Back in the 80s, a number of labs did some carbon dating on some small amounts of the shroud material and the consensus was that it was dated to the 1300s more or less. They apparently have also done some DNA testing which showed that it had been touched a gazillion times. What I did not see was whether any DNA testing had ever been done on the dried blood....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FRU92fJO_g
The tested swatches were taken from a repaired corner.
They were tested and came back 14th century.
See video...
The screwed up “carbon dating” was done on a piece of new cloth added on the edge of the shroud after it was burned in a fire.
Why did you leave that fact out?
The labs were supposed to do micro-chemical tests on the sample to make sure it was representative of the entire cloth. They didn’t do that.
We had to wait 17 years for Ray Rogers, a retired Fellow with the Los Alamos Scientific laboratory and lead chemist for the original Shroud project in 1978, to do the micro-chemical tests the carbon labs were supposed to do in the first place. Published recently (January 20, 2005) in a peer reviewed scientific journal, ThermoChimica Acta, is an article containing the results of his analysis.
The key findings are as follows:
The radiocarbon sample that was used to date the Shroud has a very different composition and structure than the rest of the cloth and was not valid for dating the Shroud.
The sample used for carbon dating had been dyed with Madder root dye and applied to the surface in a plant-gum medium. This was to hide the repair (probably done in 1534). This dye and gum mixture does not exist anywhere else on the cloth.
The flax portion of the carbon sample had been bleached by a different method than the Shroud showing that the threads were manufactured at different times and not part of the original cloth.
The carbon dating sample also contained a significant amount of cotton. The cotton was woven in with the flax in the repaired area to help the dye adhere better. There is no cotton in the main body of the Shroud.
Linen (flax) contains a natural polymer called vanillin. Vanillin decays over time. Most medieval linen still contains a portion of the original vanillin whereas the vanillin content of the Dead Sea Scroll wrappings is completely depleted. The area cut for carbon dating still contains 37% of its original vanillin whereas 0% remains in samples taken from the main body of the Shroud.
All combined, it indicates that the carbon labs dated a rewoven area of the cloth. It also shows that the Shroud is significantly older than 700 years. Dr. Ray Rogers can only offer a date range of 1,300 to 3,000 years old because the rate of vanillin decay depends on storage temperature, something that is not known. But now, the Shroud being 2,000 years old doesn’t seem out of the question anymore.
http://shroud2000.com/CarbonDatingNews.html
“Back in the 80s, a number of labs did some carbon dating on some small amounts of the shroud material and the consensus was that it was dated to the 1300s more or less...”
Several valid arguments concerning the “carbon dating”
As is now and probably always will be, a question of faith.