Second Face on the Shroud of Turin

Institute of Physics ^ | April 13, 2004 | Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo

[shroudie]

The most definitive evidence yet that the Shroud of Turin is not a medieval fake-relic. This is big stuff, published on a highly respected scientific organizations website, the Institute of Physics, a 37,000 member organization of physicists. Their journal is an ethical journal of peer-reviewed scientific studies.

The Washington Times, BBC, the Observer, the Telegraph of London, ABC Australia, the Chicago Sun-Times and several outlets have picked up the story in the last few hours. In my opinion it reinforces the already clear proof that the carbon 14 testing in 1988 was completely erroneous. It clearly eliminates the polemics of medieval paintings, da Vinci conspiracies, proto-photography and other silly concocted theories being bantered about by those skeptical of Christianity.

If it is a genuine burial shroud of a 1st century victim of crucifixion, it can almost certainly be inferred that it is Jesus. If that is so, it buries the extra-liberal revisionism of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg who argue that Jesus was not buried.

If it is a genuine burial shroud of a 1st century victim of crucifixion, how is it that this piece of cloth survived the grave and was not ravaged by decomposition products?

The story at the link is quite technical. I suggest alternatively reading the stories in any of the various newspapers or for a clear concise explanation read first Chemistry of the Image and then Explanation of the Backside Image.

From the extract: "Photographs of the back surface of the Turin Shroud were analysed to verify the existence of a double body image of a man. The body image is very faint and the background not uniform; i.e., the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than one. Therefore, image processing . . . was necessary to highlight body features. This was based on convolution with Gaussian filters, summation of images, and filtering in spatial frequency by direct and inverse bidimensional Fourier transformations.

[orionblamblam]

> As to my statement "you don't read," YOU admitted it. You said ". . . left unread beyond the first few non sequitur sentences."

Wow. What an amazing ability to twist the truth into lies you have. The fact that I don't read every word you write means that I don't read. Simply stunning. Work for the Clintons, do you?

> You demand unreasonable "proof" for something that does not need to be proved to invalidate the carbon 14 test.

I simply ask for evidence that the shroud is older than the patches. You have failed to provide it, or any evidence that such proof exists. After this length of time, it is clear that you do not have such evidence.

> Now you have pulled out a brief CV for yourself that we have no way of checking...

BS. Go to my FR profile. Go to the website listed. Check the resume shown. Then go to the US patent office, and check the patents listed; call my current employers if you like and ask for my work phone number, or even call my supervisor or co-workers. But, of course, that would require you to actually check facts.

> You claim to be an "engineer" and now you claim to be an "author" and an an "inventor"

Claims easy checked, if you have a few brain cells to rub together.

> Quite frankly, Orion, I don't believe you.

Not my problem. If you care to believe lies, rather than spend thirty seconds checking facts... well, that would explain many things!

I'm still awaiting he answers to two simple, and so far ignored, questions:
1: What evidence do you have that the shroud is older than the theoretical patches
2: If there's a mystery with two explanations, one of which is "fraud," and the other is "mircale," which should a rational person consider most likely?

[shroudie]

Orionblamblam, you are restating the problems again. You seem to do this frequently:

1) The challenge to the carbon 14 date is not that the cloth might be older than the material tested. The point is that what was tested is not representative of the cloth. It is an anomalous sample. That has been unquestionably demonstrated. Thus the tests on a sample that is not representative of the cloth cannot be used to determine the age of the cloth.

By carbon 14 testing, we don’t how old the cloth is. However, there are many other indicators that do suggest that the cloth is older. You may choose to ignore all of them but you cannot defend an invalid test. Period.

2) You ask us to choose between a fraud and a miracle. Why? Why? Why? It has been repeatedly stated that a significant possibility for image formation is a natural phenomenon which is neither fraud nor miracle. That is why some people believe that you don’t read the material before popping off. I must say I agree. That seems to be the case.

And so what if the image was miraculously induced. Must all people, whether they believe in miracles or not, yield only to what you deem is rational. Every miracle can be argued to be fraud. Therefore, acording to blamy-blamy there can be no such thing as a miracle because fraud is a possibility. The rest of the world be damned because orionblamblam doesn’t believe in miracles. Forget the majority of the population. Orionblamblam knows better than anyone.

For every scientific explanation you have some off-the-wall exceptional possibility. String them together and you have a serial absurdity. Can you not see how foolish you look? I don’t see a whole lot of people coming to your defense and saying, “Hey, it doesn’t matter if they tested the wrong thing, the results must be trusted."

[orionblamblam]

> you are restating the problems again. You seem to do this frequently:

Yes, those of us who have actual experience in the scientific method tend to do that when we don't get answers.

> It is an anomalous sample.

Basically... "says you."

> You ask us to choose between a fraud and a miracle. Why? Why? Why?

Because it can't be both. Because it can't be both. Because it can't be both.

> a significant possibility for image formation is a natural phenomenon

In this case, it would essentially be a "miracle." The likelihood of such an extremely unlikely occurance (can you point me to any incontrovertible death-shroud images formed by incontrovertibly natural phenomena?) happened to the *ONE* guy it is claimed to have happened to is staggeringly unlikely. It's far less likely than finding a fingerprint on a two-millenia-old clay pot and determining it to have definitely belonged to Pilate.

There are basically three possibilities:
1: It's a fraud.
2: It's an extremely bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to some random guy.
3: It's an extremely bizarre thing that happened to one *specific* and religiously important guy.

No matter how #3 happened, it would be easily argued as a miracle no matter how it happened.

[orionblamblam]

> For every scientific explanation you have some off-the-wall exceptional possibility.

Except that you are comparing the unlikely to miracles. The unlikely occurs regularly. Miracles are rather more rare.

[shroudie]

You are beginning to see, just a little bit. Turn on the light.

[orionblamblam]

> Turn on the light.

May I suggest: "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Sagan?

[shroudie]

I understand that it is a pretty good book. I have not read it but I am roughly familiar with it. Perhaps on vacation this summer, I can get around to reading it.

While I don’t share Sagan’s skepticism about God, Christianity, and miracles, I do appreciate his sense of rational thinking. He is a good thinker but he does tend to generalize and lump completely illogical, non-theological topics like UFO’s with matters relating to the divine and divine action in the world.

He is a champion of scientific method and factual based thinking. Sir, you are not. I did read "Shadows," which he wrote with his wife, several years ago and I cannot imagine Sagan, even though he was a fundamentalist-atheist, suggesting that we accept results of faulty testing.

[orionblamblam]

> I understand that it is a pretty good book.

It is indeed, along with Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things" and Randi's "Flim Flam!"

> He is a champion of scientific method and factual based thinking. Sir, you are not.

Yawn. It was wrong the first time you said it, it's a lie now. You just don't like the fact that I do not accept that the shroud is 2K years old based on your complete lack of evidence. As I've pointed out earlier, the sum total of my recordable life and career points to the scientific method in action.

But why I'm trying to justify my self to *you*... Shrug, I dunno. Boredom, I guess.

[Swordmaker]

Yawn. It was wrong the first time you said it, it's a lie now. You just don't like the fact that I do not accept that the shroud is 2K years old based on your complete lack of evidence.

Now you are accusing both shroudie and I of being liars. We are not.

You claim a "complete lack of evidence" when we have provided evidence upon evidence that the Carbon 14 test is no longer valid. YOU have provided none at all.

Have either Shroudie or I categorically stated that the Shroud is "2k" years old? We have NOT. We have merely stated that with the invalidating of the 1989 Carbon 14 test, the question of the age of the non-patched areas of Shroud material is UNKNOWN.

Hell, Orion, it could be, as you suggest, that the patches WERE added just after the unknown weaver finished the cloth however unlikely that may be. The fact is we don't know... and that is what invalidates the Carbon 14 test: not knowing,

Your list of possibilities:

There are basically three possibilities:
1: It's a fraud.
2: It's an extremely bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to some random guy.
3: It's an extremely bizarre thing that happened to one *specific* and religiously important guy.

If, by the word "thing", in possibility No. 3, you mean "natural phenomenon", then you should have written it thusly:

3: It's an extremely bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to one "specific" and religiously important guy.

Then there is the possibility you left out that betrays your agenda:

4: It's evidence of a miraculous event that happened to one "specific" and religiously important guy.

The researchers of the Shroud KNOW that possibility No. 4 cannot ever be proved by Science. All we can do is to try and prove the any other three. If any of those three can be PROVED, No. 4 would be FALSE. That is what the last 106 years of research has been trying to do.

Possibility No. 1 Fraud, should be the easiest of all of them to prove. Proving fraud would make 2, 3, and 4 FALSE.

McCrone's proof of Fraud

Researchers thought that if you found paint or pigment in the image areas or blood stains in sufficient concentration to produce the image, then its a work of art. Walter C. McCrone thought he had found it under his microscope. He found flecks of iron oxide (that he termed Red Ocher) and Mercuric Sulfide (which he termed Vermilion) in his optical microscope. He immediately announced "Fraud" even though no peer-reviewed scientific journal would publish his results.

Other scientists, attempting to duplicate McCrone's findings, could not. Looking at the same samples that McCrone claimed proved fraud, the other scientists saw singular flecks of the materials. Still others, using much more sophisticated instrumentation than McCrone's outdated microscope, found that while there are "flecks" of both Red Ocher and Vermilion on the Shroud, they are randomly distributed over the entire cloth, with no concentration in image areas, and none in sufficient concentration to be visible. Examination of other cloths from European churches found similar random distributions of pigments merely from environmental factors.

The chemistry of the image is now well known and it has nothing to do with added pigments or stains or paints. Shroudie has posted over and over the chemical reaction that apparently has caused the image and I shall not repeat them. He and I have posted the links and the names of the well esteemed scientists that have done this research and published their results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The blood stains have been found to be real blood by some of the top experts in hematology and blood chemistry, superseding the 1973 tests. Again, we have provided links and the names of the scientists involved who published their results in peer-reviewed journals.

McCrone's "proof" of fraud was falsified.

The Duplication by Technical Means Proof of Fraud

The duplication of the Shroud image using even modern technology, let alone medieval technology, would be assumed by some to be proof of fraud. Many people are attempting this including artists, scientists, magicians, writers, and photographers. Some have claimed success.

To be deemed a successful "duplication" the duplicate image would have to meet several criteria. It would have to duplicate the quasi-photographic negative qualities of the shroud without evincing any directionality of "light." It would have to produce the image without using any detectable pigments, stains, or paints tested to the level the Shroud has been tested. The image cannot be fluorsescent. It would have to reproduce the quasi-three dimensional nature of the Shroud as a topographical mapping of the body. The image would have to be chemically identical to the image on the Shroud, and be present only in the top fibrils. Some would add the requirement that the duplicate also include the radiographic nature of the Shroud for the duplicate to be deemed successful.

While some attempts at Shroud duplication have met a few of the criteria, none has been successful in meeting all of them. So far, none has met the chemical test. A few which lacked pigment were produced by "searing" but all of them had fluorescent images caused by the charred linen. A couple have tried using photographic means, which fail by not meeting the Chemical test, and the directional light test.

The Duplication by Technical Means is still being attempted, but at this time, has been unsuccsessful.

The Carbon 14 proof of Medieval Origin

The Agreed Protocol

All of the scientists involved were agreed that the Carbon 14 test was proof which would make possibilities Nos. 3 and 4 false. These scientists prepared a well thought out protocol for testing the Shroud that involved seven samples, taken from various areas of the Shroud, and seven C14 labs, some of which would be given "control samples" that were not Shroud samples but taken from a cloth of known medieval or 1st Century provenance (this proved difficult because there were few surviving linen cloths from either period that had the proper weave). The protocol specifically excluded several areas of the Shroud because they were known to be contaminated. The Pope (the putative owner of the Shroud), the Catholic Church, and the Bishop of Turin agreed to these protocols.

Because of politics and personalities, the seven labs were trimmed to three. The blind testing was dropped. Politics last raised its head when the scientific adviser to the Bishop of Turin, one hour before the seven samples were to be taken, unilaterally changed the sampling protocol and would allow only ONE sample to be taken which would be shared among the three labs.

Observers were aghast when the adviser specified one of the areas the scientists agreed should be avoided because of known contamination. The observers protested the breaking of the specified protocol, but the project had gained an inertia that was impossible to stop because of the politics. The tests were performed properly on the sample provided to the three labs, the data collated, and the Carbon 14 results were announced to the world: 1260 AD to 1390 AD, averaged to 1325 AD.

The Shroud was "proved" to be of 14th Century Origin, falsifying possibilities 3 and 4.

The Fatally Flawed Sample

It is now know that because of that breaking of scientific protocol and the resultant sampling error, the three Carbon 14 Laboratories (Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona) performed impeccably accurate tests on a fatally flawed sample. Some excellent research in textile analysis, photomicrographic examinations of the photos of the C14 sample, chemical analysis of the surviving sample area, physical examination of the sticky tape samples from the sample area, and historical investigation of French repair techniques of the 16th Century, it has been found that the area sampled was not only contaminated by being one of the areas most handled in antiquity, it was actually a rewoven PATCH with foreign material not Representative of the Shroud itself. The names of the researchers, scientific, technical, and historic, have been listed by shroudie and the links to their peer-reviewed journal articles posted. Because of the irresponsible and unscientific breaking of protocol the results of the Carbon 14 test are now invalid but not falsified.

The Carbon 14 proof of Medieval origin has been invalidated. The question of the age of the Shroud is still open and the falsification of possibilities 3 and 4 voided.

Conclusion

Because the sample was taken in violation of agreed protocols, the Carbon 14 test needs to be redone with the original protocols. It may yet prove the Shroud to be medieval... or 1st Century.

[orionblamblam]

> you are accusing both shroudie and I of being liars.

Hey, if the shoe fits... You now have all the proof you need to determine that I'm quite aware of the principles of science. To claim otherwise emans you are either a liar or crazy. I don't much care which.

> Then there is the possibility you left out that betrays your agenda:

Blah, blah, blah. There was a *reason* I changed the "natural phenomenon" to "thing.". One is reasonably specific. The other covers more turf.

The rest of your cut-and-paste snipped, again unread. I suppose you'll use that as evidence that I'm illiterate, despite the fact I've written hundreds of published pages?


The most important thing of all for anyone readign along: note the COMPLETE failure of Shroudie and Swordmaker to answer the question... "If there's a mystery with two explanations, one of which is "fraud," and the other is "mircale," which should a rational person consider most likely?"

The silence on this is telling, because to answer honestly would publicly demonstrate an abandonement of the basic precepts of science for many people.

[Swordmaker]

The rest of your cut-and-paste snipped, again unread. I suppose you'll use that as evidence that I'm illiterate, despite the fact I've written hundreds of published pages?

You are very insulting, Orion. I assure you that NONE of that post was "cut and paste" and all of it is original with me. That makes you a liar. You refuse to even look at the evidence. That is what both shroudie and I mean when we state that "You don't read." and what little you do, you fail to apply logic and the rules of evidence to, instead preferring your unsupported opinion.

Because of that, I give your opinion exactly no weigh, Orion, because you are uninformed, ignorant of the research and DELIBERATELY remain so.

"If there's a mystery with two explanations, one of which is "fraud," and the other is "mircale," which should a rational person consider most likely?"

I see you cut and paste your question... same misspelling of "miracle" again. I find it interesting that you demand answers, but you provide none to our questions. You want an answer?

I would come down on the side of "Fraud."

There, does that make you happy?

In fact, about 30 years ago, that is where I started with the mystery that is the Shroud of Turin. However, I would want to prove that Fraud... you don't.

Your position is "I've decided it is a fraud so I can safely ignore the evidence. Your attitude is "Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up: it's a Fraud." So you keep bringing up things that have already been disproved, conclusively, and refuse to even look at the evidence of why they have been falsified.

You have proved it to everyone's satisfaction on this thread. You are a twit who's purpose here is disruption, not discussion.

Now that I have answered YOUR question, answer mine. What scientific principle would allow an unrepresentative sample's test results to be applied to the thing it does not represent?

You have claimed authoritative knowledge of the scientific principles. Please enlighten us.

[Swordmaker]

Hey, if the shoe fits... You now have all the proof you need to determine that I'm quite aware of the principles of science. To claim otherwise emans you are either a liar or crazy. I don't much care which.

No, Orion, I don't -- because you refuse to apply the principles of science. Since you are "quite aware" of them I must conclude that your refusal to apply them or to think logically has an ulterior motive.

It may be that you have hoist yourself on your own petard and cannot back down without losing face. As a result, you keep climbing back up on that same petard.

Quite frankly, I wonder why you are even on this thread. You are not here to learn anything; you've as much as said you will not read anything shroudie or I post. You sneer at our references and documentation. You are not here to impart any knowledge you have on the subject, because you have posted nothing but long discard hypotheses and incorrect "factoids" you think will support your position. You ignore the evidence. You ignore the expertise of the researchers and ridicule them. You become abusive when you are called on your "factoids." You belittle people of faith who have the temerity to disagree with you. You insult and ridicule shroudie and me and several other Freepers on this thread.

Your claims of not reading our replies and accusations of "cut and paste" writing are just attempts to marginalize us... and are a fallacious form of discussion or argument.

I can only conclude that you are here only to throw stinkbombs and turds.

[shroudie]

I did answer you in post 142. You say my silence is telling. I say that your blatant charge that no answer was provided is telling. You don’t read what we write, you argue vacantly, or there is something else going on. I suspect something else.

You would have anyone who is rational, given two choices of explanation for a phenomenon, fraud or miracle, choose fraud first. That implication is clear from your statement. Given that any miracle claim can be suspected of fraud, someone who agrees with you must choose fraud thus eliminating the possibilities of any miracles.

David Hume’s famous maxim on miracles states the problem you are trying to pose in a proper philosophical way. It reads: “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.” (See David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding).

You demand a dichotomous choice: fraud or miracle. As we have stated, it is quite possible that the images were naturally formed and that the Shroud is a forensically credible earliest document of what happened from Friday to Sunday some 2000 years ago. But should this not be so, then in a sense analogous to Hume’s miracle maxim, I find a more persuasive case for believing in miraculously induced images than in the crafting of a fake relic in medieval times. For given all the empirical evidence, a medieval provenance is more preposterous, in a sense more miraculous.

The Shroud claims to be nothing that cannot be discerned from it scientifically. It does not define or rely on miracles or challenge nuanced definitions of the word. It does not rely on miraculous explanations to be authentic. It cannot be explained away by simple prima facie understandings drawn from bankrupt enlightenment thinking.

Only a fool would state that for any claim of a miracle, given that someone might suggest it was a fraud, we must accept that it is a fraud because rationality deems we must. Such an appeal to upside down rationality is irrational. That, sir, is fundamentalism not rationality. That, sir, is lunacy. I suspect you are neither a fundamentalist nor a lunatic. Thus when one considers, additionally, your irrational defense of the carbon 14 testing results despite the fact the wrong thing was tested, one can only conclude that you are not here to argue but to play the fool. You seem to be playing a game of chuckle-chuckle-see-me-being-silly.

I think you recognize the high probability that the Shroud is genuine and that troubles your so-called rational, a priori enlightened-scientific worldview. Thus you resort to lashing out like an angry chold. Or as Swordmaker put it better: "you are here only to throw stinkbombs and turds."

[orionblamblam]

> I did answer you in post 142.

No, you didn't. You danced around it, but didn't answer it.

> Only a fool would state that for any claim of a miracle, given that someone might suggest it was a fraud, we must accept that it is a fraud because rationality deems we must.

Non sequitur. You consider "fraud" as an explanation not because someone might suggest it, but because "fraud" explains it.

[orionblamblam]

> you refuse to apply the principles of science

A lie. Can you say nothing else?

> you've as much as said you will not read anything shroudie or I post.

Another lie (an obvious one given that I'm responding to what you've written).

Clearly, you have nothign to contribute, since you are so ready and willing to telling obvious untruths.

[orionblamblam]

> You are very insulting, Orion.

I know. Sometimes I sink to the level of my opponant. It's a personality flaw.

> I see you cut and paste your question...

Indeed so, because it didn't get answered previously.

> I would come down on the side of "Fraud."

PROGRESS! You are beginning to see the light.

> However, I would want to prove that Fraud... you don't.

Uhhh... no. I would want to find out what it is, not prove it's one thing or another.

> What scientific principle would allow an unrepresentative sample's test results to be applied to the thing it does not
represent?

None, of course. But then... what scientific principle allows you to decalre a sample unrepresentative when you don't actually KNOW it's unrepresentative? These "patches" have been declared as such because they provide an answer people don't like.

[shroudie]

You wrote: "Non sequitur. You consider "fraud" as an explanation not because someone might suggest it, but because "fraud" explains it."

Fair enough on the non sequitur. But that is the rub. There is no suitable explanation for fraud. Or is there, please?

To obtain an amine/saccharides product in a starch fraction/saccharides coating requires an amine source. To get a microscopic implementation of discontinuities of these changed states requires a mechanism. Liquid would not provide the hatching patterns observed but a gaseous diffusion would. Liquid amine solutions would result in saturation peaks and there are none in the Shroud image. Keep in mind that the starch fraction/saccharides coating is found only at the evaporation surface of the cloth. That such a reaction will occur for a rather wide range of ambient temperatures and humidity that might be found in a tomb from a dead body. The body will produce the heavier amines in its tissues such as putrescine (1,4-diaminobutane), and cadaverine (1,5-diaminopentane). Color will be produced. That is a fact. Saturation peaks might occur but unlike with liquid, they need not necessarily occur if reactant exhaustion takes place.

So, for fraud, we probably need a means of applying gaseous amines.

Keep in mind that the images are extraordinarily faint. They only become visible at a distance of from six feet to fifteen feet. As the reactions are slow to build in normal ambient temperatures (maybe 10 to 30 hours) the image development with be almost impossible to observe in the early stages even from a greater distance.

We’ll need a great deal of precision in our method to ensure that we get clear images on contusions and abrasions.

Keep in mind, too, that we have a lot of other things to do to make our fraud. We need to insert pollen from the middle east. We need to apply travertine aragonite. We need to apply the blood. We’ll need a human being for this as there is no way to paint blood clots and serum separation. We must have contact.

We’ll need to get access to the Sudarium from the Cathedral in Oviedo to make sure that our human for the blood transfer has identical wound and blood flows.

What is this fraud “explanation” you have that meets these image criteria?

[shroudie]

Orionblamblam, this is posted, not for your benefit, but those who understand science:

M. Sue Benford and Joseph Marino, in collaboration with number of textile experts, identified clear evidence of medieval mending on the Shroud. A patch was expertly sewn to or rewoven into the fabric to repair a damaged edge. It was from this patch—quite likely nothing more than a piece of medieval cloth—that the samples were taken. From documenting photographs of the sample areas, the textile experts identified enough newer thread to permit Ronald Hatfield, of the prestigious radiocarbon dating firm Beta Analytic, to estimate that the true date of the cloth is much older—perhaps even 1st century.

Independently, Anna Arnoldi of the University of Milan and Raymond N. Rogers, a Fellow of the University of California Los Alamos National Laboratory have explored the chemical nature of the sample area. They have confirmed the finding of Benford and Marino. Ultraviolet photography and spectral analysis show that the area from which the samples were taken was chemically unlike the rest of the cloth. Chemical analysis reveals the presence of Madder root dye and an aluminum oxide mordant (a reagent that fixes dyes to textiles) not found elsewhere on Shroud. Medieval artisans often dyed threads in this manner when mending damaged tapestries. This was simply to make the repairs less noticeable. The presence of Madder root and mordant suggests that the Shroud was mended in this way.

Microchemical tests also reveal vanillin (C8H8O3 or 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) in an area of the cloth from which the carbon 14 sample were cut. But the rest of the cloth does not test positive for it. Vanillin is produced by the thermal decomposition of lignin, a complex polymer, a non-carbohydrate constituent of plant material including flax. Found in medieval materials but not in much older cloths, it diminishes and disappears with time. For instance, the wrappings of the Dead Sea scrolls do not test positive for vanillin.

Let me quote Ray Rogers, UCLA Science Fellow, a former chief scientist at Los Alamos Laboratories:

"I believe that this is one of the most important photographs [look above in this thread] of the Shroud that has been taken. It shows the fluorescence of the area of the radiocarbon sample. It proves that the radiocarbon sample did not have the same chemical composition as the rest of the cloth. This is a fact - not an interpretation. . .

"Notice that the entire area above the Raes sample and along the seam is darker than the main part of the cloth. It does not fluoresce. . .Its chemical composition is different from the Shroud. That is exactly the area sampled for the 1988 dating fiasco. . .

"The radiocarbon sample was invalid. No strange, magical events are needed to explain the invalid date. I do not know what the real date is, but I know the sample used in 1988 did not yield a valid date. The poor preparation for sampling in 1988, the poor verification of the sample, the failure to follow written protocols, and the unrealistic claims made about "unreliable" radiocarbon dating have done great damage."

OBB, did you catch those words: "It proves that the radiocarbon sample did not have the same chemical composition as the rest of the cloth. This is a fact - not an interpretation. . . "

[orionblamblam]

> So, for fraud, we probably need a means of applying gaseous amines.

You assume no fading over the centuries, or that only this one means of production is possible.

> Keep in mind that the images are extraordinarily faint.

...*today.*

> We need to insert pollen from the middle east. We need to apply travertine aragonite.

Easily done if this was done in the middle east, or if the shroud was from there.

> We’ll need a human being for this as there is no way to paint blood clots and serum separation.

Ah, there's a problem... you'll need a human of extraordinary proportions... and extra physical dimensions, as the image on the shroud does not actually reflect realistic human geometry. And in any event... blood isn't exactly rare, especially in an era when "cure for *anything*" meant "leaches and bleeding out the bad humours."

> We’ll need to get access to the Sudarium from the Cathedral in Oviedo ...

Possible, if the thing was on display. And has the Sudarium been C-14 dated? But then, I did a Google on the Sudarium... found lots of claims that the bloodstains match up, but no actual evidence.

But this is an interesting side-topic... either the shroud and the smaller cloth have staisn that are identical, or they don't. If they don;t, then they can be reasonably determiend to be unrelated. If they *do*, then carbon dating the Sudarium will tell you the age of the shroud, yes?

[orionblamblam]

> then carbon dating the Sudarium will tell you the age of the shroud, yes?

A P.S. Been trying to find reports of carbon dating of the Sudarium. The only one yet is from:
http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3953

"Similarly, carbon-testing on the Sudarium sets its origin in the seventh century, but those who contend it is older say the test results were distorted by the effects of a terrorist bombing inside the cathedral in 1934."

Well.