Shroud of Turin tests miff scientists, religious scholars

AP Online ^ | 8-21-02 | ROXANA M. POPESCU

[mjp]

Shroud of Turin tests miff scientists, religious scholars

ROME (August 21, 2002 5:23 p.m. EDT) - Experts on the Shroud of Turin said Wednesday they felt frustrated and betrayed to learn a Swiss textile expert had obtained Vatican approval to test the sacred cloth without involvement from the international scientific community. The shroud is a strip of linen believers say was used to wrap the body of Jesus. Kept in the Cathedral of Turin, it is rarely displayed to the public.

Earlier this month, the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero said a well-known Swiss textile expert, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, had begun tests on the cloth and, as part of the research, cut out 30 patches woven into it in the 16th century.

Flury-Lemberg confirmed then that she had received Vatican approval to perform the tests. But she has refused to say exactly what her work has entailed.

Some experts worry that in the absence of any oversight, she may have damaged the cloth. In the past, tests on the cloth have involved a large committee of international scientists.

"This one was limited strictly to certain favorites in Turin, and Flury-Lemberg was one," said the Rev. Albert Dreisbach, an Episcopalian minister who has been studying the shroud since 1977.

Flury-Lemberg said Wednesday she would release photographs of her research next month.

"There are so many wrong things in the press," she said by telephone from Bern, Switzerland. "Everyone's speculating. I don't want to give any news."

Cardinal Severino Poletto, the archbishop of Turin and the shroud's custodian, said in an interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper L'Avvenire that the Vatican approved the tests.

He would not discuss Flury-Lemberg's procedures except to say her work was carried out in accordance with two Vatican conditions: that there be unanimous consent of the members of the Conservation Commission for the Shroud, a small group of experts overseeing the cloth, and that the cultural authorities of the Italian government be informed.

Members of the commission could not be reached Wednesday.

Ilona Farkas, who has been following shroud research since 1976 but is not a commission member, said scientists are upset.

"It's scandalous," Farkas said from Rome. "There will be tons of protests arriving at the Vatican from scientists."

Paul Maloney, general projects director for the Association of Scientists and Scholars International for the Shroud of Turin, located in Pennsylvania, said the lack of information has "many of us around the world very frustrated, because we don't know how to assess what they have done."

Maloney, who is also not a member of the smaller commission, said experts fear "historically important information may be gone forever."

The cardinal said the research involved removing impurities and residue from the cloth, which is 13 feet long and three feet wide.

"The interventions have been carried out reservedly not out of a great desire for secrecy, but to guarantee the necessary calm for those who had to work, beside obvious reasons for safety," Poletto told L'Avennire.

[Don Joe]

My developer replaced the first step, which was (as with the stock Ilford soup) a conventional black and white developer. Cibachrome (now Ilfochrome) is a dye bleach process unlike chromogenic films (and also unlike Kodachrome, which is unique). The colors are not formed in a Cibachrome print during development. They are azo dyes which are impregnated in the emulsion during manufacture (and visible if you soften a piece of raw stock with some water and then scrape off the layers). The actual dye image is "revealed" by the powerful bleach, which removes the portion of the dye that is in proximity to developed silver. My developer gave the medium an approximate one stop boost in speed, which was very useful because Cibachrome was notoriously slow, with high magnification enlargments often requiring a several minute long exposure. Cutting that in half was very welcome by those using it. It also made a dramatic difference in the image quality. The customer who "discovered it" (he was the staff photographer for a local heavy equipment manufacturer who decided to see what would happen if he used it with Cibachrome out of sheer curiosity) brought me two prints. The first was a standard Cibachrome, and it looked very good. He then took out "my" print and held them side by side. The Cibachrome that was developed in my soup looked like a projected slide, and it made the standard Cibachrome look dull, almost as if it had a veiling haze over the entire image.

A Unicolor representative said that the company would sign an NDA to look at it, but unfortunately the Divorce/Custody Case From Hell decided to take front stage and center in my "life" at that moment, and... oh, well.

Maybe some day I'll find the old trash-80 floppy I've got the formula on, and if I do, maybe it'll still be readable, and if it is, maybe I can find my old Model 4 in all the junquepiles, and if I can, maybe it'll boot, and...

[gcruse]

My finishing department used to dust spot the Ciba. Of course you had to bleach the dust image first, then fill it back in with color, unlike C prints. AIR, we used a dilute sulfuric to bleach the spot. The artists were used to spotting C prints and using the tips of their tongues to put a point back onto the camel hair brush. This was okay when it was loaded with Flexicolor dye, but not so much fun when the brush had just been dipped in acid. It took a while for them to get used to not twirling the brush on the tongue while doing Ciba. :)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Among these "clothes" were a strip that was placed lengthwise up the front of the body, over the head, and down the back of the body. That would fit the description of the Shroud.

By the way, I can understand the Catholic reticence to identify the Shroud of Turin as actually having been among the graveclothes used on Jesus. In that tradition, there are several reported miracles of imprintation on an object by a saint who obviously wasn't physically pressed against the object. How do they know this isn't another case of the same thing?

[Don Joe]

"The artists were used to spotting C prints and using the tips of their tongues to put a point back onto the camel hair brush."

Ouch! Reminds me of the stories about the radium watch dial painter ladies who used the same technique.

BTW I posted the mini-Cibachrome tutorial before I saw your freepmail. For some odd reason (fatigue?), I didn't see your first post until after I'd replied to the second. I wasn't trying to condescend.

[Don Joe]

"will gradually be converted to silver sulfide via the gradual exposure to atmospheric silver."

Argh, can't believe I was that tired! Should have typed "atmospheric sulphur.

The day they figure out how to extract silver from the air is the day I set out massive sheets to collect it and retire. :)

[gcruse]

No sweat. Now that I think of it, we had problems initially drymounting the Ciba and keeping the glossy sheen. Using tissue and board didn't cut it. The method I invented was adopted by the local university. I used a spray adhesive, no longer available legally, on the back of the print, the put it gently on the mount board. This sandwich went emulsion down into a wood/glass frame with a lock on the back. The print went against the glass. When you unlocked the frame and took out the mounted print, the surface was flat as glass and beautiful. No other mounting method kept that sheen.

[gcruse]

I missed that atmospheric silver...guess I was thinking dye clouds. ;)

[Don Joe]

Heheheheh

[gcruse]

It's been a blast, Don. I gotta hit the sack. Catch you later.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I would expect there would have had to be a fair amount of bacterial crud on the Shroud to bias a carbon dating by 1000+ years out of 2000. And exactly what are these germies living on, anyhow? Carbon dating depends on photosynthetic processes (plant takes in carbon dioxide from the air, turns it into carbon compounds and liberates oxygen). If they are parasites subsisting on the cloth, that is where they are getting their carbon.

That being said, if there are supernatural effects going on here (in the absence of a refined optical imaging technology, that possibility suggests itself) then all "scientific" bets are off.

[Salvation]

Just sent this to a friend, a Catholic, who does presentations on the Shroud of Turin. Thanks for posting it.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[RightOnline]

No, it wasn't "clever imaging" of "a crusader".

I can probably guess at the reason for all of this outrage. When the scientists who have examined the Shroud for over 20 years wanted to obtain a small sample for carbon dating, they had hell to pay to get one tiny little bit of the cloth.........and they were ordered to take that tiny bit from the ONE spot on the cloth that they wanted to avoid for varios reasons (was on a patched area, etc. etc.). Now, we read that some local get access to it and apparently is able to obtain numerous samples. I'm hoping that this article is just wrong and that this woman hasn't lit into the Shroud with scissors or something inane like that....

No, we've had these discussions over the past few years, but for now (until I get more time) let me say that the Shroud is, in my opinion and in the opinion of those scientists who have spent decades studying it, the real deal.

Try reading this thread:

'Shroud of Turin' presentation update

[ALS]

Among these "clothes" were a strip that was placed lengthwise up the front of the body, over the head, and down the back of the body. That would fit the description of the Shroud.

errr.... which verse was that again?

[Petronski]

If people want the "Full Dante" in the next world be my guest.

That's hilarious. I'm going to use that. LOL and thanks for that.

[Vermont Lt]

Not to sound too picky, but does a piece of cloth qualify as a graven image? I mean, some folks seem to worship this picture...isnt that missing the point?

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Sorry to burst your bubble but Scripture says otherwise and doesn't mention STRIPS of linen.

Matthew 27:59 "And Joseph taking the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth."

Mark 15:46 "And Joseph buying fine linen, and taking him down, wrapped him up in the fine linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewed out of a rock. And he rolled a stone to the door of the sepulchre."

Luke 23:53 "And taking him down, he wrapped him in fine linen, and laid him in a sepulchre that was hewed in stone, wherein never yet any man had been laid."

John 19:40 "They took therefore the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."

The "shroud" is just another fill the pews hoax.

Nothing but speculation on your part.

[katana]

The shroud was also damaged and nearly destroyed by fire and that itself would skew carbon dating results. It's my understanding that any addition of more recent carbon particles to a sample would have that effect.

More convincing was positive identification of plant spores that only exist in the Middle East and the fact that the "thickness" of the image is literally only a few molecules. There was some deposition of ochre, a pigment, but most of the image was apparently caused by some sort of effect that altered the color of a few milimeters of the surface of the fibers. It's logical to conclude that the ochre was added sometime in history by someone trying to "touch-up" the image.

All in all, the conclusion that the carbon 14 testing proved the shroud to be a forgery was shaky at best. When it came out, however, the press leaped on it as "conclusive" without any reference to a hundred other indications that it could in fact be the burial shroud of Christ.

[Oztrich Boy]

Now, is it only the actual cloth that is being carbon dated? No. It is the thread, plus all of the layers of bacteria, dating back from the cloth's origin to the present. One layer may be 2000 years old. One layer may be 10 years old. One layer may be 5 years old. Thus, the initial carbon date obtained in the 1980s did not determine the age of just the Shroud. It determined the average age of the thread combined with the many layers of bacteria surrounding it.

One flaw in your theory.
If the bacteria are getting their sustenance from the material of the shroud, then their C-14 levels will be the same as the shroud, even if they grew and died last week.

So bacteria consuming a 2000 year old shroud will read as being 2000 years old.
So bacteria consuming a 650 year old shroud will read as being 650 years old.

[mysterio]

One flaw in your theory. You are assuming that no new bacteria were introduced to the Shroud. These bacteria didn't go on a diet until they could use the shroud as a nutrient source. They had other sources of nutrients before they were exposed to the shroud. Some bacteria would test just as you say.

The material composing the biofilm is not just bacteria. You may find pollen, fungus, and numerous spores as well.

While your point is partially correct, each layer of the biofilm would test differently.
The only way that a true reading can be measures is if the biofilm is stripped from the cloth. It would also be helpful to determine who the intense heat and smoke from the fire could have affected the carbon 14 levels.