In my arguments with Charles Freeman, I contended, as I have for a long time, that it is near impossible to paint a negative image. I repeated the claim today. Hugh Farey showed me that I was wrong. It is a short, very disturbing video.
Last November, I had written:
Show me one example of someone painting a negative image in the medieval or anytime in history. Find me an artist anywhere in the world who can do so. I’m sure it is possible. So, too, I imagine is patting your head, rubbing your stomach, jumping rope and singing the Halleluiah Chorus backwards all at the same time. Try it. No, I mean try painting a negative without a negative to copy. Try it.
But Charles, I still would like to see a medieval example and find out why a medieval artist would do this.
Clever, but this is NOT THE REASON why painting a negative image just like on the Shroud is practically impossible.
Painting a mirrored image is relatively easy, just as painting tone-inverted (black vs white) image. Those are trivial operations.
But those are not what is a secret of the negative.
Read my gust posting about that http://shroudstory.com/2014/11/10/guest-posting-by-o-k-on-the-shroud-as-a-negative/ And pay attention to the greyscale and contrast.
Yes, of course. Brian Lai knows what a negative image is, and has a positive in front of him to ‘invert.’ It’s a clever party trick, but not really related to the image on the Shroud. If the Shroud was painted as it is, it was not because the artist wanted to produce a negative, but a deliberate attempt to depict the image that might have been left by a moist body on a covering cloth, with closely pressed parts more dense and less firmly contacted parts less dense. John Jackson, you will recall, got police artists to attempt exactly this, with moderate success. What we must ask ourselves is: Is the resulting image too good to be true? And, by way of clarifying what we mean by that, is the resulting 3D image as produced by ImageJ or the VP-8 analyser too realistic to be credibly the work of an artist? If the answer is yes, then non-authenticists must abandon the straight painting hypothesis and go for the bas-relief powdering, smearing or scorching method, when, it might be supposed, a more realistic ‘negative’ might be an inevitable consequence of the process, as demonstrated by Garlaschelli or Colin Berry.
Unless Brian Lai also indulges in time travel. we can eliminate him as a forger of the Shroud. But Lai is drawing today when negative images are well understood from the days of film photography. The issue is the existence of a medieval artist who would have drawn a negative image 400 hundred years before the the invention of photography..
In addition, one of the scientific findings of STURP which has not been challenged is the lack of directionality. It would be pretty hard to claim that the image created by Mr.Lai lacks directionality.
When the dispute about the drawing of La Principesa was in gear one of the attributes that led to DaVinci was that the direction of the drawing was clearly left-handed.
Finally, there is no evidence of paint or any other medium. There are a multiple number of circumstances pointing to the conclusion that the image is not a painting or the work of any artist.
Without a clear historical precedent which meets all the relevant circumstances, then any other solution is mere speculation, or as they say upstate, hogwash.
Incidentally, I don’t want to be too commercial, but there is a discussion of directionality and DaVinci in Chapter 14 of Quantum Christ.
Limited time offer for one week: Contact me by E-Mail and I’ll send you a PDF of that Chapter. Good until March 1, 2015. (johnklotz@gmail.com)
Subject to support by an expert in textile conservation,I can only repeat what I said earlier. We know beyond any doubt from medieval manuals and the few surviving medieval,painted linens that painting took place only on the outer surface of a cloth sealed with gesso. We also know that with folding and unfolding the pigments could disintegrate. A place called Barley Hall has apparently done some experiments with this but they never replied to my e-mail.
The question then becomes: ‘if the pigments have been in place for five hundred years and then disintegrate what is left underneath?, Presumably the cloth has been affected depending on the density of the pigments so that one is left with shadowy images that will vary in consistency with the density and perhaps types of pigment of the original paint. My suspicion is that they will vary so light painted areas will appear darker and heavily painted areas lighter so,perhaps,providing us with the apparent negatives. But in addition to this we have the artist creating a mirror image.
So now one needs to find a textile expert who may know of similar examples. The best case of the pigments disintegrating that I know of is the Zittau Veil- the pigments came off when steamed- but I don’t know whether the remaining shadows where the pigments were are negatives or not.
This is a plausible hypothesis and so needs to be tested out, just as the Oxford lab tested out John Jackson’ s hypothesis about carbon monoxide affecting the radiocarbon date and finding that it did not.
So to go back to the original questions: my hypothesis is that the artist WAS trying to create a mirror image but that the apparent negative image is what is left when the pigments came off after five hundred years of covering the weaver: so nothing to do with the artist himself.
You have not cited a single fact in support of your hypothesis and typou ignore the body of science opposed to your speculation.
To place yourself on the same plane with your speculations as John Jackson is absurd. The issue is science and you are an art historian.
Why would an artist paint scourge marks in areas (upper thighs-dorsal & ventral; buttocks-dorsal) that would have been covered by a loin cloth in the original painting, suggested in the hypothesis to have flaked off? Just in case?
The original painting, in my view, has all-over scourge marks because these were an iconographic innovation of the fourteenth century noted by Professor James Marrow of Princeton University ( though not with reference to the Shroud but to other examples – he notes that they were inspired by Isaiah 1:6) .
Originally there was no loin cloth as can be seen from the Lirey Pilgrim Badge, the Lier copy and the illustration of the Shroud in the 1559 prayer book of Marguerite de Valois now in the Royal library of Turin. The loin cloth was added probably at the demand of Bishop Francesco Lamberti of Nice and Carlo Borromeo both of whom were involved in the Council of Trent decree of 1563 which banned lascivious ness in religious art and involved the covering up of nudes, such as Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine chapel.
This would explain why there are scourge marks under the later added loin cloth .
Not so disturbing.
Basically, Brian Lai first drew an eye and then inverted the colors (white–>black and black–>white)
It is a typical modern way of thinking. In order to think so, one has to know the modern concepts of photographic positive and negative.
If a medieval forger had to paint an imprint of a body on a sheet, he should have to represent via painting some kind of cloth-to-body distance or pressure.
For example, he should have to paint more heavily the parts of the body which are in close contact with the cloth.
This is possible.
But what is the probability that a medieval forger could paint a ‘negative’ image that matches the accurate ‘photographic’ negative properties of the TS image?
The fact is that the painters who tried to reproduce the TS image itself failed to reproduce the negativity.
This shows that the concept of ‘photographic’ negativity of the TS image was not accessible to a medieval forger.
Why image on TS is unique? Can anyone produce a negative photograph like image on TS which was produced in medieval time? (Image on TS is the first and last one)
Furthermore there is no any other painting or another medieval photographic negative showing Jesus was crucified by nailing through his wrists. Almost all paintings show that Jesus was crucified by nailing his palms.
Why image on TS is the only one tell us that Jesus was crucified by nailing through his wrists
.
I don’t see why what STURP team scientists discovered about the possibility of painting should be ignored. This reminds one about Dr. Walter McCrone’s attitude, posted on another thread recently with some good comments.
“But what is the probability that a medieval forger could paint a ‘negative’ image that matches the accurate ‘photographic’ negative properties of the TS image?
The fact is that the painters who tried to reproduce the TS image itself failed to reproduce the negativity.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Both the negativity and the 3D qualities have been reproduced many times by many people, not least myself. The police artists commissioned by John Jackson, the artist the BBC commissioned to copy the Shroud face, and even Walter McCrone himself have all produced images which produce excellent negatives and translate reasonably well into 3D. The Shroud itself is nothing like as fabulously accurate as most people suppose, requiring a considerable amount of manipulation to attempt to make it look anything better than a very flat intaglio. The objection to these copies is not that they are not as good as the Shroud, but that they are based on what they already knew and images they had already seen. Some time ago I suggested that a better experiment would be to recruit good artists in a non-Christian country with no knowledge of the Shroud, and ask them to produce a monochrome painting as if left by a body in a sheet, and see what that looked like.
Hugh,
maybe I was not clear enough.
I wrote: ” “But what is the probability that a MEDIEVAL forger could paint a ‘negative’ image that matches the accurate ‘photographic’ negative properties of the TS image?
The fact is that the painters who tried to reproduce the TS image itself failed to reproduce the negativity.”
The painters in question are the MEDIEVAL painters and the fact is that the MEDIEVAL reproductions of the TS (“the painters who tried…”) do clearly show that these artists were unable to understand the concept of negativity.
Do you agree now ?
And Sampath, the Shroud does not show that the nails were not banged in through the wrists. Enlarge the crossed hands area on Shroud Scope and decide where the extremities of the proximal phalanges (the clearest of the visible finger joints), and measure them using the online tool. Then decide whereabouts on the blood stain marks the centre of the nail hole (there are several possibilities) and measure the distances from the ends of the phalanges to your wound spot. Transfer these eight measurements to your own hands. On my hands the resulting point is well within the area of the metacarpals, and not within the area covered by the wrist bones.
Four fingers confirmed that nails went through the wrists rather than the palm. Mr. Farey – if possible, could you demonstrate your explaination through a sketch please.
I agree. I think it is a shroud myth that the wounds are on the wrists.
Mr Thomas, how can you prove that it is as a myth. Anyone can see it from the image.
I believe the method outlined by Mr Farey is flawed, and there are better images available than that shown on Shroudscope, valuable as that tool happens to be. Firstly only the exit wound of one nail hole of the left upper limb is shown, it is smeared, and no entrance wounds are visible. The length of phalanges between individuals is known to vary considerably; there is an underlying assumption that the outer surface of the hand is laying flat against the cloth, whereas it seems more likely to be an orthogonal projection, and for all that may be surmised, the fingers may be cupped to some extent, and also not parallel to the cloth; there is an assumption that the image of the ends of the fingers are clearly visible, but for all that may be guessed the end of the fingers image may merely be the end of the phalange bones, if that. I believe the measurement method described is therefore flawed.
I have before me a particularly clear image of the exit wound. It appears to coincide with the narrowest part of the wrist, where the base of the thumb and little-finger metacarpals converge at the join of the wrist. The “blood-smear” extends from the base of the palm as far as and beyond the join with the fore-arm, that is, generally what most people would call the wrist.
As for the entrance wound, that is not visible. Barbet deduced from his experiments, that it was at the wrist. Zugibe considered it was at the base of the palm, and showed a particularly graphic example of a stabbing victim’s wound which he believed was similar. I believe Zugibe’s analysis of arm tensions was flawed, as it failed to take account of the fact of the raising of the cross-beam, with the victim attached, when the full body weight would need to be carried by his outstretched arms, until the feet were nailed which only then could give any relief to arm tension.
Louis wrote: “I don’t see why what STURP team scientists discovered about the possibility of painting should be ignored. This reminds one about Dr. Walter McCrone’s attitude, posted on another thread recently with some good comments.”
Has to be ignored (along with other results) to try to make the hypothesis fit-similar to selectively quoting negative blood data findings from 1973 in the article and just leaving it at that. Even with the selective reporting, this hypothesis has many struggles in of itself. It’s like trying to put a glass slipper on a gorilla-the ugliest of stepsisters: doesn’t fit.
Hugh wrote “The objection to these copies is not that they are not as good as the Shroud, but that they are based on what they already knew and images they had already seen.” Another objection for many such copies is that they involve detectable paints, pigments-this doesn’t agree with what’s been reported for the Shroud. How does one “paint” an image in the absence of a detectable medium?
It would be interesting to hear Isabel Piczek’s comments on Freeman’s hypothesis
Has Isabel Piczak training and experience in dealing with the analysis and conservation of ancient/ medieval painted linens? That’s the person I am looking for. Without someone with hands-on experience of such linens and what happens to their pigments over time I don’t see how we can get very far.
Hi Kelly
Nothing to disagree about. Taking all the data we have about the Shroud should be taken into consideration. It is a must.
The loin cloth was added at a later time, but then flaked off, yet the scourge marks (and other features) remain visible. In addition to painting adeptly in the negative, the artist was also accomplished at painting in the invisible, again anticipating detection of serum halo rings using uv light in the future.
Isabel Piczak is a noted artist & theoretical physicist-I’d say she’d have some good insight regarding much of this. I think de Wesselow’s comments on this particular hypothesis would also be interesting. Of course, with any such comments, just like the scientific aspects, one can simply discard the parts that don’t fit-it’s old ground-too flakey
Isabel Piczak is certainly not a noted theoretical physicist, and her prognostications on the physics of the resurrection are unlikely to make her one. She is undoubtedly a noted artist, and has had useful things to say regarding the projection of the image on the cloth. I do not know what her experience is of medieval paintings.
Brian Williams said she was.
Cahles,
An art expert on ancient linen who is not also a physicist is not qualified to make the judgment you seek. The SCIENCE which you continue to ignore has demonstrated that it is not a painting. Ray Rogers and John Jackson had an unfortunate spat over Rogers critique of one of Jackson’s theories. But the fact is they concurred on the fact that the image was not a painting.
Your hypothetical “linen” expert who isn’t qualified with either deep physics or chemistry is not qualified to to express a scientific opinion. Once you get beyond carbon data there really can’t be a dispute. The evidence that the carbon data samples where not representative of the main body of the Shroud is absolute.
I know you are a busy man but if you want a linen expert I’ll give you a linen expert:
http://www.shroudofturinexhibition.com/Shroud_of_Turin_exhibition/Home_files/Updated_report_on_the_Consideration_to_the_Uniformity_and_Effects_of_the_Fabric_in_the_Shroud_of_Turin-5-1.pdf
Get back to us after you have read the article and I would also suggest you get back to us after you have found a linen expert.
I really think you cling to the concept that it is a painting because once you concede that it is not, your expertise has nothing to add to the Shroud discussion.
Nothing becomes even a proud man like the simple admission “I was wrong.” It was Ray Rogers admission that is original dismissal of Benfford-Marino as part of the “lunatic fringe” was wrong and that they were right that “righted” Shroud science.
Oops Cahles = Charles
Stop it Paulette! This is serious business. You are a master of irony and you brighten our days. Sometimes too much. Unless Williams really did say that :-)
HG wrote “Isabel Piczak is certainly not a noted theoretical physicist, and her prognostications on the physics of the resurrection are unlikely to make her one. She is undoubtedly a noted artist, and has had useful things to say regarding the projection of the image on the cloth. I do not know what her experience is of medieval paintings”
The fact that she has a background in physics was mentioned simply to point out that she has a notion of what science is about. Initially dismissing someone without even considering what insight they might provide tells of insecurity. I’m betting Dame Piczak knows her pigments and could provide some interesting comments..
Sampath: I have attempted to explain why the nail wound of the Shroud man is not in the wrist at: http://i.imgur.com/LH4rmE9.jpg. Perhaps you and daveb would like to point out the flaws in it!
Thibault: Your point is very valid. All the copies of the Shroud I have seen have been done by people with at least some idea of what they were aiming at. If there was a medieval painter, he would have had a good idea of what he was doing (something like producing a sweatstain), but no real idea of what the end product was likely to look like. Whether it was impossible for him to achieve the Shroud as we know it is a matter of conjecture.
Kelly: “Initially dismissing someone without even considering what insight they might provide tells of insecurity.” Indeed it would. I would never do such a thing. See the discussion on this site on October 12, 2013, “In case you missed Isabel Piczek’s wonderful paper.” As an artist, Isabel Piczek (Piczak was a typo, I do apologise to the good dame) may well know useful things about pigments, although as I say, I do not know of her expertise in the medieval history of art. However she has no background in physics, and, if her papers about event horizons are anything to go by, no chance of becoming a ‘noted’ scientist.
Sampath: I have attempted to explain why the nail wound of the Shroud man is not in the wrist at: http://i.imgur.com/LH4rmE9.jpg. Perhaps you and daveb would like to point out the flaws in it!
Hugh, the fact is that any measurements on the Shroud has about 5 mm margin of error. So for two points the error may be as high as 1 cm. My measurements give about 58 mm between N2 and P2, which is about the lenght to the wrist in my hand. Roughly in the places indicated by Zugibe:
http://www.shroud.com/zugibe.htm
Sorry OK, but a single measurement is insufficient to discredit my paper. The middle of my N2 position on the Shroud is clearly defined. If you measure 58mm from this point towards and beyond P2a, you reach a possible position for the knuckle. Fair enough. However, if the knuckle is in that position, then the length of the phalanx is reduced to about 45mm, one of the shortest, when in fact it should be the longest. As for your metacarpal being only 58mm long, then it is considerably shorter than mine, and probably shorter than that of the man in the Shroud. If you’re going to pursue this idea, you need to measure all your proximal phalanges, find out whether they are bigger or smaller than those of the man in the Shroud, and make appropriate corrections before you can assess the position of the wound on the back of your own hand.
Mr Farey – Have you ever notice the position of the hand wound in the positive image of the Shroud? Any comments please.
Remember that the palm image in Shroud has some X-Ray qualities
The position of the hand wound is exactly the same in both positive and negative images. I have mentioned the X-Ray hypothesis in my paper, but do not believe that there is any justification for it. If there is, then it should be an easy matter to point out the exact positions of all the joints on a photograph of the hand, and to measure them to see if they are physiologically compatible. This has not been done.
Mr. Farey – I don’t know how to attach the picture. Wrist wound is very clear in the Positive image.
I don’t see any significant problem here.
The lenght from the wrist to the basis of the knuckles should be about the same as the lenght from the basis of the knuckles to the end of proximal phalanges.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Scheme_human_hand_bones-en.svg/406px-Scheme_human_hand_bones-en.svg.png
That’s in the case of my hand. But it seems that in the case of your hand, the first distance is probably greater than the second, so the proportion is different.
Anyway, as I said, my measurements still tell me the nail exit is in the wrist in either of the areas postulated by Zugibe (not Destot’s space!)
“The length from the wrist to the basis of the knuckles should be about the same as the length from the basis of the knuckles to the end of proximal phalanges.” I’m not sure I get that. The yellow bones are longer than the green bones. A comparative study of Hand Segments (http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/ijmorphol/v28n3/art15.pdf) gives every metacarpal as at least 15mm longer than its connected phalanx.
Yes, you have to make a lot of assumptions when you are dealing with the negative image. Please check the positive image of the TS.
So why do the thumbs seem to be missing?
Hugh,
I wrote “Isabel Piczek is a noted artist & theoretical physicist”. I was never claiming she was a “noted” physicist-what “no background” means is open to interpretation I suppose. I was just going by what comes up when her name is searched. I also mentioned de Wesselow’s in the accompanying sentence. I think both might have useful things to say, irrespective of any major experience in medieval art. It would seem reasonable that IP’s knowledge of science vocabulary may be above that of a typical artist, having some connection to physics, but that’s neither here nor there-I think her comments on pigments flaking, now you see it now you don’t, would be interesting-it seemed a bit too much of a trigger finger reaction to me, particularly given her known support for authenticity.
BTW, using the same measure, others may claim to have a “science background”, but the meaning could be various. To some, the claim of a scientist is based on taking graduate courses in various subjects or teaching science or exposure at some level. To others, the claim of being a scientist, implies having conducted original research in a university-associated laboratory or independent company, having a published cv. Could mean different things to different people, no doubt.
Fair enough. Have you read “The Event Horizon of the Shroud of Turin”? Elevating stuff…
“The thumbs are missing from the Shroud image because their natural position both in death and in the living person is in the front of and slightly to the side of the index finger. Therefore, it would be next to impossible to have impressions of the thumbs because the Shroud would not be in contact with them.” I don’t think I can improve on Dr Zugibe’s thinking. He also didn’t think much of the ‘median nerve damage’ hypothesis. Googling ‘median nerve damage’ one can easily see why.
Hugh Farey wrote “Fair enough. Have you read “The Event Horizon of the Shroud of Turin”? Elevating stuff…”
Has been awhile, but sure
Googling median nerve damage brought interesting, illustrated material to read. However my question was raised because of what Dr. Pierre Barbet wrote in his book, written after his experiments with dead bodies..
I am absolutely certain that if Dr Barbet had had the same access to the internet as you or I, he would have been considerably less confident about a number of his conclusions. In the only illustrations of his dead bodies that I have seen, there is no retraction of the thumbs because the bodies were dead when he nailed them.
Yes I think the great faith placed in Barbet is somewhat misguided. He obviously contributed a lot to Shroud studies, but he is one expert working a long time ago without some of the technologies and knowledge we now have.
I agree Hugh, the wounds are not on the wrists.
I agree about the Internet. But I read Pierre Barbet’s book more than a decade ago and do not remember all the details. One point I do remember is that he said that when he hammered a nail into the wrist of the hand of the dead person the thumb swung in the direction of the palm and remained there.
Try Googling “barbet cadaver.” Not a pretty sight, but no retraction of the thumbs.
Because at least one of the thumbs is probably barely visible:
http://i.imgur.com/ArdcM4t.jpg
“The length from the wrist to the basis of the knuckles should be about the same as the length from the basis of the knuckles to the end of proximal phalanges.” I’m not sure I get that. The yellow bones are longer than the green bones. A comparative study of Hand Segments (http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/ijmorphol/v28n3/art15.pdf) gives every metacarpal as at least 15mm longer than its connected phalanx.
By ‘basis of the knuckles’ I mean the protuberance at the ending of the metacarpal, so phalanx+ the neding of the metacarpal.
Anyway:
http://i.imgur.com/JGknr0k.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OYROtmv.jpg
Give or take 5 mm, and everything is fine.
No. Your total length now, from the wound to the far end of the phalanx is 59.0 + 51.7 = 110.7mm. My hand being bigger than the Shroud’s, I multiply this by 1.1 to get 121.8mm. On my hand, this takes me exactly to position N3, and not the wrist. As I said before, a single measurement here or there cannot be used to define a position, because an overall match is needed. You need to measure all your own phalanges, compare them to the Shroud’s, multiply the Shroud measurement by any necessary correction factor, and then find the position of the wound on your own hand. I very much doubt you will find your positions very different from mine.
I googled Barbet cadaver, which led me to the paper by Dr. Zugibe. The first b/w does not seem to show any thumbs. Combining this with what the physician wrote about experiments with an amputated arm makes sense, not the photograph of a crucified person.
Re: the thumbs-if rigor mortis had rapidly set in as has been suggested in the past, would the thumbs still exist in their natural position relative to the index finger? Or would the thumbs have been more locked in a fixed position? either more outward or inward? Does the natural position still apply to hands held upward with accompanying rigor? My understanding is that rigor in the upper arms/shoulders was suggested to have been broken to bring the arms closer to the body.
Good questions My imagination may be running wild but I did think about Jesus keeping his thumbs in that position to ease the pain in the hands and they remained so till rigor mortis set in.
HF: “Sampath: I have attempted to explain why the nail wound of the Shroud man is not in the wrist at: http://i.imgur.com/LH4rmE9.jpg. Perhaps you and daveb would like to point out the flaws in it!”
I already did at Feb 23, 5:24am. Why should I repeat myself? Measuring along the hands is useless and Oskar has fallen into the trap of repeating the error. No-one knows what the angle of the hand is to the surface of the cloth, and no-one knows the length of the phalanges or other related physical attributes of the TSM, nor whether the fingers are cupped. I also mentioned other aspects.
The OK graphic at Feb 23, 6:40pm is not too bad. The blood smear of the exit wound visible on the left arm there, appears to me to extend from the base of the hand and extends past the join with the forearm. Most people using the English language still call that the wrist!
It is clearer on better graphics. I can send Mr Farey a selection of 12 slides on forensic aspects from a presentation I did last year. Doubtless he will find plenty there he can either disagree with, or else be disagreeable about. Extract is PDF format, about 5.0MB. Let me know if you’re receptive to it, and I’ll send it.
Hugh:
No. Your total length now, from the wound to the far end of the phalanx is 59.0 + 51.7 = 110.7mm. My hand being bigger than the Shroud’s, I multiply this by 1.1 to get 121.8mm. On my hand, this takes me exactly to position N3, and not the wrist. As I said before, a single measurement here or there cannot be used to define a position, because an overall match is needed. You need to measure all your own phalanges, compare them to the Shroud’s, multiply the Shroud measurement by any necessary correction factor, and then find the position of the wound on your own hand. I very much doubt you will find your positions very different from mine.
On the contrary, on my hand I don’t find my positions very different from what I see on the Shroud, the distance of 11 cm from the end of proximal phalanges leads me to the wrist area, exactly where Zugibe indicates. Your hands are perhaps slightly different, yet comparing with mine (and without using complicated method you described) the results are satisfactory.
DaveB:
I already did at Feb 23, 5:24am. Why should I repeat myself? Measuring along the hands is useless and Oskar has fallen into the trap of repeating the error. No-one knows what the angle of the hand is to the surface of the cloth, and no-one knows the length of the phalanges or other related physical attributes of the TSM, nor whether the fingers are cupped. I also mentioned other aspects.
Yet we can give quite reliable estimate. The sheet probably followed the surface of the hand quite tighly, as roughly constant intensity indicates (remeber about distance -intensity correlation), so the margin of error due to projection is likely to be negligible. We can also get a good guess about the endings of phalanges (as they are marked by slight growth of intensity). And making those measurements we can get quite fine results.
If your hands are smaller than those of the Shroud man, then of course the wound will appear over your wrist, unless you use a correction factor. As my hands are larger than those of the Shroud man, then I also had to apply a correction factor or the wounds would have, quite improperly, have ended up right in the middle of my palms. You really do need the complicated method.
No, Hugh, measurements taken on my hand give me almost the same results as shown on the two pictures above: about 6 cm for the first measurement (from the wrist to the basis of the knuckle) and 5 cm for the second (from the knuckles to the end of the phalanx. No complicated method is needed.
OK, Measuring – guess, guess, guess and approximate this and that. Just look at the outlines of the base of the hand and the forearm around the blood smear.
“No-one knows what the angle of the hand is to the surface of the cloth.” While this is true, we can make some valid approximations. If the cloth follows the contour of the hands, or if the hands and cloth are in the same plane, then the absolute measurements are valid. If the hands are in one plane, and the cloth in another, then either a) The measurements are shorter than real life if the ‘radiation’ is perpendicular to the cloth or b) The measurements are longer than real life if the radiation is perpendicular to the hand.
But by how much? To increase any of these measurements by a single millimetre requires that the cloth be in contact at one end and about 10mm higher than the cloth at the other end. This is wholly impracticable. It is simply not enough to say, we don’t know this or that. Nor does it matter if the hands are cupped, as only two bones of each finger are under consideration here. The positions of the thumb and outer joints of the fingers are irrelevant to these calculations.
I would indeed be very grateful for any evidence that I’m wrong. Please do send over the forensic slides. I may disagree, but will give sincere reasons for disagreeing, and not just be disagreeable!
Will send. However I need to tell you that I set greater store in the opinions of experienced and knowledgeable forensic pathologists who have closely studied the matter, than those of any enthusiast with his particular agenda.
All I can say is that I beg to differ, OK. You might like to post a photo of your hand so that we can match it to the Shroud and see how it fits.
http://i.imgur.com/ijsVYPv.jpg
That’s kind of you OK. I hope I have not misrepresented your finger joint positions in the image below, where I have done exactly the same with your hand as I did with mine. I think that even your hand demonstrates that the wound is in the metacarpal region, not amongst the carpals.
http://imgur.com/1ExOc86
The begining of the scale on my photo is exaclty over the wrist, in the position postulated by Zugibe, and suggested by the Shroud. The lenght to the end of proximal phalanges is exactly 11 cm, as you can see on the ruler. It fully corresponds to the pictures presented in my post from February 23, 2015, 6:40 pm.
I don’t know why there is discrepancy with your image superposition. Anyway, the end of the ruler should be exactly on your black line in the wound centre.
http://i.imgur.com/GFii1wH.jpg
Still with many assumptions used by Hugh, for me this wound is more closer to the wrist than the middle of the palm as shown in many other crucifixion paintings
Todos los expertos médicos,TODOS sin excepción, están de acuerdo en que el clavo atravesó la muñeca (“wrist”), atravesó los huesos del carpo.
Carlos
They do, don’t they. I think they’re wrong and I’ve explained with evidence why. If you can find fault with my explanation, then please say what it is. If you cannot find a fault with it, then maybe it is correct.
I have done the same measurements and reach the same conclusions Hugh. I think there are some who just can’t let go of this myth, to be frank.
As I’ve said before letting go of one or two shroud myths does not necessarily equal a non-authentic stance. On balance I still favour authenticity
The good thing about some aspects of the Shroud is that they are open to experimentation rather than mute acquiescence to accepted opinion. Anybody at all can mark their finger joints with dots, mark a photo of the Shroud with dots, superimpose the two and see where the Shroud wound actually is. You have all seen my work on my hand, and now my work on OK’s hand. Can anybody produce an overlay in the same style which shows the Shroud wound in their wrist? Or explain in any detail where I have gone wrong? Daveb at least made an attempt in supposing that the shroud was not in contact with the back of the hand, but at an angle to it, so that the length of the back of the hand on the Shroud is much shorter than it was on the body. This at least makes sense geometrically, although we would then have to ask why the image density of the hand does not fall off as we move from knuckles to wrist, and why the blood mark, which must have been made with the wrist in contact with the cloth, is not much further up the arm than it is.
Mr Farey – I cannot attach. Could you please attach the picture taken by Mr. Secondo Pia. Please see the wound location at that photo.
Sorry – Negative of the photograph taken by Mr. Secondo Pia.
Sorry for my ignorance of creating a link of an image. What do you think about the negative photo of the following link. Negative image shows clearly the wounds around the wrist area.
http://www.acheiropoietos.info/
Hugh
Your view would agree with the bible, but I think I see another problem. I seem to recall that they did some test or something where they found that if the nails were through the hands would not support the body. What’s you opinion on that?
It would have been nice to see the microphotographs in the possession of the archdiocese of Turin as this would perhaps remove many of the doubts.
Pia’s negative, Enrie and Durante’s photographs will never be able to provide the information that can be obtained from the microphotographs.
Yet another assumption, which crossed my mind, but hadn’t yet mentioned: However, OK / Hugh implied that the 4 cm image fade-out would mean that there would be very little adjustment required to their measurements. The assumption is that the tips of the fingers, or phalanges, have in fact been imaged. We cannot be certain of that. Even a slight rumple in the cloth could have an effect. Some claim to observe that the fingers appear to be unusually long; the reason might be that the image has imprinted onto a rumple, and thus appears longer. This would affect distance measurements.
I prefer to go directly to the wound itself. At this point it seems to me that the outlines of the hand converge, fundamentally where metacarpals 1 & 5 connect to the carpal bones of the wrist. To me, the blood smear extends over the wrist from the joins with the metacarpals to pretty well beyond the join with the radius and ulnar.
Hugh wrote to Daveb:
“(You) at least made an attempt in supposing that the shroud was not in contact with the back of the hand, but at an angle to it, so that the length of the back of the hand on the Shroud is much shorter than it was on the body. This at least makes sense geometrically, although we would then have to ask why the image density of the hand does not fall off as we move from knuckles to wrist, and why the blood mark, which must have been made with the wrist in contact with the cloth, is not much further up the arm than it is.”
Reminder for Hugh et al: the TS figure does satisfy the geometric conditions of contact-AND-gradual/slight-loss-of contact formation (implying at least two slightly different body-to-cloth configurations).