If you get a chance, take the time to view a couple of very significant comments in “16th Century Weavers were Magicians“. The subject is cotton. One comment is by Thibault Heimburger and the other is a response by Hugh Farey. You may need to do a quick translation from French to English or whatever is your language of choice.
Weavers were Magicians (2)
(Regarding Hugh’s critique of my recent updated C-14 paper)
Thibault said,
“(…) in the absence of reliable quantitative data on the quantity of cotton in different places of the shroud, no conclusion can be drawn concerning the hypothesis of the medieval patch on this observation. It has often been said that the main body of the shroud was made up of pure linen. Unfortunately I have never seen any evidence.”
Hugh replied,
“As I said, if the rest of the shroud is correctly examined and no cotton is found, it would support Joe’s hypothesis and make us think, but I think it is everywhere.”
I can’t tell–is Hugh implying that STURP’s examination in 1978 was not able to determine if cotton was found “everywhere” or not?
Ray Rogers, who spent 5 days with the Shroud wrote (pg. 6: https://www.academia.edu/90232363/Raymond_Rogers_Communications_to_the_Shroud_Science_Group_on_the_Anomalous_Nature_of_the_C_14_Corner)
“The only cotton that is found on the main part of the cloth is a superficial impurity.”
Eric Jumper, who spent 5 days with the Shroud wrote (pg. xv of my 2020 book The 1988 C-14 Dating Of The Shroud of Turin: A Stunning Exposé), wrote
“I co-directed the on-site examination of the Shroud of Turin in 1978. As director during my shifts, mostly at night, I had copious opportunities to examine the Shroud up close, at a distance, under a microscope and via X-Rays as they were being developed in our work spaces. In particular, I studied the image fibrils of the threads of the cloth containing image. First, the cloth was decidedly linen; the only cotton fibers that I observed on the Shroud were obviously not part of the Shroud, but incidental due to contamination.”
So, both Rogers and Jumper stated that any cotton on the main part of the Shroud was superficial/contamination only.
In my article, I wrote,
“The main part of the Shroud is a 3-to-1 herringbone weave. Maloney presented a list of those who had found cotton inside of the fibers in the Raes corner (Maloney, 2008:10):
*Gilbert Raes, (1973-1974)
*STURP’s 1981 early analyses reported by STURP spokeswoman, Joan Janney.
*Investigators at Precision Processes (Textile lab) Ltd in England, (1988)
*Ray Rogers’ 2004 investigations
*John Brown at Georgia Tech (2004)
*Robert Villarreal & team, Los Alamos National Laboratories (2008).
In this same paper (2008:7-8), Maloney laid out the various components based on Rogers’ research that seem to indicate a repair.
1. Linen-cotton spun yarns, spliced into the Shroud cloth
2. Starch
3. Aluminum mordant and other metallic salts
4. Gum Arabic binder, and
5. Madder rose dye”
Note that the investigators mentioned about found cotton inside the fibers and not just superficially. I don’t think it would be reasonable to take Hugh’s opinion that cotton is everywhere over Rogers’ and Jumpers’ findings from direct observation.
The linen fibers found on Shroud tapes average about 13-μm diameter. They show periodic growth nodes, and they look like microscopic lengths of bamboo. Figure V-3 shows several linen fibers that were pulled from the image at the back of the ankle. It is a completely unpolarized photograph. There is no dichroism or birefringence color. These fibers are characteristic and representative of image fibers. There are dark deposits of lignin on most of the growth nodes. Absolutely no cotton could be found among the hundreds of fibers on this tape sample. [Ray Rogers, A chemist’s perspective on the Shroud of Turin pg. 68]
So according to Rogers, the amount of cotton in the main Shroud is <<1 % (no cotton could be found among the hundreds of fibers)
I would recommend my three articles, which were kindly published by Joe on his Academia profile:
How Raymond Rogers PROVED that the 1988 C-14 dating of the Shroud was WORTHLESS https://www.academia.edu/53330335/How_Raymond_Rogers_PROVED_that_the_1988_C_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_was_WORTHLESS
Why critics of Rogers’ 2005 work refuting the 1988 C-14 dating of the Shroud are wrong https://www.academia.edu/53335795/Why_critics_of_Rogers_2005_work_refuting_the_1988_C_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_are_wrong
and How much contamination is needed to shift the C-14 date from the 1st to the 14th century?
https://www.academia.edu/53335980/How_much_contamination_is_needed_to_shift_the_C_14_date_from_the_1st_to_the_14th_century
1) Yes. Hugh is definitely implying that none of the STuRP team examined the threads of the main body of the Shroud in sufficient detail to be able to tell whether there was any cotton woven into the threads of the Shroud. Both Rogers and Jumper may have been correct that (e.g.) “the only cotton fibers that I observed on the Shroud were obviously not part of the Shroud,” because it was not possible for them to observe cotton fibres spun into the thread.
2) Photographs of sticky tape slides taken from the heel were made by Eugenia Nitowski and Joseph Kohlbeck. Cotton is clearly visible on several of them. Ray Rogers does not specify which slide his photo was taken from, and he may have been correct that “Absolutely no cotton could be found among the hundreds of fibers on this tape sample,” but other samples nearby have plenty.
3) Any articles using the word PROVED is capital letters are nearly always WORTHLESS in capital letters. Proof does not need emotional emphasis.
If you claim Rogers and Jumper were not able to tell over 5 days with sophisticated equipment to observe cotton fibres spun into the thread, how is it that you claimed (discussion page of my C-14 article) that Vial, Testore and Flury-Lemberg were able to conclude that there were not cotton fibres spun into the thread? Vial and Testore apparently only used basic optical devices in a short period of time. I don’t know what optical devices, if any, Flury-Lemberg used. Flury-Lemberg once said it didn’t matter where the C-14 sample was taken from because it was the same everywhere. That doesn’t inspire confidence in me that she was capable to determining if there had been a repair in the C-14 corner.
Raes disagreed with Vials assertion that cotton found in the C-14 corner was superficial. In my book The 1988 C-14 Dating Of The Shroud of Turin: A Stunning Exposé (pg. 569), I wrote:
“Vial, who had worked closely with Testore, did not attend the Milan meeting. However, he was involved with a disagreement with Prof. Raes regarding the cotton that had been found by the Oxford lab. Rev. Dreisbach received a letter dated November 13, 1989 from Raes [copy in possession of author, sent by Fr. Dreisbach], in which he said, “In his contribution of Paris, Prof. Vial suggested that the cotton fibres mentioned in my report
could be superficial fibres present on the surface of the Shroud and not belonging to the yarns of the Shroud. After the Paris meeting I was writing to Prof. Vial telling him that I could not agree with him and that in my opinion the cotton fibres were not superficial fibres.”
And with your “(3)” you confirmed that it was not appropriate for Hedges, Hall and Tite to add a “!” after the 1260-1390 on the blackboard at the British Museum press conference.
Hi Joe,
I don’t recall claiming that Vial, Testore or Flury-Lemberg could make any definite conclusion regarding whether the cotton they observed, if any, was merely superficial or not. Vial, in particular, does not mention the makeup of the cloth in his “Technical Study,” written after his study of it in 1988. Raes made detailed comments abut the cotton he observed, so seems to have studied the threads at greater magnification. Nevertheless, he did not report seeing any “invisible mending.”
Incidentally, the only person who has examined threads of the main body of the Shroud at appropriate magnification is PierLugi Baima Bollone, who found an admixture of cotton of about 2%, which agrees with Giulio Fanti’s assessment, although no doubt it varies from place to place.
And yes, sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. The exclamation mark was indeed, “inappropriate.” Scientific conclusions do not need emotional emphasis, and are sometimes weakened by it.
Hi Hugh!
Scientific conclusions do not need emotional emphasis, but people often do. And scientific conlcusions need to be made on solid basis, deduced in systematic and logical way.
And to derive any conclusions based on the amount of cotton within the Shroud, please provide numbers.
The amount of cotton in the main body of the Shorud is ~ 1 % (upper limit). As far as I recall the amount of cotton in the C-14 area is, based on Thibault Heimburger’s examination, ~10 %. Implications?
Anyway, my conviction that the 1988 C-14 result is WORTHLESS is not based on cotton.