Heather Pringle, writing in Beyond Stone and Bone, the weekly blog of Archaeology Magazine, asks by way of her posting title, "Who Made the Shroud of Turin?" It is a fair question, one that invites us to do some thinking. The question is prompted by a claim that new archeological evidence argues against the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. It doesn’t, as we will see. Let’s look first at what Pringle wrote in the blog:
In December [2009], Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist and senior research fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jersualem (sic), announced tantalizing results from a new study that he and Boaz Zissu, an archaeologist at Bar Ilan University, just completed on a 1st century B.C. shrouded burial they excavated in a tomb in Jerusalem. Gibson and several colleagues published the first part of the study in a paper in PLoS One on December 16th.Gibson and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated the tattered vestiges of the excavated shroud to 95 B.C.E . And their careful examination revealed that the mourners in question employed two very different pieces of cloth to wrap the unknown dead male. They wrapped the individual’s head in linen cloth, and his body in wool cloth–a practice that Gibson says was part of traditional Jewish burial practices at the time. Moreover, this practice fits with the biblical description of the two pieces of cloth that Jesus cast off after he rose from the dead. The Shroud of Turin, by comparison, consists of just one large piece of cloth said to have covered both the head and body of Jesus.
And Gibson and his team found another critical difference. The tattered cloths they excavated were woven very simply, with a two-way weave. The Shroud of Turin, however, exhibits a more sophisticated weaving pattern, known as a twill weave.
Two arguments are tendered. Both hinge on a single supposition: what has been found defines what is customary or typical relative to geography, time, culture and religion. Gibson tells us that the use of two pieces of cloth "was part of traditional Jewish burial practices" at the time and that it is consistent with scripture. That is one part of his argument. The other is that the weave was a simple "two-way" weave and not the twill pattern of the Shroud. Is it reasonable to think that two cloths used in the manner Gibson proposes is typical. And is a simple weave typical?
Moreover, we need to ask if Gibson is right in his understanding of traditional Jewish burial practices and his interpretation of scripture? He might be, serendipitously. The fact of the matter is that we really know far too little about the burial practices in the late-Second Temple era in and about Jerusalem to make such assumptions. Pringle goes on to say:
No one will be able to draw any definitive conclusions about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin based on this new study. The comparative sample size is miniscule, and archaeologists need to see much more in the way of Jewish burial shrouds from the period in order to establish what the customs really were. . . .
I remember, somewhat vaguely, sitting in a high school history class as the teacher explained how archaeologists determined new levels of an excavation by noting the changes in pottery style. Most of us were quite happy with the explanation and made notes in our notebooks, knowing full well that we had an answer for a question that would inevitably be on a mid-term exam. But one student wasn’t happy with the simplicity of the explanation.
How did the archaeologists know that at any one level they had not come across the home of a rich family and at another level the home of a poor family, he had wanted to know. That might have been the reason why the style of pottery was different. How did they know that there weren’t other reasons? Maybe one of the clay pots was from a trade caravan bringing goods from distant cities. Might there be other reasons, as well, including religious practices or personal preferences? So how did an archaeologist know that any given pottery fragment was typical?
I don’t recall if he used the word, "typical." But that was the gist of his questions. My history teacher was well prepared to answer. It required, he told us, many samples from several places in a dig before they could say a style of pottery was typical for a given level. Exceptions, indeed, were often found; and yes, possibly for the very reason the student had suggested. Archaeologists should never draw sweeping conclusions based on a single sample.
For the very same reason, we must be leery of claims that a single fragment, dated to approximately a century before the burial of Jesus, is typical. Palestine, including Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, had a complex multifaceted society. We know of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They had very different ideas about such things as an afterlife and we might suppose, therefore, there might have been some differences in burial practices. In fact, there is evidence that that was so. There were different family groups, as well; major families such as Hasmoneans and the Herodians and other family groupings as well. The tombs carved in the limestone outcroppings around Jerusalem is a testament to this. They were family tombs. There were also claims of ancient tribal and monarchial patrilineal descent; the Levites for example and in the case of Jesus, at least according to scripture, the House of David. There were in Jerusalem Hellenized Jews who lived a different lifestyle that was criticized by many religious Jews. There were detested Jews who were Roman citizens. Paul was one. There were political factions, such as the Zealots who wished to see Rome expelled from Judea. We must not overlook the fact that Jerusalem, because it was a significant city, was populated with Jews from other parts of the Judea. Typically, if we dare to use that word, families and lineages, people from different geographies and people of different economic and social status, develop different traditions. We don’t have direct evidence from ancient sources such as the Mishna, Talmud or Semahot to suggest that a shroud or manner of shrouding was typical. But the content of these texts does suggest that there were differences in burial practices and even debate.
Tombs varied greatly. There were large complex tombs and very simple tombs, some with burial niches and some without. Ossuaries (bone boxes) used for ossilegium (second burial) varied greatly. Some were ornately decorated and some were simple. Inscriptions varied. In fact they were sometimes in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and in one case Latin. Ossilegium, though common, was not apparently universal. There also seems to be archaeological evidence that the burial practices evolved during the brief period that Jerusalem’s carved out tombs were used.
Given all this, it is hard to believe that a single type of burial shroud or a single method of shrouding existed that could be called typical. Indeed we might suspect that simple weave cloth as well as very fine linen cloth was used if such a variety of cloth was available.
One consequence of the Roman conquest of Judea, incidentally between the time period determined for what we might call the Gibson shroud and the burial of Jesus, was the expansion of trade. The Romans built new roads and improved existing roads. Jerusalem was along the overland trade route between Egypt in the south and Syria to the north. Nearby Caesarea, formerly the Hasmonean Jewish city of Straton’s Tower, became a major Roman port city. Alexandria in Egypt and Damascus in Syria were major textile centers producing linen for clothing, temple vestments, curtains, sailcloth and burial shrouds. Fine and expensive as well as simple linen cloth would certainly have been available in Jerusalem’s marketplace.
Would this have included twill weave linen, specifically herringbone twill? Although we have no geographic specific examples from the time of Christ, it is reasonable to presume that the answer is yes. Fragments of herringbone twill have been found in the ancient Hallstatt salt mines near present-day Vienna among the mummified remains of a Celtic people dating back about four centuries before Christ. Herringbone twill cloth, made from horsehair, has been found in Ireland dating from possibly as early as the arrival of Celtic people on the island around 600 B.C. Other complicated twill patterns going back to at least 200 B.C. and probably earlier have been found with mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China. Probably, the oldest examples are from Northern Italy where a six foot long piece of twill linen cloth was found with lozenge patterns that may date to the third millennium B.C.
It should be understood that twill weaving is not a technological innovation over simple weaving. In simple weaving the weft yarn is passed over one warp thread then under one warp thread, over one, under one, and so forth. In twill weaving the weft is passed over two, three or four warps and under one, and so forth. (The Shroud of Turin is a three hop twill). This gives the cloth a diagonal wale. A good example of twill is the fabric of an ordinary pair of blue jeans. A herringbone pattern is sometimes introduced into a twill weave by, every now and then, reversing the hop so that the diagonal wale is reversed. The resulting appearance resembles the backbone pattern of a herring, hence the name herringbone. It is an artistic technique and other artistic patterns can be created by a talented weaver.
The other argument by Gibson, as Pringle explains it, is that two cloths were used, a linen cloth over the head and a woolen shroud for the rest of the body. Pringle goes on to say:
Moreover, this practice fits with the biblical description of the two pieces of cloth that Jesus cast off after he rose from the dead. The Shroud of Turin, by comparison, consists of just one large piece of cloth said to have covered both the head and body of Jesus.
But is that what scripture really says? John’s Gospel is our source for considering this:
[The beloved disciple] bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. (John 20:5-7, NRSV)
Scholars do not agree on what this means. The late, great Anglican biblical scholar, John A. T. Robinson, thought the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head might have been a chin band used to tie his mouth closed. Other scholars think it might have been a sudarium, a dishcloth sized cloth that had been used to cover the face of the deceased prior to burial and then removed before the body was enshrouded. If the Sudarium of Oviedo (in Spain) is authentic, as many believe because blood patterns appear to match bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin, then that would explain the second cloth. Frankly, we don’t have a definitive answer on how to interpret this passage of scripture. Nothing, however, in scripture rules out a single shroud. It is simply a matter of interpretation and there is no good foundation for it. Pringle is right when she writes:
No one will be able to draw any definitive conclusions about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin based on this new study [by Gibson]. The comparative sample size is miniscule, and archaeologists need to see much more in the way of Jewish burial shrouds from the period in order to establish what the customs really were.
Indeed. In fact, if we are going to argue non-authenticity from a fragment of a burial shroud we must consider other evidence and other experts as well. This quotation from a PBS interview with Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, a textile expert who has been studying the Shroud since 1980 is very telling:
She first noticed that the entire cloth was crafted with a weave known as a three-to-one herringbone pattern. "This kind of weave was special in antiquity because it denoted an extraordinary quality," she says. . . . Flury-Lemberg also discovered a peculiar stitching pattern in the seam of one long side of the Shroud, where a three-inch wide strip of the same original fabric was sewn onto a larger segment. The stitching pattern, which she says was the work of a professional, is surprisingly similar to the hem of a cloth found in the tombs of the Jewish fortress of Masada. The Masada cloth dates to between 40 B.C. and 73 A.D. The evidence, says Flury-Lemberg, is clear: "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the first century."
So might Jesus’ burial shroud have been a high quality, perhaps not-so-typical, linen fabric? Jesus’ burial, itself, was not typical. Crucifixion victims were not buried in the sort of tombs found in the Jerusalem outcroppings, though a single exception has been found. Nor were peasants. And Jesus was both. Crucifixion victims were usually left on their crosses until their bodies rotted or were eaten by wild dogs and vultures. The remains were thrown in charnel pits. We are told in the biblical narrative that a member of the Sanhedrin, clearly someone of means and status, asked Pilate for Jesus’ body and offered a tomb for the burial. Mark’s Gospel tells us that Joseph of Arimathea bought a linen cloth and wrapped Jesus’ body in it. Might this man of means have purchased an expensive three hop herringbone linen shroud. It is perfectly plausible.
One sentence Pringle wrote warrants repeating: "No one will be able to draw any definitive conclusions about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin based on this new study."
While Gibson’s study is intriguing and informative, it offers no evidence one way or the other about the Shroud of Turin. In fact, it is silly to even suggest any archaeological connection.
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Well, this bills itself as the official website for the 2010 exhibit of the Shroud of Turin. The English version leave much to be desired. You would have thought they would have found someone who speaks English to do the translations. Did they use Google Translate? Most tabs in English simply say translation is coming soon or are in Italian. Online reservations are only in Italian. There is a big Multimedia section that takes forever to load and looks really cool, if you know Italian. Here are some:
BTW: They seem to have forgotten to mention the dates altogether.
Welcome Service tab:
The Shroud exhibition is an important pilgrimage opportunity but a chance to better know the Church of Torino, its territory, the province and Piedmont as well. The diocese of Torino, just like for all the former exhibitions (1998 and 2000) has arranged many services and initiatives to welcome groups from other Churches and christian communities as far as both the liturgy and the reciprocal acquaintance are concerned.
Moreover, the local turinese and piedmontese authorities have planned religious and cultural touristic initiatives linked to the exhibition.
For any information on tourist welcome, please check Turismo Torino.
The volunteers will be the first to welcome the visitors in the city and all along the exhibition route from the beginning to the end at the exit of the Cathedral. The volunteers for the Shroud and those of the City will also be present in other points along the route and in Torino.
Exposition day and hours tab:
During the exhibition the Mass will be celebrated in the Cathedral, in front of the Shroud, every morning at 7 and the Lodi prayer will be said at the end.
The Holy Sacrament will be exposed in the penitentiary at Palazzo Chiablese (at the end of the exhibition route map, penitentiary) all day long. The chapel will be reserved for silent prayer and eucharistical worship.
Some priests will be at disposal to hear confessions and administer the sacrament of Reconciliation in the penitentiary.
The route will be open from the end of the Mass up to 8 pm to attend the Shroud exhibition (reservations are required). It will be possibile to enter the Cathedral by the main door but then the Shroud will be only visible from a distance. The nave will be reserved to prayers and silent reflections.
In the evening, according to the calendar, the Cathedral may be open in case of particular ceremonies or religious cultural events.
Getting here tab:
Oops!
Churches and religious functions tab:
Attend the Shroud exhibition is an occasion to better know the Church of Torino visiting its temples and sanctuaries as well. During the exhibition many churches will welcome other pilgrimage moments, before and after the visit to the Shroud. Here you can find all information you may need about services and contacts.
Penitentiary tab:
The «penitentiary» is after the Shroud route, inside Palazzo Chiablese and immediately before Piazzetta Reale.
All day long, some priests will be at disposal to hear confessions and administer the sacrament of Reconciliation.
The chapel, where the Holy Sacrament is exposed everyday, is near the penitentiary and reserved for silent prayer and eucharistical worship.
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Benjamin Radford is Managing Editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He had written a fairly astute posting. It shouldn’t be ignored. While I don’t agree with his assessment on the Shroud, he is not out thumping recklessly, as we see in other skeptical blogs. Good for him. Now I would, also recommend reading Nickell’s book, but carefully.
Too bad about the last paragraph. It goes both ways, Ben. Are you tipping us off to an upcoming edition, the “March/April 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer,” nicely timed for the exhibition in Turin next spring?
I’ve emphasized some text in bold. But Ben, you know very well that the carbon dating is severely challenged. You know that there is significant history before the 1300s. You know better, as a free thinker, than to use the lack of evidence is evidence argument just like the folks who promote ID.
An Italian scientist and his team claim to have replicated the Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, used linen identical to that on the famous shroud, made an impression over a volunteer’s face and body, and artificially aged the cloth with heat. The result is a fabricated shroud that closely resembles the Shroud of Turin, made with materials and tools available at the time of the shroud’s origin.
I wrote a column on the topic for LiveScience.com, clarfiying some of the claims (for example, while Garlaschelli’s new research is interesting and important, it does not by itself prove the Shroud is a forgery) and adding context to them (for example, directing people to Joe Nickell’s research and books on the Turin Shroud). I also discussed the reasons to suspect the shroud is not authentic:
Just because the Shroud of Turin could have been faked doesn’t mean that it was faked. To cast real doubt on the cloth’s authenticity, there would have to be other reasons–some corroborative evidence–to think the shroud is a forgery. In fact, the shroud had previously been carbon dated not to the time of Christ but instead to the 14th century—perhaps not coincidentally about the time when the first record of the burial cloth appears. If the Turin Shroud really is the most important holy relic in history, it seems odd that no one knew of its existence for 1,300 years. There’s another very good reason to suspect that the Shroud of Turin is a fake: the forger admitted it. As Joe Nickell, author of "Relics of the Christ," noted, a document by "Bishop Pierre d’Arcis claimed that the shroud had been ‘cunningly painted,’ a fact ‘attested by the artist who painted it.’"
More on this can be found in the March/April 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. It often seems that the "Shroudies" are among the most fervent of believers, and for many of them there is no evidence that would convince them the shroud is not real. For as often as skeptics are accused of having closed minds, it is often the believers for whom no evidence will sway their convictions.
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Very amusing
ROME (Reuters) – An Italian scientist says he has reproduced a human being, a feat that he says proves definitively that humans, which Christians say are made in the image of God, are medieval fakes produced using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
A scientifically-made mannequin, measuring 6 feet, 2 inches tall, looks eerily like Luigi Garlaschelli, the scientist himself.
"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as a human being," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.
A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
The mannequin resembles the back and front of a bearded man with long hair with his arms crossed on his chest. He has two hands, two feet and a single head with two eyes and two ears.
Since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have believed that humans evolved along with other animals and plants from a common ancestor. But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain why some people smoke cherry flavored pipe tobacco since it offers no evolutionary advantage.
Garlaschelli, who received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics, expects people to contest his findings. “They didn’t believe me when I reproduced the Shroud of Turin, Quantum physics and the Egyptian pyramids, thus proving that they, too, were medieval creations. “
“It works for me,” said PZ Myers, pastor of the Morris, Minnesota Pharyngula Church of Fundamentalist Atheists. “I was getting tired of evolution, anyway. I believe everything I read in the newspapers so long as it doesn’t conflict with my beliefs. If humans are manmade, that’s fine. I still don’t need to believe in God.”
Garlaschelli said the funding for his work by his own organization of like-minded atheists had no effect on his results. "I always start with results," he said. “That way, I always arrive at the desired conclusion.”
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It was widely reported in the media that the Italian Fake exhibited the same 3D aspects as the Shroud of Turin. You decide. Hint, the Italian fake is on the left. Find the nose. Parts of both cheeks protrude higher than the nose. It is hard to see that here but it has been confirmed with grayscale density measurement.
Of course, it could not have the subtle grayscale, given the method with which it was made. And if you are familiar with height-fields as used in computer graphics, you quickly realize it can not produce anything like the shroud image.
The press merely reported what Dr. Garlaschelli said without, it seems, taking a look.
These images are courtesy of Prof. Giulio Fanti at the University of Padua.
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Petrus Soons, a very gifted shroud scholar, has commented on the the Italian Fake. It is thoughtfully presented and warrants full consideration.
In the last few days, a story appeared in the mass media that an Italian professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia (Italy), reproduced the image on the Shroud of Turin using materials and methods that were available in the 14th century, concluding that the experiment proves the relic was man-made. Basically, he used a linen cloth in scale 1:1, that was baked at 215 degrees C for 3 hours and then put it in a washing machine with water only. Then they put a person dirtied with RED OCHRE (IRON OXIDE) on the linen and corrected by hand the colored image. A chalk bas relief was used for the face printing, liquid tempera simulated the blood and sulfuric acid at 1.2% in water added with Aluminium and Cobalt modified the linen surface. An artificial aging was the final treatment before the pigment was washed. The final goal was to show that it was possible to create a fake in the 14th century.
Now, there is nothing new to this. In 1979, Walter C. McCrone (1916-2002), an internationally recognized microscopist and the director of the famous McCrone Associates Research Laboratory in Chicago, reported that the Shroud image was due to the application of RED OCHRE, also known as Venetian red (an earth color) a red artist’s pigment, which is a red IRON OXIDE, so probably Prof Garlaschelli took over this idea from Walter C. McCrone.
This theory was already disproved by the scientific STURP team (and others in the years after that) that conducted the investigations in 1978 on the Shroud of Turin.
Their conclusions were:
- 1) Adler reported that the " straw yellow color" of the body image fibers does not match the color of any of the known forms of ferric iron oxides.
- 2) Moreover, Adler reports that there is no correspondence of the body-only images to the concentration of iron oxide since the spectral characteristics of the body-only image are different from those of iron oxide.
- 3) The colors of the fibers, due to iron oxide, is also precluded by the fact that oxidation or reduction converts the yellow fibers of the body-only image to a white color.
- 4) Only rare particles of iron oxide are noted on the body-only image fibrils.
- 5) Large amounts of iron bound to the cellulose of the Shroud (not iron oxide) and Calcium were both present throughout the Shroud. This is believed to be due to the ability of linen to bind iron and water by ion association during the retting process (manufacturing process by which linen is immersed in water during fermentation). AN ESTIMATED 90 PERCENT of the iron and calcium exist in this form bound to the cellulose of the linen, AND ONLY A SMALL AMOUNT IS PRESENT AS IRON OXIDE.
- 6) X-ray studies of the body-only image do not contain enough iron oxide to show up on the X-radiographs.
- 7) All of the iron of the Shroud, whether from iron oxide particles or from blood, proved to be 99 percent chemically pure, with no discernable MANGANESE, NICKEL, or COBALT.
The earth pigment, RED OCHRE (Venetian red), from either medieval or older sources that were being used, was contaminated with manganese, nickel or cobalt GREATER THAN 1 PERCENT!!!
The STURP team employed microprobe Raman spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, optical and infrared spectroscopy, micro FTIR spectroscopy, pyrolysis mass spectroscopy, X-ray and a variety of microchemical tests on the fibrils, and came to the conclusion that there was NO ochre or other pigments, dyes or stains on the fibrils of the Shroud.
Prof Garlaschelli told Republica he didn’t think his research would convince those who have faith in the Shroud’s authenticity. " They won’t give up," he said. Those who believe in it will continue to believe."
Well, the reason why serious scientists do not believe Prof Garlaschelli’s work has been explained.
Prof Garlaschelli explains the absence of any traces of iron oxide on the original Shroud by stating that the pigment on the original Shroud faded away naturally over the centuries. This is not a statement that you would expect from a serious scientist. The spectroscopic investigations being done in 1978 would even show the slightest traces of iron oxide present on the Shroud and it is a little bit "unscientific" to state that they disappeared "naturally."
Another little detail is the fact that on the original Shroud there is no image under the bloodstains, proving the fact that there were two image formation processes. Direct contact for the blood proper and another image formation process for the image itself. Prof Garlaschelli added the "blood" (liquid tempera) later on top of the image that he had created. Under Ultra Violet fluorescence photography (not known of course in the 14th century), the blood on the Shroud shows a serum separation, visible as a lighter ring around a darker center, which is typical of post mortem wound exudate. This is not visible with the naked eye. The proposed artist from the 14th century could of course not have known this fact, so he could not create it either.
Petrus Soons M.D.
Volcan
Panama
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Science by Press Release? An Editorial Response by Barrie Schwortz
I was away from my office and in Los Angeles yesterday when the story broke in the media that an Italian professor had "reproduced" the Shroud using techniques that were available in the 14th century. Although I didn’t have my computer with me, my mobile phone rang again and again with friends calling to read me the story, so I heard the news almost immediately.
Upon my return late last night, my mailbox was flooded with e-mail, my answering machine was nearly full of messages and more than 20,000 people had visited the website since Tuesday morning. I finally was able to read the story myself at around 1:00 am.
Normally, I don’t respond to this type of story, since the media rarely publishes the rebuttals anyway and the stories usually disappear by themselves after only a few days. In the end, giving it any attention at all usually only helps the author of the article and garners even more publicity for him because someone is publicly disagreeing with him. However, since so many viewers have written me, I decided to write this brief response in which I am expressing my own personal opinions on this topic. That is why I titled it an "Editorial" Response.
Frankly, knowing that the Shroud will go on public display again in around 6 months, I am not very surprised to see this type of story coming out, along with its resulting media coverage. This seems to happen every time the Shroud is about to go on public display. Yet whenever a serious scientific article about the Shroud is published in a peer reviewed journal, there is barely a ripple in the popular media. And now, once again, someone claims to have "reproduced" the Shroud, "proving" it is a medieval forgery. They made their claims via nothing more than a press release and got instant global media coverage. However, that is NOT the way science actually operates.
The author who made these claims states that he will make the details available "next week." In the real world of science, a researcher must perform his experiments, compile his data, draw his conclusions, write a formal paper and submit it to a scientific journal for peer review. The work is then examined by other experts, usually of the same discipline, before it is accepted for publication (or rejected). The data must provide a sound basis for the claims and be there from the beginning. Not "next week." And certainly not made public via a press release!
Sadly, in reviewing the article, it is apparent immediately that the author knows very little about the actual Shroud of Turin. He is not the first to suggest that the Shroud image was produced by red ochre pigment (iron oxide). In fact, he is at least the fourth to have proposed this theory in the last 30 years. Of course, this issue was anticipated by the STURP team in 1978 and a number of highly sensitive tests were performed that determined there was not enough iron oxide on the Shroud to be visible without a microscope. Iron oxide does not constitute the image on the Shroud. They also determined the image areas of the Shroud contain no more iron oxide than the non-image areas. It is more or less evenly distributed across the entire cloth.
Obviously, if the image were made in the manner detailed in the article, we would still find thousands of particles of iron oxide embedded into the image fibers of the linen and these would be clearly visible with just a good magnifying glass. Yet the microscopy done directly on the Shroud in 1978 revealed no such thing. These particles just don’t go away on their own. STURP’s instruments could detect parts per billion (a very small amount) of any substance on the Shroud and ALL known paints and pigments (including iron oxide) were excluded by the data. Interestingly, iron oxide is also a by-product of retting linen and the minute quantities found on the Shroud were pure and most likely the result of the retting process. The iron oxide used in red ochre pigment has many impurities and is rarely if ever found in its pure form.
I have stated on more than one occasion that making images on linen is relatively easy. However, making images on linen with the same chemical and physical properties as the Shroud is another story. Considering the massive amount of scientific data that now exists about the Shroud of Turin, anyone making claims such as these must submit their work for careful scrutiny and comparative analysis before drawing such dramatic conclusions. That has not been done in this case. Anyone making such claims must create an image with ALL the same chemical and physical properties as the Shroud, not just a few, if they wish to be taken seriously.
It has been demonstrated scientifically that the bloodstains on the Shroud came from direct contact with a body and are all forensically accurate. It has also been shown that the bloodstains were on the Shroud BEFORE the image was formed since the blood and serum acted to inhibit the image formation mechanism. There is NO image under the blood and serum stains on the Shroud.
However, to make this new "reproduction," the "blood" was added (using a different pigment) AFTER the image was created. Obviously, it is much easier to add the blood to the image than to first create the blood stains and then create the forensically accurate image around them, which is exactly what a medieval forger would have had to do to duplicate the actual physical properties of the Shroud!
Many of the bloodstains on the Shroud show a surrounding halo of serum stains that are ONLY visible with UV fluorescence photography. Also, the blood has been chemically analyzed and determined to include components of actual blood, NOT pigment.
A proper, detailed scientific response to this press release is now being drafted by the online Shroud Science Group and I hope to publish an in-depth article by true Shroud experts addressing these claims in the near future.
However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the press release also stated the researcher "received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results." This is an interesting statement from someone representing a segment of the skeptical community that has frequently charged the STURP scientists with religious bias, implying that their data was somehow flawed because some of them happened to be Christians! Until such time that the data is made available so it can be properly examined and compared to the known data about the Shroud, I will not take these claims very seriously. And neither should you.
Barrie Schwortz
7 October 2009
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Myers, who once asked readers of his blog to pilfer a consecrated host from a Catholic Mass (he called it a God Damned Cracker) so he could desecrate it, which he (thought he) did by nailing to a Quran and throwing it in the trash with coffee grounds, now writes:
I get thrown the miracle of the shroud of Turin on a regular basis — just last week someone confronted me with it, basically saying "A-ha! Jesus existed because there’s an old scrap of cloth with a face on it!" It doesn’t matter that I point out that it’s been dated to the 13th century, and was nothing more than a profit-making ‘relic’ for churches that would also hawk Jesus’s foreskin and John the Baptist’s pinky bone. They’d usually retort that it was not humanly possible to make the shroud, so it had to be a religious miracle.
Now I’ve got more ammo. The Shroud of Turin has been recreated, using simple medieval technologies. No magic, just acidic pigments.
I know, it won’t stop the kooks, but it’s still useful to know.
More ammo? Kooks?
Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He writes one of the most fascinating and most popular evolutionary science blogs on the Internet. But he strays. He is vehemently anti-religious. When he strays he demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge about religion, an unparalleled fundamentalist-atheism agenda, and a knack to surrender all scientific principals.
Suppose some professor in Italy had claimed to find proof that the Theory of Evolution was wrong. Would Myers salute the claim without thinking. Of course not. And he shouldn’t. But this is just what he did with the claim that the shroud had been reproduced. It wasn’t of course. That has already been demonstrated. But Myers accepts the claim without any qualification.
I doubt very much that someone actually said, “A-ha! Jesus existed because there’s an old scrap of cloth with a face on it!" The absurdity is obvious.
Myers is a good writer about biology. He should stick to what he know.
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Lamaitre and the pope
The idea that the Big Banf might have something to say about God creating the universe was apparent even though that was never Lemaître’s intent. Pope Pius XII referred to his findings as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith. Lemaître was put in the spot of having to clarify and disagree with the pope.
As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in nonsingular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God . . . it is consonant with the wording of Isaiah’s speaking of a "Hidden God," hidden even from the beginning of creation. (10)
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