I generally don't bother trying to explain my hypothesis to people unfamiliar with the details of the Shroud controversy, because to understand it requires quite a bit of background information, inaccessible to most. But you seem to be one of the more informed sort, so I don't mind giving you the essence of it.
If you understand the postulated relationship between the Shroud and the Holy Mandylion, you're no doubt aware of the Byzantine history (or histories, because there were two separate accounts) that attempted to account for the origin of the latter. Those histories were somewhat disparate in nature, but the one element that each had in common was the assertion that the Mandylion was associated with a so-called "tile" (keramion, in Greek) that contained an exact duplicate of the image on the Shroud. In one of those histories, the cloth was found outside the city of Hierapolis inside a collection of tiles, one of which contained the exact likeness of the cloth. In the other, the cloth was discovered inside a niche in the walls of Edessa, in the company of the tile, which was later given to the city of Hierapolis. The tile is associated in both accounts with the cloth, and the city of Hierapolis.
Wilson postulated that King Abgar V of Edessa had caused the holy (cloth) image to be placed above the city gates in the place of the pagan image that had existed there previously. He postulated that, following Abgar's death, the city reverted to paganism, and the cloth was bricked up inside the wall for protection, not to resurface for several hundred years, when it was accidentally discovered, along with the tile.
My hypothesis (not "theory") is that Wilson's idea is partially correct--only, it was not the cloth that was placed above the gates, but a piece of statuary. When it came time to cover up the image (for whatever reason) a cloth was hung in front of it, and over a period of several hundred years the three-dimensional image from the "hard" prototype became transferred to the cloth through the agency of ionizing radiation originating from radioactive elements that are present to varying degrees in all sedimentary rocks ... the extent to which such ionizing radiation would affect the cloth being a function of its distance from the prototype.
I'll leave it to you as to whether this hypothesis is worthy of consideration, but it's interesting to note that in Ray Rogers's recent paper he mentions the effects of background ionizing radiation on linen and its role in the linen aging process.
It's interesting, too, to note that these shroud "researchers," are willing to embrace any theory, no matter how far-fetched (see Schwortz's website for the past five years) that tends to uphold the idea of the Shroud as a genuine relic, but refuse to deal with any thought that might hold it up to a different light. People like Schwortz and Wilson can probably be forgiven for this, because they're not scientists, nor do they pretend to be (unless the constant repetition of the words "peer reviewed" qualify to lend that distinction) but others, like Jackson and Rogers, should give up any claim to the title, at least as regards the object of their adoration.
Unlike one of the authors above, I have studied and written on the subject of medieval Christian relics. The church has its own well-established criteria and procedures for authenticating them. It is not hostile to the science, but that is not the primary consideration. It is interesting to me that noone here offers any of the evidence of miracles and intercession which are the real basis for preserving and venerating relics.
Your theory seems to suggest this tile would have only had the image transfered from covering one face of the tile.
That would have to be one big tile, wouldnt it?
The Shroud image is the length of two adult male bodies plus more.
Quite frankly, Mr. Ramsbotham, I can see why Barrie dismissed your hypothesis.
Nothing in the science or historical scholarship suggests such a scenario. First of all, the Mandylion is only a facial image, according to history and art. While it may have been the folded in four double layer (tetradiplong) Shroud encased in a frame, it certainly was not a 14 foot by 3.5 foot "tile" or "carving". The legends surrounding the Image of Edessa ALL refer to a cloth that Jesus pressed to his face and sent to King Akbar. Later rulers of Edessa paraded the image around the city on a regular basis... something that could not have been done with a 14 foot carved or cast stone.
Your hypothesis does not explain how the blood stains got on the Shroud... nor the fact that said blood stains pre-exist the image. They could not have been placed after the fact of the image formation because there is no image underneath any of the blood stains.
Your hypothetical "tile" or "statuary", if it is the prototype for the shroud image, flies in the face of all Eastern artistic tradition and style. Nothing has been found even slightly similar. You must postulate a sculptor with the skill of Michaelangelo, with the encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish customs, crucifixion techniques, and the intent to make a statue that would be offensive to the people it was intended to be seen by, to even start this concatation of improbable events to result in a mysterious cloth that befuddles science in the 21st Century.
Your hypothesis just doesn't meet the tests to even be considered seriously.
You cite Ray Rogers interest in ionizing radiation. Barrie will be publishing Ray's last paper sometime in the next month or two that addresses this very issue. It seems that Rogers was able to obtain some radioactive materials to test its effect on Linen and has prepared a paper that shows that the image was NOT formed by any form of ionizing radiation. Such radiation causes noticeable microscopic damage to linen fibers and such damage is NOT present on the Shroud. Ionizing radiation also penetrates into the objects it hits... and the image is purely a surface phenomenon... no penetration. The other problem is that radiation from such sources as native rock, as you postulate was the source, emits in a purely random direction. The image on the Shroud is collimated... whatever formed the image made its effect only up and down and not sideways at all.
The other fact is that we now know pretty much WHAT the image is composed of, if not HOW it was formed. The image is a amino/carbonyl chemical change in the starch fractions left on the surface of the fibers from the retting process. It, according to Rogers (in peer reviewed work) is most likely formed by a Maillard Reaction of these starch fractions acting with Putrecine and Cadaverine, gasses that exude from dead bodies starting shortly after death. This reaction takes place in a very thin coating (160 - 400 nanometers) 1/100 the thickness of a human hair, on the fibres of the linen. It is very brittle and can be removed chemically and also by merely scraping. It is not suggestive at all of any modality requiring radiation for creation.
It's interesting, too, to note that these shroud "researchers," are willing to embrace any theory, no matter how far-fetched (see Schwortz's website for the past five years) that tends to uphold the idea of the Shroud as a genuine relic, but refuse to deal with any thought that might hold it up to a different light. People like Schwortz and Wilson can probably be forgiven for this, because they're not scientists, nor do they pretend to be (unless the constant repetition of the words "peer reviewed" qualify to lend that distinction) but others, like Jackson and Rogers, should give up any claim to the title, at least as regards the object of their adoration.
You attack the scientists doing the research on the shroud as having "adoration" for the shroud. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You select Jackson and Rogers in particular... yet ALL of their work has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals after months of being vetted by other scientists. Journals like Thermochemica Acta in which Rogers' latest research was published in January after seven months of peer-review. It is scientists like Jackson and Rogers, Adler and Heller, who have DISPROVED those "far-fetched" theories, (pardon me) like your own, through solid science and research.
You denigrate "peer-review" as though it were being invoked as a mantra. It is a time tested way of assuring that scientific articles meet certain standards for publication. ANYONE can be published in non-peer-reviewed journals... but to get into a peer-reviewed journal requires a much high standard of accuracy, that the science must be sound, and that people with expertise in the same field find the work worthy of publication. It also provides the author with a panel of editors that may find flaws or errors in their reasoning and allows them to re-address those issues before publication... or to withdraw the article if the criticisms are fatal to their research.
The work of researchers on the Shroud has appeared in such peer-reviewed journals of science and technology as:
Applied Optics
IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society
Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal
Archaeological Chemistry III
ACS Advances in Chemistry
Journal of Biological Photograph
X-Ray Spectrometry
Materials Evaluation
Archaeology
Industrial Research and Development
Analytica Chimica Acta
Thermochimica Acta
Peer-review means that the work has passed the inspection of people equally if not better qualified in the field under study. It means that the work is acceptable and meets the standards set for publication. It often means the work has been checked and re-checked and CONFIRMED by other methods. It is not merely a mantra invoked to give unqualified work a stature it does not deserve.
Investigators for the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) include:Joseph S. Accetta, Lockheed Corporation*
Steven Baumgart, U.S. Air Force Weapons Laboratories*
John D. German, U.S. Air Force Weapons Laboratories*
Ernest H. Brooks II, Brooks Institute of Photography*
Mark Evans, Brooks Institute of Photography*
Vernon D. Miller, Brooks Institute of Photography*
Robert Bucklin, Harris County,Texas, Medical Examiner's Office
Donald Devan, Oceanographic Services Inc.*
Rudolph J. Dichtl, University of Colorado*
Robert Dinegar, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories*
Donald & Joan Janney, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories*
J. Ronald London, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories*
Roger A. Morris, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories*
Ray Rogers, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories*
Larry Schwalbe, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories
Diane Soran, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories
Kenneth E. Stevenson, IBM*
Al Adler, Western Connecticut State University
Thomas F. D'Muhala, Nuclear Technology Corporation*
Jim Drusik, Los Angeles County Museum
Joseph Gambescia, St. Agnes Medical Center
Roger & Marty Gilbert, Oriel Corporation*
Thomas Haverty, Rocky Mountain Thermograph*
John Heller, New England Institute
John P. Jackson, U.S. Air Force Academy*
Eric J. Jumper, U.S. Air Force Academy*
Jean Lorre, Jet Propulsion Laboratory*
Donald J. Lynn, Jet Propulsion Laboratory*
Robert W. Mottern, Sandia Laboratories*
Samuel Pellicori, Santa Barbara Research Center*
Barrie M. Schwortz, Barrie Schwortz Studios*
The majority of these people are scientists... who recorded every step of their research and submitted it for peer-review before publication of their conclusions. The checked and re-checked their work. They prepared protocols that were vetted by other members and changed where flaws or miscalculations were found. They were prepared to do good science. While some may have a religious background, many did not and others were from different faiths that would have nothing to gain by promoting Christianity.
Barrie Schwortz is Jewish, as are A. Adler, D. Lynn, and D. Devan, all members of STURP. In addition, some members were atheists, others agnostic, some Catholic, and some Protestant. They went with the expectation of proving it was a painting... and were proved wrong. Barrie states that he keeps asking himself "What's a nice Jewish boy like me, doing here?" He states that the researchers are following the science.