My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3) #38
This is the twenty-seventh iinstallment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3)," part #38 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. See Part 1 for
[Sometime yesterday, 16 March 2025 (Perth time), TSoT reached 2 million page views! [Right] I started this blog on 30 June 2007. That's 6470 days ago. 2,001,160 divided by 6470 is an average of ~309 page views a day!]
more information about this 5-part series. This post is going to be very long, so here are links to each Shroudie theory in it: Neutron flux; Carbon contamination, Bioplastic coating & Invisible reweave.
[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (2) #37] [Next: My Hacker Theory (4) #39].
■ Other Shroudie explanations all fail [see 24May14, 08Dec14 & 23Jul15].
[Above (enlarge): "How the Shroud sample that Giovanni Riggi cut off on 21 April 1988 became apportioned"[WI98, 189]. Clearly there can be no significant difference between samples in such a tiny (1.2 cms x 8 cms) area, if the radiocarbon dates were real and not generated by a hacker's program[26May18]!]
We have seen in Part 1 and Part 2 that there is both historical and artistic evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud is at least 716 years older than its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date. So the 1260-1390 (=325 ± 65) radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct. But shroudies are under no obligation to explain how the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date, as the agnostic art historian and Shroudie Thomas de Wesselow (1971-) pointed out:
"Contamination, reweaving or fraud: three potential sources of error, any one of which could have caused the incorrect carbon dating of the Shroud. But can we legitimately reject the carbon-dating result without determining exactly what went wrong? Of course we can. Archaeologists routinely dismiss 'rogue' radiocarbon dates out of hand. The success of a carbon-dating result should never be declared unilaterally; it is always measured against other evidence. The 1988 test may therefore be declared null and void, even though, without further direct study of the Shroud, it is unlikely we will ever be able to say definitively what went wrong"[14Feb14; 22Feb14]Having said that, as I have shown in my previous Hacking Theory series': 18Feb14; 24May14; 23Jul15 & 23Jan17, it is my theory that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking. I therefore need to show that other Shroudie explanations why the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date are wrong[08Jun14; 11 Jun16].
Apart from "Sample Switch," (see future) all shroudie attempts to explain why the first-century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 years radiocarbon date:
• Accept the 1260-1390 date and attempt to reconcile the 1st century Shroud with it[19Apr17].
• Claim that new carbon-14 shifted the first century Shroud's radiocarbon date 13 centuries into the future to the `bull's eye' date 1325 ± 65 years[09May17].
• Don't explain why the Shroud's radiocarbon date is 1325 ± 65.
• Ignore that it would be a miracle if new carbon shifted the Shroud's 1st century radiocarbon date ~13 centuries into future to the `bull's eye' date, 1325 ± 65[30May14; 26Oct14; 08Dec14; 24May14; 23Jul15; 18Aug15; 19Apr17; 09May17].
• Are mutually exclusive: they all can't be right but they all can be wrong!
■ Neutron flux [20Jan25a]. This was the first attempt to explain why the 1st century Shroud could have a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date, by Harvard physicist Thomas J. Phillips and it was actually in the same 16 February 1989 Nature issue as the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud article[08Dec14; 23Jul15]. In a letter to Nature Phillips wrote:
"If the shroud of Turin is in fact the burial cloth of Christ, contrary to its recent carbon-dated age of about 670 years (Nature 335, 663; 1988 and 337, 611; 1989), then according to the Bible it was present at a unique physical event: the resurrection of a dead body. Unfortunately, this event is not accessible to direct scientific scrutiny, but the image on the shroud, which still cannot be duplicated, appears to be a scorch, indicating that the body radiated light and/or heat. It may also have radiated neutrons, which would have irradiated the shroud and changed some of the nuclei to different isotopes by neutron capture. In particular, some 14C could have been generated from 13C. If we assume that the shroud is 1,950 years old and that the neutrons were emitted thermally, then an integrated flux of 2 x 1016 neutrons cm-2 would have converted enough 13C to 14C to give an apparent carbon-dated age of 670 years"[PT89].As far as I am aware, Phillips was not a Shroudie, although he knew the Shroudman's image "cannot be duplicated, [and] appears to be a scorch," and presumably is a Christian. But as pointed out by Oxford laboratory's Robert Hedges (1944-), "Phillips ... has not included the neutron capture by nitrogen in the cloth"[HR89, 08Dec14]. This shows that Phillips knew little about radiocarbon dating. While the conversion of carbon-13 with its 7 neutrons to carbon-14 with its 8 neutrons would appear to be simpler, carbon-13 is rare, comprising only about 1.1% of all carbon on Earth, so there would not be enough carbon-13 in the Shroud's linen to convert to carbon-14 and affect the Shroud's radiocarbon date. Nitrogen-14 (ordinary nitrogen), also with 7 neutrons, is far more abundant, comprising about 78% of Earth's atmosphere. Almost all carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere by neutrons colliding with atoms of nitrogen-14. So neutron flux theorists claim that it was the nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces (since there is no nitrogen in cellulose see below) that was converted to carbon-14 and accounts for the first-century Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date[20Jan25b].
Problems of the Neutron Flux Theory (NFT) include: • No mechanism "No plausible physical mechanism has been proposed to explain how the resurrection was accompanied by a significant neutron flux"[HR89]. • Amazing coincidence "it is an amazing coincidence that the neutron dose should be so exactly appropriate to give the most likely date on historical grounds [1355]"[HR89; 09Jan14; 08Dec14]. • Fine-tuned "To produce a date within 100 years of the first recorded history of the shroud [1355] implies that the dose has been `fine-tuned' to better than one part in a hundred million"[HR89, 08Dec14]. • Distance from image "samples taken much nearer to the image ... would have given a carbon date even more recent than the historic age"[GH96, 300, 08Dec14]. • No Biblical support. While there is Biblical support for the Light Radiation Theory (see 25Oct24), there is none for the NFT[20Jan25c]. • Source was Jesus' body According to the NFT, the source of the neutron flux was Jesus' body. The loss of normal oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus atoms (to mention the most numerous) would be incompatible with human life. And it would not be a valid explanation that it didn't matter if Jesus' resurrection body was not viable as a human body because the risen Jesus impressed on his disciples that his resurrection body was still a human body (Lk 24:39; Jn 20:19-20; 26-27). The Council of Chalcedon (451), ruled that Jesus was "perfect in manhood", but a risen Jesus with a great many of his neutrons missing, would not be perfect in manhood[20Jan25d]! • No nitrogen in cellulose There is no nitrogen in cellulose which comprises the Shroud's linen (see below). The NFT therefore claims that the nitrogen in the Shroud's air spaces was
[Right (enlarge): Cellulose molecular structure [CDL]. As can be seen, cellulose (C6H10O5), consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in repeating glucose units.]
converted to carbon-14 by a neutron flux generated by Jesus' resurrection. But the carbon-14 in the Shroud's air spaces would not become part the Shroud's cellulose fibres and so could not change the Shroud's radiocarbon date[20Jan25e]. • Would add neutrons to cellulose atoms The same neutron flux which the NFT claims would add a neutron to an atom of nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces and convert it to an atom of carbon-14, would also add neutrons to atoms in the Shroud's cellulose fibre molecules. The likely effect on a cellulose molecule's chemical bonds would be the disintegration of that molecule. In which case the Shroud fabric would likely have disintegrated in the first century[20Jan25f]! • Would have killed the guards at the tomb A neutron flux strong enough to convert enough nitrogen-14 to carbon-14, to shift the Shroud's first-century radiocarbon date ~thirteen centuries into the future to 1325 ± 65 would have killed the guards stationed outside the tomb (Mt 27:65-66), by Neutron Activation. But the guards were alive when an angel descended to roll back the large stone across the entrance of the tomb and announce to Jesus' women disciples who had come to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 23:55-24:1; Jn 20:1), that Jesus had been resurrected (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1-6; Lk 24:1-6). The guards "became like dead men" (Mt 28:1-4) and after the women had left the tomb, the guards recovered and some of them went into Jerusalem and told the chief priests "all that had taken place" (Mt 28:11-13). The guards were unaware until the angel's announcement that Jesus had been resurrected inside the tomb, and so they had not heard, nor felt, any neutron flux from inside the tomb, which they surely would have, if they were not killed by it! So there was no neutron flux inside Jesus' tomb! [20Jan25g]. • Would have killed the disciples who went inside the tomb A neutron flux in Jesus' tomb would leave residual radiation which would have killed the women disciples, and the Apostles Peter and John, who went into the tomb soon after Jesus' resurrection (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1-6; Lk 23:56-24:3; Jn 20:1-8). Yet one of the women, Mary Magdalene, ran from the tomb to tell Peter and John that Jesus' body was not in it (Jn 20:1-2). And Peter and John were still alive and well 2-3 years later when in Acts 8:14 they were together sent by the Jerusalem church to minister to the new Christian converts in Samaria! So again there was no neutron flux inside Jesus' tomb! [20Jan25h]. • Does not explain the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date Finally, the NFT does not explain why a neutron flux from Jesus' resurrection converted nitrogen-14 in the Shroud to carbon-14, which `just happened’ to shift the first century radiocarbon date of the Shroud thirteen centuries into the future, to the `bull's eye’ 1325 +/- 65 years radiocarbon date! Which `just happens' to be exactly 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355! As the physicist Frank Tipler (1947-) pointed out, it "would be an extraordinary and very improbable coincidence if the amount of carbon added to the Shroud were exactly the amount needed to give the date that indicated a fraud"[TF07, 178]. But that is what the NFT is either claiming, or ignoring. Only my Hacker Theory (and Tipler's Supernatural Deceptive Miracle by God Theory) explains that! [20Jan25i].
■ Carbon contamination • Explains why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct Irremovable contamination of the Shroud's linen with younger carbon explains why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct: "Although pre-treatment, involving cleaning of materials to be carbon dated, is standard procedure, and was certainly carried out with maximum possible thoroughness in the case of the shroud samples, doubts surround the extent to which this procedure can ever be 100 per cent effective ..."[12Feb08a]; "... the Shroud `provides an almost copy-book case of an object seriously unsuitable for carbon-dating,' having even in its `universally accepted history subsequent to the mid-fourteenth century' been `subjected to centuries of smoke from burning candles,' `involved in a serious fire in 1532,' and having a `backing made up from ... holland cloth' which `has now been in the closest contact with the shroud for over four hundred and fifty years"[12Feb08b] and "In [the]1532 ... fire ... moisture in the Shroud would turn to steam ... contaminants on the cloth would be dissolved by the steam and forced ... into the flax fibres' very lumen and molecular structure ... contaminants would have become part of the chemistry of the flax fibres themselves and would be impossible to remove ..."[08Jun14]. • Does not explain why the 1st century Shroud has a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date Prof. Harry Gove (1922-2009) asked "How much organic carbon contamination was required to change 0 AD to 1325 AD" and "The answer ... was that ... 79% of the shroud would have been composed of such carbon contamination and only 21% would have been actual carbon from the shroud linen" but that "is preposterous"[24May14, 08Dec14 & 23Jul15]. Oxford's Prof. Edward Hall (1924–2001), stated that "modern contamination amounting to 65 per cent of the mass of the shroud would be necessary to give a date of 1350 to a fabric originally dating from the time of Christ" but "any such contamination would have been less than 0.1 per cent"[24May14; 08Dec14 & 23Jul15]. In fact Arizona laboratory still has part of its Shroud sample as it came from Turin, uncleaned and undated, and it has "no evidence for either coatings or dyes, and only minor contaminants"[08Dec14](see below).
[Left (enlarge): Photomicrograph by Shroudie Barrie Schwortz (1946-2024) in 2012 of Arizona laboratory's remaining undated part of its Shroud sample (presumably "A1" above), as it came cut from the Shroud, with no pretreatment[08Dec14]. As can be seen, it has no obvious contamination or foreign fibres, whereas, if the Shroud were first century (which it is) and subsequent contamination produced the fourteenth century radiocarbon date, then this sample would have to be two thirds shroud and one third contamination (my emphasis)[13Jun14].]
This applies to all forms of contamination of the Shroud by younger carbon (including the "Bioplastic coating" and "Invisible Reweave" theories) as an explanation of the first century Shroud's 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date.
■ Bioplastic coating [24May15; 21Mar23; 04Jun24] Dr Leoncio-Garza-Valdes (1939-2010) was a pediatrician in San Antonio, Texas[24May15] and a professor of microbiology at the University of Texas, San Antonio[21Mar23]. Garza-Valdes had a particular interest in the jade artifacts of the Mayan civilisation of Central America [29Jul08] between AD 200 and 900 [21Mar23]. In 1970 Garza-Valdes bought two Mayan jade artifacts because of their lustre, but two Mayan jade experts told him that they were fakes because of their lustre and because their provenance was unknown[GL98, 15]! So evidently Garza-Valdes' "bioplastic coating" was unknown to Mayan jade experts, and still is: a search for "bioplastic coating Mayan jade" without the quotes returned no hits from science journals. In 1983 Garza-Valdes conducted his own tests on the two artifacts and on one, the Itzamna Tun, he found "millions of blue-green ... bacteria ... and also some fungi ..." (my emphasis)[GL98, 16]. And "because the gloss was formed by bacteria" Garza-Valdes "called it a `bioplastic coating'" (my emphasis)[GL98, 16]. Chemically it was a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)[GL98, 16], a member of a group of biodegradable plastics that are produced by microorganisms[PHW]. Garza-Valdes claimed that tests at the "Santa Rosa Hospital" and at "the medical examiner's office in San Antonio" detected blood: "definitely blood, definitely ancient and definitely of human origin"[GL98, 16]. Here is an example of Garza-Valdes' capacity for self-delusion: what he wants to be true he thinks is true! It is actually very difficult to prove that suspected ancient blood really is blood, let alone that it is human blood. The 1973 Turin Commission of experts failed to prove that the bloodstains on the Shroud were blood[16Apr22]. Heller and Adler[08Dec22] and Baima Bollone[0Dec22] did in the 1980s prove the Shroud's bloodstains were real, human, blood, but with very sophisticated equipment and their specialist expertise. If Garza-Valdes, with no specialist expertise, detected blood on his jade artifact at a hospital and medical examiner's office then it could not have been ancient blood but would have been painted on it to make his fake artifact appear to be genuine! In 1991, to prove its wasn't a fake, Garza-Valdes, had his Itzamna Tun Mayan jade artifact radiocarbon dated by Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory, and it returned a radiocarbon date of 1535 ±240 years, which was a range from AD 240-690[GL98, 18]. While this was within the range of the Mayan culture which flourished between AD 200-900, Garza-Valdes felt that the dating was too recent and that his Mayan jade artifacts were "several centuries older"[GL98, 19]. This raises the questions: 1) what was radiocarbon dated? and 2) was the artifact's "bioplastic coating" destroyed? Since jade is an inorganic mineral, it has no radiocarbon date. So a jade artifact's radiocarbon date would be the date of all carbon additions and substractions which had accumulated on its surface during its existence! Which would make its radiocarbon date meaningless. In normal radiocarbon dating the artifact is pretreated to clean away any accumulated non-original carbon, but it the case of Garza-Valdes' Itzamna Tun jade artifact, it was its accumulated non-original carbon which was radiocarbon dated! Garza-Valdes took his Itzamna Tun jade artifact (not a sample from it) to Prof. Timothy Jull (1951-), the Director of Arizona laboratory, who was involved in the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud[GL98, 18]. So presumably the process of radiocarbon dating the Itzamna Tun jade artifact destroyed the evidence of its bioplastic coating!
In 1987 Garza-Valdes organised a symposium in San Antonio, entitled "Scientific Perspectives on the Problems of Art and Artifact Origins"[GL98, 20]. He invited Adler to give a paper on his work on the Shroud, which he did[GL98, 20]. During the symposium Garza-Valdes told Adler of his research on the blood on his Mayan artifacts[GL98, 21]. Garza-Valdes had read Heller's 1983 book, "Report on the Shroud of Turin" and claimed that the photographs in it "displayed a coating"[GL98, 20]. I have Heller's book in front of me and none of its photographs display a coating! This raises the point that when Garza-Valdes, or someone who agrees with him, looks at a Shroud photograph, he/she sees a bioplastic coating. But if someone doesn't see the coating, it's because it is invisible!:
"Inevitably the greatest difficulty, however, concerns why, if the Shroud's fibres do indeed have so substantial a coating, this has failed hitherto to be noticed either by the STURP scientists in the course of their examination of the Shroud in 1978, or by Dr McCrone in his microanalytical work, or by the radiocarbon-dating scientists, during their preliminary examinations of their samples prior to carrying out the radiocarbon dating in 1988. ... To this, Dr Garza-Valdès has totally calmly and reasonedly [sic] responded that unless you knew the coating was there, you simply would not see it, or be aware of its presence. Since it resembles a clear plastic, you would look through it without seeing it, very much in the manner of a pane of glass"[WI98, 310].Apart from its `heads I win, tails you lose' argument, it is actually false that under a microscope polyhydroxyalkanoates "resemble... a clear plastic ... [or] a pane of glass" (see below)
[Above (enlarge): Polyhydroxyalkanoates under a microscope, with high magnification, resemble granules[MS25]! There is no way that the 1973 Turin Commission could have missed this, as they "cut their specimens into slices down to one twenty thousandth of a millimeter thick" and examined them with "The optical microscope" and "the electron microscope" and they saw "bacterial and other organic spores and debris..."[26Jul24] (my emphasis). Let alone STURP in 1978 with its battery of microscopic, spectroscopic and chemical tests of the Shroud [20Jun22].]
In 1983 Adler sent Garza-Valdes a broken STURP glass slide with a blood sample from the Shroud's left hand and 6 microfibrils[GL98, 21]. Looking through a microscope Garza-Valdes deluded himself that "the blood itself had been completely replaced by fungi and bacteria" (my emphasis)[GL98, 21]! Garza-Valdes ignored what Heller had written on page 215-216 of his book. At STURP's final public meeting in October 1981:
"Adler was asked how he could answer McCrone's claim that there was no blood, but merely a mixture of red tocher and vermilion. Adler flashed on the screen the following table from our paper. Table 5 Tests confirming the presence of whole blood on the Shroud 1. High iron in blood areas by X-ray fluorescence 2. Indicative reflection spectra 3. Indicative microspectrophotometric transmission spectra 4. Chemical generation of characteristic porphyrin fluorescence 5. Positive hemochromogen tests 6. Positive cyanomethemoglobin tests 7. Positive detection of bile pigments 8. Positive demonstration of protein 9. Positive indication of albumin 10. Protease tests, leaving no residue 11. Positive immunological test for human albumin 12. Microscopic appearance as compared with appropriate controls 13. Forensic judgment of the appearance of the various wound and blood marks Then, after explaining each item briefly, Al said, `That means that the red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!'"[08Oct09].Soon after this, it occurred to Garza-Valdes that his claimed discrepancy in radiocarbon dating his Itzamna Tun jade artifact was analogous to that of the Shroud[GL98, 21]. He decided to test this by going to Turin to study samples of the Shroud[GL98, 21]. In May 1993, with Fr Faustino Cervantes Ibarrola (1917-95) of the Mexican Center of Sindonology and Garza-Valdes' son Leoncio, they arrived in Turin[GL98, 22]. Garza-Valdes met with Prof. Luigi Gonella (1930-2007), a nuclear physicist and scientific adviser to the former Archbishop of Turin Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero (r. 1977-89)[GL98, 23]. But Gonella was sceptical and he told Garza-Valdes that "it was not plausible, because the coating would be the weight of the Shroud, and this was not the case"[GL98, 23]. Garza-Valdes countered with "we did [sic] not know what the Shroud weighed two thousand years ago" and "it was impossible to know whether it had increased[GL98, 23]. But the Shroud is today is "a little heavier than shirt cloth"[WM86, 2] and a burial shroud in the first-century would not be any lighter in weight as it normally had to keep a decomposing body together. So unless Garza-Valdes provided evidence that first-century linen shrouds could be much lighter in weight than the Shroud is today (which he never did), his Bioplastic Coating theory is refuted!
However, Gonella arranged for Garza-Valdes to meet professor Giovanni Riggi (1935-2008), who had cut the Shroud samples in 1988 and, with the approval of Cardinal Ballestrero, had kept a "reserve sample" of trimmings (see "E" [above)[27Mar13; 02Apr13]. Riggi visited Garza-Valdes at his hotel and invited Garza-Valdes to visit him later in the week. The next day Garza-Valdes with Fr. Ibarrola as interpreter called on the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini (r. 1989-99), but only saw Saldarini's secretary, who told him that the protocol to study the Shroud was long and dismissed them[GL98, 24]. The next day they visited Riggi at his house, and he had three packages containg his trimmings from the Shroud (again see "E" [above). Riggi also had pieces of Scotch tape with blood samples from back of the man's head[WI98, 76]. Riggi removed a thread from the trimming and Garza-Valdes examined it under his portable microscope and claimed that "There's bioplastic coating on the sample!"[GL98, 26]. And "Even an untrained viewer could see the fibres on the thread completely covered with bioplastic coating ..."[GL98, 26]. However, as STURP chemist Ray Rogers (1927–2005) 
[Above (enlarge): Cotton fibres from the Raes' sample covered in yellow alizarin plant gum[RR08, 73].].
pointed out, what Garza-Valdes was seeing was not a bioplastic coating but a yellowish alizarin plant gum which covers the adjacent Raes sample (see above)[RR08, 73; OM10, 232-233]! That this plant gum was what Garza-Valdes wrongly thought was a polyhydroxyalkanoate bioplastic coating covering the linen fibres in Riggi's trimmings, is evident in that when Riggi cut with scissors threads from the trimmings to give to Garza-Valdes they "sounded brittle"[GL98, 27], when Garza-Valdes cut with scissors a thread, it was if he was "cutting a plasticised fishing line or ... thin copper wires"[GL98, 27], and back in San Antonio when Garza-Valdes was trying to remove flax fibres from the `bioplastic coating,' part of the latter broke[GL98, 49]. This is like dried plant gum but unlike polyhydroxyalkanoates which are flexible.
In 1994 Garza-Valdes was appointed Adjunct Professor of Microbiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, by Professor Stephen Mattingly, head of the Center's Microbiology Department[GL98, 40]. Garza-Valdes received a National Science Foundation grant to isolate bacteria from ancient artefacts, including Mayan jade and the Shroud[GL98, 49]. Garza-Valdes' next task was to isolate the Shroud's `bioplastic coating' to prepare a pure Shroud sample for precise radiocarbon dating[GL98, 47]. Riggi's previous
[Right (enlarge): "The Shroud's samples' corner, showing where samples were taken. Viewed from the underside"[WI10, 88]. Riggi's reserve sample is to the right of samples: "a" Arizona; "b" Zurich; "c" Oxford and above Raes' triangular sample. As can be seen there are tiny areas of flat textile but they too would be covered with alizarin plant gum as the Raes' sample was (see above). The gum was presumably a stiff reinforcment of that tattered corner [see 04Mar20]. Which would explain why Riggi's sample thread was "brittle" and cutting it felt like "fishing line" or "thin copper wires" (see above), rather than flexible polyhydroxyalkanoate bioplastic!]
thread samples were not suitable for radiocarbon dating[GL98, 47]. Garza-Valdes needed a sample of the Shroud's textile rather than threads or Scotch tape[GL98, 47-48]. Garza-Valdes sent Riggi a written protocol of what he proposed to do and in November 1994 Riggi brought samples to Garza-Valdes in San Antonio[GL98, 48].
At the university Garza-Valdes began preparation of a pure glucose sample (see above that cellulose is comprised of repeating glucose units) from Riggi's Shroud sample for radiocarbon dating[GL98, 48]. Garza-Valdes used "exactly the same procedure" as the "laboratories ... in Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona" in cleaning the sample for radiocarbon dating[GL98, 48]. Garza-Valdes "decided to separate the bioplastic coating" from the flax fibres using forceps and he "caused part of the plastic to break"[GL98, 49]. It never occurred to him that a bioplastic coating, being flexible, would not break, but hard, dried, alizarin plant gum could! The three radiocarbon dating laboratories had converted the Shroud sample into carbon dioxide and then converted the carbon dioxide into pure carbon as graphite[SH88, 140; WM92, 5; IJ98, 163]. But, presumably because Garza-Valdes wanted to transport his samples to Arizona and New York, he converted his sample to glucose powder[GL98, 49]. To do that he used a buffer called "Tris-borate," after asking Mattingly if it was "like borate," that is, inorganic, not containing carbon, and Mattingly replied it was "just a borate"[GL98, 49]. Garza-Valdes and Riggi took the sample to Jull at Arizona laboratory, lying to him that it was of an Egyptian textile, because Arizona laboratory had dated the Shroud in 1988 and Garza-Valdes wanted the dating to be blind[GL98, 50-51]. Jull took half the powder sample and Garza-Valdes look the other half to Prof. Harry Gove in New York, to be dated in the Toronto AMS laboratory[GL98, 50-51]. In December Garza-Valdes received the results: Arizona had dated its half of the sample 5,000 years and Toronto dated its half of the same sample 4,200 years[GL98, 51]! Garza-Valdes discovered too late that Tris-borate contained very old carbon[GL98, 53]! Reactions included: Mattingly was upset because of his incorrect advice about the buffer; Riggi was upset because most of his trimmings sample had been destroyed with no satisfactory outcome; and Jull was angry that Garza-Valdes had lied to him that he was dating an Egyptian textile when he was dating a Shroud sample[GL98, 52-53]. The radiocarbon dates were too far apart - 800 years of the same sample[GL98, 51]. - which again shows that radiocarbon dates of the Shroud's linen cannot be relied upon (and is further evidence that the `bull's eye' 1325 ± 65 date was computer-generated).
With the failure of his radiocarbon dating test of his Bioplastic Coating Theory, it was effectively dead and did die with him in 2010. I have included his theory under "Other Shroudie explanations" because some Shroudies may think it is a viable explanation of the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date. Wilson, for example, has 12 references to it in the index of his 1998 book, "The Blood and the Shroud"[WI98, 324]. But Garza-Valdes was not a Shroudie: he never claimed to be one and he distanced himself from them[GL98, 58]. In 1999 Garza-Valdes published a sensationalist (if not blasphemous) titled book, "DNA of God?"[21Mar23] from which I derived my references to his Bioplastic Coating Theory in this post. Garza-Valdes was ego-driven: he actually named a bacterium species after himself: Leobacillus rubrus[GL98, 34] (no such bacterium exists)! He rejected out of hand that the Shroud's image could have been the result of Jesus' resurrection, because it is not "a scientific explanation"[GL98, 55]. In doing so Garza-Valdes denied the resurrection of Jesus actually happened and so he was not a Christian. Garza-Valdes actually believed that the Shroudman's image and blood are growths of bacteria and fungi on the body of Jesus[GL98, 56-57]! Personally I believe that Jesus, the Man on the Shroud, who is ruling over all (Mt 28:18; Acts 10:36; Rom 9:5; Eph 1:21-22; Php 2:9), caused Garza-Valdes radiocarbon dating test to fail because of his blasphemy in claiming that Jesus' image on the Shroud, and his blood on it, were actually the growth of bacteria and fungi!
■ Invisible reweave [24May14; 08Dec14; 23Jul15] ︎• The Invisible Reweave Theory (IRT) was proposed in 2000 by Joe Marino (1954-) and his late wife Sue Benford (1958-2009)[BM05, 7]. It claims that an addition of younger carbon in the form of a 16th century invisible reweaving repair, "following the removal of the 5 ½ inch x 3 ½ inch section of cloth adjacent to the C-14 sample"[BM05, 7], shifted the radiocarbon date of the 1st century Shroud 13 centuries into the future to the `bull's eye' date 1260-1390[BM08, 4] = 1325 +/- 65.
Evidence for the Invisible Reweave Theory I could try to answer point-by-point each item of evidence claimed by Benford and Marino in support of their IRT. But that would make this already long `In a nutshell post' even longer. And as will be evident in the Problems of the Invisible Reweave Theory (below), there never was a section of the Shroud removed in what became the radiocarbon dating area, at the request of Margaret of Austria, which was then invisibly repaired with younger carbon, and changed the Shroud's radiocarbon date to 1260-1390. However, I will ask, "why bother"? Why would the Savoys bother invisibly repairing at great cost a piece of the Shroud if it was removed from such an already damaged area?
Problems of the Invisible Reweave Theory The following are problems of the IRT: • Invisible repair is 60% of sample It requires that "approximately 60 percent of the C-14 sample consist[ed] of 16th Century threads while approximately 40 percent were 1st Century in origin"[24May14; 08Dec14 & 23Jul15]. However, on 21 April 1988, between 6:30 am and 8:30 pm[08Dec22](~14 hours) ancient textile expert Prof. Gabriel Vial (1916-2005) made a detailed examination of the Shroud, including its weaving faults[12Oct24]. It is one thing for a "French Weaving" expert cited by Benford and Marino to claim that it "results in both front and back side `invisibilty'"[BM05, 2] and another to claim it would be invisible to Gabriel Vial! Who being French would have been familiar with "French Weaving." Anyway, as we shall see next, it is highly unlikely that there was a 5 ½ inch x 3 ½ inch piece of the Shroud removed which overlapped the radiocarbon dating sample area. • Miracle Tipler's "It would be an extraordinary and very improbable coincidence if the amount of carbon added to the Shroud were exactly the amount needed to give the date that indicated a fraud" (see above) applies to the IRT. 1) The amount of original cloth removed; 2) Where it was removed from; and 3) The amount of 16th century cloth which replaced it; would have to have been exactly right to shift the first century Shroud to 1260-1390 = 1325 ± 65. • Margaret of Austria's "snippet" Benford and Marino accept that Margaret of Austria (1480-1530) was the recipient of a piece of the Shrould[BM05, 2-13]. However, they overstate Margaret's role as Duchess of Savoy in claiming that she incurred major Savoy expenditure in having the Shroud invisibly repaired:
"Mr. Ehrlich further stated that if the 16th Century owners of the Shroud had enough material resources, weeks of time at their disposal, and expert weavers available to them, then they would have, most definitely, used the French Weave for repairs. As will be described later in this paper, the House of Savoy, which was the ruling family in parts of France and Italy, owned the Shroud in the 16th century, and possessed all of these assets"[BM05, 6].
"After her death, at which time we propose the invisible mending was done in accordance with her last will and testament, the most skilled person available in her Court would have undoubtedly been commissioned to do the repairs"[BM05, 6].This is absurd. As Duchess of Savoy for only ~4 years (1501-04), Margaret would have had little say in Savoy major expenditure, let alone after her death in 1530!
Benford and Marino even claim that in her will, Margaret bequeathed "the entire Holy Shroud" to her St. Nicholas church in Brou:
"In her will, she states, `I give to my church St. Nicholas all the holy relics that I have now and will have on the day of my death, the piece of the Holy Cross, the Holy Shroud, bones of saints that I have and will have on my death, and which could decorate the church” ([Wilson], 2000: 43). (Note that she did not will just a piece of the Shroud but apparently the whole cloth.) However, as history records, the St. Nicholas church in Brou never received the Shroud or even a piece of the cloth."[BM05,7-8]
"As previously mentioned, Margaret’s will had actually dictated that the entire Holy Shroud be given to her church in Brou upon her death"[BM05, 9]This is even more absurd. Since one cannot bequeath what one doesn't own, and Margaret never owned the Shroud, this must be an original clerical, or later copyist, error. Presumably what was meant was "the piece of the Holy Shroud." This would agree with Ian Wilson's interpretation that what Margaret bequeathed was "a snippet of the Shroud":
"1508 20 February. Margaret of Austria draws up her will, giving to the church of Brou, among other relics, a snippet of the Shroud"[WI94, 25].
"1508 20 February. Margaret of Austria draws up her will, in which she gives to her beloved church of Brou, among other relics, a snippet of the Shroud"[WI98, 287]
"But on 20 February 1508, over a year before the Shroud was installed in this casket [in Sainte Chapelle Chambéry], Margaret drew up her will. In this she gave the specifications for her tomb in the church of Brou at Bourg-en-Bresse, and how this should be placed in relation to that of Philibert. In this same document she also bequeathed to the church of Brou, amongst other relics, a snippet of the Shroud"[WI00].There actually is on the Shroud, not in the radiocarbon dating area, but
[Left (enlarge)[LM10]: Likely scissors cut area where Margaret of Austria's "snippet of the Shroud" came from. The blue outlined area is where the radiocarbon dating samples were cut from.]
still in the Shroud's tattered bottom left-hand corner, a place where a small piece of the Shroud has neatly been cut away with scissors (left). This would agree with Margaret's mother-in-law, Dowager Duchess Claudine de Brosse (1450–1513), the second wife of Philibert II's father, Duke Philip II (r. 1496-97), and the mother of Philibert II's successor, Duke Charles III (r. 1504-53), gifting a snippet of the Shroud to Margaret in 1505 (see next).
In 1501, Margaret of Austria, daughter of future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1508-19), married Philibert II, Duke of Savoy (r. 1497-1504), thus becoming Duchess of Savoy[25Sep19a]. However, in 1504 Duke Philibert II died, childless, and was succeeded by his 18 year-old half-brother Charles III (r. 1504–53)[25Sep19b]. Margaret, who was devoted to the Shroud, had to leave Chambéry and the Shroud and went to live at Bourg-en-Bresse ~160 km (~100 mi) north-west of Chambéry[25Sep19c]. On 5 May 1505, Margaret formally relinquished the Shroud to Claudine[25Sep19d]. In October 1505 Claudine invited Margaret to 'come and see the Holy Shroud' to preserve her from the plague then raging in Bourg-en-Bresse, which Margaret presumably did and received her "snippet" of the Shroud as a consolation gift from Claudine[25Sep19e]. In 1508 Margaret drew up her will, giving to the church of Brou, among other relics, a snippet of the Shroud[25Sep19f]. However, in a 1523 inventory of Margaret's possessions, no mention was made of a piece of the Shroud[WI00]. And in 1531, following Margaret's death in 1530, the executors of her will wrote to the Brou church alerting them to be ready to install Margaret's body in the tomb she had prepared, and also asking for assurance that 'you will hand over the relics, devotional paintings and carpets of the said lady"[WI00]. Yet in 1535 when the Brou church wrote to Margaret's executors asking them to reclaim Margaret's grave goods, there was no mention of her relics[WI00]. Nevertheless, that does not mean that Margraret's relics, including her snippet of the Shroud, are not buried with her in her tomb in the Monastery of Brou. It is hard to believe that Margaret's grave goods were stolen, or otherwise went missing. given that her father's grandson, Charles V (r. 1519-58) was the reigning Holy Roman Emperor!
To be continued in the twenty-eighth installment of this post.
Notes:
1return]
Bibliography
BM05. Benford, M.S. & Marino, J.G., 2005, "New Historical Evidence Explaining the `Invisible Patch' in the 1988 C-14 Sample Area of the Turin Shroud," Shroud.com.
BM08. Benford, M.S. & Marino, J.G., 2008 "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon area of the Turin shroud." Chemistry Today, Vol. 26, No. 4, July-August, 4-12.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
GL98. Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London.
HR89. Hedges, R.E.M., 1989, "Hedges replies," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
IJ98. Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY.
LM10. Extract from Latendresse, M., 2010, "a name="MS25">MS25. “Material Summary – PHA Plastic (Polyhydroxyalkanoates)," Supply Club, 2025.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
PHW. "Polyhydroxyalkanoates," Wikipedia, 2 March 2025.
PT89. Phillips, T.J., 1989, "Shroud irradiated with neutrons?," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
RR08. Rogers, R.N., 2008, "A Chemist's Perspective on the Shroud of Turin," Lulu Press: Raleigh, NC.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SH88. Sox, H.D., 1988, "The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK.
TF07. Tipler, F.J., 2007, "The Physics of Christianity," Doubleday: New York NY.
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.
WI00. Wilson, I., 2000, "Whatever Happened to Margaret of Austria's `Shroud relic' Bequest?"BSTS Newsletter, June.
WI10. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London.
WM86. Wilson, I. & Miller, V., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London.
WM92. Warner, M., 1992, "As mysterious as ever," Shroud News, No 71, June, 3-6.
Posted 28 February 2025. Updated 26 March 2025.
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