The exhibition will coincide with a new set of scientific tests on the Shroud in order to verify its age. Professor Christopher Ramsey, the head of Oxford University’s Radiocarbon Accelerator unit, first dated the Shroud to between 1260 and 1390 in tests conducted 20 years ago. However, he has agreed to refresh his analysis after academics suggested that the presence of carbon monoxide in the material could have given a misleading result.
The latest scientific evidence, according to the above, says that this is not the shroud of Jesus. There is a disclaimer after that testing by some who claim that the testing was not done in a controlled way.
However, they're asking the same guy to do the testing????
The bottom line is that skeptics are supported in their skepticism and proponents have a fallback argument due to the questioned methodology.
I don't believe that the shroud is a fraud.
Were was most of the carbon dating ( carbon dating is still not a perfect 100 % accuracy proof ) done on the cloth ?
I heard on Coast to Coast AM a few weeks ago that most of the testing was done on the edges were the burns were ( that would explain the later date that they came up with.).
I still believe that the cloth is authentic, unless Alien U.F.O.s came here and gave those people the technical know how to make a fraud cloth, were in the world did they get the science to pull it off ?
The latest scientific evidence, according to the above, says that this is not the shroud of Jesus. There is a disclaimer after that testing by some who claim that the testing was not done in a controlled way. The C-14 test done in 1988 did not attempt to prove that it is or is not the Shroud of Jesus. It merely attempted to show when the linen flax it is made of was grown. The report came up with a date from 1260AD to 1390AD.
However, the 1988 C-14 test is NOT the latest science. The latest peer-reviewed science has totally invalidated the 1988 C-14 tests because the material tested WAS NOT exemplar of the main body of the Shroud of Turin. Here are the pertinent facts as I posted them on several earlier threads:
The 1988 carbon dating has been invalidated in peer-reviewed scientific journals because it has now been proved that the sample tested was not consistent with the main body of the Shroud and appears to have been a patch rewoven into the Shroud in the 16th Century to repair a frayed corner.
In 2004, Dr. Raymond Rogers conclusively proved—and had his work successfully peer-reviewed, found accurate, and published in prestigious scientific journals—that the sample used in the 1988 carbon dating was inconsistent with the main body of the shroud. Other scientists working from a different direction came to the same conclusion. The samples were NOT physically or chemically the same as the main body of the Shroud—ergo the 1988 C14 testing is proved invalid.
Dr. Rogers worked with photomicrographs, threads from the Raes sample taken in 1973 from the area immediately adjacent to the 1988 sample site, and the sole remaining control sample retained from the five sub-samples cut from the original 1988 sample cutting from the Shroud.
Chemist and pyrologist Raymond N. Rogers, (Sandia National Laboratory, University of California) and, independently, Dr. John L. Brown, (former Principal Research Scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Energy and Materials Sciences Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology), have done other research and tests and presented evidence in peer reviewed scientific journals that proved that:
- The 1988 Carbon 14 Tests were accurate at the current state of the art—on what they tested.
- The established, agreed sampling protocols were violated. This is well documented and is beyond contention. The sample cut from the Shroud came from only one area in contravention of the previously agreed protocols which required 8 samples from 8 different areas. Instead a single sample from a single area was taken.
- The sample that was taken was also taken from the one area all involved scientists had agreed should be avoided as it showed the most dirt and handling damage.
- Another reason the area had been excluded as a sampling area was that it was the one area of the Shroud that generally fluoresced under ultra-violet light, indicating a non-similarity to the main body of the shroud which did not fluoresce.
- The sample was cut from the corner of the Shroud where the "Raes sample" had been cut 14 years before.
- The sample was approximately 1 cm by 7 cm in length and was cut parallel to the long side of the Shroud.
- Approximately “…1 cm2 of the new sample had to be discarded because of the presence of different colored threads that were not similar to the main body of the shroud.” (Where did these foreign threads, interwoven into the sample, come from? - Swordmaker)
- Five sub-samples of approximately 1cm x 1cm were cut from the remains of the single original sample cut from the shroud. (For clarity and understanding, let's designate them A to E alphabetically, from the selvage toward the center of the shroud).
- The primary sample and the sub-samples were micro-photographed before being packaged and sent for testing.
- Sub-samples A and E were sent to the Arizona C14 Lab, B went to Oxford, D to Zurich, and C was retained as a control for future investigation and was untested. [this is the sample Ray Rogers was allowed to test - Swordmaker]
- The sub-samples, although chemically cleaned were not microscopically examined or chemically tested, nor were the fibers compared to fibers from other areas of the Shroud by any of the labs.
- The C14 Tests were completed and returned results that suggested an origin date for the flax that was in the cloth of 1260 to 1390 AD, with a degree of accuracy of plus or minus ~25 years on each sample.
- This spread of possible origin dates of 180 years (1260 minus 25 to 1390 plus 25) should have raised a red flag as the material was supposed to be homogenous and should have all tested within a plus or minus ~75 year spread. In fact, none of the samples' range of confidence overlapped the range of confidence of another in a manner that statistically would indicate the samples were homogenous. This strongly suggested that the samples were, in fact, not homogenous.
- Sample A tested younger than sample B which tested younger than Sample D which tested younger than Sample E. The closer the sample was to the center of the Shroud, away from the selvage, the older it tested.
- Sample A and Sample E, the samples with both the youngest and oldest reported ages were both tested by the Arizona Lab.
- Post C-14 testing and examination of microphotographs of the Primary sample showed a faint demarcation area running somewhat diagonally from the right side of the selvage end (A) to the leftward side of the sample closest to the main body of the shroud (E).
- Examination of threads from the retained sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample have an "S" twist.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample have a "Z" twist.
- Examination of threads taken from main body of the Shroud all have a "Z" twist.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample are somewhat (3-5%) thinner in diameter, on average, than threads from the average thread thickness of sample's right half or from the body of the Shroud.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the left side of the sample have Cotton intertwined with the Flax.
- Examination of threads from right half of the sample (C) and from the main body of the Shroud have no Cotton intertwined with the Flax.
- Examination of threads from the retained sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample are encrusted with a plant gum containing alizarin dye extracted from Madder Root, a technique developed in 16th Century France.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and from the main body of the Shroud are not encrusted with the dyestuff.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample contains up to 2% Aluminum. Chemical testing shows this Aluminum is from Alum (hydrous aluminum oxide), used after the 16th Century as a mordant, a drying agent for retting of cloth.
- Examination of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and threads from the main body of the Shroud contain no Aluminum.
- Chemical testing of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Left side of the sample Flax's Lignin shows significant levels of Vanillin (> 40%).
- Chemical testing of threads from sample (C) show that threads on the Right side of the sample and threads from the main body of the Shroud contain no Vanillin—indicating an age greater than 1300 years.
From an article in Thermochimica Acta: "A linen produced in A.D. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. The Raes threads, the Holland cloth [the shroud's backing cloth], and all other medieval linens gave {positive results from] the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the radiocarbon laboratories reported."
- Microscopic examination of the slightly diagonal area of the sample (C) that separated the left side possible "newer" material and the right side material similar to the main body of the Shroud, shows spliced threads, clearly delineating the changes from Left to Right sides of the sample.
- Skillful weavers in Europe in the 16th Century used a technique now called French Invisible Reweaving to repair tapestries and arras cloths. Contemporary reports state the method was close to "magical" in the ability to repair damaged cloth. This technique involved spinning and dying thread to closely match the original, splicing the new threads into old threads on the cloth, and reweaving the newly extended threads into the material to match the weaving of the original.
- The diagonal demarcation line on the original sample is located so that sample (A)'s suspect (non-similar) threads compose approximately 60% of the sample material. Sample (B)'s suspect (non-similar) threads compose approximately 55% of the sample material. Sample (C)'s, 50% (non-similar) observed and tested. Sample (D)'s, 45%. And Sample (E)'s, (non-similar) 40%. Conversely, threads similar to the main body compose the following approximate percentages of the samples from A to E: 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, and 60%.
- The Shroud underwent repairs after the severe damage from the fire in 1532. Perhaps the corner where the Raes and 1988 C14 test samples were taken was also repaired at the same time.
- Harry Gove, the inventor of the nuclear accelerator technique that was used to carbon date the Shroud, when asked "How old would a the polluting material have to be to skew the C-14 date of material known to be 1530 AD to show an tested age of 1350 if the polluting material composed 50% of the sample by weight?" He did some calculations and stated, "First Century, give or take 100 years."
The conclusion of the
peer reviewed article in Thermochimica Acta states:
"The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud."
Thus, the 1988 Carbon 14 Testing has been invalidated because the person who took the sample, literally, at the last hour, changed the agreed sampling protocols and took the sample from an area that had been patched, probably in 1532, with contemporary prepared linen thread that had been spun on a spinning wheel that had also spun cotton, then retted with alum, and dyed with alizarin dye from madder root, all done with 15th century technology. The tests were accurate for what they tested: a melange of old and newer material that reported a date that is inaccurate for both the old and the new. It is merely coincidence that the false date of the combined old and new happened to coincide with the first display of the Shroud in Lirey France. The repaired area is not the same as the main body of the shroud and tests are invalid.
New C14 testing should be allowed because there are now a lot of loose samples available since the ill advised "restoration" where they cut away the burned edges around the scorches from the 1532 fire.
I can tell you that there was an unauthorized C-14 test done on one of the threads taken during the 1978 STURP examination and the results were 1st Century, with a degree of confidence of 50 years because the sample was so small.
29 posted on
05/23/2008 7:20:56 PM PDT by
Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)