Forget about the image. Date the fabric. If it was from linen grown, spun and woven in 14th Cent Europe, it can't be authentic. All this takes is someone who understands textiles. And don't take your sample from the repaired patched area! Get a woman who can spin, weave and have her take a sample and give it to the scientists who can place the date of production. Linen is from the flax plant.
If the fabric is 2000 years old, you've got your relic and the source is supernatural. To have fabric that old, saved so carefully, with a mysterious graphic...?
You have to read the linked original article. That's exactly what Dr. Rogers said and did.
Carbon dating is an iffy science. If you have an absolutely pure sample there’s still a certain margin of error, and all it would take is for the shroud to have gotten moldy or mildewed at any point in time, and the carbon test could be skewed by centuries.
Back in high school my brother’s friend took a piece of his recently-deceased dog and had it carbon dated. According to the report, the dog died 700-800 years ago. Its not as precise a measurement as most people think.
Reweaving has placed material from the medieval period into the original cloth. The sample for carbon dating was from the reweaving portion. Also, fires have deposited ‘carbon’ onto the entire cloth which must be screened for.
Good thing you are here to think up such simple theories that no one has thought of before.
I can’t go into it all but my suggestion is do some research and your questions will be answered.
It was discovered that the fabric samples they tested previously were taken from an area of the shroud that had been repaired during the Medieval period. The fabric they tested has a different consistency and weave...totally different from the rest of the shroud.
It turns out that like most everything else about the Shroud, it isn't so easy to prove, Mamzelle.
It was dated in 1988... and the tests reported a creation date between 1260 and 1390 AD... but the dating has now been proved to have been made of a mixture of original shroud material and a patch that had been invisibly rewoven into the sample area in the 16th Century. The proportions of the Dyed COTTON patching material mixed with original FLAX shroud material, resulted in a bogus dating.