Replies

Thank you for the text of the Pope’s order to the Lirey Chapel about the showing of the Shroud. I had not seen that in detail before, although I heard of its strictures.

It is true that there is some evidence that the image on the Shroud, at least today, is not a “painting” in the normally accepted sense of an artist with a palette and brush, but I think the term could embrace a “staining” with, say, an iron salt, which binds to the substrate chemically and is not particulate. The words “paynted” and “stayned” are largly interchangeable in medieval describtions of coloured cloth.

My, you make a good argument, but it has flaws . . . from the what I have read of would definitely SHOW any such staining by an “iron salt” bound to the substrate chemically and would have been found by many of the tests performed, especially an microspectrometric examination. It did not show up on any such test for iron.

Again we know where the image exists and it is NOT soaked into the fibers of the flax as would be suggested by such a staining. That shoots down any such modality of creation by your hypothetical “iron salt staining.”

The other problem I see with your Iron Salts is that easily soluble Iron Salts, the ones that are typically named that, are Iron Sulfate, and are not brown or reddish color, but green in color. Nice try, but no 5¢ cigar.

In consideration of the science, I researched your proposal with Iron (III) salts, which are a proper brown/red in color, but from what I can find, and what I recall from decades ago chemistry, they don’t lend themselves well to going into solution to stain, and leave behind larger, clumpy easily spotted particles of iron oxide as a residue. No matter that any staining implies soaking with a fluid into the fibers, covering more than just the front facing soapwort coating. Any modality has to explain why it affected only that during a specific time frame resolving an image portion.

On a personal note, I am assuming that you are the Hugh Farey, third from the left, in this photo from Shroud.com:

If so, my hat is off to your expertise, Hugh. Your arguments are hence given much more weight.

“. . . taken from an area that the scientists who had examined the Shroud first-hand in the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project had all agreed should be avoided for such tests because it was chemically, photographically, and physically not similar to the main body of the Shroud.”

No. By 1988 STuRP as a body of scientists had ceased to exist. The radiocarbon corner had never been “chemically, photographically, and physically” studied.

What did I say that was incorrect, Hugh? I attended several symposia where there were at least two to three STURP members in attendance. They variously told me in conversations that the Raes corner where both the Raes sample and the later C-14 sample had been taken had been photographed, tested and examined threads taken from had been chemically, by the members in 1978 team, and they thought it was different than the main body of the Shroud in several significant factors photographically, physically, and chemically. Ray Rogers stated that. Among those differences was that the area fluoresced under ultraviolet light while the main-body does not. (I did find and read the critique of Miller’s 1978 UV photographic setup, but that merely puts the sampling area’s questioability about the UV photos into limbo, not whether it was a good choice for a main-body Representative sample or not.) This indicates that there is something troubling, perhaps chemical different, in that area, and it should not be considered an area reliably representative of the whole. The STURP scientists who were discussing C-14 testing protocols in STURP had advised avoiding that area if it were the only area to be sampled for testing because it was apparently not representative of the whole body in significant ways. You can find these comments in several written articles, it was suggested that a sample be age tested from that area for the purpose of learning more about why it was different. It does not matter a whit when the STURP scientists made that recommendation, just that they did.

Actually, at the magnification at which the samples were studied by the labs, even individual threads are easy to identify. The decision not to divide the pieces into threads was taken for fear the thorough cleaning process would reduce them to nothing, as, in fact, happened to one of the Zurich control samples.

How would the identify individual threads, especially if cut? I’ve seen photos of threads from the Shroud’s weave and there’s nothing distinctly "Shroud" about them. Also in what way would cleaning make the samples “reduce to nothing.” That makes no scientific or even technical sense.

Anyway, Dr; Tite did not search in the Bock catalogue of the Victoria and Albert Museum. There several 3/1 herring bone linens are registered! Here one must come to the conclusion that the authors of this report have little laboratory sampling experience. In fact, Prof. Gove proposed this sampling method to assure a REPRESENTATIVE sample by taking THREADS from different parts of the Shroud!

As to breaking protocol, those had been reported agreed to prior to the sample being cut from the Shroud. If they had not been, then they should not have proceeded. As I understand it, the change was literally made by the custodian of the Shroud at the last hour, literally opting to cut just one master sample, which would divided into smaller sub-samples and sent to the labs, from the worst possible place, adjacent to the Raes sample. The agreement, which had been worked out with the owners of the Shroud had been to take six to eight samples from both image and non-image areas of the Shroud. Again, as I understand it, those samples could easily have been taken from areas under the sewn on 1532 fire patches so as not to disturb the appearance of the Shroud. The breaking of protocol is bad science. You can disagree, but it is still bad science.

So is reducing the cut cloth to threads. Or further to cutting the threads to smaller pieces. The need for blind testing is important. The idea that cleaning the resulting fibers to nothing I think is a strawman. Linen is tough. . . and cleaning the material is not that destructive. The sample is going to be reduced, cut, and burned in any case. The Shroud samples and controls should have been as anonymous as possible. That did not happen. Again, bad science.

Emphasis in the following quoted excerpted article is mine:

The British Museum, selected the Chi^2 to be the criterion for the assessment of the radiocarbon dating results for the Shroud. The MAXIMUM Chi^2 test value for 95% confidence and (3-1) degrees of freedom is 5.99. Theoretically, if the calculated Chi^2 test value could have occurred only by chance, with a probability LESS than that selected, then the set of data would be considered as being DIFFERENT. In practice : Any Chi^2 test value LARGER than 5.99, excludes the claimed 95 % confidence.

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. . . Much documented calculations and published graphs and charts of the 1988 C-14 tests and data

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CONCLUSION :
Facts : The Arizona error was arbitrary enlarged from 17 to 31. The Wilson & Ward mean 689-+16 was replaced by the UNWEIGHTED mean 691-+31. The multiplying t-factor for 95% confidence was enlarged from 1.96 to 2.6. The claimed "at least 95 % confidence" for the medieval dating of the Shroud is NOT supported by statistical analysis. One may wonder, why these OBVIOUS facts, were not spotted by the "team of peers" who judge all papers before publication in Nature. Even stranger is the FACT, that Prof. Bray of the "Istuto di Metrologia" of Turin, confirmed that the results of the 3 labs were mutually compatible, and that, on the evidence submitted, none of the means WERE questionable. Prof. Bray declared not to be at liberty to answer any questions. His answer was : "On the evidence submitted, no averaged results APPEAR questionable. The scatter for sample 1 is about equal to the limit." The only possible explanation is, that NOT all evidence was submitted to Prof. Bray. Prof. Bray refused to comment on the "combination from EIGHT to FOUR Arizona dates. I asked the editor of Nature, to compare my calculations with the results given by Damon et al. Following Dr. Laura Garwin (Physical Science Editor) : "You are asking me questions that are beyond my ability to answer. The Damon et al paper was refereed by qualified referees and no dissatisfaction was raised with the assignment or errors." I also asked the advice of Prof. Bene (University of Geneve). "I would like to congratulate you for the quality of your work. You established definitive evidence, that the measurements made on the linen of the Shroud are NOT homogeneous and that they should be rejected." Prof. Jouvenoux (University of Marseille-Aix) : "Van Haelst was probably the first to question the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud in a scientific way."
Note :
These calculations have been verified by : Dr. Leese (British Museum). She argues that the differences are caused by the use of different weighting systems! The French professional statisticians Bouclier de Carbon and Forestier, agreed with my results. Dr. Hedges (Oxford) replied : "I do not need statistics....." Dr. Woeffli (Zurich) and Dr. Damon (Arizona) did not reply. Prof. Evin (Lyon. France) : "Statistics will not change the facts...." This paper has been presented at the CIELT International Shroud Symposium. Rome 1993. (Actes CIELT Rome. ISBN 2.868.39.311X Ed. Fr.X. Guibert Paris. pages 207-218). — Radiocarbon Dating The Shroud - A Critical Statistical Analysis. By Remi Van Haelst, Belgium
Graduated Industrial Chemist, Copyright 1997

Chi² statistical test result is almost 17.5, far greater than the under 6 required by the British Museum’s (you were correct, damn faulty memory, I’m getting too old to rely on my brain’s data base, dang it!) own established degree of confidence in the samples tested homogeneity with each other, despite eye witnesses seeing them cut from the target item to be dated. Such a high Chi² Statistical test result indicates either that the sub-samples are not homogeneously identical or that the samples are randomly and heavily contaminated in some way. Incidentally, this is just one of, I think, three or four statistical and mathematical critiques of the 1988 C-14 testing that independently came to the same conclusion using the raw data provided by the labs, Nature, and the British Museum. There’s one more recent one that went into the even more detailed data.

As to who invented this technique of C-14 dating, I offer this information:

"Obituary – Professor Harry Gove
Professor Harry E. Gove, emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York State, and inventor of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method of radiocarbon dating used on the Shroud in 1988, died peacefully on February 18 this year. He was in his 86th year. —https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n69part7.pdf

Sorry to be so delayed in getting back to you, we spent the day showing some relatives Zion National Park.

Yes, I’m afraid that’s me, with two ‘giants’ of the Shroud world and Arif Amer, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which firmly believes in the authenticity of the Shroud, as it conclusively proves a basic tenet of their faith, that Jesus did not die on the cross! More on this later, perhaps, when I explore the alleged anatomical accuracy of the image...

Funnily enough, it was an original member of STuRP, Joe Accetta, who put me onto the iron stain idea. Joe was the infra-red imaging specialist, but has long thought the Shroud to be medieval. He thinks it may have been stained with iron-gall ink, very common in the Middle Ages. And then a BBC programme from 1982 had attempted to make a copy of the image using Brazil wood (”so popular in the Middle Ages that they even named a country after it”). And then there were experiments of my own involving the degradation of linen by various acids, such as sulphuric, hydrochloric and vinegar. The chemical result of all these deliberations is iron acetate, an easily made stain produced by leaving iron (filings, ‘wool’, a nail) in vinegar. Lightly applied, this will only stain the upper fibres of a cloth, particularly a close woven one such as the Shroud, and explain both the “cellulosic iron” and the “hematite”. Experiments are ongoing rather than complete at present.

Incidentally, it is a common canard that any liquid applied to one surface of a cloth will seep through to the back. Try writing on a handkerchief with a fibre-tipped pen - or indeed. look at the back of almost any watercolour canvas. It doesn’t. I wonder who thought that up, and why almost everybody has seen fit to repeat it?

If you have personal knowledge of the activities of the STuRP team regarding the radiocarbon corner, then I will defer to that, but the detailed maps of all the sticky tap extractions do not show anything being taken from anywhere near it (except possibly the Holland cloth backing) so they could not have examined it chemically, or even microscopically at fibre level. Photographs were certainly taken, but not at any great magnification over that area. Gilbert Raes had hands-on experience of the corner, but had not characterised it chemically or physically (other than to make rather indecisive comments about cotton proportions), and the STuRP team had no access to his sample. It is not true that “the area fluoresced under ultraviolet light while the main-body does not”; if anything the radiocarbon area fluoresced rather less than the main body.

If you look at Barrie Schwortz’s photos of the samples, Shroud and control, retained by Arizona, you will see that if you were given a thread from any of them, you would easily be able to allot it to the correct sample.

You ask, “Also in what way would cleaning make the samples “reduce to nothing.” That makes no scientific or even technical sense.” You might like to refer to the Damon ‘Nature’ paper for clarification, if you have a copy of it. One of the Zurich control samples only has measurements for one half, as “the loose weave of sample Z3.1 led to its disintegration during strong and weak chemical treatments.” The individual filaments were not recoverable. I’m sorry it wasn’t clear, I assumed you would be familiar with it.

The fragments of material acquired from by the British Museum from Franz Bock are largely minute, and I’m only aware of a single 3/1 herringbone fragment. As such, it was certainly not available to be used as a control, as Tite knew very well.

Remi Van Haelst writes almost unreadably in capital letters and over expressive language, and misrepresents the British Museum’s statistics. Others have made the same mistake. Instead of attempting to understand its figures, he used his own methods, came to different results, and declared the British Museum wrong, even mocking the comments by Morwena Leese and Prof. Bray, who tried to explain. It is better to start from the results returned to the British Museum and work out what they actually did and why they did it.

Much is related to the method of determining the average of errors in reported measurements (e.g: the mean of 590±30, 690±35, 606±41 and 701±33). There are two or three methods, giving statistically acceptable, but different, answers. Van Haelst simply did not acknowledge that - he may not even have known about them.

Either way, the fact that the averaged results of the three labs was discrepant was not hidden by the British Museum, which clearly explained that there was statistically only a 5% “probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed, under the assumption that the quoted errors reflect all sources of random variation.” The problem, as I have mentioned before, was what to do about it.