes impression of the Shroud of Turin possibly created by the German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder. it gives a clear impression of the feet and elbows sixteen years before douse water damage.
Here is a black and white contrast enhancement of the the above picture to see if it this offers more clarity. I think so.
Isn’t it possible that the artists who copied the Shroud were just adding their own “improvements”? After all, some artistic renderings of the Shroud have loincloths and a circlet crown of thorns.
Curious that the water which completely removed the image of the feet did not remove the image of the legs around the knees.
Curious too, that Pam interprets the toes on the Lier shroud as evidence of later removal, but I’ll bet a pound to a penny she doesn’t see the lack of blood on the arms as evidence of later addition.
And, of course, and possibly irrelevant, the central waterstains do not line up with the 1532 burn marks and are clearly from a differerent incident. (http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/aldo4.pdf).
Is there any experimental evidence that water can remove the image coloration from any Shroud fibre? Temperature may be a factor, although Ray Rogers seemed to be of the view that the linen would not have absorbed much heat during the 1532 fire.
I don’t agree with this paper. As Hugh mentioned the frontal knees image (in negative) is the clearest indication that the body image is not affected or smudged by the water stain. It’s very speculative to try to make a scientific conclusion (i.e. the image is removed by water) based on an artistic expression (i.e. Lier Shroud).
The importance of Jesus feet has no bearing on why the feet should be visible or not. The frontal feet image is missing because of how the body was wrapped in the shroud. As with any wrapping job, we start with the lower side of the wrapped object and make sure we have enough material, the top side then only gets what’s left of the cloth.
I’m a teacher. Do your homework. Pam, the image does not dissolve in water.
There will be a paper challenging the author on another topic soon.
This paper by Pam Moon does not say that the image “dissolved” due to water, but that “douse water [..] obscured some features”. The word “obscured” is essential. Pam Moon also points out why she thinks some part of the Shroud have not been affected by this water: mixing with carbon. I think the Lier copy is not required to prove some of these points, because it is rather obvious that some parts of the image of the Shroud are obscured by water stains.
Mario, why would a water stain obscure? Water takes impurities from the middle of the stain and moves them to the edge of the stain by capillarity. The middle of the stain should be “cleaner” than before not more obscure. The edges will show a line and that may obscure but I don’t think she was referring to that in the paper.
Mike, water stains can have edges that span several centimeters and these can be seen on the Shroud. See for example the water stains photomicrographs at
http://www.sindonology.org/photomicrographs.shtml
There is even some large areas darkened by water that appears to have carry charred linen. Yes, I agree that a water stain moves microscopic materials by capillarity and that it could make some part “cleaner”, but the other case also occurs (move dirt from one part to another) and they do occur on the Shroud. The main issue on the Shroud is that water has moved some of the charred material onto the cloth over the image.
Moon’s paper never states that the image was removed or dissolved by water. I do not see that anywhere in the paper. What is clearly stated, at least twice, is that the water stains obscure the image and in some cases from carbon (charred material) that drifted from the burned area. I agree to that. Take one of the elbow, for example: it is obscured by a water stain.
But I disagree that the front feet were more visible before 1534, because the current image of the front feet is compatible with the toes of one foot pointing upward such that you could not see the side of the toes and most of the foot. And, as pointed out by others, the artistic rendering of the Lier copy cannot be taken to support the claim that the foot was once more visible because the artist may have added the appearance of the front feet to its copy. And note that Pam Moon was careful to write that the artist could have added that detail.
In summary: water stains obscure some image areas and that can readily been observed by looking at high definition photographs of the Shroud or some of the Evans’ photomicrographs. Using the Lier copy to prove that claim, obscures (sorry for the pun!) the claim.
I agree with that, the elbows may be obscured by a small water stain and a scorch in the middle.