My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (2): Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (2) #37

This is the tenth installment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (2)," part #37 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. It will help me write chapter 16, "Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See Part 1.

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (1) #36] [Next: To be advised].

[Right (enlarge): The Pray Codex (1192-95 )[07Mar14]: The Entombment of Christ (upper) and Three Marys [sic Mk 16:1-6] at the tomb (lower). The images are claimed as one of the evidences against the radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin (Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[16Dec24]! See "Pray Codex" below.]

For more information about this 5-part series, see Part 1. In particular, to keep these posts as brief as possible, references will be links to my previous posts on that topic. This is Part 2, "Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date." The evidence will be under two main headings: "Historical evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260" and "Artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260." I will post items of evidence as I rediscover them, but the order of appearance within those main headings will be from what I consider to be more significant to less significant, and that will change as go along.

■ Part 2, Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date

• The Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, Prof. Christopher Bronk Ramsey, who as "C.R. Bronk" was a signatory to the 1989 Nature paper, and was involved in the dating, has admitted:

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow ..." (My emphasis)[18Feb14; 07Mar14].

• Ian Wilson rightly pointed out that if the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud is correct, there should be no evidence for the Shroud before 1260:

"Looking back in time from 1204, we are in a period in which, if the radiocarbon dating is to be believed, there should be no evidence of our Shroud. The year 1260 was the earliest possible date for the Shroud's existence by radiocarbon dating's calculations"[21Jun17].

■ Historical evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260

• Nicholas Mesarites After the 1204 sack of Constantinople, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft. 1216), former keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection in Constantinople's Pharos Chapel, recalled that in 1201, in that chapel, was:

"The burial sindon of Christ ... is of linen ... defying decay, because it wrapped the mysterious, naked, dead body after the Passion"[29Mar14; 27Dec15; 21Jun17; 04Oct18; 24May20].

The Greek word translated "mysterious" is aperilepton which literally means "un-outlined"[29Mar14; 27Dec15; 11Jun16; 11Nov17]. And the Shroudman's image uniquely has no outline[29Mar14; 1Jun16]. So, the three descriptors: "sindon," "un-outlined" and "naked," uniquely identify this Byzantine relic as the Shroud[29Mar14], in Constantinple ~59 years before its earliest "1260" radiocarbon date and ~154 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[11Jun16]!

• Robert de Clari French knight Robert de Clari (1170-1216), who was in Constantinople with the Fourth Crusade, later described what he saw in Constantinople in 1203:

"And among the rest, there was another of the churches which they called My Lady Saint Mary of Blachernae, where was kept the sydoine in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which stood up straight every Friday so that the features of Our Lord could be plainly seen there. And no one, either Greek or French, ever knew what became of this sydoine after the city was taken." (italics original)[DR96, 112; 29Mar14].

The word sydoines is Old French for the Greek word sindon, a linen sheet[29Mar14], used in the Gospels for Jesus' burial shroud (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53). The word figure is Old French for "bodily form"[29Mar14]. de Clari said it was the sindon "in which Our Lord had been wrapped" and on which "the features of Our Lord could be plainly seen." This can only be the Shroud, publicly exhibited in Constantinople in 1203, ~57 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Pope Stephen III's sermon. Vatican Library codex 5696, folio 35 is an early twelfth century Latin update of an original Greek Easter Friday sermon by Pope Stephen III (r. 768-772), delivered in 769. Stephen's original 8th century sermon in Greek quoted Jesus' supposed letter in response to Edessa's King Abgar V (r. 4 BC-7 AD & 13-50 AD)'s request for healing:

"Since you wish to look upon my physical face, I am sending you a likeness of my face on a cloth ..."[23Sep17]

The twelfth-century Latin version contains an interpolation (in italics):

"Since you wish to look upon my physical face, I am sending you a likeness of not only of my face but of my whole body divinely transformed on a cloth ..."[23Sep17]

Clearly the twelfth century Vatican copyist knew that the Edessa cloth then in Constantinople had an image not only of Jesus' face, but of His entire body, and he updated Pope Stephen's 769 sermon according to the new information he had[29Mar14; 11May14; 21Jun17; 23Sep17].

That the Edessa Cloth/Image of Edessa had arrived in Constantinople from Edessa in 944[944]. (see "944b), after which the face-only Image of Edessa was discovered in Constantinople to include Jesus' "whole body," is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud, "doubled-in-four" (tetradiplon)[18May14; 18Mar18], with the face of Jesus uppermost in landscape aspect[15Sep12; 20Jan17]!] (see future "Surrender of the Mandylion to the Byzantines"). Which means that the Shroud was in Constantinople, ~316 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Gregory Referendarius's sermon. On 16 August 944, the day after the Image of Edessa arrived in Constantinople (see "944b"), Gregory Referendarius, the Archdeacon of Constantinople's Hagia Sophia cathedral, preached a sermon in which he said that the Edessa Cloth bore not only "sweat from the face of the ruler of life, falling like drops of blood" but also "drops from his own side ... [of] blood and water"[13May17]. By "the sweat from the face of [Christ] ... falling like drops of blood" Gregory referred to Lk 22:44 where Jesus' "sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground," in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36; Mk 14:32)[13May17]. But the "drops from his own side ... [of] blood and water" refers to Jn 19:33-34, which was after Jesus' death on the cross[13May17]. Clearly the face-only Image of Edessa does not show the blood and fluid stained spear wound in Jesus' side that is on the Shroud[13May17]. But Gregory could not have made that reference unless he had been aware of the wound in the side of the Image of Edessa and of bloodstains in the area of that wound[13May17]. And hence Gregory knew that the Edessa Cloth was full-length rather than merely a face-cloth[13May17]. And to know that, Gregory must have seen that under the Image of Edessa face was the full-length, bloodstained, body image of Jesus on the Shroud[13May17]! This is yet more evidence that the Shroud was in Constantiople in 944, more than three centuries before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Tetradiplon Both the seventh century Acts of Thaddeus and Constantinople's 946 Monthly Lection describe the Image of Edessa as "tetradiplon"[04Oct18; 09Sep23; 15Sep24]. Tetradiplon is a Greek

[Above (enlarge: Tetradiplon and the Shroud of Turin illustrated: The full-length Shroud of Turin (1); is doubled three times (2) through (4) keeping the man's face uppermost); resulting in the man's face within a rectangle, in landscape aspect (4); and the Shroud having been "four-doubled" in side view (5). Exactly as depicted in early copies of the Image of Edessa, such as in the 11th century Sakli church, Turkey (6)]. The above is a major update! See 15Sep12].

compound word of two common Greek words, tetra ("four") and diplon ("doubled"), hence "four-doubled"[15Sep12; 04Oct18; 09Sep23]. Yet in all of known ancient Greek literature, tetradiplon occurs only twice, and both times in connection with the Image of Edessa (see above)[15Sep12; 04Oct18].

In 1966 Ian Wilson read in the Acts of Thaddeus, which is an update of the Abgar V story[08Jan19], where Jesus imprinted his face image on a towel[08Jan19]. The Greek word translated "towel" is tetradiplon ("doubled in four"), and the towel was "linen" (sindon)! So Wilson took a full-length photograph of the Shroud and folded it in half three times with the man's face uppermost, which left the man's face "disembodied, on a landscape-aspect cloth, exactly as it appears on the pre-1204 Edessa cloth copies ..." And looking at it from the side, as it was evidently possible to do with the Edessa Cloth, fastened to a board, it is indeed four doublings[20Jan17] (I did this myself as readers can do for themselves). This is experimental proof that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud `four-doubled'! If the Image of Edessa was a small cloth, why would anyone bother to four-double it, let alone record that they had done it?

Finally, STURP's 1978 raking light photograph of the Shroud revealed major foldlines at one-eighth intervals showing that the Shroud had been folded in eight for much of its history[15Sep12; 08Dec22], including foldlines of the man's face one-eighth matching the Image of Edessa, yet the Shroud has not been folded in eight since 1355[RTB]!

The above is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud folded in eight, with the man's face one-eighth in landscape aspect, exactly as in early copies of the Image of Edessa. But the Image of Edessa was in Edessa since at least 544 (see "544"), which is 716 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date[21Aug18; 04Oct18; 29Nov18; 18Dec18; 14Oct20; 29Dec20; 15Sep24]!

And that's before we have considered the artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260 (next)!

■ Artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260

• Pray Codex See above. I have published too many posts on the Pray Codex in support of my Hacker Theory (starting with 07Mar14) to list them here. So I will summarise the evidence that Pray Codex alone (and it isn't alone), proves beyond reasonable doubt that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud cannot be correct. The Pray Codex was discovered in 1770 by Hungarian historian Gyorgy Pray (1723-1801)[19May12; 04Oct18; 24Nov20]. &The codex contains a Funeral Oration which is the oldest surviving complete text in the Hungarian language, so the codex is kept in the [Hungarian National Széchényi Library in Budapest[11Jan10]. The codex itself is dated 1192-95 (which already is at least 65 years before the Shroud's earliest 1260 radiocarbon date[11Jan10; 27May12; 02Dec14]). And the documents bound in the codex are even older: for example there is a sheet of musical notation in the codex which is dated the middle of the twelfth century (i.e. 1150)[02Dec14]. The codex contains four pages of pen-and-ink drawings depicting the crucifixion, descent from the cross, entombment and enthronement of Christ[11Jan10; 29Mar14]. Two of them: "The Entombment" (see above and 11Jan10; 19May12; 11Jan10; 27May12) and "Christ Enthroned ..."[11Jan10; 27May12] (Berkovits, 1969, Plates III and IV[BI69]), share a total of fourteen unique correspondences with the Shroud[04Oct18; 20Jan24; 16Dec24]! Far too many to be the result of chance.

To be continued in the eleventh installment of this post.

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
BI69. Berkovits, I., 1969, "Illuminated Manuscripts in Hungary, XI-XVI Centuries," Horn, Z., transl., West, A., rev., Irish University Press: Shannon, Ireland.
DR96. de Clari, R., 1996, "The Conquest of Constantinople," [1216], McNeal, E., transl., University of Toronto Press: Toronto, Canada.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.

Posted 10 February 2025. Updated 20 February 2025.

My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (1): Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (1) #36

This is "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (1)," part #36 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. It will help me write chapter 16, "Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24.

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: Neutron flux #35] [Next: My Hacker Theory (2) #37].

As I mentioned in my Shroud of Turin News, September - December 2024: I have realised that before I write my open letter to Nature (see here), I need to write a "My Hacker Theory in a Nutshell" post, along the lines of my, "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell." By "nutshell" I mean "in as few words as possible." However I have given up my hope that this would be a one-page summary of my Hacker Theory, hence the "(1)". It will now be a series of 5 parts: This Part 1, "1260-1390 and the 1989 Nature article." Part 2, "Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date." Part 3, "Other Shroudie explanations don't work. "Part 4, "Evidence that the hacker was Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy W. Linick (1946-89), aided by German hacker, Karl Koch (1965-89)." And Part 5 "Conclusion." But I will still try to keep it as brief as possible by providing links to my previous posts on topics, rather than references, unless there are no online references. This series will be based mainly on my previous series': "Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker?" (18Feb14); "My theory that the radiocarbon dating laboratories were duped by a computer hacker" (24May14); "The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking" (23Jul15) and "Steps in the development of my radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud hacker theory" (23Jan17).

■ Part 1, 1260-1390 and the 1989 Nature article

• The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet[18Feb14; 24May14; 23Jul15], and therefore its linen is first century or earlier[09Jan14].

• In 1988 three radiocarbon dating laboratories dated the Shroud "1260-1390!" Yet in 1988 three radiocarbon dating laboratories,

[Right: Prof. E. Hall (Oxford), M. Tite (British Museum) and R. Hedges (Oxford) announcing on 13 October 1988 that the Shroud of Turin had been radiocarbon dated "1260-1390!"[24May14].]

Arizona, Oxford and Zurich, dated the Shroud's linen as "1260-1390!"[18Feb14; 07Mar14; 11Apr17]. In 2020 Tite admitted that he put the exclamation mark after "1260 - 1390" on the blackboard at the press conference in the British Museum on 13 October 1988, after claiming in 1990 that, "I can't remember who did that"[25Aug24]. This shows that Tite is not a scrupulous truth-teller but can tell lies when it suits him (see next).

• The mid-point of 1260-1390 is 1325 ± 65 The mid-point of 1260-1390 is 1325 ± 65, the mean year of which, 1325, `just happens' to be exactly 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[29Mar14; 02Dec14; 11Apr17]! But the actual date range of all three laboratories combined and averaged was "1262-1384"[22Jan25]. Tite, the author of the Nature article[22May22], committed "scientific fraud" by "making results appear just a little crisper or more definitive than they really are," first by rounding to the nearest 10 years the actual "1262-1384" dates, when he didn't need to, and second by rounding "1384" to "1390," when 1384 was closer to 1380 than 1390[22Jan25].

• Nature reported that the Shroud is medieval 1260-1390 In 1989, the scientific journal Nature reported the laboratories' results and claimed, "The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390" (my emphasis)[18Feb14; 24May14 & 23Jul15]. But "conclusive evidence" is, "Evidence that cannot be contradicted by any other evidence"[CVB]. It is a legal term which has no place in science because to be scientific a theory must be "falsifiable," that is, always open to being tested and found to be false[FFW]. But according to Tite, who wrote the Nature article (see above) if it was proposed that the Shroud be radiocarbon dated again, to test the claim that "the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390," he would have to say: "you can't do that: the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud provided conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval AD 1260-1390," and so it cannot be contradicted by any other evidence! So this was a scientifically false claim by Tite (see above that Tite can tell lies when it suits him).

• Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article [Left 23Jun18] "Sample 1" is the Shroud. The second column is the dating runs of each laboratory[DP89, 612]. Years are before 1950[DP89, 611], after which atmospheric nuclear testing ejected large amounts of carbon-14 into the atmosphere[17Feb19]. So Arizona's first run was 591 ± 30, i.e. 1950-591 = 1359 ± 30. Oxford's first run was 795 ± 65, i.e. 1950-795 = 1155 ± 65. And Zurich's first run was 733 ± 61, i.e. 1950-733 = 1217 ± 61.

See the spreadsheet below which converts each laboratory's dating runs to calendar years (before 1950). As can be seen: firstly, the mean date of Arizona's first run, 1359, was the most recent (youngest) of all three laboratories' 12 dating runs. Secondly, the mean date of Oxford's first run, 1155, was the least recent (oldest) of all three laboratories' 12 dating runs. Thirdly, the mean date of Zurich's first run, 1217, was the least recent (oldest) of Zurich's 5 dating runs. The chance of this happening is 1/4 x 1/3 × 1/5 = 1/60. But since the laboratories were each dating their sub-

[Right: Spreadsheet table of each laboratory's dating runs in the order they appear in Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article, converted to calendar years (before 1950). Note the range of the dates, from 1155 to 1359, is 204 years!]

samples, cut from the one Shroud ~10 mm x 70 mm[DP89, 612] (~0.4 x 2.75 in.) sample; and using their near-identical AMS systems[13Jun14] (see below), if the dates were real (and not computer-generated by a hacker's program), they would have been spread evenly across all three laboratories, with only a year or so difference between each date[RTB].

• Reverse engineering the hacker's algorithm Based on the above, the hacker's algorithm was: 1. Hardwire into the program the first-run dates of each laboratory: Arizona "1350"[22Feb14]; 07Mar14; 11May14] (adjusted later to 1359) (the most recent date of all three laboratories); Oxford "1155," the least recent date of all three laboratories; and Zurich "1217," the least recent of Zurich's dates). 2. For each successive dating run, add or subtract from that first date, and each successive date thereafter, to converge on the target date for that laboratory; 3. Which when combined and averaged across all three laboratories would yield the date, 1260-1390 = 1325 ±65, or close to it because Oxford didn't complete its dating.

Having said the above, it is not essential that the hacker's overall target date was 1325. By his first run date of "1350" he would have been aware that the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355. So his overall target date could have been any year before 1355 that allowed time for the Shroud's flax to grow, be harvested, spun into linen threads, woven on a loom, and for the forger to have painted the image (which didn't happen because the Shroudman's image is not painted[11Jul16]). As for the calculation which produced each year, it could have been a random number generated within limits, so it may be impossible to determine what it was. Nevertheless, since the alternative is that, purely by chance the first run dates of Arizona and Oxford `just happened' to be the most recent, and least recent, respectively, of all the laboratories' dates, and the range of dates of the three laboratories `just happened' to be 204 years (see above), when they should have been only a few years apart, having been cut from the same ~10 mm x 70 mm (~0.4 x 2.75 in.) sample and dated by near-identical AMS systems (see above), the three laboratories' radiocarbon dates of Sample 1, the Shroud, must have been generated by a hacker's program!

• Chi-square test The Shroud radiocarbon dating failed its own chi-square test! A chi-square test is "a statistical method assessing the goodness of fit between a set of observed values and those expected theoretically"[17Feb19]. In the below extract from Table 2, it can be seen that the chi-square value ("Χ² value (2 d.f.)") of sample 1 (the

Shroud) was 6.4. This contrasts markedly with the table's chi-square values of the control samples 2 (0.1), 3 (1.3) and 4 (2.4). For a chi-square test with 2 degrees of freedom, "(2 d.f.)," the maximum upper limit of homogeneity, at 95% confidence, is 5.99[17Feb19] (see below).

[Above: Extract from a chi-squared test table showing that 5.991 is the upper limit of a 2 degrees of freedom, 0.95% confidence, test for homogeneity[NST].]

The chi-square value of 6.4 of the Shroud samples in Table 2 of the 1989 Nature article means the 3 laboratories' radiocarbon dating samples were not homogeneous[AD19; CT19; 17Feb19; 09Sep23]. That is, the laboratories' results are so different that they cannot be considered as the one dataset. This can be seen in the spreadsheet table above. Arizona and Oxford's years don't overlap: Arizona's oldest date is 1249 and Oxford's youngest date is 1220. And Zurich and Oxford only overlap by 3 years: Zurich's oldest date is 1217 and again Oxford's youngest date is 1220. Fig. 1 of the Nature article actually shows this.

[Left: Fig. 1 Mean radiocarbon dates of Sample 1 (the Shroud) and the three control samples[DP89, 611].]

As can be seen, there is no overlap between Arizona's and Oxford's dates of the Shroud sample (shown by my red box between them). But there is overlap between Arizona's, Oxford's and Zurich's dates of the three control samples]. So the control sample dates were real radiocarbon dates, but the Shroud sample dates were computer-generated by a hacker's program!

• "... with at least 95% confidence"[DP89, 611]. This is false! Because the chi-square test result of the Shroud sample, at 6.4 exceeded the limit of 5.99 (2 d.f, 95% confidence), the age of the Shroud sample was not "AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence[VR90, 21].

• Arizona's dates in Nature are fraudulent [17Feb19] Remi van Haelst (1931-2003), a Belgian industrial chemist and expert in statistical analysis, discovered that Arizona 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. About FOUR centuries. Converted into calendar date 1270-1430. And one may not forget that any date below 650 rc conflicts with the historical deadline of 1355, when started the veneration of the Shroud in Lirey. After receiving the Zurich results, with also TWO dates below 650 rc, Dr. Leese 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" (his emphasis)[17Feb19].

Below is my more compact spreadsheet copy of van Haelst's table in his Shroud News article:

[Above (enlarge)[17Feb19]: Arizona laboratory's original eight dates ..., which were secretly statistically manipulated by the British Museum's statistician Dr. Morwen Leese (with Tite and Arizona's approval) to become four dates in the 1989 Nature article (see below). 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 11 years before 1355.]

This was scientific fraud, "making results appear just a little crisper or more definitive than they really are"[see above]. It was also scientific dishonesty to state in the heading of Table 1 that the dating runs were "individual measurements" when for Arizona they were not measurements at all, but averages of measurements. It was also dishonest to not state in a footnote that Arizona's four dating runs were in fact eight. Arizona's first dating run which originally was "1350" (see above) is presumably represented by the "606 ±41" = 1950 - 606 = 1344 ±41. This later statistical manipulation does not affect my Hacker Theory because it was the original "1350" which was `hardwired' into the hacker's program. Moreover, according to Van Haelst, the chi-square value of the Shroud samples is actually 7.13[17Feb19], not 6.4, which means that the Shroud samples' dates across the three laboratories were even less homogeneous[17Feb19]!

• "The spread of the measurements for sample 1 is somewhat greater than would be expected ..." Under Table 2 the Nature article admits that, "An initial inspection of Table 2 shows that the agreement among the three laboratories for samples 2, 3 and 4 [controls] is exceptionally good" but "The spread of the measurements for sample 1 is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted" (my emphasis)[DP89, 613; 13Jun14; 11Feb15; 18Nov15, etc]. But this is impossible for real Shroud samples, not computer-generated by a hacker's program. The laboratories' Shroud sub-samples were cut from the same ~10 mm x 70 mm (or 1.2 cm x 8 cm - Wilson) Shroud sample (see below), and were dated by the laboratories' near-identical AMS

[Above (enlarge): Drawing of the approximately 1.2 cm x 8 cm sample area, from A1 (Arizona 1), O (Oxford), Z (Zurich) to A (Arizona), with a photo of the 8 cm x 1.2 cm sample superimposed over the drawing on the bottom right hand side[13Jun14; 11Feb15; 18Nov15]. The mean of the Oxford sample's dates is 1193 and the mean of the adjacent Zurich sample's dates is 1268, a difference of 75 years! Clearly there can be no significant difference in radiocarbon dates between sub-samples cut from such a tiny area, if these were real dates, not computer-generated!]

systems[13Jun14; 05Jul14]. In each dating run, the Shroud and the control samples were reduced to pure carbon and irradiated together

[Right (enlarge): Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory's carousel wheel (2017)[LS17. ]

with the same caesium beam on the same ~25 mm (~1 inch) diameter carousel wheeel)[13Jun14; 11Feb15]. The AMS system is designed so that if something went wrong in a dating run, the Shroud sample and the controls which had a known date, would be wrong together[18Nov15]. It cannot be that the dates of the control samples across three laboratories (which were also each respectively cut from their one piece of cloth) can agree, yet the dates of Shroud samples across the three laboratories can disagree. That is, if the Shroud sample's dates were real and not computer-generated by a hacker''s program!

To be continued the next part 2, "Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date" of this series.

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
AD19. Agasso, D., 2019, "The Shroud is not from the medieval era. New studies are needed to know its age," Vatican Insider, 11 June.
CT19. Casabianca, T., et al., 2019, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data," Archaeometry, Vol. 61, No. 5, October, 1223-1231.
CVB. "Conclusive Evidence: Legal Definition," Bar Prep Hero, 2025.
FFW. "Falsifiability," Wikipedia, 24 January 2025.
DP89. Damon, E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 611-615.
NST. "1.3.6.7.4. Critical Values of the Chi-Square Distribution," Engineering Statistics Handbook: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2025.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
DP89. Damon, E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 611-615.
LS17, "Laboratory spotlight: Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU)," Current Archaeology, 26 December 2017.
VR90. Van Haelst, R., 1990, “Statistical doubt about the C 14 dating of the Shroud,” Shroud News, No. 57, February, 20-23, 21.
VR91. Van Haelst, R., 1991, "Radiocarbon data indeed manipulated," Shroud News, No. 68, December, 5.

Posted 28 January 2025. Updated 17 February 2025.

Shroud of Turin News, September - December 2024

© Stephen E. Jones[1]

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Previous: July - September 2024] [Next: January - June 2025].

This is my Shroud of Turin News for September - December 2024 (see below why). The first instalment has been moved to "Neutron flux," part #35 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. Blogger would not allow me to re-date the original 12 January 2025 post, so I published this today, 21 January 2025, and deleted that original post. The articles will be in date order (earliest first). My words will be in [bold square brackets] to distinguish them from the articles' words. I have realised that before I write my open letter to Nature (see below), I need to write a "My Hacker Theory in a Nutshell" post, along the lines of my, "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell." That is, a (hopefully) one-page summary of my Hacker Theory, with links to my previous posts on it.

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"Reverse-engineering Linick's Shroud hacking algorithm." This is an

[Right (enlarge): Photograph of Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy Weiler Linick (1946-89) and report that "He died at the age of forty-two on 4 June 1989, in very unclear circumstances ..." (my emphasis)]

item of my news. For those who don't know who Linick was, read 21Mar23.

I am no mathematician, unlike the "extremely mathematically gifted" Timothy Linick[JS89]. That said, in chapter "16. Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?" of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" (see 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24), I will include a section headed, "Reverse engineering Linick's Shroud hacking algorithm." My starting point is that the very first of all dating runs of the Shroud, that of Arizona on 6 May 1988 (see 08Dec22) which produced the `psychological hammer blow' date,"1350," was, according to Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article[DP89, 612], the most recent of all dating runs at all three laboratories (see 03Aug19).

[Left (enlarge): Dating runs of "Sample 1" (the Shroud) across all three laboratories, in Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article. Years are before 1950[DP89, 611] after which atmospheric nuclear testing ejected large amounts carbon-14 into the atmosphere.]

Recently I finally got around to checking Table 1 for the first dating run years of the other two laboratories, Zurich and Oxford. I expected there to be no clear pattern to support my reverse engineering of Linick's algorithm. But much to my surprise, there is a pattern! The first dating run of Oxford and Zurich is the least recent of those two laboratories' dates. See the spreadsheet below which converts each laboratory's dating runs to calendar years (before 1950). As can be seen, Arizona's first run date, "1359" is the most recent of not only Arizona's but of all three laboratories' dates!

[Right: Spreadsheet table of each laboratory's dating runs in the order they appear in Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article, converted to calendar years (before 1950).]

And Oxford's first run date, "1155" is the least recent of not only Oxford, but of all three laboratories' dates! Finally, Zurich's first run date, "1217" is the least recent of Zurich's dates. If these were real dates, they would be evenly spread across all three laboratories. But because Linick, according to my Hacker Theory, chose "1350" (later adjusted to "1359") for its psychological value: "1350 ... corresponds very closely to the shroud's known historic date"[GH96, 279], he had to ensure his program balanced Arizona's recent dates with Oxford and Zurich's older dates. The "Change" column indicates that Linick's algorithm was a simple: 1. start with the first date of each laboratory, which was `hardwired' into the program; 2. then for each successive dating run, add or subtract from that first date, and each successive date thereafter, to converge on the target date for that laboratory; 3. which when combined and averaged across all three laboratories would yield the next important psychological date, 1260-1390, or 1325 ±65! Which was exactly 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355!

It may be argued that had Oxford continued its dating runs, the final combined average of all three laboratories would not have been 1260-1390 and therefore not 1325 ±65. And that Linick may not have intended his program to yield a combined average date of 1260-1390 = 1355 ±65. However, Linick's program was trending towards 1260-1390 = 1355 ±65 when Oxford ceased its dating after only 3 dating runs.

So I have reverse-engineered Linick's hacking algorithm! Which was: 1. Hardwire into the program the first-run dates of each laboratory: Arizona 1350 (adjusted later to 1359), the most recent date of all three laboratories; Oxford 1155 the least recent date of all three laboratories; and Zurich 1217, the least recent of Zurich's dates. 2. For each successive dating run, add or subtract from that first date, and each successive date thereafter, to converge on the target date for that laboratory; 3. Which when combined and averaged across all three laboratories would yield the important psychological date, 1260-1390, or 1325 ±65, or close to it because Oxford didn't complete its dating. And therefore I claim that, together with my other evidence for it (see 24May14 and 23Jul15), my Hacker Theory is the only true explanation of why the first-century Shroud has a 1260-1390, or (because Oxford did not complete its dating runs) a 13th-14th century, radiocarbon date.

I am considering writing an open letter to Nature here on my blog, and then emailing and snail-mailing it as a letter for publication to Nature. I will point out:

"The curious fact that in Table 1, Sample 1 (the Shroud), of the article, "Radiocarbon Dating the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 1989, pp. 611-615, the very first dating run, that of Arizona laboratory (1359), was the most recent of that laboratory's 5 runs and in fact the most recent of all three laboratories' dating runs. And the first dating run of Oxford (1155), was the least recent of that laboratory's 3 runs, and in fact the least recent of of all three laboratories' dating runs. Finally, the first dating run of Zurich (1217), was the least recent of that laboratory's 5 dating runs. The chance of this occurring would be 1/4 x 1/3 x 1/5 = 1/60. But clearly the dates should be spread evenly across all three laboratories, considering their sub-samples were cut from the same ~10 mm x 70 mm (~0.4 x 2.75 in.) sample of the Shroud and dated by identical Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) systems at each of the three laboratories. An explanation of this curious fact, which has been hiding in plain sight for 37 years, is that the dates of Sample 1, the Shroud, are not real dates, but computer-generated by a hacker's program which was inserted into each of the three laboratories' AMS system computer. The hacker's algorithm has been plausibly reverse-engineered and it is surprisingly simple!"

Nature probably won't publish my letter, ostensibly on the grounds it is such an old article, but at least it will be on the Web!

And as we shall see below, the British Museum's Michael Tite (1938-) committed scientific fraud by inventing the "1260-1390" date! Oxford was the last of the three laboratories to commence its dating in July 1988 because of equipment problems[08Dec22; WI95, 16-17; PM96, 91; WI98, 310]. Having overcome those problems Oxford could presumably have continued for one or two more runs. But Tite, the coordinator of the laboratories' dating and receiver of their results[AM00, 183; RC99, 118; GV01, 112] would have realised that if Oxford stopped its dating after only 3 runs, the mean date of all three laboratories of the Shroud sample stood at 691 ±31[DP89, 613] or 1,259 ±31. By statistical manipulation Tite could then get the date to 1262-1384[DP89, 614], which he could then fraudulently round "down/up to [the] nearest 10 yr"[DP89, 614], so he could then claim that "The age of the shroud is obtained as AD 1260-1390"[DP89, 611]! But why round "down/up" at all, when the actual range was "1262-1384," unlesss it was to make the "results appear just a little crisper or more definitive than they really are," which is "scientific fraud" (see ). And since 1384 is closer to 1380 than it is to 1390, if Tite was going to round 1384, he should have rounded it down to 1380. But then 1320, the mid-point of 1320 +/- 60, is 35 years before 1355, which doesn't have the same round number psychological impact as 30 years before 1355.That Tite was aware of the significance of 1260-1390 being 1325 ±65, is evident that when he announced to those present at the press conference in the British Museum on 13 October 1988, that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was "1260-1390," he added that that was "on or about the year AD 1325, give or take sixty-five years either way"[WI98, 6-7]. As science writers William Broad (1951-) and Nicholas Wade (1942-), pointed out in their book: "Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science" (1982), scientists "making results appear just a little crisper or more definitive than they really are" is "scientific fraud":

"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"[BW82, 20.]

So Tite was doubly guilty of "scientific fraud" in making the final radiocarbon date "appear just a little crisper or more definitive than" it really was: first by rounding the actual range "1262-1384," and second, rounding 1384 to 1390.

Tite and Hall had a motive to stop Oxford's dating after only 3 runs (not knowing that had the dating continued for another one or two runs, Linick's program would have dated the Shroud 1260-1390 = 1355 ±65 anyway), and fraudulently round up 1384 to 1390, so that Tite could falsely claim that, "The age of the shroud is obtained as AD 1260-1390." And that motive was, the Oxford Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory had been largely privately funded by Hall, who was independently wealthy due to an inheritance from his grandfather, who had `struck it rich' investing in a gold mine in Australia[WI01, 59]. But Hall was due to retire and so he had arranged for his "rich friends" to donate £1 million to fund a new Oxford Chair of Archaeological Science, so that the laboratory would continue[WI89, 7; GH96, 254; PM96, 125]. However, if the radiocarbon dating failed to prove the Shroud was medieval, those promised donations might be in doubt[RTB]. With so much at stake, it is not hard to imagine Hall privately promising Tite, words to the effect, "Get this right Michael, and the job is yours"[RTB]! And as it turned out, the radiocarbon date of the Shroud was medieval (thanks to Linick's program!), Hall's rich friends did donate £1 million to fund a new Oxford Chair of Archaeological Sciences[WI89, 7; WI98, 311; GV01, 134], and Tite was appointed to that new Chair and succeeded Hall as Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory[WI89, 7; PM96, 111; WI98, 311; GV01, 134]!

Twentieth anniversary of my discovery of the Shroud! As I wrote in my first post to this blog, on 30 June 2007, it was on a day in January 2005, now twenty years ago, that I discovered the Shroud and my life changed forever:

"My interest in the Shroud of Turin began in January 2005 when, as I posted to my then Yahoo group, after reading Stevenson & Habermas' "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981) [Right], I accepted (then provisionally but now fully) that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial sheet of Jesus Christ and therefore extrabiblical evidence of His death and resurrection."

In a 2019 post I gave more details:

"... in January 2005 I found in a secondhand bookstall a book, "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981) ... which was co-authored by Gary Habermas. I knew from Habermas' other writings that he was a sound, evidence-based, evangelical Christian philosopher, so I bought the book. I was amazed at the evidence that Habermas and his co-author Ken Stevenson presented for the Shroud being the burial sheet of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels (Matthew 27:59; Mark 15:46 & Luke 23:53).

According to Blogger I have published 668 posts. Days between 30 June 2007 and today, 22 January 2025 = 6416. Divided by 668, is an average of 1 post every ~9.6 days. As of tonight my blog has had 1,935,191 pageviews. Which divided by 6416 days is an average of 301.6 views a day! I hope I am still blogging about the Shroud when Jesus returns, which I expect will happen before 2037, only 12 years away!

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
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY.
BW82. Broad, W. & Wade, N., 1982, "Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science," Simon and Schuster: New York NY.
DP89. Damon, E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 611-615.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
GV01. Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL.
JS89. Jull, A.J.T. & Suess, H.E. , 1989, "Timothy W. Linick," Radiocarbon, Vol 31, No 2.
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.
PM96. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta.
RC99. Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
WI89.Wilson, I., 1989, "Dr. Tite to succeed Professor Hall at Oxford," STS Newsletter, No. 22, May, 7-8. https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n22part4.pdf.
WI95. Wilson, I., 1995, "From a Forgotten Memorandum: A Visit to the Oxford Research Laboratory 7 July 1988," BSTS Newsletter, 15-18, 16-17.
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.
WI01. Wilson, I., 2001, "Obituary: Professor Edward Hall, CBE, FBA," BSTS Newsletter, No. 54, November, 57-60.

Posted 22 January 2025. Updated 7 February 2025.

Neutron flux: Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (2) #37

This is the eighth installment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (2)," part #37 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. It will help me write chapter 16, "Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See Part 1.

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (1) #36] [Next: To be advised].

For more information about this 5-part series, see Part 1. In particular,

[Right (enlarge): The Pray Codex (1192-95 )[07Mar14]: The Entombment of Christ (upper) and Three Marys [sic Mk 16:1-6] at the tomb (lower). The images are claimed as one of the evidences against the radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin (Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[16Dec24]! See future "Pray Codex."]

to keep these posts as brief as possible, references will be links to my previous posts on that topic. This is Part 2, "Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date." The evidence will be under two main headings: "Historical evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260" and "Artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260." I will post items of evidence as I rediscover them, but the order of appearance within those main headings will be from what I consider to be more significant to less significant, and that will change as go along.

■ Part 2, Evidence that the Shroud is older than the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date

• The Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, Prof. Christopher Bronk Ramsey, who as "C.R. Bronk" was a signatory to the 1989 Nature paper, and was involved in the dating, has admitted:

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow ..." (My emphasis)[18Feb14; 07Mar14].

• Ian Wilson rightly pointed out that if the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud is correct, there should be no evidence for the Shroud before 1260:

"Looking back in time from 1204, we are in a period in which, if the radiocarbon dating is to be believed, there should be no evidence of our Shroud. The year 1260 was the earliest possible date for the Shroud's existence by radiocarbon dating's calculations"[21Jun17].

■ Historical evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260

• Nicholas Mesarites After the 1204 sack of Constantinople, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft. 1216), former keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection in Constantinople's Pharos Chapel, recalled that in 1201, in that chapel, was:

"The burial sindon of Christ ... is of linen ... defying decay, because it wrapped the mysterious, naked, dead body after the Passion"[29Mar14; 27Dec15; 21Jun17; 04Oct18; 24May20].

The Greek word translated "mysterious" is aperilepton which literally means "un-outlined"[29Mar14; 27Dec15; 11Jun16; 11Nov17]. And the Shroudman's image uniquely has no outline[29Mar14; 1Jun16]. So, the three descriptors: "sindon," "un-outlined" and "naked," uniquely identify this Byzantine relic as the Shroud[29Mar14], in Constantinple ~59 years before its earliest "1260" radiocarbon date and ~154 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[11Jun16]!

• Robert de Clari French knight Robert de Clari (1170-1216), who was in Constantinople with the Fourth Crusade, later described what he saw in Constantinople in 1203:

"And among the rest, there was another of the churches which they called My Lady Saint Mary of Blachernae, where was kept the sydoine in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which stood up straight every Friday so that the features of Our Lord could be plainly seen there. And no one, either Greek or French, ever knew what became of this sydoine after the city was taken." (italics original)[DR96, 112; 29Mar14].

The word sydoines is Old French for the Greek word sindon, a linen sheet[29Mar14], used in the Gospels for Jesus' burial shroud (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53). The word figure is Old French for "bodily form"[29Mar14]. de Clari said it was the sindon "in which Our Lord had been wrapped" and on which "the features of Our Lord could be plainly seen." This can only be the Shroud, publicly exhibited in Constantinople in 1203, ~57 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Pope Stephen III's sermon. Vatican Library codex 5696, folio 35 is an early twelfth century Latin update of an original Greek Easter Friday sermon by Pope Stephen III (r. 768-772), delivered in 769. Stephen's original 8th century sermon in Greek quoted Jesus' supposed letter in response to Edessa's King Abgar V (r. 4 BC-7 AD & 13-50 AD)'s request for healing:

"Since you wish to look upon my physical face, I am sending you a likeness of my face on a cloth ..."[23Sep17]

The twelfth-century Latin version contains an interpolation (in italics):

"Since you wish to look upon my physical face, I am sending you a likeness of not only of my face but of my whole body divinely transformed on a cloth ..."[23Sep17]

Clearly the twelfth century Vatican copyist knew that the Edessa cloth then in Constantinople had an image not only of Jesus' face, but of His entire body, and he updated Pope Stephen's 769 sermon according to the new information he had[29Mar14; 11May14; 21Jun17; 23Sep17].

That the Edessa Cloth/Image of Edessa had arrived in Constantinople from Edessa in 944[944]. (see "944b), after which the face-only Image of Edessa was discovered in Constantinople to include Jesus' "whole body," is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud, "doubled-in-four" (tetradiplon)[18May14; 18Mar18], with the face of Jesus uppermost in landscape aspect[15Sep12; 20Jan17]!] (see future "Surrender of the Mandylion to the Byzantines"). Which means that the Shroud was in Constantinople, ~316 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Gregory Referendarius's sermon. On 16 August 944, the day after the Image of Edessa arrived in Constantinople (see "944b"), Gregory Referendarius, the Archdeacon of Constantinople's Hagia Sophia cathedral, preached a sermon in which he said that the Edessa Cloth bore not only "sweat from the face of the ruler of life, falling like drops of blood" but also "drops from his own side ... [of] blood and water"[13May17]. By "the sweat from the face of [Christ] ... falling like drops of blood" Gregory referred to Lk 22:44 where Jesus' "sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground," in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36; Mk 14:32)[13May17]. But the "drops from his own side ... [of] blood and water" refers to Jn 19:33-34, which was after Jesus' death on the cross[13May17]. Clearly the face-only Image of Edessa does not show the blood and fluid stained spear wound in Jesus' side that is on the Shroud[13May17]. But Gregory could not have made that reference unless he had been aware of the wound in the side of the Image of Edessa and of bloodstains in the area of that wound[13May17]. And hence Gregory knew that the Edessa Cloth was full-length rather than merely a face-cloth[13May17]. And to know that, Gregory must have seen that under the Image of Edessa face was the full-length, bloodstained, body image of Jesus on the Shroud[13May17]! This is yet more evidence that the Shroud was in Constantiople in 944, more than three centuries before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date!

• Tetradiplon Both the seventh century Acts of Thaddeus and Constantinople's 946 Monthly Lection describe the Image of Edessa as "tetradiplon"[04Oct18; 09Sep23; 15Sep24]. Tetradiplon is a Greek

[Above (enlarge: Tetradiplon and the Shroud of Turin illustrated: The full-length Shroud of Turin (1); is doubled three times (2) through (4) keeping the man's face uppermost); resulting in the man's face within a rectangle, in landscape aspect (4); and the Shroud having been "four-doubled" in side view (5). Exactly as depicted in early copies of the Image of Edessa, such as the 11th century Sakli church, Turkey (6)]. The above is a major update! See 15Sep12].

compound word of two common Greek words, tetra ("four") and diplon ("doubled"), hence "four-doubled"[15Sep12; 04Oct18; 09Sep23]. Yet in all of known ancient Greek literature, tetradiplon occurs only twice, and both times in connection with the Image of Edessa (see above)[15Sep12; 04Oct18].

In 1966 Ian Wilson read in the Acts of Thaddeus, which is an update of the Abgar V story[08Jan19], where Jesus imprinted his face image on a towel[08Jan19]. The Greek word translated "towel" is tetradiplon ("doubled in four"), and the towel was "linen" (sindon)! So Wilson took a full-length photograph of the Shroud and folded it in half three times with the man's face uppermost, which left the man's face "disembodied, on a landscape-aspect cloth, exactly as it appears on the pre-1204 Edessa cloth copies ..." And looking at it from the side, as it was evidently possible to do with the Edessa Cloth, fastened to a board, it is indeed four doublings[20Jan17] (I did this myself as readers can do for themselves). This is experimental proof that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud `four-doubled'! If the Image of Edessa was a small cloth, why would anyone bother to four-double it, let alone record it?

Finally, STURP's 1978 raking light photograph of the Shroud revealed major foldlines at one-eighth intervals showing that the Shroud had been folded in eight for much of its history[15Sep12; 08Dec22], including foldlines of the man's face one-eighth matching the Image of Edessa, yet the Shroud has not been folded in eight since 1355[RTB]!

The above is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud folded in eight, with the man's face one-eighth in landscape aspect, exactly as in early copies of the Image of Edessa. But the Image of Edessa was in Edessa since at least 544 (see "544"), which is 716 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date[21Aug18; 04Oct18; 29Nov18; 18Dec18; 14Oct20; 29Dec20; 15Sep24]!

And that's before we have considered the artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260 (next)!

■ Artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260

To be continued in the ninth installment of this post.

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
DR96. de Clari, R., 1996, "The Conquest of Constantinople," [1216], McNeal, E., transl., University of Toronto Press: Toronto, Canada.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.

Posted 10 February 2025. Updated 17 February 2025.