text:
My commentary on Shroud of Turin related matters. I am an Australian evangelical Christian in my 70s. I am persuaded by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus Christ and bears His crucified and resurrected image.
Allen, N: Turin Shroud Encyclopedia
Turin Shroud Encyclopedia
Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]
Allen, N #8
This is the twenty-fifth installment of "Allen, N," part #8 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. For information about this series, see part #1 and part #2. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated. I have not italicised Shroud in my quotations of Allen, as he idiosyncratically does. See also my 2016 post, "Medieval photography: Nicholas Allen."
After waiting from 8am to 12 noon on 12 July, when our NBN (National Broadband Network) switchover from ADSL2 broadband Internet to the NBN's Fibre to the Curb was scheduled, just after 2pm, with no apology, the NBN offered me a new appointment on Thursday afternoon 18 July, which I declined because we have prior appointments. This was my taste of the NBN rollout in Australia, which from what I have read of complaints in the media, is shambolic. You would think that a technology company that has now connected millions of premises, would have it down to a fine art. My current download speed is 2.5 Mbps and my upload speed is 0.6 Mbps. After the switchover I should have ~40 Mbps download and ~10 Mbps upload! Rather than take this notice down and put it up again, I will leave it up and keep readers informed of when our next appointment is scheduled, which now is Friday 26 July.
[Index #1] [Previous: Adler, A #7] [Next: AMS #9]
Nicholas Peter Legh Allen (1956-) was (or is) a Professor of Art in the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
[Right: Nicholas P.L. Allen [2].]
Allen's first exposure to the Shroud was in 1969, as a 13 year-old, when he saw a photograph of the Shroud face on the wall of the Zimbabwe home of his parish priest, Fr. Philip Foster[3]. Allen was "completely overawed by this holy relic" and by what he "then perceived, to be its very serious implications for mankind as a whole"[4].
However, after the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud claimed it was "mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390," Allen accepted that "this piece of linen was produced sometime in the late thirteenth century"[5]. Allen is evidently rewriting history here to support his later Medieval Photography theory because the midpoint of 1260-1390 is 1325 ±65[6], which is the early fourteenth century.
Somehow from that radiocarbon date, Allen, in what sounds like a case of "psychological projection":
"... finally knew for certain, that as far as the Shroud ... was concerned, there were, to put it quite plainly, no experts. Rather, there existed a proliferation of opinionated individuals who often used whatever means were available to promote their particular hobby horse"[7].
Except Allen, because he alone "knew that the answer to the Shroud's secret had to be obvious":
"Certainly, by 1988, I knew that the answer to the Shroud's secret had to be obvious — so obvious that when we comprehended it at last, we should wonder for quite some time, how our supposedly superior twentieth century civilisation could have been so persistently dull and witless"[8].
So according to Allen, anyone who doesn't accept his Medieval Photography theory is "dull and witless" and that includes his fellow anti-authenticists like Joe Nickell, who described Allen's theory as "astonishingly absurd":
"...the astonishingly absurd notion of an art historian named Nicholas Allen that the image was `the world's first photograph.' (The technique was supposedly invented to make a fake shroud and then conveniently lost for subsequent centuries!)"[9].
In 1993 Allen proposed his `Medieval Photography' theory of the Shroud's origin, in a South African Journal of Art History article, "Is the Shroud of Turin the first recorded photograph?"[10].
In that article Allen, the anti-authenticist, in the manner of a `circular firing squad', first refuted the claim of his fellow anti-authenticists that the image of the man on the Shroud is a painting (Allen's words are bold to distinguish them from mine):
■ This image ... cannot be readily discerned by the human eye at close range ... [it] is so faint that it is visually coherent only at a distance of some seven metres[11]. As far as I am aware, no one else has claimed that one needs to be "seven metres" from the Shroud to readily discern the image. The maximum distance that I am aware of is at "four to five meters ... all of the image features... can be easily recognized"[12]. So presumably Allen is making up this "seven metres" to better fit his theory!
■ ... the image has many of the characteristics of a modern day photographic negative ... if the polarity of this image is reversed (e.g. by making a photographic negative of the Shroud) one can clearly see a positive, seemingly three-dimensional image of a man ... This positive version of the Shroud's image ... is highly naturalistic and detailed[13].
■ If it is to be accepted that the Shroud is, in fact, simply a painted/dyed/stained product of a medieval band of forgers ... then why is our culture (with its highly sophisticated technology and expertise) still unable to explain its means of production, far less duplicate it?[14].
■ Also ... why did its creators go to so much trouble over this relic when, conceivably, they could have quite easily satisfied the needs of the credulous with a production far less sophisticated than the Shroud actually is[15]. Allen does not realise that the same unanswered question applies to his hypothetical medieval photographer!
■ ... why does this relic not contain the vestiges or stylistic minutiae characteristic of the culture that produced it? ... if the carbon dating can be trusted, the image which appears on this seemingly unique relic was produced at a time when Christian art ... was more normally characterised by the fairly rigid stylistic conventions ...[16].
■ ... Christian teaching in the late thirteenth century would have ensured that Christ be depicted with the marks of the nails in the palm of his hands and ... a crown of thorns. However, the Shroud not only shows Christ uncharacteristically naked, but with the marks of the nails in his wrists and ... a 'helmet' rather than a 'crown' of thorns[17]. Again Allen does not realise that a medieval photographer would be subject to the same cultural limitations as a medieval painter.
■ In addition to these non-conformist, possibly heretical depictions of Christ, the image in the Shroud ... displays a degree of anatomical/medical/pathological knowledge that simply was not available to ... a medieval artist or forger of relics[18]. This particularly applies to the Shroud's bloodflows which Allen admits were not photographed but later "daubed on"[19] by his medieval photographer. Thus Allen's `circular firing squad' executes also his own theory!
Next Allen summarised "The more important findings of the 1978 commission [STURP] vis a vis the characteristics of the image as found on the Shroud[20]:
■ Superficiality: The image is essentially a straw-yellow discolouration of the uppermost fibres of the linen threads of the Shroud's fabric. This ... has not 'penetrated' the individual threads which make up the Shroud nor is the image visible on the underside of the Shroud[21].
■ Detailed: The Shroud's image is so highly detailed that a number of medical experts (notably Barbet, Buckley [sic Bucklin] and Willis) have been able to treat the image as they would the corpse of a deceased man ...[22].
■ Thermally stable: The Shroud's image was not affected by the heat of the 1532 fire ... the fire's temperature was high enough to melt the silver casket within which the Shroud was folded. Indeed, drops of molten silver set light to one of the corners of the folded linen[23].
■ No pigment: From the evidence of numerous tests it is quite certain that no pigment was applied to the Shroud and the image is not caused by pigment either[24].
■ Three-dimensional: The intensity of the image varies according to the distance of the body from the cloth ... features such as the nose, forehead and cheeks are more intense than areas such as the neck, ankles, and elbows. This correspondence between the body's high points and low points is so precise that Jackson and Jumper were able to produce a computer enhanced, three-dimensional replica from a photograph taken of the image in 1931[25].
■ Negative: The image acts like a photographic negative which is as visually coherent as a positive photograph when its polarity is reversed[26].
■ Directionless: Unlike hand-painted images (e.g., paintings)
[Above (enlarge): Allen's image of a plaster bodycast painted white (left) and a negative photograph of the Shroud's frontal image (right)[27] (flipped horizontally for comparison). Note the directional sunlight from above on the head, shoulder, arm, wrist, knee and feet of Allen's image and the total lack of light directionality on the Shroud (the white patches on the Shroudman's side, wrist, arms and feet are dark blood which is white in a photographic negative (see positive photograph of the Shroud frontal image).]
the image on the Shroud contains no 'directionality'. In other words the image could not have been produced by any technique which involved the use of brushwork[28]. Allen's "In other words ... any technique which involved the use of brushwork" is disingenuous. Since Allen's writings show that he is familiar with STURP's findings, he must know that what STURP meant by "directionality" was randomly oriented, ruling out not only "brushwork" but any means of imprinting the man's image on the cloth that showed any direction whatsoever:
"One piece of high-tech imaging equipment used to study the Shroud is called a microdensitometer. This instrument digitally measures the density of details contained in a photographic negative. STURP members Don Lynn and Jean Lorre, working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1976, used a microdensitometer to scan photos of the Shroud. The scanning data was then processed through a computer and displayed on a television screen. The image resulting from this technique highlighted additional subtle details invisible to the naked eye. These density studies revealed another image characteristic that impressed scientists: The Shroud body image appears to be directionless. When the computer-displayed image was viewed at high resolutions, the only directional features found on the Shroud were in the weave of the cloth; in the body image areas, the color was randomly oriented. This absence of directionality (up and down, side to side, etc.) is noteworthy because one would expect the microdensitometer to expose the presence of brush strokes running in obvious directions if the image were painted. The microdensitometer testing, therefore, offered a method for demonstrating that the Shroud is indeed a painting, yet it did not prove this. Instead, the image's directionless nature provides one more piece of evidence consistent with the theory that the Shroud image did not result from an artist's application of some foreign substance but rather was encoded directly from a body lying underneath the cloth"[29].
STURP photographer Barrie Schwortz confirmed that Allen's image does indeed have "a lighting directionality obvious to even the least experienced viewer":
"As Barrie [Schwortz] points out, images that have been created using light as the imaging mechanism, as in any type of photographic process, display a lighting directionality obvious to even the least experienced viewer. In Allen's 'negative' there are deep shadows under the nose and chin and in the eye sockets, from which it is clear that the light came from almost directly above the model's vertical image. Yet in the case of the man of the Shroud's image there is absolutely no directionality"[30].
This alone (and it is not alone!) disqualifies Allen's "medieval photography" as an explanation of how the Shroud's image was imprinted on its linen sheet!
■ Chemically stable: The straw-yellow 'discoloration' which is the cause of the image on the Shroud cannot be easily dissolved, bleached, or altered by the application of bleaching agents[31].
■ Water stable: The Shroud was doused with water to extinguish the fire in 1532. Although this has caused a water stain, the image itself does not appear to be affected[32]. Allen here continues with his `circular firing squad' (see above), intending to kill off all anti-authenticist theories except his own medieval photography theory. Yet leading anti-authenticist Walter McCrone (1916-2002) was surely right in his question (paraphrased): `why would a medieval forger have used any other method of depicting the dead body of Jesus wrapped in his burial shroud, when the simplest, painting, would have done'?:
"Why go to all the work of preparing a statue or bas-relief or making a transfer of the image from a primary artist's rendering? A direct approach to painting a dilute watercolor image on a canvas of the proper size is a common sense assumption; Occam's Razor applies here ... I hope that now, already 20 years since the 1978 exhibition and STURP's `scientific study', the carbon-date will give the Bishop of Troyes' statement that the `Shroud' was painted by an artist [see "1389d"], a bit more credibility. It is certainly the simplest and probably the only way an undistorted original image could be prepared. If an artist (read sculptor) has to first prepare a statue or bas-relief then decorate it he will have to be more skilled, go to more trouble and stand in greater risk of distorting the final image than if he decided, by careful study, the image he wanted to produce then proceeded to paint it on a flat canvas with materials, and, by a method, readily available to him in the 1350s"[33].
McCrone could have included in the above, "or of inventing medieval photography, use it only once to fake the Shroud, and never use it again (nor write or tell anyone about it, so that it became a `lost technology' for the next ~500 years)"!
■ Bloodstains are real blood: In addition to these characteristics of the Shroud's image, the [STURP] researchers came up with fairly convincing evidence to support the notion that the stigmata (`blood' areas) and 'scourge' marks are formed from real blood ... For example, Pellicori undertook an experiment in which he compared the data of the reflectance spectra of several blood samples ... with Shroud 'blood', Pellicori discovered (as did Adler & Heller 1980) that there was a correlation in the spectrophotometry that indicated the Shroud blood to be bona fide. Pellicori (1980:1916) notes that `the absorption spectrum of a blood particle removed from the Shroud independently suggests that blood is' present. Furthermore, the resemblance to blood as seen in the photomicrography of these areas is strong. The spectrum suggests denatured met-haemoglobin' [methemoglobin]"[34].
■ Untenable image formation theories: With the findings of the 1978 commission [STURP] in mind, I would like to review the following image formation theories which have been propounded in the past century by numerous authorities and their respective untenability[35].
■ Painted 1. The image contained in the Shroud was produced by an artist who used either paint, dye; stain or a form of surface printing: Theories which support this kind of notion may be very quickly discounted, for even if an artist were able to apply some staining compound that contained a proportion of red ochre (as suggested by McCrone) (Stevenson & Habermas 1981: 105-7) the fibrils would be stained throughout, as is the case with the water stain caused by the Franciscan priests at Chambery when they doused the smouldering Shroud in 1532. However, this problem aside, one must also ask how an 'artist' could possibly view what he/she were painting/staining. As has been pointed out already, the image is so subtle as to be almost indiscernible from close range. This would imply that an artist would have to stand at least seven metres [sic - see above] from the Shroud whilst he/she executed the 'forgery'[36]. Here is part of what "Stevenson & Habermas 1981: 105-7" says:
"If the Shroud was painted, the forger's work cannot be detected by skeptics using the most sophisticated analytical technology of the twentieth century. When considering the possibility of a forgery in the classic sense of the word, science can investigate several areas. First, are there signs of pigments, dyes, stains, powders, acids, or other artificial or natural colorants on the cloth? Second, is there evidence for the presence of a medium to apply said pigment? Third, are there any signs of an artist's hand at work-brush strokes, block prints, or finger rubbings? Finally, can a duplicate be made of the Shroud image that demonstrates all of the known characteristics of the image and still fall within the technological ability of a forger who lived between the first and fourteenth centuries? ... The answer to the first two questions above-the presence of pigment and medium-is negative. Meticulous testing failed to find any evidence of pigment, powder, dyes, acids or any known colorant or medium to apply it. The image is composed of yellowed linen fibrils. No colorant known in the fourteenth century or today can account for the fibrils. The amount of yellow does not increase in the darker image areas, as would be expected if the image had been painted. Instead, the density of the image increases: there are simply more yellowed fibrils present in the darker areas ... Scientists have considered-and rejected-other painting theories as well. If a pigment had been applied to the cloth and later cracked off, its residue would be detectable. No residue was found. Neither is there evidence of a medium to apply such a pigment. In fact, it is difficult to see how any kind of medium could have been applied. The image is on the surface fibrils only (to a depth of microns) and in no way soaks through the fibers. This would eliminate any pigment medium applied as a fluid; a fluid would have penetrated and travelled along the fibers, and its presence would have been detected" (emphasis original)[37].
Remember that Allen is an anti-authenticist, so he has no reason to support what pro-authenticists like Stevenson and Habermas had pointed out (above) in 1981, unless Allen, as a Professor of Art, could not deny that what Stevenson and Habermas wrote was true!
■ Photographic negative: Finally, the image has all the characteristics of a photographic negative, a fact that was only fully appreciated in 1898. How could anyone living in the thirteenth or fourteenth century (or even today for that matter) have managed to paint, dye or stain a photographically perfect negative image of a crucified man and ... why would they have bothered to have gone to such seemingly impossible lengths (assuming they had even understood these principles)? After all, an 'inferior' version ... would have sufficed, a fact borne out by the fact that both the Shrouds of Besançon and Xabergas [sic] (the latter still in existence) have been
[Right (enlarge)[38]: Monochrome photo of the full-size, on linen, red and brown, copy of the Shroud, c.1600, kept in the Monastery of the Mother of God in Xabregas, Portugal[39].]
held in high esteem by their respective supporters for centuries. Indeed, both of these patently amateurish attempts at duplicating the Shroud of Turin's image (Vignon 1902) have been revered for centuries as the genuine article[40]. Allen's `circular firing squad' again (see above), executes his own medieval photography theory! Since "an 'inferior' version [of the Shroud] ... would have sufficed" for medieval viewers, why would his hypothetical medieval photographer go to all the trouble of: 1) inventing photography ~500 years before it historically first appeared in the early 19th century? 2) only faking the double full-length Shroud, not a face first and then the frontal image? and 3) allowing his invention to be completely forgotten?
■ Direct contact 2. The image contained in the Shroud was produced by the actions of a paint/dye/blood/sweat covered corpse, body or statue coming into direct contact with the linen cloth[41]. There are four main hypotheses for this category of image-formation theory. The image of the man on the Shroud is a natural chemical reaction between the Shroud and a corpse; a man-made impression caused by covering a red-ochre stained corpse with the Shroud; a man-made impression caused by covering a chemically-treated corpse, statue or a heated metal statue with the Shroud; a man-made impression caused by covering a heated metal relief sculpture with the Shroud[42]. All of these theories (with the exception of the last one) can be safely excluded for one major reason, namely that if the Shroud came into contact with all areas of the hypothetical corpse/body/statue that appear in the actual image, then that image should be grossly distorted[43].
The last possibility - the image is a man-made impression caused by covering a heated metal low-relief sculpture with the Shroud [cloth] ... is highly speculative. Not only would the style of such a relief sculpture (which would have to have been akin to a modern photographic plate) be totally unknown to 14th-century artists, its production (even if possible) would have been far more of a technical tour de force than the Shroud itself. Indeed, this two-dimensional metal plate would have to have contained the three-dimensional data which the Shroud's image actually contains.[44]. These are good points by Allen, coming as they do from pro-authenticist literature, but as we shall see, Allen's own Medieval Photography theory, if it were true, would be even "more of a technical tour de force" than the "man-made impression caused by covering a heated metal low-relief sculpture with the Shroud [cloth]"!
■ Vaporography 3. The image contained in the Shroud was produced by the actions of a chemical process Vignon termed vaporography. It is supposed that someone spread an unguent on the Shroud (such as myrrh and aloes) 'thus rendering it sensitive to the action of organic emanations from the body' (Vignon' 1902:164); a corpse, still covered in a layer of uric acid-rich 'morbid sweat' (the latter produced naturally by the body as a result of a highly stressful death) was laid out naked on the Shroud and then covered by the same; the urea, starting to ferment, produced carbonate of ammonia. The resultant ammoniacal vapours rose upwards and oxidized the aloes, thus producing a negative image (similar to the kind produced by zinc vapours on a photographic plate)[45]. Vignon's 'vaporographic' theory has to be excluded for at least three reasons: • The cloth of the Shroud (laid upon the cadaver) would not have suspended itself horizontally (literally in the air) in order to maintain a two-dimensional surface. The latter factor would be an absolute prerequisite to obtaining a vapour induced and still visually coherent three-dimensional image. Any distortion of the cloth's surface (including bodily contact) would have resulted in a distortion of the final image. • The pressure of the body reposing on the Shroud would have produced a dorsal image quite unlike the carefully modulated image that in fact exists on this section of the Shroud. In other words the image of the buttocks, calves and ankles show no signs of having been compressed. • Vaporographic images are caused by chemical changes that would be evident throughout the fibrils of the Shroud. The image on the Shroud is in fact visible only on the outer surface of the fibrils.[46]. More good points by Allen from pro-authenticist literature. Except that he omits that the future STURP team in 1977 from their analysis of the VP8 Image Analyzer three-dimensional relief of Shroud photographs, found that "the hair ... on the back image it appears compressed against the head":
"Second, it would appear that the image forming process acted in the same manner on the bottom side of the body as on the top because the characteristics of the bottom relief seem similar to those of the top relief. For example, (1) the hair on the front image stands out in natural relief but on the back image it appears compressed against the head, as it would for a reclining body on a hard surface ..."[47].
Allen also omits the explanation why "the image of the buttocks, calves and ankles show no signs of having been compressed" is because "the ... buttocks ... are not flat, but instead are stiff and rigid" from "rigor mortis":
"When looking at the back of the man's legs and feet, we see that his left leg is raised slightly and that both feet, especially the right one, are flat and pointed down. For the lower extremities to have remained in such an awkward position indicates that rigor mortis set in while the man remained crucified. Moving up the back of the man, we notice that the thighs, buttocks, and torso are not flat, but instead are stiff and rigid. If rigor mortis had declined and the muscles had relaxed, these parts of the body would appear flatter and wider"[48]
Allen is making this up because his medieval photography `shroud'
[Above (enlarge): "How a mediaeval forger [supposedly] produced the Shroud `photographically' ... Based on a model by Professor [Nicholas] Allen"[49].]
required the man to be hanging vertically, unlike the real Shroud!
It is because of these and other seeming paradoxes, that most sindonologists have alluded in different ways to the suggestion that the Shroud could almost be a photograph taken of an actual victim of a crucifixion but for the annoying little fact that photography was not invented until c. 1800-1851. In this regard the following statement by Ostler (1988: 56) is typical of the feelings of many modern researchers: "The dating dispute may be settled, but the shroud remains as mysterious as ever, reason: it bears an inexplicable life-size image of a crucified body, which is uncannily accurate and looks just like a photographic negative - occurring centuries before photography was invented"[50]. This is misleading by Allen that "most sindonologists have ... suggest[ed] that the Shroud could almost be a photograph taken of an actual victim of a crucifixion." Most (if not all) sindonologists, i.e. pro-authenticists, believe that the man on the Shroud is Jesus, not just any "victim of a crucifixion." And most (if not all) pro-authenticists do not merely believe that the Shroudman's image "could almost be a photograph" - they believe it is "a photograph," a "`snapshot' of the Resurrection" of Jesus, as Ian Wilson put it:
"Even from the limited available information, a hypothetical glimpse of the power operating at the moment of creation of the Shroud's image may be ventured. In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab. Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant ... its image ... becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection"[51]!
And most (if not all) pro-authenticists are not annoyed "that photography was not invented until c. 1800-1851" - they rejoice in it! Because pro-authenticists, including Wilson, don't believe the "photograph," even the "literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection" of Jesus, was taken by a camera in AD 30, imprinted on photographic film and developed as the "the photography [that] not invented until c. 1800-1851" was. Most, if not all, pro-authenticists believe that, as Wilson put it, "a burst of mysterious power from" the dead body of Jesus, imprinted His image onto the Shroud cloth. But it is an annoying (to put it mildly) fact for Allen, "that photography was not invented until c. 1800-1851"!
Despite this overwhelming evidence to the contrary most researchers are still prepared to concede that this relic is nothing more than a painted/dyed forgery, one which was produced for the sole purpose of deceiving the Catholic world of the late thirteenth century. However, if this is the case, then why does this image defy our repeated attempts to decipher the methods and techniques which were most assuredly employed during its manufacture? Surely, the answer to this problem must lie in the fact that this artifact was produced by some technique that is either completely unknown to us or is known, but not normally associated with the level of technology believed to have been available before 1357 ...[52]. Who are these "most researchers"? The fact is that overwhelmingly "most researchers" of the Shroud are pro-authenticists. The agnostic art historian Thomas de Wesselow bemoans the fact that no one in secular academia today takes the Shroud seriously as an object of academic research:
"Although Delage [Yves Delage (1854–1920)] made it clear that he did not regard Jesus as the resurrected Son of God, his paper upset the atheist members of the Academy [the French Academy of Sciences], including its secretary, Marcellin Berthelot, who prevented its full publication in the Academy's bulletin. This act of scientific censorship marks the beginning of the academic refusal even to discuss the origin of the Shroud, a refusal that continues to this day"[53].
"In the eyes of the general public the Shroud is a certified fake, a medieval oddity, nothing more. It might be interesting to find out how it was made, but, if it remains an enigma, so be it ... This popular verdict is shared by the vast majority of academics, which is unfortunate, because it means that very few scholars or scientists have spent any time at all thinking about the Shroud"[54].
And although Allen does ask the right question: "if this is the case [that the Shroud "is nothing more than a painted/dyed [medieval] forgery"], then why does this image defy our repeated attempts to decipher the methods and techniques which were most assuredly employed during its manufacture?" His being evidently a non-Christian (despite his Roman Catholic schooling-see above), Allen's "most assuredly" and "Surely" that the Shroud was "produced by some technique," rules out in advance the answer that the Shroud was indeed a "snapshot" of Jesus' resurrection.
It is accepted by all that in every way the Shroud acts as a negative photographic plate. However, surprisingly, no-one to date has seriously suggested that the Shroud could have been produced photographically. This is undoubtedly because such an outlandish notion would threaten our comfortable paradigm concerning the history, development and 'progress' of art and science. Indeed, it is accepted that the workings of such apparatus as the camera obscura were well known by Renaissance times, but the actual process which we call photography (i.e., the art of producing stable records of the images of nature through the action of light on light sensitive materials) was only in its infancy five centuries after the Shroud came to the attention of the western world. In this regard, Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) and Sir Humphry Davy (1778- 1829) are on record as having produced the first photographically related images, in the form of silhouettes and negative images of botanical specimens (i.e., contact copies of leaves) on both white paper and-leather moistened with a silver nitrate solution before 1802. However they could not fix their images, which had to be kept in a dark room and could only be viewed by candle light. William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), like the other early pioneers of photography, first employed silver nitrate as a suitable light-sensitive chemical for his investigations. At first his products were simple negative images, but he went on to perfect a negative-positive process and is consequently accredited with being the discoverer of photography.[55]. Allen does not mention Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), who
[Above (enlarge): Niépce's "View from the Window at Le Gras" (1826-27), "the first successful permanent photograph"[56].]
Wikipedia says is "usually credited as the inventor of photography"[57]. Allen's "no-one to date has seriously suggested that the Shroud could have been produced photographically ... undoubtedly because such an outlandish notion would threaten our comfortable paradigm concerning the history, development and 'progress' of art and science" is deluded. The reason no one but Allen (and Picknett and Prince who plagiarised Allen-see 07Aug16a and 05Sep16) is because there is zero evidence that some unknown evil genius in the late 13th-early 14th century, invented modern chemical photography ~500 years before it was `reinvented' in the 19th century, obtained a "fresh corpse"[58], crucified it in imitation of Jesus and then photographed its double image on a ~4.4m x 1.1m = 14.3ft x 3.6ft = 8 x 2 standard Assyrian cubits!) fine linen sheet. After which he left no other copies of his photographs, nor a written account of his invention, so that his invention of photography was completely forgotten!
However, if we remove the phenomenon of the Shroud of Turin from the paradigm of contemporary scientific and historical opinion it becomes patent for those with eyes to see that the image on the Shroud is a type of photographic negative, but like the early silver nitrate negative images produced by the 'known' pioneers of photography, the Shroud displays a number of features that would necessarily classify it as a very primitive form of photography. If my argument is acceptable thus far, we have at the very least a provisional theory which would explain how the image on the Shroud was produced - a solution which seems bombastic and speculative only once it is placed within the context text of our present-day understanding of medieval cultures and their respective levels of technology. In addition, if it could be proved that our present understanding of certain aspects of medieval technology was inaccurate, it would not only help to solve the mystery concerning the Shroud's method of production but, perhaps more importantly, would force us to re-evaluate the kind of knowledge available c. 1200-1357.[59]. Allen shows his capacity for self-deception in his claim that the image on the Shroud is "a very primitive form of photography." For an actual "primitive form of photography" see above. Chemist-photographer Michael J. (Mike) Ware (1939-), an expert in "earlier methods of printing photographic images"[60], likens Allen's claim that in the Shroud image, "development processes" were discovered before "proto-photographic processes," as "akin to positing a history of aviation in which Concorde preceded the Wright brothers":
"The assumption that proto-photographic processes must have been discovered before development processes is justified by the uniquely improbable nature of the latter. Development — in the very specific meaning that is given to the word here — consists in the chemical formation of a silver photograph from a latent image in crystals of silver halide, as first discovered by Louis Daguerre [1787–1851)], using mercury vapour in 1837, and Henry Talbot [1800-1877], using gallic acid in 1840. Chemical development results in an enormous enhancement of the effect of light alone, thus providing light-sensitive materials that have practically useful 'camera-speed'. It is not widely appreciated what an extraordinary fluke this whole process is: it stems from a combination of 'finely tuned' physico-chemical properties of the material which makes it a highly improbable phenomenon and, apparently, unique to silver halides. So, to claim that it could have 'sprung forth, fully armed with 100 ISO', and with no tradition of prior art, would be akin to positing a history of aviation in which Concorde preceded the Wright brothers"[61].
However, both Allen and Ware are wrong in thinking that the image on the Shroud has anything to do with "development processes" or "proto-photographic processes." A closer analogy to the Shroud image is digital photography, which was invented in the mid-twentieth century[62]. The Shroud's flax fibres are in only two states: the image
[Above (enlarge): Photomicrograph at 200 magnification taken by optical engineer Kevin Moran of 15 micron (15 thousandth of a millimetre) diameter Shroud fibres[63]. Moran notes that these yellow image sections of Shroud fibre are effectively "picture elements, or pixels"[64]. As can be seen, the boundaries between the image (yellow) and non-image part of the same fibre are sharp, about 1 micron wide. Moran points out that: "... the section where the darkened fibre meets the clear fibre looks like a precision line formed on a modern semiconductor"[65]! Moran also points out that only high-energy radiation could account for such sharp micron-width image boundaries on a 15 micron diameter linen fibre[66]. Clearly no medieval photographer, or artist, could apply light-sensitive silver salts or pigment with such microscopic precision[67].]
sections of those fibres are straw-yellow colour[68] and the non-image fibres are ivory colour[69]. This corresponds with the two digital states of on or off[70].
An even closer analogy to the Shroud image is the images imprinted on
[Left (enlarge)[71]: Sharp image of a valve imprinted on the side of a metal gas tank by radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 1945. Presumably the image is the original colour of the tank shielded from the bomb's radiation by the valve. If so, then the analogy with the Shroud image is the permanent colour change of the metal tank that was not shielded by the valve from the bomb's radiation.]
concrete, stone and metal by radiation from the World War II atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945[72].
For the past three years I have been conducting research which, is looking very seriously at the possibility that a form of photography was the cause of the image on the Shroud. It has been discovered that a person can very easily make a permanent photographic negative image on linen which utilises chemicals and substances which, collectively, were known to have existed at least by 1280, viz: silver nitrate (in solution), ammonia (in solution), linen cloth (which naturally contains cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, pectin etc., natural quartz (optical quality) magnifying glass or bi-convex lens[73]. This is misleading by Allen. That the individual elements of photography existed by 1280 does not mean that they were then recognised as elements of photography and brought together in the invention of photography. The elements of a nuclear reactor existed by 1280 (we know that because at Oklo in Africa the remains of 16 natural nuclear reactors that existed 1.7 billion years ago have been found[74]), but the first man-made nuclear reactor was invented in 1942[75]. And as Allen must have known, it was not until 1717 that Johann Heinrich Schulze (1687-1744) discovered that the darkening of silver nitrate was due to light, not heat[76]. Moreover, Ware wrote that it was "disingenuous" (i.e. "not truly honest") of Allen to claim that because optical quality quartz rock-crystal was available as a "substance" in the 13th century, therefore "a very large, accurately ground high-quality biconvex lens of long focal length" was also available back then, when they were "unknown until several centuries later":
"Allen states that rock-crystal was available in the thirteenth century 'as a substance' (which is certainly true) but it is disingenuous of him to imply that this 'substance' could at that time have taken the form of a very large, accurately ground high-quality biconvex lens of long focal length. He implicitly assumes, without evidence or justification, the existence of a lens technology that was unknown until several centuries later"[77].
It has been found that if any three-dimensional object (including a deceased human subject) is set up in front of a camera obscura and is illuminated by direct sunlight over a period of a few days, that a negative purple-brown image will form on linen cloth which has been impregnated with silver nitrate in solution. In addition, this image may be 'fixed' simply by soaking the cloth in a mild solution ... A negative photograph of the image produced with silver nitrate and ammonia of ammonia. During this process the image turns to faint straw-yellow. This image is in the negative and only forms on the upper fibrils of the linen material. In other words, no image is visible on the reverse side of the cloth. This image is extremely subtle and (like the images formed inside a camera obscura when either a pinhole aperture or a small aperture with a fixed lens is employed) is not easily discernable at close range[78]. Allen's "It has been found that if ... a deceased human subject ... is set up in front of a camera obscura and is illum-inated by direct sunlight
[Right (enlarge): "The suspended plaster cast which Professor Allen used as his model"[79].].
over a period of a few days ..." is a lie! For obvious reasons Allen has not hung "a deceased human subject" out in the sun! Allen's experi-ments were with a plaster bodycast painted white[80].
And as I pointed out in 07Aug16b, Allen here "has lost touch with reality" as he does not seriously consider what would happen to a "deceased human subject" hung out in the necessarily bright sunlight, for even a few days, because rigor mortis would be quickly lost, and therefore so would the body's shape:
"Among just some of the difficulties ... are that if an actual crucified human corpse really were suspended for `several days' in full sunshine, then its likely condition after such a length of time, particularly in any climate with the required sufficiency of sunshine, boggles both the mind and the olfactory system. This is quite aside from the offence it would have caused to every mediaeval religious sensitivity. An actual corpse must therefore be considered most unlikely, given that rigor mortis would in any case never have held sufficiently long to create the impression of the figure lying flat"[81].
This is because decomposition would have started, as artist and physicist Isabel Piczek (1927-2016) pointed out:
"But how come, that not knowing the most evident fact, that corpses do not maintain rigor mortis or that they cannot hang for 14 [sic] days in the sun, or else you would not care to see what the camera obscura would bring in onto your canvas"[82].
Allen could have tested his theory by hanging a dead pig out in the sun for a few days and seeing what happened to its image in his `medieval camera' but it is another example of Allen's scientific dishonesty that he didn't (or if he did he has concealed it).
In addition, the image is not a 'snapshot' of a particular moment in time (as is the case with most modern photographs). Rather, it is the record of the passing of many days. This means that those parts of the body which have literally received more sun (such as the bridge of the nose, cheeks, eye brows etc) are registered more intensely on the cloth than those areas which were further away (such as the neck, sides of the head etc) or received less less radiation (such as the sides of the nose)[83]. Allen forgets that he had earlier admitted that, "... the image on the Shroud contains no 'directionality'." But the passage of the sun across the sky, from east to west, every day, is directional! Also note Allen's `Freudian slip' that he had to hang his plaster bodycast out in the sun for "many days"! As mentioned in 07Aug16c, in 2005 the History Channel's Sean Heckman's tried to reproduce Allen's `medieval photograph' but it took "43 days to get a faint image" which soon after "completely disappeared":
"I personally worked with artist Stephen Berkman to design, construct and test the theory that the Shroud was created by such a process. Stephen and I paid particular attention to building the camera and exposing the image with historical accuracy. We only used simple lenses that would have been available in the thirteenth century as well as exposed and fixed the image with chemicals that are known to have existed at the time. But simply, the experiment failed. While it is theoretically possible to expose an image, there are a countless number of variables that make the process nearly impossible, a multitude of which caused our project to fail. Namely, in order to make a life-sized image, you would need to position the linen at least six or more feet away from the lens. Since light fades at an inverse square rate, a pinhole or simple lens only allows for an extremely faint amount of light to reach that distance, making it extremely difficult to expose the image. In our case it took 43 days to get a faint image, which completely disappeared once the image was fixed. Considering the experiment was based on 200 years of known photographic technology, I find it difficult [to believe] that such an image could have been created six hundred years ago, particularly an image that we'd still be able to see today"[84].
So how "many days" did Allen hang his plaster cast out in the sun to get his image (above)? And did he use only "simple lenses that would have been available in the thirteenth century" and "chemicals that are known to have existed at the time"? Or did Allen cheat? See 07Aug16d that Allen did indeed cheat by using synthetic quartz, not a natural quartz crystal! And has Allen's image by now disappeared?
Although an image may be focused onto a piece of linen cloth by means of a simple bi-convex lens and this image (viewed at the correct distance) is clearly visible with the naked eye (inside the camera obscura) it was discovered that, in actual fact; the visible spectrum had no discernable affect on the silver-nitrate solution at all. Rather, it was the action of ultraviolet radiation (specifically 320-190 nm) that actually formed the image over a period of many hours. In this regard a glass lens is quite useless for this technique, since glass absorbs ultraviolet light whereas quartz will not.[85]. Again Allen refutes his own theory! Ultraviolet radiation was only discovered in 1801 by the German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter (1776– 1810)[86]. So "no one in medieval times knew about ultraviolet light at all, much less what materials would or would not transmit it"[87]!
To be continued in the twenty-sixth installment of this part #8 of this series.
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of this post (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
2. "CurriculumVitae: Nicholas P L Allen, North-West University," Academia.edu. [return]
3. Allen, N.P.L., 1998, "The Turin Shroud and the Crystal Lens: Testament to a Lost Technology," Empowerment Technologies: Port Elizabeth, South Africa, pp.xii-xiii. [return]
4. Allen, 1998, p.xiii. [return]
5. Ibid. [return]
6. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.7. [return]
7. Allen, 1998, pp.xiii-xiv. [return]
8. Allen, 1998, p.xv. [return]
9. Nickell, J., 2004, "PBS `Secrets of the Dead' Buries the Truth About Turin Shroud," Skeptical Inquirer, April 9. [return]
10. Allen, N.P.L., 1993, "Is the Shroud of Turin the first recorded photograph?," The South African Journal of Art History, 11, November, pp.23-32. [return]
11. Allen, 1993, p.23. [return]
12. Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, No. 1, pp.3-49, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co: Amsterdam, 1982, pp.6. [return]
15. Ibid. [return]
27. Extract from Latendresse, M., 2010, "Shroud Scope: Enrie Negative Horizontal," (rotated left 90 degrees), Sindonology.org. [return]
29. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, pp.37-38. Footnote omitted. [return]
30. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, pp.124-125. [return]
33. McCrone, W.C., 1999, "Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin," Prometheus Books: Amherst NY, p.122. [return]
37. Stevenson K.E. & Habermas G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, pp.104-105. [return]
38. Van Haelst, R., 1986, "The Lier Shroud: A Problem in Attribution," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 20, September, pp.7-24, 16-17. [return]
39. Van Haelst, 1986, p.10. [return]
42. Allen, 1993, pp.27-28. [return]
47. Jackson, J.P., Jumper, E.J., Mottern, R.W. & Stevenson, K.E., ed., 1977, "The Three Dimensional Image on Jesus' Burial Cloth," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, pp.82-83. [return]
48. Antonacci, 2000, p.32. Footnote omitted. [return]
49. Wilson, 1998, p.214. [return]
51. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.251; Wilson, 1998, p.234. [return]
53. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London, p.20. [return]
54. de Wesselow, 2012, p.25. [return]
56. "File:View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 11 June 2019. [return]
57. "Nicéphore Niépce," Wikipedia, 27 June 2019. [return]
60. "Mike Ware (photographer)," Wikipedia, 26 April 2018. [return]
61. Ware, M., 1997, "On Proto-photography and the Shroud of Turin," History of Photography, Vol. 21, No. 4, Winter, pp.261-269, 261. [return]
62. "Digital photography: History," Wikipedia, 25 May 2019. [return]
63. Moran, K.E., 1999, "Optically Terminated Image Pixels Observed on Frei 1978 Samples," Shroud.com, pp.1-10, 8. [return]
64. Moran, 1999, p.8. [return]
65. Moran, K.E., 1995, "Observations by Microscopy of Shroud Tape Samples taken by Max Frei in 1978," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 41, September, pp.12-15, 14. [return]
67. Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, p.74. [return]
68. Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, p.113. [return]
70. "Digital data," Wikipedia, 29 May 2019. [return]
71. Nixon, T., 2016, "The shadows of Hiroshima: Haunting imprints of people killed by the blast," The Sun, 5 April. [return]
72. Humber, T., 1978, "The Sacred Shroud," [1974], Pocket Books: New York NY, p.199; Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, pp.224H, 248-249; Morgan, R., 1980, "Perpetual Miracle: Secrets of the Holy Shroud of Turin by an Eye Witness," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia, pp.76, 160-161; Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, p.70; Carter, G.F., 1982, "Formation of the Image on the Shroud of Turin by x-Rays: A New Hypothesis," in Lambert, J.B., ed., 1984, "Archaeological Chemistry III: ACS Advances in Chemistry, No. 205," American Chemical Society, Washington D.C., pp.425-446, 429-430; Testa, A. 1995, "Shrouded in mystery," Shroud News, No. 88, April,, pp.16-19, 19; Scott, C., 1997, "Holy Shroud led agnostic to priesthood," Shroud News, No. 100, February, p.56; Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, pp.186-187; Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, pp.128-129; Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, pp.220-222; Wilcox, R.K., 2010, "The Truth About the Shroud of Turin: Solving the Mystery," [1977], Regnery: Washington DC, pp.148-149. [return]
74. "Natural nuclear fission reactor," Wikipedia, 22 June 2019. [return]
75. "Nuclear reactor: Early reactors," Wikipedia, 25 June 2019. [return]
76. "Johann Heinrich Schulze," Wikipedia, 6 September 2018. [return]
77. Ware, 1997, p.264. [return]
79. Wilson, 1998, p.238O. [return]
80. Wilson, 1998, pp.214-217, 238O; Antonacci, 2000, p.87; Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, pp.124-125; Whiting, B., 2006, "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, p.159; Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK, p.249; Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.26-27; de Wesselow, 2012, pp.140, 288B. [return]
82. Piczek, I., 1996, "Alice in Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin," Proceedings of the Esopus Conference, August 23rd-25th, Esopus, New York. [return]
84. Wilson, 2010, pp.28-29. [return]
86. "Ultraviolet: Discovery," Wikipedia, 17 July 2019. [return]
87. Antonacci, 2000, p.87. [return]
Posted: 16 June 2019. Updated: 18 July 2019.
Posted by Stephen E. Jones at 10:49 PM No comments: Links to this post
Casabianca, T., et al., 2019, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data," Archaeometry, 22 March
© Stephen E. Jones[1]
This is the final installment (including a possible reconciliation of the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories with my hacker theory!) of my long-promised post on this article. I have worked through most of it, commenting on its key points. Much of it is highly technical statistics and although I have studied statistics units in my
[Above (enlarge)[2]: The online heading of the article.]
university degrees, that was many years ago and I am no statistician! The article's words are bold to distinguish them from mine. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.
Abstract In 1988, three laboratories performed a radiocarbon analysis of the Turin Shroud. The results, which were centralized by the British Museum and published in Nature in 1989, provided 'conclusive evidence' of the medieval origin of the artefact. However, the raw data were never released by the institutions. In 2017, in response to a legal request, all raw data kept by the British Museum were made accessible. A statistical analysis of the Nature article and the raw data strongly suggests that homogeneity is lacking in the data and that the procedure should be reconsidered.[3]
The claim in the 1989 Nature article was:
"The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence"[4].
But as we saw in 17Feb19, the "with at least 95% confidence" was a lie (see below) by the author of the article, Dr Michael Tite[5], then of the British Museum. It was a lie because as Tite must have known, as discovered by Remi van Haelst, a Belgian industrial chemist and expert in statistical analysis, that Arizona laboratory had provided the British Museum with eight radiocarbon dates of the Shroud, some of which when calibrated and converted to calendar years, were more recent than 1355, when the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France:
"Arizona did not provide FOUR but EIGHT data ... The error-values between brackets are estimated ... Mathematically, the calculations following Wilson-Ward, with EIGHT and FOUR data will give the same result. So why were this data reduced from EIGHT to FOUR???? Because with the quoted errors the Arizona data overspans an era of 540-95 = 445 to 753+93 = 846 ... Converted into calendar date 1270-1430 ... [which] ... conflicts with the historical deadline of 1355, when started the veneration of the Shroud in Lirey ... Dr. Leese [Morwen Leese the British Museum's statistician and a signatory to the 1989 Nature article] wrote a letter to Arizona (dated July 28 1988), asking to REDUCE the EIGHT data to FOUR, by considering the TWO runs made the same day, like ONE run. So the data presented in table 1 are not INDIVIDUAL measurements, but the mean of TWO measurements. Which are in fact the average of between 10-20 measurements. Arizona agreed. because they knew that their mean result 646±31 was in fact conflicting with the historical deadline of 1350" (van Haelst's emphasis)[6].
Below is my more compact spreadsheet copy of van Haelst's table in his Shroud News article:
[Above (enlarge): Arizona laboratory's original eight dates, uncalibrated, which were fraudulently statistically manipulated by the British Museum's statistician Dr. Morwen Leese ( presumably as directed by Tite and with Arizona's approval) to become four dates in the 1989 Nature article (see above). Note that the midpoint of 574±45 is 1950-574 = 1376, which 21 years after 1355. So that was combined and averaged with 606±41 to make it 591±30, the midpoint of which is 1950-591 = 1359, still 4 years past 1355! And 540±57, the midpoint of which is 1950-540 = 1410, 55 years after 1355, was combined and averaged with 676±59 to make it also 606±41, the midpoint of which is 1950-606 = 1344, now only 11 years before 1355!]
This was scientific fraud by Leese, presumably directed by Tite and agreed to by Arizona, "making results appear ... more definitive than they really are":
"The term `scientific fraud' is often assumed to mean the wholesale invention of data. But this is almost certainly the rarest kind of fabrication. Those who falsify scientific data probably start and succeed with the much lesser crime of improving upon existing results. Minor and seemingly trivial instances of data manipulation-such as making results appear just a little crisper or more definitive than they really are, or selecting just the `best' data for publication and ignoring those that don't fit the case-are probably far from unusual in science. But there is only a difference in degree between `cooking' the data and inventing a whole experiment out of thin air"[7].
What makes this "with at least 95% confidence" claim a lie is that in a "chi-square distribution table ... for 2 degrees of freedom, the critical value for a 0.05 [i.e. 95%] probability is 5.99"[8]. But according to Table 2 of the 1989 Nature article (see extract below) the Chi-square
[Above (enlarge). Extract from Table 2 of the 1989 Nature article. As can be seen, sample 1 (the Shroud) contrasts markedly with the Chi-square values of the linen control samples 2 (0.1), 3 (1.3) and 4 (2.4), so already there was a serious, but unexplained problem. According to my hacker theory, the solution to that problem is that unlike the radiocarbon dates of the control samples which were real, the dates of the Shroud samples were computer-generated by Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy W. Linick's program.]
value ("Χ2 value (2 d.f.)") of sample 1 (the Shroud) was 6.4, which means it was already beyond the 0.5 or 95% critical value. Moreover, according to Van Haelst, the chi-square value of the Shroud samples when there were eight, not four Arizona dating runs is actually 7.13[9], which makes the "with at least 95% confidence" claim even more a lie!
INTRODUCTION The Turin Shroud (TS) is a piece of linen cloth approximately 4.4m long and 1.1m wide, considered by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. The first certain historical record dates to the second half of the 14th century AD. In 1987, after a decade of negotiations, three laboratories (Arizona, Oxford and Zürich) were chosen by the Vatican authorities to perform a 14C test using accelerator mass spectrometry techniques (AMS). On 21 April 1988, a sample was taken from one corner of the cloth, and pieces of the sample were delivered to the laboratories, along with three additional control samples. The results were centralized at the British Museum, where the statistical analysis was performed. In their Nature article, Damon et al. (1989) stated that there was 'conclusive evidence' that the linen of the TS was medieval (AD 1260–1390 with at least 95% confidence).[10]
I realise that "... considered by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth" is the best that can be written about the Shroud in a secular science journal, but the truth is that the evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is authentic, that is, the very burial sheet of Jesus! What Yves Delage (1854–1920), the agnostic Professor of Zoology at the Sorbonne pointed out in 1902 to the `free-thinkers' on the French Academy of Sciences, is still true today, ~117 years later:
"If, instead of Christ, there were a question of some person like a Sargon, an Achilles or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making any objection"[11].
That is, if it was anyone other than Jesus, the evidence would be readily accepted that the Shroud was His!
And see above on the lie that the "medieval (AD 1260–1390" radiocarbon date of the Shroud was "... with at least 95% confidence"!
Currently, non-specialists consider this general conclusion straightforward disproof of the hypothesis that the TS is an antique linen cloth (Ball 2017). However, since 2005, a growing number of studies have provided elements and arguments contradicting the medieval hypothesis (Rogers 2005; Poulle 2009; Fanti and Malfi 2014; Bevilacqua et al. 2014; Boi 2017; Casabianca 2017). In 2013, a new statistical study based on a regression analysis seriously called into question the reliability of the conclusions of the 1988 dating (Riani et al. 2013). Recently, we obtained the raw data and, for the first time, measured their convergence with the radiocarbon dates published in Nature.[12]
I don't have all these articles, and even if I did, there is no space here to consider them. Besides it would be a diversion from the central point of this article. It is noteworthy that it took "a legal request" (see above) that is, a Freedom of Information request (see below) to the three laboratories and the British Museum and only the latter complied. This raises the question: what are the laboratories hiding? This secretiveness falls far short of the standard of scientific honesty that all scientists should adhere to, stated by the late Professor of Physics at Caltech, Richard P. Feynman (1918–1988), that "... the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution":
"It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty - a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid-not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, And how they worked-to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can-if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong-to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it ... the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another ... I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist"[13].
The basic idea of this paper is to conduct a robust statistical analysis using the raw data and to compare these results with those obtained using the official data. We use statistical tests to determine whether the measurements intra and inter laboratories can be combined to obtain a calendar range. Based on the statistical results, we question the level of confidence of 95% attributed to the AD 1260–1390 calendar age range.
This is no little thing. It has been a major part of Tite's, the laboratories' and anti-authenticists' propaganda that the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date was "with at least 95% confidence":
"During the second week of October 1988 press personnel of the English-speaking world were notified that the results would be announced on Thursday, 13 October in the British Museum's Press Room ... Accordingly, early that Thursday afternoon I joined this gathering in a ... room of the British Museum. At one end of the room had been set a low platform which three men mounted ... They were ... Dr Michael Tite, with the Oxford radiocarbon-dating laboratory's Professor Edward Hall and Hall's chief technician, Dr Robert Hedges ... their only `prop' was a blackboard behind them on which someone had rather crudely scrawled: `1260-1390!' ... as Dr Tite explained, these numbers represented radiocarbon dating's calculation, to a ninety-five per cent degree of probability, of the upper and lower dates of when the Shroud's flax had been harvested. Representing an average of the laboratories' findings, which had proved in excellent agreement with each other [another lie see 20Dec14], they indicated that the Shroud's raw flax had most likely been made into linen on or about the year AD 1325, give or take sixty-five years either way"[14].
But they were wrong on that major point, and it cannot have been a mistake. Tite and the laboratory leaders were and are experts in the application of statistics to radiocarbon dating and Tite had a statistician, Morwen Leese, working for him. Besides, it has been brought to their attention by Van Haelst and others many times that the "with at least 95% confidence" claim is false, but they have ignored it, even though they must know that the criticism was true. The very least that the living signatories to the 1989 Nature article, including Tite, Timothy Jull of Arizona and Christopher Ramsey of Oxford should have done, and should do now is to publicly write to Nature advising that the "with at least 95% confidence" claim was false. It will be interesting to see what they will do now after their lie has been exposed in this Archaeometry article!
DATA AND METHODOLOGY Since 1989, scholars interested in the TS have often requested the raw data from the laboratories, without success (Pourrat 1991). This denial of access led to controversy and hindered the assessment of the analysis performed by the British Museum (Marinelli 2012; Rinaldi 2012). In 2017, several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the institutions involved in the TS radiocarbon dating were made. The British Museum replied favourably and made all its files, 'not dated or arranged in any order', available. On 18 July 2017, the British Museum electronically sent a file of 211 pages and in September 2017, one of the authors (T.C.) visited the British Museum and scanned more than 500 new pages[15].
Again, that the laboratories have since 1989 (i.e. for 30 years) refused to provide Shroud scholars with the raw data of the 1988 radiocarbon dating:
"... the Belgian researcher, Remi Van Haelst, who has consistently and persistently claimed that the results were incorrectly calculated. He has been campaigning for years to be given the raw data from the three laboratories so that others may examine their accuracy, but so far has been rebuffed by all of them. He gave a detailed resume of his years of work on the statistical data, profusely illustrated by graphs, indiscernible in the auditorium, but supporting his constant claim that inconvenient data were ignored by the laboratories, their calculations were wrong and that there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the Shroud is medieval"[16].
can only be because they have something to hide! If the laboratories truly believed that, "The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence," they would be eager to share the raw data which is that "conclusive evidence." Instead the laboratories' `body language' betrays that they don't truly believe it! Theirs is the very antithesis of Feynman's, "you must ... give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution" (see above).
We learned that Zürich performed 4 × 10 measurements for each of their five TS subsamples. Oxford performed five measurements, and while the detailed measurements were not sent to the British Museum, a mean was provided for two measurements, resulting in only three radiocarbon dates. The Arizona report shows that 40 measurements (5 × 8) were made. Several scholars already disclosed the eight Arizona radiocarbon dates (Van Haelst 2002), but these dates have never been confirmed. We are now certain that the eight disclosed dates (designated Arizona raw 2) were correct. However, previously, Arizona modified the errors of two of its eight dates (designated Arizona raw 1). In contrast to Zürich and Oxford, Arizona included in its report eight computer printouts along with the counts of the detected radiocarbon atoms (designated Arizona counts).[17].
Zurich's "4 × 10 measurements" is presumably what Prof. Harry E. Gove (1922-2009) described of Arizona's dating, and if so, presumably applied to all three laboratories:
"The first sample run was OX1 [an oxalic acid standard]. Then followed one of the controls. Each run consisted of a 10 second measurement of the carbon-13 current and a 50 second measurement of the carbon-14 counts. This is repeated nine more times and an average carbon-14/carbon-13 ratio calculated. All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed on a cathode ray screen. The first sample run was OX1. Then followed one of the controls. Each run consisted of a 10 second measurement of the carbon-13 current and a 50 second measurement of the carbon-14 counts. This is repeated nine more times and an average carbon-14/carbon-13 ratio calculated. All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed on a cathode ray screen. The age of the control sample could have been calculated on a small pocket calculator but was not-everyone was waiting for the next sample-the Shroud of Turin! At 9:50 am 6 May 1988, Arizona time, the first of the ten measurements appeared on the screen. We all waited breathlessly. The ratio was compared with the OX sample and the radiocarbon time scale calibration was applied by Doug Donahue. His face became instantly drawn and pale. At the end of that one minute we knew the age of the Turin Shroud! The next nine numbers confirmed the first. It had taken me eleven years to arrange for a measurement that took only ten minutes to accomplish! Based on these 10 one minute runs, with the calibration correction applied, the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD-the shroud was only 640 years old! It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth but dated from the time its historic record began"[18].
So not only did Tite with Arizona laboratory commit scientific fraud (i.e. "improving upon existing results ... making results appear just a little ... more definitive than they really are" - see above) by stating
[Right (enlarge): Extract from Table 1 in the 1989 Nature article, showing the dates of each sub-sample at each laboratory of Sample 1, the Shroud[19]. The dates are years before 1950[20]. Thus the midpoint of Arizona's first date was actually 1950-591=1359, i.e. four years after 1355, when the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France!]
in Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article [right] that Arizona dated four Shroud sub-samples ("individual measurements"), when it was actually eight (see above); Tite with Oxford also committed scientific fraud by stating that Oxford dated three Shroud sub-samples, when it was actually five! Only Zurich was honest in correctly stating that it dated its "five TS subsamples"!
The Nature and raw radiocarbon dates (Table 1) show that relevant differences exist among the estimates provided by the three laboratories: the Arizona minimum Nature estimate is 591, whereas the Oxford minimum is 730; the Arizona maximum is 701, whereas the Oxford maximum is 795. Most importantly, discrepancies exist even within the laboratories. For example, Arizona's estimates range from 540 to 701, whereas Oxford's estimates reach a value of 795.[21].
Below (enlarge) is my Excel copy of Casabianca, et al.'s Table 1[22]. I
made the point in my posts of 17Feb19, 18Nov15, 11Feb15 and 13Jun14, that the wide variations in the dates of the Shroud samples across the three laboratories' (and even within each laboratory!) is evidence that they are not real dates but were computer-generated by a hacker's (Timothy W. Linick's) computer program.
The computed error in the radiocarbon dates by Arizona presents differences (the error ranges from 30 to 41 in Nature and from 37 to 57 in the raw dates), whereas Oxford appears to have produced consistent estimates (homogenous radiocarbon estimates between Nature and the raw dates), but the computed errors in the raw radiocarbon dates are lower than the published errors (the most relevant is 730 ± 30 in the raw data against 730 ± 45 in Nature). Regarding Zürich, the problem is related to both the estimates and computed errors: the estimates are incongruent between the raw and Nature dates (a clear difference in the fifth observation, which is equal to 595 in the raw data and 679 in Nature).[23].
According to my hacker theory, the "extremely mathematically gifted" Timothy W. Linick[24] wrote a program which (with the possible exception of Arizona's very first run which returned the psychologically crushing calibrated date of "1350" - see above), thereafter would automatically intercept the output of the AMS system at each of the three laboratories, en route to the control console computer's screen and replace the Shroud's first (or early because of irremovable contamination) century date with random dates within limits which, after calibration, displayed dates clustering around 1325 ± 65. Then finally the hacker's program would order its own deletion when that laboratory's dating of the Shroud would have been completed (e.g. after 6 months from the program's activation), leaving no trace of its previous existence [see 08Jun14, 13Jun14, 05Jul14, 13Dec14, 30Jan15, 31Mar15, 22Feb16]. Whether Linick's program also generated bogus error ranges, or the laboratories calculated these from the bogus dates, my theory is compatible with either. However, recently I have been thinking that Linick may have preset the random number limits lowest (most recent) for Arizona, intermediate for Zurich and highest (oldest) for Oxford, although why he would do that is unclear. Or it may well be that Jesus, the Man on the Shroud, who as Yahweh come in the flesh (Jn 8:24,28,58; 13:19; 18:5-6; Mt 14:23-27; Mk 6:47-50; Jn 6:16-20) [the Greek ego eimi literally is "I AM" (Ex 3:14. Dt 32:39; Isa 41:4; 46:4 LXX)][25], directs the outcome of random numbers (Pr 16:33), created problems in the random number outputs of Linick's program that statisticians would later find invalidated them!
From a statistical perspective, these differences do not create a problem if they are irrelevant, but the data published in Damon et al. (1989) are affected by several problems (Brunati 1996; Van Haelst 1997, 2002; Riani et al. 2013). The Arizona counts table (Table 2) represents the eight sessions (A1, A2, A3, …) included in the report sent by Arizona to the British Museum. Two sessions were performed daily using the same standards (A1 and A2, A3 and A4, A5 and A6, and A7 and A8). Due to a technical incident encountered in the two first measurements of A2, the Arizona printout of A2 only includes four values, one of which (17 584) is the equivalent of two measurements. For the purpose of the analysis, we chose to keep five values for each session and we attributed the mean value (17 584/2 = 8792, in italics in Table 2) to the two problematic measurements.[26].
See below (enlarge) my Excel spreadsheet copy of Casabianca, et al.'s Table 2[27]. The first thing I noticed in transcribing this data was the
great variability in these "counts of the detected radiocarbon atoms." Reading across from Arizona'a sessions A1 to A8, the maximum C14 atom count was 11409 in session A6 and the minimum was 5128 in session A7. That is a difference of 6281 or 122.48%! This could be explained by the subsamples being unequal in physical size, a larger subsample containing more carbon-14 atoms than a smaller one but why would a laboratory do that? The obvious thing to do would be to cut each subsample into as near equal in size as possible. And according to Gove who was there, that is what Arizona did: "divide the total area ... into four pieces each about 0.5 square centimetres or 1/4" x 1/4" in area":
"Around 5 pm, Paul Damon called and suggested he come to the Doubletree [Hotel in Tucson, Arizona] and have a beer and a chat with us ... He said when he and [Douglas] Donahue had returned from Turin on the Saturday after the sample had been removed from the shroud, they had decided to divide the total area of about 2 square centimetres (0.3 square inches) they had received in Turin into four pieces each about 0.5 square centimetres or 1/4" x 1/4" in area and to store them in different places"[28].
Presumably the eight columns A1-A8 are of the four equal subsamples each further subdivided in half. But note that it cannot be this second subdivision of Arizona's four subsamples into eight that was unequal because while column A1's numbers are mostly higher than A2's, the first number (which equated to "1350" - see above - and which I claim may have been the only date `hardwired' in Linick's program), is lower than any of the numbers in A2. The same applies to the A7-A8 pair. While A7's numbers are mostly higher than A8, the lowest count, 5281, is in A7!
As I have posted before [11Feb15, 18Nov15, 24Oct16 & 17Feb19], this is (or seemed) inexplicable if the Shroud sample dates were real, given that the three laboratories' Shroud `postage stamp' size samples[29] were all sub-divided from the same ~8 cm x ~1.2 cm sample, cut from the Shroud[30] (see below). And the three laboratories were effectively
[Above (enlarge): Drawing of the approximately 8 cm x 1.2 cm sample cut from the Shroud and subdivided into sub-samples from right to left: "A" (Arizona), "Z" (Zurich), "O" (Oxford), and "A1" (Arizona additional), with a photograph of the sample superimposed over the bottom right hand side[31]. Was there a significant difference in carbon contamination (including from a medieval repair) across the three laboratories' samples, especially Arizona's two samples A1 and A which were from opposite ends of the Shroud sample?]
clones[32], using the same AMS dating method on near-identical machines.
But looking at the great variability of Arizona's C14 atom counts across its subsamples A1-A8 (above), it has just now occurred to me that the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories and my hacker theory may not be incompatible. What if Linick's program did not substitute the C14 atom counts coming from the Shroud, but in a mathematically sophisticated way inflated them to 13th-14th century dates? If so, then the variability of the C14 atom counts could reflect actual carbon-14 variability across the Shroud sample, due to contamination and/or younger repair threads (see above that Arizona's subsample was in two parts A1 and A from opposite ends of the Shroud sample). But the 13th-14th century dates of the Shroud samples would be due to Linick's program inflating that carbon-14 variability to 13th-14th century date levels!
And again note that in favour of my theory is that `odd man out' very first run C14 atom count of 8226 (above) which equated to "1350" (see above).
The methodology adopted in this study is classical. A central argument proposed by critics of the TS radiocarbon dating results is that the computation of the p-value using the method in Ward and Wilson (1978) contains an error (Brunati 1996; Van Haelst 1997). The Ward and Wilson method is used to test whether the radiocarbon determinations can be combined (Ward and Wilson 1978, 23). Following Van Haelst (1997), we present the results of the chi-square tests using the Ward and Wilson method to detect statistically significant inconsistencies in the raw radiocarbon dates and we perform ANOVA, parametric and non-parametric tests to determine possible significant differences between means in the raw data to eventually validate the results. To test the eventual existence of an interaction effect between the types of data (raw vs. Nature) and the laboratory that produced the data (Arizona, Oxford or Zürich), we perform a two-way ANOVA. Hereafter, a 5% level of significance is assumed for all procedures.[33].
The conclusion of "Van Haelst (1997)" (according to my `reading between his lines') was that the statistical analysis of the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud was both fraudulent and corrupt:
"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'" (Van Haelst's emphasis )[34].
and that therefore the 1989 Nature article should never have been published and should be retracted!
Finally, due to the current importance of radiocarbon procedures, we present results obtained with the software OxCal version 4.3 (OxCal 2018), which was used here to statistically analyse specific versions of the radiocarbon dates. OxCal is an open-access diagnostic tool based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo developed by Christopher Ramsey (Oxford) in the mid-1990s and is currently used by many radiocarbon specialists (Ramsey and Lee 2013). The individual agreement, model agreement and overall agreement indexes should generally all be over 60% in the case of a homogeneous result. Several individual measurements below the 60% level combined with model and overall agreement indexes below 60% indicate the presence of at least one problem in the data, probably due to a flawed measurement or contamination.[35].
Spoiler Alert! [Left [36].] Here where I can't think of anything to comment on in the above, is a good time to reveal that because Casabianca, et al's paper accepts the radiocarbon dates as real, albeit flawed, they are not going to find that the 1989 Nature article was wrong in its claim that "the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval," only that it wrong in its claim that it is "AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence" (which itself is significant because Tite and his statistician Dr Morwen Leese must have known that the latter claim was false and therefore they knowingly lied in claiming it - see above). Later in their paper Casabianca, et al admit that:
"Our statistical results do not imply that the medieval hypothesis of the age of the tested sample should be ruled out"[37].
What does not merely "imply" but proves beyond reasonable doubt "that the medieval hypothesis of the age of the tested sample should be ruled out" is the overwhelming evidence that the Shroud is authentic. See my brief presentation of that evidence in my "Open letter to Professor Christopher Ramsey" of 4 October 2018. I sent a copy of that open letter to Prof. Ramsey both as an email and snail mail, but he never responded. I don't mind him ignoring me but I do mind him ignoring the evidence for the Shroud's existence all the way back to Edessa in AD 544!
"A picture that is worth a thousand words" in that open letter to Prof. Ramsey was the c. 1070 depiction by John Skylitzes (c.1040s–c.1101) of the transfer of the Image of Edessa from Edessa to Constantinople in
[Above (enlarge): "Surrender of the Mandylion [the `Image of Edessa] to the Byzantines"[38].]
944 [see "944b"], and behind the face-only Image of Edessa is the full-length Shroud (see above)!
RESULTS The ANOVA on Nature radiocarbon dates (Table S2) shows that at least two groups' means are significantly different from each other, providing evidence that the differences among the laboratories are not irrelevant, especially for the Arizona/Oxford Nature dates (Table S3). The Ward and Wilson test is also above the critical value (8,60>5.99). The OxCal 4.3 software confirms these results with an overall agreement index of 41.8%, strongly below the usual threshold of 60%. On 12 radiocarbon dates, three have a low individual agreement index (Table 3 for the Ward and Wilson tests and the OxCal analysis)[39].
A note at the end of the article explains that Table S2 and S3 are part of the "Additional supporting information" that is not in the article itself. "ANOVA" or "Analysis of variance" "... in its simplest form ... provides a statistical test of whether two or more population means are equal"[40].
There are two questions here: 1) Why is there any significant variability at all in the Shroud samples between the three laboratories and indeed within a laboratory? And 2) Why does the first-century Shroud (according to the overwhelming weight of the evidence) have, not just a 13th-14th century radiocarbon date, but a `bull's eye' 1325 ±65 radiocarbon date?
The carbon 14 variability in the Shroud samples cannot have been a problem with the AMS systems at the laboratories because the 1989 Nature article admitted that the agreement in the control samples across the three laboratories was "exceptionally good" yet the "spread of the measurements" of the Shroud samples was "greater than would be expected":
"An initial inspection of Table 2 shows that the agreement among the three laboratories for [control] samples 2, 3 and 4 is exceptionally good. The spread of the measurements for sample 1 [the Shroud] is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted"[41].
The answer to both questions is provided by my recently realised proposed reconciliation of the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories with my hacker theory. First, there was carbon contamination variability across the Shroud sample that the laboratories' cleaning could not remove, as pointed out by textile expert (later Professor) John Tyrer:
"In 1532 the Shroud was being kept inside a silver casket stored in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambery, when a fire nearly destroyed the building. The intense heat melted a corner of the casket, scorching the folded linen within, and producing the now familiar scorch marks on the Shroud. Since silver melts only at 960 degrees centigrade, the heat inside the casket must have been intense. In these circumstances moisture in the Shroud would turn to steam, probably at superheat, trapped in the folds and layers of the Shroud. Any contaminants on the cloth would be dissolved by the steam and forced not only into the weave and yarn, but also into the flax fibres' very lumen and molecular structure ... Under the circumstances, contaminants would have become part of the chemistry of the flax fibres themselves and would be impossible to remove satisfactorily by surface actants and ultrasonic cleaning. More drastic treatments to destroy the contaminants would inevitably damage the flax fibres themselves"[42].
But that irremovable residue of the previous total carbon contamination would have to be not only about 60% of the Shroud sample [see 01Nov13, 24May14, 22Aug14, 08Dec14 ...], but exactly the right amount to shift the first century Shroud's carbon date thirteen centuries into the future to the `bull's eye' date, 1325 ±65!
Second, according to my modified hacker theory, Timothy W. Linick's hacker program was designed to build on (not substitute for) the existing level of carbon 14 in each Shroud sample, and inflate it so that when combined and averaged (with fraudulent help by Tite and Leese - see above ), it was 1325 ±65, the midpoint of which was a mere 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history in 1355!
With that I will conclude this post. The remainder is highly technical statistics and I do not claim to understand it sufficiently to comment on it.
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
2. Casabianca, T., et al., 2019, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data," Archaeometry, 22 March, pp.1-9, 1. [return]
4. Damon, P.E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, pp.611-615, 611. [return]
5. Morgan, R., 1990, "Interview With Dr. Michael Tite by Orazio Petrosillo and Emanuela Marinelli, 8 September 1989, during the Paris Symposium," Shroud News, No 59, June, pp.3-9, 7. [return]
6. Van Haelst, R., 1991, "Radiocarbon data indeed manipulated," Shroud News, No 68, December, p.5. [return]
7. Broad, W. & Wade, N., 1982, "Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science," Simon and Schuster: New York NY, p.20. [return]
8. Banas, T., "How to Chi-Square Test," Sciencing, April 24, 2017 . [return]
9. Van Haelst, 1991, p.7. [return]
10. Casabianca, et al., 2019, p.1. [return]
11. Walsh, J.E., 1963, "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, pp.106-107. [return]
13. Feynman, R.P., 1985, "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!," Unwin Paperbacks: London, Reprinted, 1990, pp.340-343. [return]
14. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, pp.6-7. [return]
16. Morgan, R., 1993, "The Rome Symposium - Part 2," Shroud News, No 78, August, pp.4-16, 5. [return]
18. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK, pp.264. [return]
19. Damon, et al., 1989, p.612. [return]
24. Jull, A.J.T. & Suess, H.E., 1989, "Timothy W. Linick," Radiocarbon, Vol 31, No 2. https://goo.gl/ZDcXAW. [return]
25. Rhodes, R., 1992, "Christ Before the Manger: The Life and Times of the Preincarnate Christ," Baker: Grand Rapids MI, pp.14-15, etc; Bowman, R.M., Jr. & Komoszewski, J.E., 2007, "Putting Jesus In His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ," Kregel: Grand Rapids MI, pp.160-161, etc. [return]
26. Casabianca, et al., 2019, pp.2-3. [return]
28. Gove, 1996, p.259. [return]
29. Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, pp.104; Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, p.94; Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, p.170. [return]
30. Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, p.6; Wilson, 1998, pp.6,191; Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.82A, 87, 95. [return]
32. Wilson, 1991, p.178; Wilson, 2010, p.281. [return]
34. Van Haelst, R., 1997, "Radiocarbon Dating The Shroud: A Critical Statistical Analysis," Shroud.com. [return]
36. Extract from Thompson, C., 2018, "Spoiler Alert!," Eagle Nation News, May 14. [return]
38. "Chronography of John Skylitzes, cod. Vitr. 26-2, folio 131a, Madrid National Library, in "File:Surrender of the Mandylion to the Byzantines.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 20 December 2012. [return]
40. "Analysis of variance," Wikipedia, 1 June 2019, [return]
42. Tyrer, J., 1988, "So How Could the Carbon Dating Be Wrong?," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 20, October, pp.10-12. [return]
Posted: 29 May 2019. Updated: 19 June 2019.
Posted by Stephen E. Jones at 11:49 PM 3 comments: Links to this post
Stephen E. Jones
Date index to this blog's posts
My introductory post to TSoT
Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 to the present
The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is authentic!
Problems of the Turin Shroud forgery theory
The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking
Steps in the development of my radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud hacker theory
Other Shroud links & sites
British Society for the Turin Shroud
Collegamento pro Sindone
Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin
Man of the Shroud
Ohio Shroud Conference Blog
Peter S. Williams, "The Shroud of Turin: A Cumulative Case for Authenticity"
Shroud Research Project
Shroud University
Shroud of Jesus
Shroud of Turin Education Project
Shroud of Turin News
Shroud.com
Sindone (Archdiocese of Turin)
Test the Shroud Foundation
The Enigma of the Shroud of Turin
The Holy Shroud of Turin
The Holy Shroud of Turin: Why I believe it to be genuine
Turin Shroud Center of Colorado
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Debates After over a decade (1994-2005) debating creation/ evolution/ design on Internet discussion groups, I concluded that Internet debates were largely a waste of time, so I ceased debating and started blogging. Therefore I normally allow only one comment per individual under each one of my posts.
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text:
The Legend of Zelda Quiz: Master Your Knowledge!
The Legend of Zelda is a specific, fantasy action adventure serie of games firstly developed in late 80's. It is a game that took hearts of many video game players all around the world. New series of The Legend of Zelda game are being released to this day. If you are a fan of the series then you must complete this quiz without a single mistake!
This is a general knowledge Zelda Quiz. It contains questions about every game of the series. The Legend of Zelda Quiz contains 15 questions.
Are you a real Zelda expert? Find out!
Grand Theft Auto 5 Quiz: Lets See If You Can Make It!
PUBG Quiz – Do You Know This Record-Breaking Game?
DotA 2 Quiz: Do You Know This Epic Game?
Will My Ex Come Back Quiz – It's Time to Find Out
Does My Dog Love Me? Quiz For All Pet Owners!
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QUIZONDO
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
"Global supply chains have proven their worth"
VDMA - Mechanical Engineering Industry
Global Europe
New EU Industrial Strategy
The new European industrial strategy emphasizes the importance of open markets and global partnerships. This is the right way to go. This is because the approach of strategic autonomy, which the EU Commission originally sought, would slow down the transformation to sustainability.
Brussels/Frankfurt, 3 May 2021 - "We support the fact that the EU, with its new industrial strategy, is orienting itself more towards open markets again," says VDMA Executive Director Thilo Brodtmann. "With a one-sided focus on autonomy, the EU would draw the wrong lesson from the Corona crisis. There have been disruptions in supply chains due to the pandemic. But finally, it has been shown that with trade and cooperation we can get through the crisis better," Brodtmann emphasizes.
Retreating into its shell would be the wrong way to go for the EU
From VDMA's point of view, it is right to identify the EU's strategic weaknesses and to address one-sided dependencies in certain technologies or precursor products. But this is not enough. Rather, an overarching strategy must also promote the strengths of the European industry. "Retreating into its shell is the wrong way to preserve the European model of prosperity and to change towards sustainability. What we need right now is an expansion of trade relations and Europe being a competitive location for all companies," says Brodtmann and demands: "Instead of promoting individual industries, innovation-friendly framework conditions must be created that enable companies to be innovative, sustainable and globally competitive."
Export markets have contributed to the recovery
From the perspective of the mechanical engineering industry, global supply chains entail risks, but the opportunities outweigh them in order to make the industry more resilient. "Globally diversified supply chains in particular can compensate for single disruptions," says the VDMA Executive Director. "This applies not only to supplies to the EU, but also to exports. Export-oriented sectors like mechanical engineering have shown how important open markets are for economic recovery."
A strong EU internal market as the core of any industrial strategy
From VDMA's point of view, it is right that the industrial strategy puts the EU's internal market at its center and wants to strengthen it. And there is still a lot of homework to be done here: "For example, the EU wants to finally achieve a solution for the issue of posting of workers. This is good news for our companies!"