Sunday, August 25, 2024

Chronology of the Turin Shroud: Twenty-first century (3)

Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 to the present
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (3)
© Stephen E. Jones
[1]

This is part #33, "Twenty-first century" (3) of my "Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 - present" series. For more information about this series see the Index #1. This page was initially based on Ian Wilson's 1996, "Highlights of the Undisputed History: 2000's." Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.

Newcomers start <here>

[Index #1] [Previous: 21st century (2) #32] [Next: 21st century (4) #34]


21st century (3) (2020).

2020c 25 March. Death of Dee Donahue (1926-2020), the wife of Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory co-founder Douglas J. Donahue (1924-2000). Both Ian Wilson (1941-) and Harry Gove (1922-2009), wrongly assumed that when the very first Shroud radiocarbon dating run at Arizona laboratory returned a date of "1350"[23Jun18], Donahue's "face became instantly drawn and pale"[GH96, 264; WS00, 9], it was because he was a Christian. But as I pointed out in 06Nov20, Douglas and Dee's children in their parents' obituaries, wrote of their mother that: "Dee was a devout Catholic who volunteered with the Catholic Charities of Tucson and who would often slip into the Benedictine Sisters Monastery down the street from her Tucson home for afternoon prayers," but of their father they wrote not a word of his Catholicism or Christianity (see below). So evidently Donahue's face went pale because of his concern of the effect that a "1350" Shroud date would have on his devout Roman Catholic wife.

2020d 5 May. Publication of art historian Gary Vikan (1946-)'s book, "The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death."[SM20]. [Right]. The articles' words are bold to distinguish them from mine. See my 21Jun20 ... Gary Vikan has spent some 35 years tracking down evidence refuting the Shroud of Turin's authenticity ... Vikan — former director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum and a respected art historian ... argu[es] that the controversial burial cloth belonged not to Jesus, but to a medieval artist employed by French monarch John II [r. 1350-64] at the height of the Black Death [in France 1347-52]. Who was this unknown "medieval artist"? Vikan doesn't say here or in his book. He doesn't even have an index entry for him. Yet if the Shroud was a "brilliant hoax" by a 14th century "medieval artist," he would have been the greatest artist ever[DY02]. Yet the Shroud continues to be ignored by Vikan's discipline of Art History, even after it was radiocarbon dated to the 13th-14th century, when it should have been integrated into the mainstream History of Art at that period[DT12, 22]. I knew right away that the Holy Shroud was the fake, for the simple reason that it does not fit into the chronology of Christian relics or iconography, This is strange `logic'. It amounts to saying that, `the Shroud must be 14th century because it doesn't look like it is 14th century'! One of the evidences that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet is that the Shroudman's image has no artistic style of any period, because it is acheiropoietos ("not made with hands"), but made by God[03Aug24a]! and because it appears for the first time in the historical record in 14th century France," wrote Vikan in a blog post earlier this year. " This is false! [see 21Jun20] That the Shroud first appeared in the undisputed historical record at Lirey, France in c.1355, is not the same as, "The Shroud "appears for the first time in the historical record." As I wrote in my previous post [03Aug24b]:

After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft.1216), the Keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection, recalled that in 1201[11Nov17] the collection included "the sindon [which] wrapped the un-outlined (Gk. aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"[11Jun16]. "sindon," "un-outlined," "naked." This can only have been the Shroud, 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France[27Jul24]!
I didn't have Vikan's book when I wrote my post of 21Jun20, responding to this article, so tonight (27 August 2024) I checked how Vikan had explained this. On page 15 (the only index entry for "Mesarites") Vikan wrote:
In the summer of 1200, Nikolaos Mesarites, Keeper of the Palace Chapel in Constantinople, inventoried, along with a dazzling array of Passion relics, including the Crown of Thorns, a Holy Nail, and the Holy Lance, the "burial cloths of Christ ... of linen still smelling of perfume." Mesarites doesn't say that those sheets bore an image of Christ. But from the year 1204 ... (ellipses between "Christ" and "of" are Vikan's).
So Vikan just ignored what he didn't want to be there! Therefore his book is an excercise in self-deception (as we shall further see). [W]ith the help of a brilliant scientist, I am [now] able to answer the questions of when, why, by whom, and how the Shroud was made." The "brilliant scientist" was a Robert W. (Bob) Morton, a "mostly self-taught" chemist who appears to have held no academic position and may not even be formally qualified![24Jul20]. Morton and his qualified chemist daughter Rebecca Hoppe, both of whom evidently knew nothing about the Shroud, apart from a "television documentary," decided that the image on the Shroud had been made with iron gall ink[21Febr21], "a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources"[IGW] They evidently were ignorant of STURP's findings that the Shroud image was "Not painted" (including ink)[03Aug24c] and "Superficial[03Aug24d] (for starters). Morton sent Vikan this grotesque image of his own face

[Left (enlarge)] made by their iron gall ink method[21Feb21a]. So great was Vikan's need to disbelieve in the Shroud, that astonishingly for an art historian, he called Morton's wrap-around distorted face image, "shroudlike" and he "was convinced" by it"[21Feb21b]! However, in a 2007 seminar in Vikan's own museum, Morton said that, he "did not ... make any claim about whether those methods were used in the shroud housed in Turin, Italy"[24Jul20]!

2020e 27 May. Hoare, C., 2020, "`There WAS a body inside' Shroud of Turin oddity discovery exposed in Bible breakthrough," Daily Express .My words are bold to distinguish them from the articles' ... After years of discussion, the Holy See permitted radiocarbon-dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud to be independently tested at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Rob Walker spoke to Professor Michael Tite [1938-], who supervised the testing process, during the BBC's Witness History podcast. He said in 2018: "The Shroud is one of the most veered [revered] relics of the Catholic Church, a piece of linen cloth that appears to show the imprint of a man who has been crucified ... "But, in the late Seventies, the Catholic Church agreed to a test that it hoped would finally determine whether this could be the shroud of Christ. ... "Professor Michael Tite was, at the time, keeper of the British Museum Research Laboratory and he was given the job of coordinating the work of three labs chosen by the Church to do the radiocarbon dating." ... The experiments concluded with a 95 percent confidence that the Shroud's material dated between 1260–1390AD. As I have pointed out, most recently in 03Aug24 "that date cannot be correct because the Pray Codex (1192-95) alone (and it isn't alone), is clearly based on the Shroud." And as I pointed out above, the Shroud first appeared in the historical record in 1201, in the statement by Nicholas Mesarites that in that year the Byzantine Empire's relic collection in Constantinople included "the sindon [which] wrapped the un-outlined, naked dead body [of Christ]." This can only have been the Shroud, in Constantinople 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France! "But I did make a mistake at the press conference, there was a big blackboard behind me and I put 1260 - 1390 and an exclamation mark afterwards which caused me endless

[Right (enlarge): From left to right, Prof. E. Hall (Oxford), M. Tite (British Museum) and R. Hedges (Oxford) on 13 October 1988 in the British Museum, London, announcing with an exlamation mark, that the Shroud had been radiocarbon dated to "1260-1390!"[08Dec22]

trouble. ... "The significance of the exclamation mark was to tell the press that this is what you already knew, Tite is lying. First, the press did not already know before then that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was "1260-1390." Second, even if they did, it did not explain why Tite added an exclamation mark to a scientific result. Third, Tite gave a completely different explantion to another interviewer in 1990:

Chantel Dupont. Who put the exclamation mark after the date on the blackboard?
Dr. Tite. I can't remember who did that, the press, Hall or me ... It reflected the mood of the moment" (my emphasis)[DC90].
but all sorts of various things were read into the exclamation mark." These included: "derision"[PM96, 108; "triumphant"[GL98, 9; "a total lack of respect"[GM98, 67], "non-professional"[GV01, 133] and "jubilation"[GV01, 133]. ... "There's no real evidence it was painted on there, This is very significant, that Prof. Hall when collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample in Turin on 21 April 1988, accompanied by Tite, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass, and presumably shared it with Tite, they both could see that the Shroud image was not a painting[27Jul07 & 13Jul21], presumably because each image fibre could be seen, with no colouring matter covering it[08Nov22]! But then, as I pointed out in my previous post[03Aug24]:
The sceptics' case is based on the c. 1389 claim of Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) that the Shroud was "cunningly painted" by a confessed artist in the time of one of his predecessors, Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–1370)[03Jul18]. So, that the Shroud is not painted is alone (and it is not alone), a fatal blow to the entire forgery theory[27Jul24b]!
and the other oddity is if you look at paintings from the Middle Ages they always paint Christ with the nails going through the palms of the hands. "Whereas in reality, you have to put the nails through the wrist, Tite here shows he has some familiarity with Shroudie literature, as it seems unlikely he would have thought of this himself:
Traditional Christian art has depicted the crucifixion nails that the Gospels state were in Jesus' hands (Jn 20:19-20, 24-28; Lk 24:36-40) as being in His palms, including by some who have copied the Shroud. However, as Paul Vignon (1865-1943) had pointed out, and surgeon Pierre Barbet (1884–1961) proved experimentally on cadavers, that when a man's body is suspended on a cross by only a nail through the palm of each hand, the nails would tear through the fleshy vertical structures and the victim would fall off his cross. However Barbet also proved experimentally on other cadavers that a nail through the wrist (as on the Shroud) of each hand would support a suspended man's body without tearing through the bony wrists[13Apr16].
"I think a complete replication of the image has not been achieved." Likewise, for Tite to know this, he would have needed to have read widely in Shroudie literature! In Chapter 2 of my book in progress [20Jun24] I write:
No explanation Modern science has no viable explanation of how the Shroudman's image was formed and neither has modern science been able to replicate the Shroud. In 2022, film-maker David Rolfe (1951-) offered the British Museum (which was involved in the 1988 radiocarbon dating), US$1M to replicate the Shroud[17Apr22]. But neither the Museum nor other sceptics who claim to have replicated the Shroud, have taken up Rolfe's offer! In February 2024 Rolfe extended his US$1M challenge to the USA[09Feb24]! It obviously is highly unlikely that an unknown medieval artist could forge the Shroud and modern 21st century science cannot replicate it. But if the Shroud is acheiropoietos ("not made with hands") but made by God[03Aug24], then modern science may never be able to replicate it!
"I don't believe it was the Shroud, but I believe it is highly probable that there was a body in there – it was the time of the Crusades and an appropriate way to humiliate a Christian would be to crucify him." Whether Tite realised it or not, this was the theory of Roman Catholic historian, Dr Michael Straiton (c. 1932-). I only now realised that I had dealt with this in my "Shroud of Turin News," May 2020, and before that in my Shroud of Turin News, June 2017, so I won't comment further on it here. Except to point out that if Muslims, during the 1291 Siege of Acre, crucified a crusader in exact imitation of Jesus' crucifixion, such an atrocity would be recorded in history, but it isn't.

2020f 25 September. Death of Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory co-founder Douglas J. Donahue (1924-2000). As mentioned above in the death notice of his wife, Dee, while their children paid tribute to their mother's Christian faith, they say nothing at all about their father being a Christian. This confirms that Ian Wilson was wrong in assuming that Donahue was a Christian[WS00, 9]. That means all the leaders of the radiocarbon dating laboratories were non-Christians, and therefore anti-Christians (Mt 12:30)!

2020g 19 November. Death of Richard Luckett (1945-2020), former

[Left (enlarge): Richard Luckett who had been the Pepys Librarian at Cambridge University since 1982, when in August 1988 he leaked, on behalf of David Sox (1936-2016), who received it from Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy Linick (1946-89), Arizona's "1350" date of the Shroud to the London Evening Standard.]

Cambridge University librarian ... a post he held for 30 years until his retirement in 2012. That is ~1982-2012 ... Luckett ... was unmarried. On 3 July 1988, after Arizona laboratory had completed its dating, but Zurich's and Oxford's dating was ongoing, columnist Kenneth Rose (1924-2014), who "never married"[06Aug18a], in the London Sunday Telegraph reported on the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud that: "In spite of the intense secrecy surrounding the investigation I hear signs that the linen cloth has been proved to be mediaeval. The story was picked up by news media around the world"[24Jun14a; 30Dec15a; 15Aug17a; 06Aug18b & 03Aug19a]. Then on 26 August the London Evening Standard ran a front-page story, "Shroud of Turin Really is a Fake," with an accompanying article by Cambridge librarian Richard Luckett stating that "a probable date of about 1350 looks likely" and remarking that "laboratories are rather leaky institutions. This generated another world-wide media frenzy, yet none of the laboratories nor the British Museum knew Luckett or how he had obtained his information[24Jun14b; 30Dec15b; 15Aug17b; 06Aug18c & 03Aug19b]. On 23 September 1988, Ian Wilson publicly named "the Revd. David Sox" as "the ... source of possibly all the leaks" and "his `inside' information ... can only have come from Arizona or Zurich"[24Jun14c; 30Dec15c; 15Aug17c; 06Aug18d & 03Aug19d].

In May 2014 I was told by a Shroudie who knew Sox, that a possible connection between Luckett and Sox was "pillow-talk." That Luckett died "unmarried" (see above), Rose "never married" (see above and Sox was a homosexual (later confirmed 15Aug17d), supports my theory that the explanation of how Luckett knew the "1350" date of the very first dating run at Arizona laboratory was that Rose, Luckett and Sox were members of an informal network of homosexuals[24Jun14d; 05Mar15; 30Dec15d; 22Nov16]; 15Aug17e; 06Augu18 & 03Aug19]. And that Sox, who worked as a teacher at the American School in London from 1978 to 1995[22Feb16a], overlapped ~13 years from 1982 to 1995 with Anthony Linick (1938-), who worked there as a teacher from 1982 to 2002[22Feb16b]. Anthony was the half-brother [22Feb16c] of the alleged hacker, Arizona physicist Timothy W. Linick (1946-89)[22Feb16d]. According to My Hacker Theory, Anthony was told that "1350" date by Timothy, and Anthony passed it on to Sox, who told it to Luckett[15Aug17f].

2022a 17 April. "The $1m challenge: If the Turin Shroud is a forgery,

[Above (enlarge)[22May22a]: David Rolfe (1941-) holds up a negative image of the face on the Turin Shroud: "They said it was knocked up by a medieval conman, and I say: well, if he could do it, you must be able to do it as well."]

show how it was done," The Observer, Joanna Moorhead. Expert on revered relic calls on British Museum to back up the results of its disputed carbon dating tests ... So convinced is Rolfe that he's issuing a challenge worth $1m to the British Museum. "If ... they believe the shroud is a medieval forgery, I call on them to repeat the exercise, and create something similar today," he says. ... "They said it was knocked up by a medieval conman, and I say: well, if he could do it, you must be able to do it as well. And if you can, there's a $1m donation for your funds." ... The British Museum is less willing to get involved this time around. "Any current questions about the shroud would be best put to those who currently care for it in the royal chapel of the cathedral of Turin," a spokesperson said. What a cop out! It was the British Museum's Michael Tite who wrote the 1989 Nature article which claimed that the Shroud was dated "1260-1390"[MR90, 7]. As historian Mark Oxley (c. 1949-2021) asked, "Could a fourteenth century forger ... produce an artifact that can still not be replicated by ... twenty-first century science?":

"The Shroud presents many challenges. It challenges those who claim it is a mediaeval forgery to replicate it. Nobody has yet been able to do so with any credibility. This must be an argument in favour of its authenticity. Could a fourteenth century forger, with the limited scientific knowledge of his time, really produce an artifact that can still not be replicated by all the wonders of twenty-first century science?"[OM10, xii].
Evidently the answer is NO! See above that "neither the Museum nor other sceptics who claim to have replicated the Shroud, have taken up Rolfe's offer" so "In February 2024 Rolfe extended his US$1M challenge to the USA[09Feb24]"!

2022b "New technology suggests Shroud of Turin is 2,000 years old," Aleteia, 22 April 2022 ... The new X-ray analysis is said to be more accurate and less destructive than radiocarbon dating. ... Now, a new dating technology has placed the fabric within the time of Christ. WAXS The study was conducted by Dr. Liberato de Caro of Italy's Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council, in Bari. See "X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud's Linen Sample" by Liberato De Caro, et al., Heritage 2022, 5(2), 860-870; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5020047[04Apr22]. Dr. de Caro has employed a method known as "Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering," or WAXS, which measures the natural aging of flax cellulose and converts it to time since manufacture. The process has several key features that make it more desirable than radiocarbon dating, not least of which that it is completely non-destructive to the samples. Furthermore, the size of the sample required for WAXS is much smaller, requiring just a portion of cloth approximately 0.5mm x 1mm. In his report, published on the website of Italy's Department of Chemical Sciences and Materials Technologies, de Caro pointed out a few flaws with dating by Carbon-14 analysis. He noted that textile samples can easily become contaminated with substances that could skew its results. He wrote: "Molds and bacteria, colonizing textile fibers, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, adhering to them, in the empty spaces between the fibers that at a microscopic level represent about 50% of the volume, can be so difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase, which can distort the dating." Manchester textile technologist John Tyrer (1923-1992) pointed out that because of each flax fibre's "lumen" (i.e. hollow tubular stricture), it "would be impossible to remove ... by ... cleaning" a Shroud sample's contamination by younger carbon, especially from that caused by the 1532 fire:

"In 1532 the Shroud was being kept inside a silver casket stored in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambéry, 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. The Shroud is now known to contain all kinds of contaminants, including microscopical fungi and insect debris as well as pollens and dust of all kinds. Furthermore the carbon test sampling appears to have been taken from an area where the Shroud would be handled and held during displays by hands soiled with perspiration and grease. 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. It would seem likely, therefore, that the carbon 14 content of the Shroud will have been 'topped up' by the addition of contaminants that were in it in 1532 from organic substances that were much younger than the Shroud. For this reason the Shroud could easily be substantially older than the carbon dating suggests"[TJ88].
Archaeological scientist Sheridan Bowman (1950-), who was involved in Zurich laboratory's 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, and so was a signatory to the 1989 Nature article, cautioned that, "Many materials ... contain carbon that may be impossible to remove":
"It is important not to introduce any contamination when collecting and packing the sample. If flotation is used in the collection process, no hydrocarbons should be used. Hydrogen peroxide can, however, be used to break up soil samples. Many materials used for preserving or conserving samples contain carbon that may be impossible to remove subsequently: do not use glues, biocides, polyethylene glycol (PEG) or polyvinylacetate (PVA). Many ordinary packing materials, such as paper, cardboard, cotton wool and string, contain carbon and are potential contaminants. Cigarette ash is also taboo"[BS90, 55-56].
De Caro noted that fabric can even become enriched with new Carbon-14 samples. At this point, it would become hard to identify if carbon dating measured the original fabric, or a layer of carbon that was accumulated over time. WAXS Dating De Caro explained that the WAXS method was used on a variety of samples of historical textiles that have been documented to be aged from 3000 BC to 2000 AD. He

[Above (enlarge)[22May22b]: Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) curves. The green "2000 years" curve is from a linen sample recovered from the Jewish fortress Masada which was conquered by the Romans in AD 74 and thereafter occupied only between the 5th and 7th centuries by the Byzantine monastery of Marda. The orange curve is from a Shroud sample. As can be seen, the Shroud sample's WAXS curve very closely matches that of the 1st century Masada sample!]

placed the Shroud of Turin against these samples and found that it best matched a piece of fabric known to have come from the siege of Masada, Israel, in 55-74 AD.

If accurate, the findings would suggest that the shroud originated around the time of Christ, and this could mean it was indeed Jesus' burial cloth. Still, de Caro has advised caution, as the new date

This agrees with four other scientific tests of the Shroud's age[22May22c]:
Vanillin content: "between 1300- and 3000-years old" - a range of ~146BC ± 850 years.
FT-IR: "300 BC ±400 years", i.e. 700 BC - AD 100.
Raman spectroscopy: "200 BC ± 500 years"[i.e. 700 BC - AD 300.
Mechanical: "AD 400 ± 400 years", i.e. AD 1 - 800.

This is summarised in the following table (vanillin rounded to nearest 50):

TestMax/MinRange
Vanillin150 BC ±8501000 BC-AD 700
FT-IR300 BC ±400700 BC-AD 100
Raman200 BC ± 500700 BC-AD 300
Mechanical400 AD ± 400AD 1 - AD 800

So all four tests yield a date range in which Jesus' death in AD 30 falls!

contrasts the Carbon-14 dating by such a large margin. Dr. de Caro suggested that the WAXS analysis should be performed by other laboratories in order to confirm the findings. In an interview with National Catholic Register, he said: "The technique of dating linen by X-ray is non-destructive. Therefore, it can be repeated several times on the same sample ... it would be more than desirable to have a collection of X-ray measurements carried out by several laboratories, on several samples, at most millimetric in size, taken from the Shroud." ... Read de Caro's full report on his WAXS analysis of the Shroud of Turin, here. https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/2/47.

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
BS90. Bowman, S., 1990, "Radiocarbon Dating," Interpreting the Past, University of California Press: Berkeley CA.
DC90. Dupont, C., 1990, "An interview with Dr. Mike Tite," BSTS Newsletter, No, 25, April/May, 2-3.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London.
DY02. Delage, Y., 1902, "Letter to M. Charles Richet," Review scientifique, 31 May, in O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., 1985, "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin, 76-77.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
GL98. Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London.
GM98. Guscin, M., 1998, "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK.
GV01. Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL.
IGW. "Iron gall ink," Wikipedia, 31 May 2024.
MR90. 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, 3-9.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
PM96. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta.
SM20. Solly, M., 2020, "Shakespearean Stabbings, How to Feed a Dictator and Other New Books to Read," Smithsonian Magazine, 5 May.
TJ88. Tyrer, J., 1988, "So how could the carbon dating be wrong?," BSTS Newsletter, No. 20, October, 10-12.
WS00. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London.

Posted 25 August 2024. Updated 28 October 2024.

Saturday, August 3, 2024

The Turin Shroud in a nutshell (newcomers start here)

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

Newcomers start here

This is my, "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell." I was having coffee with a Christian friend a few days ago (29 July 2024) and he asked me to text him a link to my blog, which I did. But then I realised that it must be difficult for newcomers to the Shroud to start with one of my current blog posts. So I resolved to post a single page introduction to the Shroud to which I will include a link at the top of each of my future posts with the text, "Newcomers start here." Each topic will have a link to one of my posts on that topic.

[Right (enlarge): Full-length negative image of the Shroud (Wikipedia)[STW]. The triangular shapes paralleling the man's image are burns and repairs from a 1532 fire. Could an unknown medieval forger really have created this?]

What is the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin (hereafter "the Shroud") is a sheet of fine linen, bearing the double image of a naked man, front and back, head to head[12Feb20]. The man has wounds and bloodstains consistent with the Gospels' accounts of the suffering, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ[08Sep20]. Since 1578, except for brief periods in times of war, the Shroud has been kept in, or around, Turin Cathedral[05Jul20]. The Shroud first appeared in undisputed history in c. 1355, at an exposition in the tiny village of Lirey, France[13Apr18]. However, there is historical and artistic evidence that the Shroud was in Constantinople in 1201[11Nov17] and 944[13May17], Edessa in 544[07Dec16], and Jerusalem in 30[19Jun24]! In 1988 the Shroud was radiocarbon dated "1260-1390"[08Dec22], but that date cannot be correct because the Pray Codex (1192-95) alone (and it isn't alone), is clearly based on the Shroud[20Dec18a]. That radiocarbon date is an outlier, because the rest of the evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet![08Jul15]! The "Central Dilemma of the Shroud" is that the Shroud either is a forgery, or it is Jesus' burial sheet: there is no realistic third alternative[04Apr22]. This has been admitted by leading Shroud sceptics, Herbert Thurston (1856-1939), Steven Schafersman (1948-) and Joe Nickell (1944-)[22Jan15]. Therefore, evidence against the Shroud being a forgery is evidence for it being Jesus’ burial sheet[20Jun24a]!

A linen cloth The Shroud is a large rectangular sheet of fine linen[31Oct12]. The Greek word translated "shroud" in the Gospels (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53) is sindon, a fine linen cloth[20Jun24b]. The Shroud's weave is three-to-one herringbone twill, which was expensive and rare[20Jun24c]. So it is consistent with the "linen shroud" bought by the "rich man" Joseph of Arimathea in which to bury Jesus (Mt 27:57-60; Mk 15:42-46)[04Mar20]. The Shroud's dimensions are ~442 cms = ~14 ft 6 in. long by ~113.35 cms = ~3 ft 8 in. wide[10Jul15]. These don't equate to any medieval unit of measurement, but they are close to 8 x 2 Assyrian standard cubits of between 21.4 and 21.6 inches, which was the common unit of measurement in Jesus' day[04Feb15]!

[Left (enlarge): Shroud photograph with an 8 x 2 grid overlay showing that the Shroud divides evenly into 16 squares, each 442/8 = 55.25 cm = ~21.7 in. long by 113.35/2 = 56.7 cm = ~22.3 in. wide. These units are too close to the Assyrian Standard Cubit of Jesus' day to be a coincidence[20Jun24d].]

The man on the Shroud is bearded and muscular[22Nov12] and about 1.81 m (5 ft 11 in.) tall[WI98, 25-26]. His is a real human body[05Feb17a]. As previously mentioned, the Shroudman's image is double: front and back and head-to-head. A 1620 painting by G.B. della Rovere (1560-1627) shows how this was done[13Jan16]. The man is entirely naked, both front and back[27Dec15]. This was an integral part of Roman crucifixion, to humiliate its victims[CXW]. But no medieval artist depicted Jesus realistically naked, nor entirely naked from the back[13Apr16]. A medieval forger of the Shroud who did that would likely have been burned at the stake for blasphemy[10Jul24]!

Faint The man's mage is so faint that it cannot be seen up close[08Mar16]. This is not apparent to those who have only seen photographs of the Shroud (like me), because photographs enhance the image[10Jul24].

[Right (enlarge): Frontal image of the Shroud after the 2002 restoration[SU14], showing how faint the man's image is (and photographs enhance the image)!]. So a forger could not see up close what he was depicting[08Mar16]!

Colour The colour of the man's image is a uniform straw-yellow[23Mar16]. The colour is caused by dehydrative oxidation and conjugation[19May16] of the Shroud's cellulose fibres[27Jul24]. It is an areal density image where the shades of dark depend on the number of straw-yellow image fibres per unit area[23Mar16]. Photographs in 19th century black-and-white newspapers were areal density images, comprised of the number of black dots per square inch[10Jul24]. Even if he invented the areal density image ~5 centuries before it first appeared, why would a medieval forger have depicted the man on the Shroud by such a time-consuming method?

Hands As can be seen above, the man's hands are crossed awkwardly at his wrists and cover his genitals. They had been in a hanging-on-a-cross position above and behind his head[05Jun22] and were fixed in that position at death, by rigor mortis[09Sep23]. The rigor of his arms had been broken at his shoulders and forced down to fit inside the Shroud's boundaries[23Jan23]. Would a medieval forger have known this, considering that crucifixion had been banned in Europe by Roman Emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337) in 314[04Oct16]? Depictions of Jesus in eleventh and twelfth century art (long before the earliest, 1260, radiocarbon date of the Shroud and the Shroud's first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in c. 1355), with his "hands ... crossed consistently, the right over the left [as they appear looking at the Shroud] with an awkward crossing point at the wrists, all forcefully reminiscent of the Shroud"[WI79, 266-267], include: the Pray Codex (1192-95)[11Jan10].

[Left (enlarge[27Dec15]): "Entombment" (upper), folio 28 in the Pray Codex. Jesus is depicted nude with his arms right over left, crossing awkwardly near his wrists, and his hands are covering his genitals, identical to the Shroud. Also Jesus' fingers are unnaturally long and his thumbs are not visible, as on the Shroud (see below)!].

Other pre-1355 depictions of Jesus, naked, with his arms crossing near his wrists, as on the Shoud, are at: 13Apr16, 14Jan18, 21Aug18,

[Right (enlarge)[09Sep20]: The Shroudman's hands, with his arms crossed awkwardly, right over left (apparently), and his hands covering his genitals. Note that the man's fingers are unnaturally long because we are seing his hand bones under his skin, as in an x-ray[20Apr17a]! Also, his thumbs are not visible[11Jan22] because the nail in each wrist (not his palm) damaged its median nerve. When French surgeon Dr Pierre Barbet (1884–1961) discovered this, he asked, "Could a forger have imagined this?" and the answer clearly is no[16Nov21]!]

29Nov18 and 20Dec18b. This is further proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Shroud existed long before the earliest, 1260, radiocarbon date of the Shroud and the Shroud's first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in c. 1355!

Feet The man's feet had been fixed to his cross by a single nail[02Dec18]. The patibulum, or crossbeam, bearing his nailed hands and body had presumably been hoisted up on the upright fixed stipes and attached to it[05Jun22]. His dangling feet were then nailed, left over right, by a single large Roman nail hammered through them to the stipes[BP53, 113-114, 124-128]. Barbet found the square cross-section mark of a Roman nail in the man's right foot [Left (enlarge[11Jan22]) Why would a medieval forger have depicted that, when it was only discovered in the mid-20th century[10Jul24]?

Wounds and bloodstains These match the Gospels' description of the sufferings, crucifixion, and death of Jesus (see above)[02Jan24]. Non-traditional features include: nails in the wrists not the palms[13Apr16], an Eastern cap of thorns rather than a Western wreath[13Apr16], and the nail wounds are incomplete: in his hands[23Jan23] and his feet[10Jul24]. A medieval forger would have conformed to prevailing tradition and clearly depicted each of the "Five Wounds of Christ," so that his forgery would be accepted by his contemporaries[13Apr16].

Anatomically accurate The man on the Shroud is anatomically and physiologically accurate[17Feb13]. Yet neither doctors nor artists of the fourteenth century knew enough about the human body to represent it so[22Dec16]. This is what convinced the agnostic anatomy professor at the Sorbonne, Yves Delage (1854-1920), that the man on the Shroud was Jesus[25Jun08]!]

The man's image Not painted [11Jul16]. It has been known since at least the 1930s that the Shroudman's image is not painted. By examining the Shroud with a magnifying glass during the 1931 exposition, English Roman Catholic prelate Arthur Barnes (1861-1936), could see individual threads in the image area with no colouring matter covering them[08Nov22]. Sceptics now admit that the man's image was not painted. Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001), then Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, when in 1988 collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass and satisfied himself that the image was not painted[27Jul07]. Leading sceptic Joe Nickell (1944-) has admitted that, "...convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking"[11Jul16]. The Shroud of Turin Project (STURP) confirmed in 1978 that no paint, pigment, or dye constitutes the man's image[26Oct14]. Yet, as leading Shroud sceptic Walter McCrone (1916-2002) pointed out, a medieval forger would have simply painted the Shroud[03Mar23]. The sceptics' case is based on the c. 1389 claim of Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) that the Shroud was "cunningly painted" by a confessed artist in the time of one of his predecessors, Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–1370)[03Jul18]. So, that the Shroud is not painted is alone (and it is not alone), a fatal blow to the entire forgery theory[27Jul24]! And if the Shroud is not a forgery, then it is the burial sheet of Jesus! See the "Central Dilemma of the Shroud" above.

Negative The Shroudman's image is a photographic negative[22Dec16]! In the evening of 28 May 1898 during the Shroud's 1898 Exposition, amateur, but experienced Turin photographer, Secondo Pia (1855-1941), was at home in his darkroom developing a

[Above (enlarge): The negative of Secondo Pia's photograph of the Shroud taken on 28 May 1898, including the altar in Turin Cathedral where it was displayed. As can be seen, the Shroud image on Pia's negative is photographically positive, while everything else is negative, which proves that the Shroudman's image is a photographic negative (a negative of a negative is a positive[22Dec16]) [07May16]!]

photograph of the Shroud that he had taken that day, after several failed attempts that week[05Jun21]. Pia was astonished to see emerging on the large glass photographic plate in his developer tank, a life-like image of the man on the Shroud[22Dec16]! A medieval forger could not have conceived of the Shroudman's image being a photographic negative, because photographic negativity was not discovered until the early nineteenth century[22Dec16]. A medieval forger could not have depicted in negative the fine detail that is in the Shroudman's image (including the more than 100 scourge marks, each with a raised edge and serum halo, some of which are only visible under a microscope in ultraviolet light[15Jul13])[22Dec16]. A medieval forger creating a photographic negative Shroud image, centuries before the age of photography, would have had no means of checking his work[22Dec16]. Modern artists who have tried to depict the Shroud with its negative image have all failed, even though they had a copy of the Shroud's negative photograph before them[22Dec16]. Even if a medieval forger could have created the Shroudman's image as a photographic negative, he would not have wanted to, as neither he nor his contemporaries, would have been able to appreciate his work until the invention of photography ~500 years in the future[22Dec16].

Three dimensional The man on the Shroud's frontal image is three-

[Right (enlarge): "The Shroud [frontal] image's three-dimensional characteristics, as revealed by the VP-8 Image Analyzer in February 1976. Here the face and body appear in sculpted relief, framed by the two lines of scorches from the chapel fire of 1532"[05Feb17b].

dimensional[05Feb17c]! How could a medieval forger encode the Shroud man's image with three-dimensional information[27Jul24]? And in negative[27Jul24] (see above)! When true perspective, the correct representation of a three-dimensional object on a two dimensional surface, was discovered in 1415[27Jul24]. But the Shroudman's image is not an artistic representation of three-dimensionality: it actually is three-dimensional[27Jul24]! A medieval forger would have to encode three dimensional information into the Shroud image by adjusting the intensity levels of his work to everywhere correspond to actual cloth-body distance[27Jul24]! All attempts to replicate the Shroud's three-dimensional image fail the VP-8 Image Analyzer test[27Jul24]. Why would a medieval forger have encoded three-dimensional information into his Shroud image, if he could, when it was only discovered to be three-dimensional, more than six centuries later[27Jul24]?

Superficial The Shroudman's image is extremely superficial[11Nov16],

[Left (enlarge): STURP's 1978 transmitted light photograph of the front half of the Shroud, in which the light source is behind the suspended cloth so only the light transmitted through it is seen. The scorches and waterstains from the 1532 fire, and the bloodstains, have penetrated the thickness of the cloth and so can be clearly seen. But the body image has almost completely disappeared, demonstrating that the image of the man on the Shroud is superficial, only one fibre deep[11Nov16].]

residing only on the outermost crowns of the Shroud’s fibres[27Jul24]. It is "extremely thin, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter, corresponding to the thickness of the primary cell wall of a single linen fiber"[27Jul24]. This means the man's image did not penetrate down through the cloth, as a liquid or powdered colouring matter would have[11Jul16]. Even though the thickness of the cloth is about one third of a millimetre, slightly thicker than shirt cloth[08Sep14]. How could a medieval forger depict the Shroud man's image, with medieval materials and technology, lying only on the very topmost fibers, leaving the underneath fibers unchanged[27Jul24]? With no cementation of the body image fibrils to one another and no penetration of the colour below the top surface fibrils on the crowns of the weave[27Jul24]?

Non-directional [29Oct16]. STURP's Don Lynn (1932-2000) and Jean

[Right (enlarge)[29Oct16]: Lynn and Lorre's computer screen: the white cross in the centre of the screen represents the warp and weft of the weave[29Oct16].]

Lorre (1945-2005) (a man), discovered in 1978 that the man's image was non-directional[29Oct16]. They used a microdensitometer to scan black and white photos of the Shroud, and when that information was digitised, fed into a computer and then progressively removed at each level of shade intensity, the pixels disappeared (and therefore had appeared) randomly[29Oct16]. This showed there is no evidence of a directional pattern of the image, and therefore no evidence for brush marks as there would be if the Shroud was a painting (or any human application of colouring matter)[29Oct16]. Only if the Shroudman's image appeared all at once, like a photograph, could it be non-directional[05Sep16a]!

No outline The Shroudman's image has no outline[11Jun16]. Which it would have if it was painted[11Jun16]. Sceptic Joe Nickell confirmed that "it would be foolhardy to proceed" with painting "two images of a man upon a fourteen-foot length of linen" without an outline, but "no evidence has been discovered" that there was one:

"However, there are other considerations arguing against the freehand-painting hypothesis, one of which is the fact that medieval tempera paintings were consistently preceded by a preliminary drawing (often fixed with ink). Indeed, without some method of accurately proportioning the anatomy of two images of a man upon a fourteen-foot length of linen, it would be foolhardy to proceed. But no evidence has been discovered on the shroud fibrils to indicate any preliminary drawing was made ..."[NJ87, 98-99].
After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft.1216), the Keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection, recalled that in 1201[11Nov17] the collection included "the sindon [which] wrapped the un-outlined (Gk. aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"[11Jun16]. "sindon," "un-outlined," "naked." This can only have been the Shroud, 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France[27Jul24]!

No style The man's image has no artistic stylel[05Sep16b]. Yet every artist has a distinctive style[05Sep16c]. The Shroudman's image does not fit the artistic sytle of the fourteenth[05Sep16d] or any, century[05Sep16e]. The man's image is impersonal[05Sep16f], automatic[05Sep16g], like a photograph[05Sep16h]. The Shroud is not therefore a work of human art[05Sep16i]! From at least the sixth century, the Shroud, as the Image of Edessa, "doubled in four" (tetradiplon), has been recognised as being acheiropoietos ("not made with hands")[07Dec16],

[Left (enlarge): Tetradiplon and the Shroud of Turin illustrated[15Sep12]

but made by God (Mk 14:58; 2 Cor 5:1; Col 2:11).

X-rays The frontal image of the man on the Shroud includes under-the-skin x-ray images of his skull, cheekbones, teeth, finger bones, hand bones, thigh bone and the dorsal image his spine[20Apr17a]. Sceptics had claimed that the Shroud was a

[Right (enlarge): Extract of a 2002 Shroud positive photograph by professional photo-grapher, Gian Carlo Durante, showing xray images of the Shroud man's under-the-skin hand bones[10Dec15].]

medieval forgery because the man's "hands and fingers [were] unnaturally long and spidery"[20Apr17b]. But the claimed bug was a feature! After considering naturalistic alternatives, Prof. Giles F. Carter (1930-2010), a specialist in x-ray fluorescence analysis, concluded that the "the Shroud of Turin is in reality the Shroud of Jesus Christ" and the energy released by His resurrection "was partly in the form of x-rays, which then reacted with the linen"[20Apr17b]!

The man's blood Real human blood The blood of the man on the Shroud is real human blood[03Jun17a]. Real blood At STURP's final public meeting in October 1981, blood chemist Alan Adler (1931-2000) presented a table of 12 tests for blood, which STURP's Shroud samples had passed[03Jun17b]. Human blood In 1983 Pierluigi Baima-Bollone (1937-), Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Turin, by means of fluorescent antigen-antibody reactions, confirmed that the Shroud blood is human blood[03Jun17c]. Then in 1984 Baima-Bollone and Agostino Gaglio reported that they had confirmed the identification of the blood group AB in Shroud bloodstains[03Jun17d] Clotted blood The Shroud's bloodstains are clotted blood[03Jun17e], each with a raised border and a blood serum retraction halo[03Jun17f]. Many of the latter are only visible under

[Above (enlarge): Clotted blood in white and uv light[13Jul21]. As can be seen, the above blood clot's serum retraction halo is barely visible in white light, but clearly visible in ultraviolet light. A medieval forger would not know that, yet he would have to have depicted in negative (see above) the serum retraction halos of more than 100 tiny scourge wounds evident on the Shround[27Dec21], for starters!].

ultraviolet light[13Jul21], which was discovered in 1801[17Feb13]!

Distinction between arterial and venous bloodflows is evident in some bloodstains on the man's

[Left (enlarge): The distinction on the Shroudman's forehead between venous blood in the reversed `3' or epsilon bloodstain, which is from the frontal vein "V", and arterial blood which is from the frontal branch of the superficial temple artery "Al" on the forehead[03Jun17g].]

forehead[03Jun17h]. Venous blood appears darker and thicker because it flows more slowly than arterial blood: the large reversed `3' or epsilon-shaped blood clot on the man's forehead is an example of a large venous blood flow[03Jun17i].The distinction between arterial and venous blood was not discovered until 1593 by Andrea Cesalpino (c. 1524-1603)[03Jun17j], more than 230 years after the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France in c.1355!

Blood clots intact The bloodstains on the Shroud are comprised of intact, unbroken, unsmeared, clots[04Sep17a]. If a bandage is removed

[Right (enlarge [04Sep17b]): The `reversed 3' bloodstain on the forehead of the man on the Shroud. As can be seen, the upper majority of this clot is intact, while part of its lower minority has flaked off over a foldline.]

from a former bloody wound, part of the dried clotted blood will stick to the bandage and part of it will remain stuck to the skin of the wound[04Sep17c]. This means the Shroud separated from the man's body in a special way, without it being unwrapped, or by any other human agency[04Sep17b]. As would have happened in Jesus' resurrection (see "Resurrection" below).

No image under the blood There is no image under the bloodstains on the Shroud, therefore the blood was on the cloth before the image[05Nov17a]. There are no yellowed image fibres under blood stained fibres on the Shroud[05Nov17b]. When bloodstained image fibres were treated with enzymes which digest blood, after the blood had been dissolved by the enzymes, the underlying fibers were white like non-image fibres[05Nov17c]. This meant that blood on the Shroud's linen had protected it from the image-forming process[05Nov17d]. That there was no underlying image on fibrils from bloodstained image areas means that the blood was on the cloth before the image[05Nov17e]. This is the correct order if the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet but is effectively impossible for a forger[05Nov17f]. A forger would have had to paint the wound areas with real human blood [see above] with no image on the cloth to guide him[05Nov17g]. All attempts to replicate the Shroud, add the `blood' after they had depicted the image on the cloth[05Nov17h].

Resurrection! The Shroudman and Jesus were resurrected[08Nov23a]!

[Left (enlarge)[08Nov23b]: A painting by English artist Thomas Frank Heaphy (1813-73) in the 1850s, of a fresco in the ceiling of the earliest section of the Catacomb of Domitilla, Rome, dated to the time of Nero (r. 54–68). A Shroud-like Jesus is uniquely depicted in profile, naked with a white cloth over his shoulder. Presumably Jesus sitting up at His resurrection with the Shroud still partly covering Him! If so, this is the earliest, mid-first century, depiction of the Shroud[08Nov23c]!

Jesus was resurrected[08Nov23d] • Jesus predicted his death and resurrection (Mt 16:21; 17:9, 22-23; 20:18-19). • Jesus died on a cross (see 23Jan23a). • Jesus' body was not in his tomb because he had "risen" (Mt 28:6; Mk 16:6; Lk 24:6). • Jesus had "risen from the dead" (Mt 28:7; 2Tim 2:8). • Jesus was "raised from the dead" (1Cor 15:3-4, 12, 20). • God raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30,34,37). • Jesus was resurrected (Acts 2:31; 4:33; 1Pet 3:21). • Jesus was resurrected from the dead (Acts 4:2; Rom 1:4; 1Pet 1:3). • Jesus' body did not experience corruption because he was resurrected (Acts 2:27, 31; 13:34-37; Ps 16:10). • At his resurrection, Jesus' body did, as his followers' bodies will, change state from "perishable" to "imperishable," from "mortal" to immortal (1Cor 15:51-53), from "lowly" to "glorious" (Php 3:21). • Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection: Mary Magdalene (Mk 16:9-11; Jn 20:11-18). The two other women who had been to the tomb (Mt 28:1,8-19). The apostle Peter (Lk 24:34; 1Cor 15:5). Two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Mk 16:12-13; Lk 24:13-32). The apostles, except for Thomas (Lk 24:36-49; Jn 20:19-25). The apostles including Thomas (Jn 20:26-29; 1Cor 15:5). Seven disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (Jn 21:1-23). The apostles on a mountain in Galilee (Mt 28:16-20). To over 500 disciples (1Cor 15:6). His brother James (1Cor 15:7). Jesus' disciples at his ascension (Mk 16:19-20; Lk 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-12). • Jesus' resurrection body was "mechanically transparent"[18Jan12]: after his resurrection, on two separate occasions, Jesus suddenly appeared to his disciples inside a locked room (Jn 20:19, 26).

The Shroudman was resurrected[08Nov23d]• The Shroudman died on a cross[23Jan23b). • There is no evidence of bodily decomposition on the Shroud[14Mar17]. • The bloodstains are intact, unbroken and unsmeared, indicating the body separated from the cloth without being unwrapped[see above]. • The Shroudman's fingers, handbones, and teeth are visible under his skin due to x-rays generated by his resurrection[see above]. • A dead body would not leave such an image on the Shroud[08Nov23e].

This is the end of my, "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell." For further reading see my, "The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!"; "Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 to the present"; and "The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking."

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
BP53. Barbet, P., 1953, "A Doctor at Calvary," [1950], Earl of Wicklow, transl., Image Books: Garden City NY, Reprinted, 1963.
CXW. "Crucifixion: Ancient Rome," Wikipedia, 30 July 2024.
DY02. Delage, Y., 1902, "Letter to M. Charles Richet," in Review scientifique, 31 May, in O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., 1985, "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin.
NJ87. Nickell, J., 1987, "Inquest on the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, Revised, Reprinted, 2000.
STW. "Shroud of Turin," Wikipedia, 31 July 2024.
SU14. "Image of Full 2002 Restored Shroud," High Resolution Imagery, Shroud University, 2014.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.

Posted 3 August 2024. Updated 14 September 2024.