Luciano Buso - an artist who cracked Giotto Code?

I had already decided to abandon posting a combined Shroud of Turin News each month and instead post individual news articles on the Shroud as I become aware of them.

Then yesterday I discovered that my January News' comments on Italian artist/art restorer Luciano Buso's claim that medieval artist Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266-1337), created the Shroud of Turin image, can't be easily found on Google (I did find it eventually), presumably because Google gives a higher priority to indexing the actual titles of blog posts, not sub-titles within posts. Also, I became the owner of a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SII) for the first time the other day and I have a new appreciation of shorter posts!

So I am reposting that article excerpt and my comments below.

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"Luciano Buso - an artist who cracked Giotto Code," The Voice of Russia, Jan 31, 2012 ...

[Left: Statue representing Giotto, outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy: Wikipedia]

... Luciano Buso – an artist and art-restorer from an Italian town of Treviso – is confident that it [The Shroud of Turin] was a replica of the original Shroud made by a great Italian medieval artist Giotto di Bondone. ... Mr. Buso, how did you manage to establish that the famous Shroud of Turin was created by Giotto given the fact that you did not have direct access to it? During this study I only used the same methods that I have already used during my examination of other pieces of art ... All of these artists used a special technique of hidden writing. And in the case of the Shroud it was sufficient for me to operate with its photograph only. In your opinion, why of all the great medieval masters it was Giotto who was honored with the job of replicating the burial cloth of Christ? As I have written numerous times, in my mind Giotto was chosen as a famous artist of his time whose name was well known primarily due to his popularity and his craftsmanship. ... Are you ready to insist on your point of view? If yes, what counter arguments are you going to use to prove your point? The fact that all theories related to the Shroud of Turin are to be proved invalid to some extent became obvious to me back in 1980s when a group of world renowned scientists who performed carbon dating test on a small piece of the cloth put the Shroud's origin around 1280-1320. ... I can say only this: those who want to doubt my theory will also have to appeal the results of all my work to study hundreds of pictures painted between years 1300 and 2010. In all those I found hidden writing. There is a book about to come out in which I give a precise and detailed account of all examples of hidden writing I have encountered. What I don't understand is this: what's the point of denying my theory that proves that Giotto created the Shroud of Turin in 1315 if the existence of these hidden writings is obvious. ...Busco's "hidden writing" in the case of the Shroud is nothing more than "several veiled appearances of the number 15" which supposedly "indicate Giotto created the Shroud in 1315"(!):

"An art critic has claimed the Shroud of Turin, an ancient linen sheet revered by some Christians as the burial cloth that wrapped Christ's body after his crucifixion, was created by the Italian master Giotto ... After months of careful examination of photographs of the Shroud - the relic is kept locked away and not available to be viewed unless on special occasions - Luciano Buso... says that several veiled appearances of the number 15, hidden in the fabric by the artist, indicate Giotto created the Shroud in 1315 - and that it is a copy of the original which had been damaged and was then lost over the centuries." ("Shroud of Turin is a fake created by famous master Giotto, claims Italian art expert," Daily Mail, 8th June 2011).

Sounds like Busco's `theory' is more about his making money through sales of his new book than any actual artistic or historical evidence that Giotto di Bondone (c.1266-1337) painted the Shroud. I could point out the usual evidence that invalidates all claims that the Shroud is a painting, i.e. there is no paint or pigment on it that accounts for its image, the image is extremely superficial ("one fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter"), it has no outline and no directionality, it is a photographic negative which was unknown until photography was invented ~600 years later in the early 19th century, etc. But I will quote The Guardian's art critic, Jonathan Jones, who answers "Nah" to the question, "Did Giotto really paint the Turin Shroud?":

"Claims that the shroud was a 14th-century hoax by Giotto may be far-fetched, but at least they get us talking about this profound and brilliant painter ... But why would he want to? Nothing in what is known of his life or art suggests any such activities or interests. ... the idea of Giotto taking time off to concoct a relic seems silly. He was too well-known, too ambitious and too profound to either want to do it or get away with it unnoticed." ("Did Giotto really paint the Turin Shroud? Nah," Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 9 June 2011).

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Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign& Jesus is Jehovah!

Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (3)

Continuing from my "Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (2)" with this part #2 (3).

Further examples of 6th to 12th century artistic representations of Christ's face which bear the Vignon markings found on the Shroud, include:

Christ Pantocrator gold solidus coin by Emperor Justinian II (7th century) In the 7th century, the Byzantine Roman Emperor at Constantinople, Justinian II (669-711), was the first to mint coins, tremisses and solidi, bearing the face of Jesus. [1]

[Above (enlarge): Justinian II gold solidus coin, c. AD 692: Money Museum]

The faces of Jesus on these coins are of two types: an earlier "Syrian Christ" and a later more Shroud-like Jesus. [ibid] Features on the coins which are very similar to the face of the Man of the Shroud include: long wavy shoulder-length hair, a long forked beard, moustache, and a small tuft of hair on the forehead, and no ears visible. [2] As can be seen above, there are at least twelve out of fifteen Vignon markings on the Christ face of this coin that are also found on the Shroud of Turin: "... (2) three-sided `square' between brows, (3) V shape at bridge of nose, ... (6) accentuated left cheek, (7) accentuated right cheek, (8) enlarged left nostril, (9) accentuated line between nose and upper lip, (10) heavy line under lower lip, (11) hairless area between lower lip and beard, (12) forked beard, (13) transverse line across throat, (14) heavily accentuated owlish eyes, (15) two strands of hair." [3] See part #2 (1) .

Dr Alan Whanger was so struck by the similarity between the Shroud face image and that of the Christ face on this coin, that in 1978 he began experimenting with superimposing horizontal and vertical polarized projections of the Shroud face and this and other Byzantine portraits of Christ to enable the points of congruence between the two images to be precisely compared. [4] The result revealed many points of congruity, even including the matching of Christ's neckline on the coin with an crease on the Shroud, that it is evident that the Shroud itself must have served as a model for the coin. [ibid, p.110]

When the Justinian II solidus and tremisses coin images are superimposed over the Shroud face, all three images have a transverse line in the exact same spot, which is artistically represented on the coins as a wrinkle line on Jesus' garments, an unnecessary feature of itself. [5] Professor Robert M. Haralick of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, using a digital elaboration technique found that the outlines of the face of the Shroud can be superimposed on the outlines of the image of the face of Christ on these Byzantine coins. [6]

Since these coins are datable to about AD 692, and the Shroud is the original because what are physical flaws in its cloth have been meaninglessly represented [7] - see part #2 (1) - in Byzantine art works between the sixth and twelfth centuries, this means that the Shroud must have been in existence at least five centuries before the earliest AD 1260 date ascribed to it by the 1988 radiocarbon dating. [8] Therefore that "medieval ... AD 1260-1390" radiocarbon date of the Shroud [9] simply has to be wrong!

[Continued with "Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (4)"]

References
[1] Scavone, D.C., 1991, "The History of the Turin Shroud to the 14th C", in Berard, A., ed., 1991, "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud," Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, p.187. [return]
[2] Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Publishers Enterprises Group: San Gwann, Malta, pp.193-194. [return]
[3] Wilson, 1978, "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, p.82e. [return]
[4] Wilson, I., 1986., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, pp.107-108. [return]
[5] Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, p.128. [return]
[6] Petrosillo & Marinelli, 1996, p.194. [return]
[7] Patterson, C., 1999, "Evolution," Cornell University Press: Ithaca NY, Second edition, p.117. [return]
[8] Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, pp.166-167. [return]
[9] Damon, P. E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, pp. 611-615, p.611. [return]

Posted 23 February 2012. Updated 21 December 2023.

Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (2)

This part #2 (2) continues from "Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (1)."

Examples of 6th to 12th century artistic representations of Christ's face which bear the Vignon markings found on the Shroud, include:

Christ Pantocrator mosaic, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo church at Ravenna, Italy (6th century) The "Christ Pantocrator" ("Ruler

[Above (enlarge): Face of the Shroud (ShroudScope) compared with the face of the Pantocrator mosaic, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo church, Ravenna (Wikipedia).]

of All") mosaic in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, was completed within 526 AD [1]. According to Maher [2] this "early (sixth-century) ... mosaic of Christ enthroned" has "eight Vignon markings" which would be more than enough to identify the Shroud as the sixth century artist's model. But as can be seen above, the Ravenna Pantocrator mosaic has at least thirteen of the fifteen Vignon markings on the Shroud [see part #2 (1)] namely: "(2) three-sided `square' between brows, (3) V shape at bridge of nose, (4) second V within marking 2, [I no longer maintain that these three Vignon markings, i.e. (2), (3) and (4) are clearly present on this Ravenna mosaic.] (5) raised right eyebrow, (6) accentuated left cheek, (7) accentuated right cheek, (8) enlarged left nostril, (9) accentuated line between nose and upper lip, (10) heavy line under lower lip, (11) hairless area between lower lip and beard, ... (13) transverse line across throat, (14) heavily accentuated owlish eyes, (15) two strands of hair" [3]

The Greek word "pantokrator" is from the Greek words pas "all" and kratos "rule," and therefore means the "all ruling one," or the "Almighty." It appears in the New Testament at 2Cor 6:18; Rev 1:8; 4:8;11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:6,15; 21:22 where it is translated "Almighty." It usually refers to God, but in Rev 1:8, in context, "the Lord God ... the Almighty” refers to the risen Christ. [4]. Which is presumably why the early Christian church ascribed the title Pantocrator to Christ, who the New Testament elsewhere states is ruling over all things (Mt 11:27; 28:18; Jn 3:35; 13:3; 17:2; 1Cor 15:27; Eph 1:20-22; Php 2:9-10; Col 2:10; Heb 2:8; 1Pet 3:22). [5] This also explains why the artists transformed the signs of death on the Shroud into signs of life, e.g. the trickles of blood on Jesus' forehead became tufts of hair. [6]

Christ Pantocrator, St Catherine's monastery, Sinai (6th century) The encaustic (hot wax on wood) icon of Christ Pantocrator

[Above (enlarge): The Vignon markings on the face of the Shroud of Turin [3] compared with that of the icon of Christ Pantocrator, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.]

at the monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula has a strong resemblance to the face visible on the Shroud." [7] It is the earliest surviving portrait of Christ, its isolation enabling it to escape the waves of iconoclasm [Greek eikon + klastes breaker] in the 8th and 9th centuries. [8]

Vignon markings on this icon include: "the high right eyebrow (5), the very hollow right cheek (7), and the garment neckline (13)" [ibid.]. But as can be seen above, there are at least eleven Vignon markings on the icon which are found on the Shroud, including: "... (2) three-sided `square' between brows, (3) V shape at bridge of nose, (4) second V within marking 2, (5) raised right eyebrow, ... (7) accentuated right cheek, (8) enlarged left nostril, (9) accentuated line between nose and upper lip, (10) heavy line under lower lip, (11) hairless area between lower lip and beard, ... (13) transverse line across throat, (14) heavily accentuated owlish eyes, ..." [3]

Art historian, Professor Kurt Weitzmann of Princeton University has noted of this icon that:

"... the pupils of the eyes are not at the same level; the eyebrow over Christ's left eye is arched higher than over his right ... one side of the mustache droops at a slightly different angle from the other, while the beard is combed in the opposite direction ... Many of these subtleties remain attached to this particular type of Christ image and can be seen in later copies, e.g. the mosaic bust in the narthex of Hosios Lukas over the entrance to the catholicon ... Here too the difference in the raising of the eyebrows is most noticeable ..." [9]

Dr Alan Whanger, using his polarized overlay method, discovered 170 points of congruence between the face of this icon and that of the Shroud. [10] Some of these were merely creases and wrinkles that can still be seen on the Shroud. [8]

Vase from Emesa, now Homs, Syria (6th-7th century)

This hammered silver vase was discovered among church ruins at Homs (ancient Emesa) in Syria.

[Right: Face of Christ on a "Vase from Emesa," The Louvre, Paris]

and was presented to the Louvre in 1892 ("Vase from Emesa," Louvre Museum, Paris, 2000]

It is dated late 6th or early 7th century AD, and was used to hold wine during the Eucharistic ceremony (Ibid). It features medallions around the body of the vase decorated with biblical figures, including Christ (Ibid). The face of Christ on the vase has a strong resemblance to the face on the Shroud. [7] In common with other sixth to twelfth century depictions of Christ's face, it features "a very distinctive rigidly front-facing Jesus with long sidelocks, an individualistic long nose and a slightly forked beard, all strikingly similar to the face on the Shroud." [11] Christ's face is narrow, and the right side of the face is distorted, where the Shroud face has a swollen cheek [12] A comparison of this sixth century vase with the face on the Shroud and it looks very likely that whoever created it did so from the latter. [13]

Continued in part #2 (3).

References
[1] "Christus Ravenna Mosaic," Wikipedia, 9 April 2011. [return]
[2] Maher, R.W., 1986, "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, p.77. [return]
[3] Wilson, 1978, "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, p.82e. [return]
[4] Bowman, R.M., Jr. & Komoszewski, J.E., 2007, "Putting Jesus In His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ," Kregel: Grand Rapids MI, p.180. [return]
[5] "Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator: S. Apollinare nuovo Basilica, Ravenna, Italy," 2007, Jean and Alexander Heard Divinity Library, Vanderbilt University." [return]
[6] Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: San Gwann, Malta, pp.192-193. [return]
[7] Wilson, I., 1986., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, p.105. [return]
[8] Scavone, D.C., 1991, "The History of the Turin Shroud to the 14th C" in Berard, A., ed., 1991, "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud," Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, p.186. [return]
[9] Weitzmann, K., "The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons," Princeton University Press, 1976, p.15; in Wilson, 1986, p.107. [return
[10] Whanger, M. & A.D., 1998, "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, p.20. [return]
[11] Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.141. [return]
[12] Scavone, 1991, p.189. [return]
[13] Wilson, I., "The Shroud's History Before the 14th Century," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., 1977, "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, p.37.[return]

Posted 16 February 2012. Updated: 1 August 2023

Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings (1)

Continuing from part "#1 Introduction"of this series, "Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date for the Shroud has to be wrong!",

[Above (enlarge): "The Vignon markings: (1) Transverse streak across forehead, (2) three-sided `square' between brows, (3) V shape at bridge of nose, (4) second V within marking 2, (5) raised right eyebrow, (6) accentuated left cheek, (7) accentuated right cheek, (8) enlarged left nostril, (9) accentuated line between nose and upper lip, (10) heavy line under lower lip, (11) hairless area between lower lip and beard, (12) forked beard, (13) transverse line across throat, (14) heavily accentuated owlish eyes, (15) two strands of hair." [1]]

with this part #2 "The Vignon markings" (1).

Because of the amount of material, and its complexity, I have decided to split my originally single post into two or more.

1. The Vignon markings. The New Testament contains no description of Jesus' appearance [2]. Early Christian art depicted Jesus like a youthful, beardless pagan god Apollo. [3] Yet suddenly in the early sixth century, Jesus began to be depicted as a long-haired, bearded man. [4]

Paul Vignon (1865-1943) was a French Professor of Biology [5] and an artist [6]. He discovered there were twenty unique features of the Shroud that were found in these depictions of Christ from the sixth century onwards [7]. But Wilson reduced these to a more definite fifteen. [8] Some of these features are merely wrinkles and imperfections of the fabric of the Shroud and artistically make no sense. [9] Yet the artists slavishly copied these features found on the Shroud, including the imperfections. [10]

Vignon, in his 1939 book, Le Saint Suaire de Turin devant la Science, l'Archeologie, l'Histoire, l'Iconographie, la Logique ("The Holy Shroud of Turin in the light of Science, Archaeology, History, Iconography and Logic" [11], proposed his "Iconographic Theory" of the Shroud of Turin. [12] Vignon's theory proposed that those artistic representations of Christ's face, which contain, to varying degrees these "Vignon markings," were based, directly or indirectly, on the face image of the Shroud itself . [13]

As we shall see, Vignon's theory has proven to be true beyond any reasonable doubt. [14] There is simply no reasonable alternative explanation why flaws in the Shroud's linen fabric are present in artistic representations of Christ from the sixth to the twelfth century, except that the artists faithfully copied those flaws, directly or indirectly, from the Shroud itself.

Law courts determing cases of plagiarism have recognised this principle, that of two otherwise identical texts, which both claim to be the original, if a physical flaw in the paper of one of the texts (e.g. "a scrap of straw") has a meaningless counterpart (e.g. "an intrusive colon within a phrase") in the other text, then the original source is that which has the physical flaw in its paper:

"An interesting argument is that in the law courts (where proof `beyond reasonable doubt' is required), cases of plagiarism or breach of copyright will be settled in the plaintiff's favour if it can be shown that the text (or whatever) is supposed to have been copied contains errors present in the original. Similarly, in tracing the texts of ancient authors, the best evidence that two versions are copies one from another or from the same original is when both contain the same errors. A charming example is an intrusive colon within a phrase in two fourteenth-century texts of Euripides: one colon turned out to be a scrap of straw embedded in the paper, proving that the other text was a later copy." [15]

Therefore, as we shall see, it is an unanswered (and unanswerable) fact that the Shroud of Turin existed from at least the sixth century AD, and those critics of Vignon's day, such as Canon Ulysse Chevalier (1841-1923) and Fr. Herbert Thurston (1856-1939), who uncritically accepted Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (1377–1395) unsubstantiated claim that the Shroud was "cunningly painted" in 1355, [16] were wrong. And therefore, in our day, the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud as "medieval ... AD 1260-1390" [17], also has to be wrong!

Continued in #2, part (2).

References
[1] Wilson, I., 1978, "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, p.82e. [return]
[2] Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, p.16. [return]
[3] Maher, R.W., 1986, "Science, History, and the Shroud of Turin," Vantage Press: New York NY, p.73. [return]
[4] Adams, F.O., 1982, "Sindon: A Layman's Guide to the Shroud of Turin," Synergy Books: Tempe AZ, p.83. [return]
[5] McNair, P., in Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, p.28. [return]
[6] Shepard, L., 1970, in Vignon, P., 1902, "The Shroud of Christ," University Books: New York NY, Reprinted, p.ix. [return]
[7] Walsh, J.E., 1963, "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, p.157. [return]
[8] Wilson, 1978, p.85. [return]
[9] Walsh, 1963, p.157. [return]
[10] Wuenschel, E.A., 1954, "Self-Portrait of Christ," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, pp.58-60. [return]
[11] Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places Doubleday: New York NY, pp.161-162. [return]
[12] Shepard, 1970, p.ix. [return]
[13] Adams, 1982, p.20. [return]
[14] Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, p.142. [return]
[15] Patterson, C., 1999, "Evolution," Cornell University Press: Ithaca NY, Second edition, p.117. [return]
[16] Wilson, 1978, pp.230-231. [return]
[17] Damon, P.E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, pp.611-615, p.611. [return]

Posted: 11 February 2012. Updated: 5 December 2021

Shroud of Turin News, February 2012

This is my Shroud of Turin News for February 2012. The previous issue was January 2012. See that issue for more details. I have since reposted the first item to, "Old blood does not always degenerate to type AB, so the Shroud of Turin's and the Sudarium of Oviedo's blood group being AB is significant!" My comments are bold to distinguish them from the articles.

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"King Tut's Dad's Toe Returns Home," (no longer online) Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, April 15, 2010 ... A toe

[ Right: Mummi- fied toe of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton (c. 1353-1336 BC): Daily Telegraph]

belonging to King Tutankhamun's father has been finally returned to Egypt, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Wednesday. The bone piece belonged to mummy KV55, which was identified as Akhenaton during a recent major genetic investigation into King Tut's family. The son of Amenhotep III and also the father of Tutankhamun, Akhenaton, (1353-1336 B.C.) is known as the "heretic" pharaoh who introduced a monotheistic religion by overthrowing the pantheon of the gods to worship the sun god Aton. The terminal phalanx of his great toe, probably from the left foot, was taken away in 1968, when the Department of Antiquities in Cairo, under the supervision of the then director, handed it over to the late Professor Ronald Harrison of Liverpool University. "Since then, the specimen has been held securely in my laboratory, but I decided it had to `go home,' particularly since very few people knew where it was," Robert Connolly senior lecturer in physical anthropology from the University of Liverpool's Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, told Discovery News. Connolly, who authored several scientific papers with Harrison, used the specimen to determine the blood-group of KV55, then believed to be Smenkharel, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the late 18th Dynasty. "The remains appeared to be A2 with the antigens M and N present. This was identical to the blood group of Tutankhamun," Connolly said. ... I am posting this 2010 news item here on my Shroud news for February 2012, because of its importance, and it is the first I became aware of it. I was alerted by a commenter bippy123 to my blog post, "Re: Shroud blood ... types as AB ... aged blood always types as AB, so the significance of this ... is unclear" that King Tutankhamun's blood type was A2. The significance of this for the Shroud is that its blood type (and that of the Sudarium of Oviedo) is AB:

"The most striking thing about all the stains is that they coincide exactly with the face of the image on the Turin Shroud. The first fact that confirms the relationship between the two cloths is that the blood on each belongs to the same group, AB. If the blood or each cloth belonged to a different group, there would be no sense in pursuing the comparative investigation, and little meaning in any further points of coincidence. This test is the starting point for all the others, and the results are positive. Blood of the group AB is also very common in the Middle East and rare in Europe." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, p.27).

But previously it had been stated that there was "a tendency among blood samples more than several centuries old always to test AB":

"In fact, quite independently of Drs Heller and Adler, other findings have served to confirm that what appears to be blood genuinely is blood. For instance the Italian pathologist Dr Pier Luigi Baima-Bollone, who has carried out thousands of autopsies, and who has had more Shroud `blood' sample than was accorded to Dr Adler, has not only confirmed it to be blood, but confidently identified it as of the AB group. [Baima-Bollone, P., Jorio, M. & Massaro, A.L., "Identification of the Group of the Traces of Human Blood on the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 6, March 1983, pp.3-6] Although this group is comparatively rare among Europeans and is found in only 3.2 per cent of the world's population as a whole, its incidence is 18 per cent among Jewish populations of the present-day Near East. [Garza-Valdès, L., "The DNA of God?," Doubleday: New York, 1999, p.39] Caution is needed, however, since some researchers have noted a tendency among blood samples more than several centuries old always to test AB." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.77).

But clearly since Akhenaton's (and his family's) blood type has been determined to be A2, a variant of type A, which is different from type AB, and they lived ~1,500 years before Jesus, making them now thirty four centuries old, then there is good reason to believe (and it certainly cannot now be ruled out) that both the Shroud and the Sudarium's blood was originally type AB, which in turn increases the likelihood that the blood on them came from the same Jewish individual, namely Jesus Christ! As I responded to bippy123's comment:

"While not a scientific journal, I regard this Discovery News science news report as sufficiently authoritative, especially as it quoted Dr. Connolly's words: `The remains appeared to be A2 with the antigens M and N present,' to establish that old blood does not necessarily degrade to AB. Especially bearing in mind that at 14th century BC King Akhenaton's ... remains are much older than the Shroud's presumed 1st century AD. Which means both the Shroud's and the Sudarium of Oviedo's blood group being AB is significant and cannot just be set aside by the claim that old blood always degrades to type AB."

See also "Another Tutankhamen puzzle," Research Intelligence, University of Liverpool, Issue 24, May 2005 and "King Tut's Mom and Dad ID'ed," LiveScience, 16 February 2010. The lead paper in the major genetic investigation of Tutankhamun's family is: Hawass, Z., et al., "Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family," JAMA, February 17, 2010, Vol. 303, No. 7, pp.638-647. I will get a copy of those papers in the investigation which mention the A2 blood group.

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"Christian 'David' takes on PC 'Goliath'," Marisa Martin, WND, February 9, 2012 ...

[Right: "Jesus Christ the Word of Life," by Michael O'Brien. "This painting of Christ by Michael O'Brien was commissioned in the 1980s by Mount Angel Benedictine Abbey, in Oregon, USA. The figure is based on the oldest known icon of Christ, a sixth century "Christ Pantocrator" in St. Catherine's monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt: Living Bulwark]

You never know who you may meet mucking around a remote Canadian village. Take Combermere, Ontario, where mega-talented Christian artist Michael O'Brien pours forth enough work to stagger 10 ordinary souls. Not content with merely producing best-selling novels, O'Brien writes apologetics and essays, paints prolifically and illustrates books for other authors. On his days off he lectures on a variety of subjects such as Christian worldview and sexual abuse in the church. O'Brien's writing and visual art is unabashedly Christian, and he sees himself a type of cultural crusader venturing into the dark lands of pagan modernity ...

[Left: "Christ Pantocrator" ("Ruler of All"), "6th century icon from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt": Living Bulwark and Wikipedia]

O'Brien's paintings echo his Catholicism, the use of Scripture and biblical stories almost exclusively ... Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon commissioned him in to do a series of icons similar to the earliest one known to exist, "Christ Pantocrator" from Mt. Sinai, Egypt ... His portraits of Christ often bear a likeness to the Shroud of Turin or older icons, which seem to have been influence by the relic ... A good thing about posting a Shroud of Turin news is that I find things about the Shroud that I didn't know and I can share them with readers who may not know about them either. I had not heard about this Michael O'Brien and I am pleased to see that he continues the 1,500 year old Christian tradition in basing his portraits of Jesus on the Shroud.

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"Turin Shroud display set for Norwich Cathedral," Keith Morris, Network Norwich and Norfolk, 7 February 2012 ...

[Left: St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cathedral, Norwich]

A full-size copy of the world-famous Shroud of Turin, believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, is coming to St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich later this month ... The special educational exhibition features life-sized photographic replicas of the Shroud. They make up a visual aid to tell the story of Christ's crucifixion from his trial on Good Friday to the empty tomb on Easter Sunday ... The Shroud of Turin also offers a mystery story that ties together many different disciplines - religion, science, art, archaeology and history and yet even in the 21st century there are no answers to the question `How was the image formed?' Although I may be in the minority among my fellow Christians who believe the Shroud is authentic, I don't agree with them saying words to the effect, "there are no answers to the question `How was the image formed?'" What more "answers" could there be? The only explanation that fits all the facts (since the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud has to be wrong) is that the image on the Shroud was caused by some form of radiation from Jesus' resurrected body, considering that: 1) the image is a scorch; 2) the blood clots which were adhering to both the body and the cloth are unbroken; 3) the image is of both organic (the body and plant parts) and inorganic (coins over the eyes-regardless of whether they can be identified as Pontius Pilate leptons); 4. the ENEA report showed the image was only 0.0002 mm deep. ... In December 2011, Italian scientists said that because the image on the Shroud of Turin could not have been made by any technology available in medieval times the Shroud is probably the burial cloth of Jesus. The Shroud shows the image of a man who appears to have been crucified and the scientific team attempted to "identify the physical and chemical processes capable of generating a colour similar to that of the image on the Shroud." They tried to recreate the shade of colour, which is like a scorched ironing board cover and the depth to which it penetrates the cloth by using short bursts of ultra violet light, using lasers. They managed to re-create a small section of cloth with some of the properties of the Shroud (at least at a microscopic level) by this method. They concluded that "some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength)" created the image on the Shroud of Turin. As ultra violet lasers were not available to medieval forgers it opens the possibility that the Shroud is actually Jesus' burial cloth, the image being created at the point of resurrection. It does much more than merely "open... the possibility that the Shroud is actually Jesus' burial cloth." The evidence now is overwhelming that it is! One of the scientists, Dr Paolo Di Lazzaro, the head of the team, said: "When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things like miracles and resurrection. But as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes. We hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate but we will leave the conclusions to the experts, and ultimately to the conscience of individuals." I am thankful for the work of scientists like Dr. Lazzaro, but I don't agree with them `passing the buck' to the "experts" (what "experts"?) rather than coming right out and saying that the scientific inference to the best explanation, which has defeated all alternative naturalistic exlanations proposed, is that the Shroud image was caused by a "miracle," namely the "resurrection' of Jesus Christ, of which the image on the Shroud is a "literal `snapshot'":

"Even from the limited available information, a hypothetical glimpse of the power operating at the moment of creation of the Shroud's image may be ventured. In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab. Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the blood dematerializes, dissolved perhaps by the flash, while its image and that of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.210).

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Posted 7 February 2012. Updated 29 March 2024.

Shroud of Turin News, January 2012

Here, belatedly, is the first issue of my restarted Shroud of Turin News. My last issue was October/November 2008. After I catch up with January's news, I will then add to each month's issue, excerpts of newsworthy articles about the Shroud, newest uppermost. The articles will be bold to distinguish their words from mine (or vice-versa).

On January 28 I had a system file failure on my 7 year-old computer running Windows XP, which stopped it loading Windows. So rather than re-install XP, because it may have been a warning of impending hard disk failure, I decided to buy a new computer running Windows 7. I did not then realise that much of my old software and hardware would not run under Windows 7 and that so many things, including my idiosyncratic way of writing my blog posts, would have to change. If any reader can recommend a HTML WYSIWYG editor that writes clean and uncluttered HTML code, suitable for posting to Blogger, please let me know in comments.

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"A new detail observed on the Shroud of Turin," The News Association of Jean Carmignac, Paris, No. 50 - June 2011 ... We

[Left (click to enlarge): Photo by Reginald Wehrkamp-Richter showing a triangular shape in the right foot of the Man on the Shroud]

learned in late 2010 of the astonishing discovery made by Mr. Wehrkamp-Richter, who uses – and creates – medical equipment as part of his professional activity. From his friend Barrie Schwortz, a photographer who was a member of the American research team STURP in 1978, Mr. Wehrkamp-Richter has acquired a full-size facsimile of the Shroud of Turin, which reproduces on transparent photographic film more than 4 meters long everything that is impressed on the Shroud. Very close observation, aided by adjustments in lighting and contrasts, has allowed him to discover the image of a geometric form in the centre of surrounding blood traces ...

[Right (click to enlarge): Shroud Scope closeup of the Durante 2002 vertical positive image of the sole of the right foot. Note the polarity is opposite.]

This triangle is nearly equilateral; an exact geometric figure, which appears within the bloody image. What is the meaning of this image? ... Can we see the image of a hole which partially preserved the clear boards in the flesh, even if the hole has been partly filled in a second phase? ... Are these traces remainders of coagulated blood, which when dried out, became hardened and preserved the form of the nail? Is this the silhouette just of the hole which one can see and which the enormous nail has driven into the flesh of the man of the Shroud of Turin? ... The question is no longer: Is the Shroud of Turin Yes or No the authentic Shroud of Jesus? But how can anyone still say today, at the beginning of the third millennium, that the Shroud of Turin is a fake, given all the scientific work that has been done in the last hundred years and more? Now we know with absolute certainty that the Shroud of Turin is unforgeable. And if the Shroud of Turin is authentic, then it is a direct witness of Resurrection ... This appears on Shroud.com's Update of January 21, 2012 so I am including as the last article in January's Shroud of Turin News. I am still a bit sceptical of this until it is confirmed by an independent witness who I trust, e.g. Barrie Schwortz. But on a Shroud Scope close-up of the right foot area (see above), there does seem to be something angular there, although I cannot definitely make out a triangle at that level of resolution. But if it is confirmed that it is the imprint of a large Roman nail (and that is the term Thomas used in Jn 20:27 KJV: "Except I shall see in his hands the print [Gk. tupon = Lit. "type", i.e. the "stamp" or "mark" of where the nails were] of the nails ... I will not believe"), then, as I replied to the commenter who told me about the article: "This is [or will be] the final nail in the coffin of Shroud inauthenticity (pun intended)!" When I wrote this in 2012, I did not know that French surgeon Pierre Barbet (1884–1961) had already discovered the mark of the large, square in cross-section, Roman nail in the man's right foot[23Jan23]! [Below (enlarge):

"Half-way along there is a rectangular stain, rather nearer to the inner than to the outer edge of the impression, and this is where the flows seem to have their centre ... This four-sided image is certainly the mark of the nail ..." (Barbet, P., 1953, "A Doctor at Calvary," Image Books: Garden City NY, Reprinted, 1963, p.125)]

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"Luciano Buso - an artist who cracked Giotto Code, The Voice of Russia, Jan 31, 2012 ...

[Left: Statue representing Giotto, outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy: Wikipedia]

... Luciano Buso – an artist and art-restorer from an Italian town of Treviso – is confident that it [The Shroud of Turin] was a replica of the original Shroud made by a great Italian medieval artist Giotto di Bondone. ... Mr. Buso, how did you manage to establish that the famous Shroud of Turin was created by Giotto given the fact that you did not have direct access to it? During this study I only used the same methods that I have already used during my examination of other pieces of art ... All of these artists used a special technique of hidden writing. And in the case of the Shroud it was sufficient for me to operate with its photograph only. In your opinion, why of all the great medieval masters it was Giotto who was honored with the job of replicating the burial cloth of Christ? As I have written numerous times, in my mind Giotto was chosen as a famous artist of his time whose name was well known primarily due to his popularity and his craftsmanship. ... Are you ready to insist on your point of view? If yes, what counter arguments are you going to use to prove your point? The fact that all theories related to the Shroud of Turin are to be proved invalid to some extent became obvious to me back in 1980s when a group of world renowned scientists who performed carbon dating test on a small piece of the cloth put the Shroud's origin around 1280-1320. ... I can say only this: those who want to doubt my theory will also have to appeal the results of all my work to study hundreds of pictures painted between years 1300 and 2010. In all those I found hidden writing. There is a book about to come out in which I give a precise and detailed account of all examples of hidden writing I have encountered. What I don't understand is this: what's the point of denying my theory that proves that Giotto created the Shroud of Turin in 1315 if the existence of these hidden writings is obvious. ...Busco's "hidden writing" in the case of the Shroud is nothing more than "several veiled appearances of the number 15" which supposedly "indicate Giotto created the Shroud in 1315"(!):

"An art critic has claimed the Shroud of Turin, an ancient linen sheet revered by some Christians as the burial cloth that wrapped Christ's body after his crucifixion, was created by the Italian master Giotto ... After months of careful examination of photographs of the Shroud - the relic is kept locked away and not available to be viewed unless on special occasions - Luciano Buso... says that several veiled appearances of the number 15, hidden in the fabric by the artist, indicate Giotto created the Shroud in 1315 - and that it is a copy of the original which had been damaged and was then lost over the centuries." ("Shroud of Turin is a fake created by famous master Giotto, claims Italian art expert," Daily Mail, 8th June 2011).

Sounds like Busco's `theory' is more about his making money through sales of his new book than any actual artistic or historical evidence that Giotto di Bondone (c.1266-1337) painted the Shroud. I could point out the usual evidence that invalidates all claims that the Shroud is a painting, i.e. there is no paint or pigment on it that accounts for its image, the image is extremely superficial ("one fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter"), it has no outline and no directionality, it is a photographic negative which was unknown until photography was invented ~600 years later in the early 19th century, etc. But I will quote The Guardian's art critic, Jonathan Jones, who answers "Nah" to the question, "Did Giotto really paint the Turin Shroud?":

"Claims that the shroud was a 14th-century hoax by Giotto may be far-fetched, but at least they get us talking about this profound and brilliant painter ... But why would he want to? Nothing in what is known of his life or art suggests any such activities or interests. ... the idea of Giotto taking time off to concoct a relic seems silly. He was too well-known, too ambitious and too profound to either want to do it or get away with it unnoticed." ("Did Giotto really paint the Turin Shroud? Nah," Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 9 June 2011).

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"A painter pulled between the pretty and the prophetic," TheSpec, Regina Haggo, January 26, 2012 ... Kurelek's major blockbuster

[Right: "Self-Portrait," 1957, by William Kurelek (1927-77): The Dark Side of William Kurelek]

exhibit opening in Hamilton William Kurelek ... The Art Gallery of Hamilton is hosting the largest-ever exhibition of work by Kurelek, one of Canada's greatest 20th-century artists ... In Self-Portrait, painted in 1957 while Kurelek was in England, the artist looks directly at us ... Artists' self-portraits can tell us both what someone looks like and what makes them tick. He's placed himself in front of a wall neatly covered with images. A picture of the dead Christ from the Shroud of Turin might serve as a reminder of his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism .... Kurelek's other religious paintings are more subtle but they deliver the same message: seek spiritual salvation — or suffer the consequences ...

Since the image on the Shroud is that of the crucified, dead and resurrected Jesus, who is God incarnate (Mt 1:23; Jn 1:1; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom 9:5; Php 2:5-6; Col 2:9; Tit 2:13; Heb 1:8; 2Pet 1:1; 1Jn 5:20) the Shroud is a "Fifth Gospel" message of God's self-sacrificing love to each individual in our post-Christian society, to "seek spiritual salvation - or suffer the consequences."

Those who know in their heart of hearts that the image on the Shroud is Jesus', but reject His death on the Cross for them (Eph 2:16; Php 2:8; Col 1:20; 2:14; Heb 12:2), when they stand before Jesus, who is going to be their (and my) Judge on the Last Day (Jn 5:26-27; Act 10:41-42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 2Cor 5:10; 2Tim 4:1) will be even less able to offer Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)'s feeble excuse of, "Not enough evidence, God":

"Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell had not believed in him. `Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence,' was Russell's (I almost said immortal) reply." (Dawkins, R., "The God Delusion," Bantam Press: London, 2006, p.104).

Russell at least died in 1970, before the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) in 1978 proved that the Shroud was not a painting. But now in the light of the ENEA Report that the Shroud:

"could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period." ("Italian study claims Turin Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe," Nick Squires, The Telegraph, 19 December 2011)

when Richard Dawkins, or any other disbeliever in Jesus, who knows about the Shroud, stands before Jesus, to give to Him an account of their lives (Mt 16:27; Rom 2:6; 14:12; 2Cor 5:10; Rev 20:12; 22:12), if they claim as an excuse for their sin of unbelief (Mt 11:23; Jn 3:18; Rom 14:23), "Not enough evidence, God," Jesus could point them to the conclusive evidence of the authenticity of His Shroud, which bears the image of His crucified, dead and resurrected body!

The next issue is February 2012.

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Posted 4 February 2012. Updated 24 September 2024