Forensic Evidence and the Turin Shroud

[Diogenes' Dog]

The Turin Shroud is a most facinating piece of archeological and forensic evidence. The C14 dating result from 1988 has recently been overturned as the sample used was of a different material from the main shroud (probably a repair) made in the 1300s. See BBC news report

Here are some more interesting facts:

1) Most recent estimates put the age as between 1300 and 3000 years old (average about 2000 years old?). The whereabouts of the shroud has been known since the 13th Centuary.

2) The bloodsains on the image is consistent with human blood. It is significant to note that the blood stains are not on top of any image. This means that the blood stains pre-existed any image formation.

3) The image of the man on the Shroud is anatomically correct and the differences in the vein and arterial blood flow conform to the proper circulation of blood in the body.

4) The man in the shroud has puncture wounds to the scalp consistent with a crown of thorns, shows signs of swelling of the eye and face (consisitent with being struck), and has been flogged and crucified.

5) From the angle and shape of the flogging marks, we can tell both the type of scourge used (consistent with a Roman flagrum of Jesus' time) and the approximate height of the two floggers.

6) The figure appears to have been stabbed below the rib cage. Evidence of a flow of blood and serum can be seen indicating that the heart had stopped - i.e. that the wound was probably post mortem.

7) The thumbs are invisible - this is consistent with trauma to the median nerve which flexes the thumb across the palm consistent with a nail or spike driven through the wrist (Desto's space). Most mediaeval pictures show crucifixion through the palm, and thumbs outstretched.

8) There is dirt on the knees, on the tip of the nose, and on the feet. This dirt contains travertine aragonite limestone found in Israel, likely only found in this part of the world.

9) Pollen 'imprints' are found on the shroud, and indicate that the image (and imprints) were formed sometime between March and May (flowering of Chrysanthemum coronarium). Some of the pollen imprints are from plants that only grow in one spot on earth - the Judean mountains and the Judean Desert of Israel, in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

10) The image is not formed by any pigment, but is a discolouration (possibly scorching) of the material. This chemical change is similar to the change that takes place when sugar is heated to make caramel or when proteins react with sugar giving beer its color. And it is the straw-yellow, selectively present in some parts of the carbohydrate layer, that makes up the image we see on the Shroud.

11) The image is sharp and 'in focus'. This would seem to rule out the image being a reaction of diffusion of the products of putrefaction, or of a contact print with the cloth. The process of producing the image is still a mystery.

12)The image is only clearly visible as a photographic 'negative'. Before the invention of photography the details of the image would not have been clear.

For me the evidence shows:

a) The location and age of the shroud are consistent with that of Jesus.
b) The man depicted was really crucified and is not a painted image.
c) The method of death is consistent with the gospel stories of Jesus crucifixion.
d) The image was made by a process that is still a mystery to us, but involved changes to the chemistry of the fibres (e.g. scorching).


What do you think? :shrug:
More on this at http://www.shroudstory.com/

 

[w1z4rd]

I think you should look for a more non bias source. Use wikipedia and try get a more balanced view.

Other than that, just about everything you mentioned was fallacy or speculation.

Peace

 

[nietzschefan]

Facinating...

What do they mean only visible as a photographic negative? You have to flash a picture of it to see it in a dark room? I don't get it.

Likely that is pure chance.

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

I think you should look for a more non bias source. Use wikipedia and try get a more balanced view.

Other than that, just about everything you mentioned was fallacy or speculation

I'm actually reporting the findings of scientists working on the shroud (sindonologists) - so I'm puzzled which of the 'just about everything' was 'fallacy and speculation'?

There's nothing on the Wiki site that contradicts what I have said - though it is by no means comprehensive and they (rightly) remain uncommitted on the controversy about it's authenticity.

As you put such store by Wikipedia - I state my original points using direct quotes from the Wikipedia entry on the Shroud:

1) "Raymond Rogers' January 20, 2005 paper[8] in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Thermochimica Acta provides apparently conclusive chemical evidence that the sample cut from the Shroud in 1988 was not valid. Also in the paper, his determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old."

2) "Further tests by Heller and Adler established, within scientific certainty, the presence of porphyrin, bilirubin, albumin and protein. [...] Working independently with a larger sample of blood containing fibrils, pathologist Pier Baima Bollone, using immunochemistry, confirms Heller and Adler’s findings and identifies the blood of the AB blood group (Baima Bollone, P., La Sindone-Scienza e Fide 1981)."

3) "One of the striking features of the image on the Shroud of Turin is its accuracy as a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional human form. It is the accuracy of the three-dimensional information present in the image that has suggested to experts that it has been created as a photographic projection, either deliberately or as part of a natural process."

4) "Dark red stains, either blood or a substance meant to be perceived as blood, are found on the cloth, showing various wounds:
# at least one wrist bears a large, round wound, apparently from piercing (The second wrist is hidden by the folding of the hands)
#in the side, again apparently from piercing
# small wounds around the forehead
# scores of linear wounds on the torso and legs, apparently from scourging."

5) As above
6) As above

7) "The piercing of the wrists rather than the palms goes against traditional Christian iconography, especially in the Middle Ages. Many modern scholars suggest that crucifixion victims were generally nailed through the wrists. A skeleton discovered in the Holy Land shows that at least some were nailed between the radius and ulna; this was not common knowledge in the Middle Ages. Proponents of the shroud's authenticity contend that a medieval forger would have been unlikely to know this operational detail of an execution method almost completely discontinued centuries earlier."

8) No details in the Wiki article (which is not comprehensive).

9) "Researchers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported the presence of pollen grains in the cloth samples, showing species appropriate to the spring in Israel. [...] The Israeli researchers also detected the outlines of various flowering plants on the cloth, which they say would point to March or April and the environs of Jerusalem, based on the species identified. In the forehead area, corresponding to the crown of thorns if the image is genuine, they found traces of Gundelia tournefortii, which is limited to this period of the year in the Jerusalem area."

10) "Other microscopic analysis of the fibres seems to indicate that the image is strictly limited to the carbohydrate layer, with no additional layer of pigment visible. Proponents of the position that the Shroud is authentic say that no known technique for hand-application of paint could apply a pigment with the necessary degree of control on such a nano-scale fibrillar surface plane."

11) "It bears the image of a front and dorsal view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. [...] The views are consistent with an orthographic projection of a human body....

12) "On May 28, 1898, amateur Italian photographer Secondo Pia took the first photograph of the shroud and was startled by the negative in his darkroom. The negative gave the appearance of a positive image, which implies that the shroud image is itself effectively a negative of some kind, as a negative of a negative is a positive. Observers often feel that the detail and contours of the man on the shroud is greatly enhanced in the photographic negative. Pia's results intensified interest in the shroud and sparked renewed efforts to determine its origin."

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

Facinating...

What do they mean only visible as a photographic negative? You have to flash a picture of it to see it in a dark room? I don't get it.

Likely that is pure chance.

LOL - an interesting thought nietzschefan!

No, the detailed image we know is only clearly visible in a photographic negative of the Shroud. This was first discovered by Secondo Pia in 1898 (early days for photography) when he first took a photo of it and.... "was startled by the negative in his darkroom. The negative gave the appearance of a positive image, which implies that the shroud image is itself effectively a negative of some kind, as a negative of a negative is a positive."

You can see a picture with the negative/original contrast on the Wiki entry here

 

[SkinWalker]

The "shroud of Turin" is a hoax created in the 14th century.

http://www.mcri.org/shroudupdate.html#anchor577043

http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

The "shroud of Turin" is a hoax created in the 14th century.

Wouldn't it be incredible if it was SW? That in the time of the Black Death and the Peasants Revolt, in the late Mediaeval period:

• 50 years before Brunelleschi first used geometric perspective in art,
• 100 years before the invention of printing,
• 250 years before Harvey demonstrated the circulation of blood and
• 600 years before photography

As a hoax - someone managed to produce (paint?) a perfect negative image of a crucified man on linen, forensically, anatomically and historically correct in every detail, which only became plainly visible in a photographic negative first taken in 1898?

If you compare the Shroud image to the religious art of the time e.g. Giotto's crucifixion? Designed to be realistic, the Giotto is nonetheless flat, styleised and anatomically inaccurate. Moreover, without exception all depictions of Christ from this time show the nails going through the palms and not the wrists, with the thumbs outstretched (not flexed across the palm).

The only reason for the 14th Centuary hoax theory is the 1988 Carbon14 dating - for which there is good evidence that the sample used was taken from a (probably 14thC) patched repair to the cloth.

http://www.mcri.org/shroudupdate.html#anchor577043
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/

The second URL is just a series of links. The first URL is by Walter McCrone - who was an original member of the STURP team who did research on the Shroud in 1978. He had already built a reputation on 'exposing' various artefacts.

McCrone's case rests on:
1) The blood on the Shroud is the wrong colour (too red) to be actual blood.
2) On sellotape samples taken by McCrone of the Shrouds surface, he found red ochre pigment.

However, his conclusions were in contrast to the other scientists in the STURP team, and contradict all other findings since by scientists working on the Shroud. STURP concluded:

No pigments, paints, dyes or stains have been found on the fibrils. X-ray, fluorescence and microchemistry on the fibrils preclude the possibility of paint being used as a method for creating the image. Ultra Violet and infrared evaluation confirm these studies. Computer image enhancement and analysis by a device known as a VP-8 image analyzer show that the image has unique, three-dimensional information encoded in it.

The redness of the blood is explicable by the presence of Bilirubin, which is consitent with blood from a persion under severe traumatic stress. In 1999, Professor Alan D. Adler ( Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Winsconsin) after chemical and enzymatic analysis of the image, wrote in a paper on the Nature of the Image.

Enzymatic removal of the blood from a blood coated fiber reveals that the blood got on the cloth first and therefore protected the blood covered areas of the cloth from the image forming process (3,5,24). All the microscopic, chemical, spectroscopic, and immunological evidence is consistent with these images, not only being exudates from clotted wounds, but those of a man who suffered severe trauma prior to death, explaining the red color of the blood at the microscopic level (3,4,5,8,11,12,24,29,30,31,32,33,43,44).

[...] Therefore it was concluded that no applied dyes, stains, or pigments, were present and the image chromophore was a conjugated carbonyl produced in the cellulose structure itself by a dehydrative oxidation process (5,24). These results and conclusions have been confirmed by a variety of spectroscopic investigations (3,4,5, 6,12,29,30,31,32,33,37,44).

I cannot therefore see how anyone can convincingly argue that it is a painted image from the 14th centuary. The blood is real blood. The image is not painted but due to a change of chemistry in the fibres - and IMHO the technology available in the 1300s would not have been capable of such a feat!

 

[nietzschefan]

The "shroud of Turin" is a hoax created in the 14th century.

http://www.mcri.org/shroudupdate.html#anchor577043

http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/

Well if it's a "hoax"(what did they hoax?). I'm even more impressed.

 

[Godless]

It was bull shit! and you fell for it!

http://www.truthbeknown.com/shroud.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro5.htm

http://www.livescience.com/history/050318_reason_turin_shroud.html

http://skepdic.com/shroud.html

But it seems your comfortable believing in bullshit, if that's the case I've got a 20K Rollex to sell you!!

 

[Diogenes' Dog]

It was bull shit! and you fell for it!

http://www.truthbeknown.com/shroud.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro5.htm
http://www.livescience.com/history/050318_reason_turin_shroud.html
http://skepdic.com/shroud.html

But it seems your comfortable believing in bullshit, if that's the case I've got a 20K Rollex to sell you!!

Thanks for the websites Godless. They all seem to rehash the same outdated stuff: The 1988 C14 dating, (shown to be invalid in 2005), the ochre paint claim of McCrone (dismissed by STURP and contradicted by all the other evidence of scientists working on the Shroud) and the possibility that Max Frei (who took some of the pollen tapes) had form!

If the best alternative case is it being a 14th centuary painting, I think the above URLs have shot the skeptics argument in the foot!!

Ask yourself... Is it likely that a 14th centuary artist could paint a negative image that is hardly visible with the naked eye (until you photograph it), yet that contains encoded 3D information and is anatomically correct and forensically consistent?

On this last point - there are NO inconsistencies in the forensic details e.g. the angles of blood flows on the arms (changing with inhalation/exhalation), or the position of the nails through the wrists/flexing of thumbs/supporting of the weight of a body. The image stands up to modern forensic pathological examination as if it were a real crucified cadaver!

Of all the theories to explain the Turin Shroud, the '14th centuary painting' theory is the lamest of ducks! If you fall for it Godless... you will have been had.

P.S. No wonder you're trying to offload a 20K Taiwanese Rollex!