My critique of Moraes, C., 2025, "Image Formation on the Holy Shroud—A Digital 3D Approach," Archaeometry 8 July.

© Stephen E. Jones[1]

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

This is my critique of Moraes, C., 2025, "Image Formation on the Holy Shroud—A Digital 3D Approach," Archaeometry, 8 July, which is embedded in my "My critique (1) of Sarzeaud, N., 2025, "Further evidence suggests Jesus was not wrapped in 'Shroud of Turin'," Scimex, 29 Aug 2025." I am posting this as a separate post, lightly edited, because I could not find my critique of Moraes' article by a Google search.

I had been emailed a PDF of the article: Moraes, C., 2025, "Image Formation on the Holy Shroud—A Digital 3D Approach," Archaeometry, 8 July. It is an exercise in self-deception. The claim is: 1) create a computer simulation of the frontal side of the Shroud (ignoring the back side); 2) the simulation resembles the Shroud's frontal side (surprise, surprise!) (see below); 3) therefore the Shroud was created by draping ~4.4 x ~1.1 metre[10Jul15; 03Aug24] linen

[Above (enlarge): Extract from Fig. 6 of Moraes' article showing the frontal image of the Shroud (left) and overlay of the low-relief model (right)[MC25,8].]

cloth over a "low relief" (i.e. a bas relief[03Mar12]) of unspecified material, and either rubbing pigment on the cloth[01Nov08; 03Mar12; 09May15] (cold); or scorching it[03Mar12] (hot). The article has been answered by Shroudie Alessandro Piana in Piana, A., 2025, “Was the Shroud Laid on a Sculpture? A Study Full of Errors," UCCR, 3 August. Piana's first paragraph says, "The Shroud was allegedly not laid over a body but over a bas-relief sculpture. This is the `new' theory proposed by Brazilian designer Cicero Moraes, but it is riddled with errors that undermine its methodological validity."

Problems of the Shroud having been created by overlaying its cloth over a bas relief and either rubbing pigment on the cloth, or scorching it, include: • Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377–1395) would be wrong that the Shroud had been "painted" by an artist who confessed it to his predecessor, Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–1370)[09May15; 03Jul18]. • As leading Shroud sceptic Walter McCrone (1916-2020) pointed out, a medieval forger would have simply painted the Shroud[07Jul23]. • Art based on bas reliefs did not exist in the 14th century[01Nov08; 03Mar12]. • A bas relief is one-sided, whereas the Shroud image is two-sided: front and back[03Mar12]. So a medieval forger transferring a bas relief image to the Shroud cloth would need to have created two bas reliefs: one for the man's front and one for his back[29May22]! • Such bas reliefs, engraved with anatomical details unknown in the fourteenth century[01Nov08], would be great works of art in their own right[01Nov08; 03Mar12]. So where are they; or where is the record of their having existed[03Mar12]? • STURP found that there is no paint, pigment or dye which constitutes the Shroud's image[01Nov08], so that rules out a cold transfer of the bas relief image to the Shroud cloth using pigments, etc, as they would inevitably be trapped in the Shroud's weave[03Mar12]. • STURP also found that bas-relief shrouds do not reproduce the Shroud's three-dimensional, superficial and non-directional properties[01Nov08; 05Feb17]. • If the Shroud image was created using heated bas reliefs to scorch the man's image onto the Shroud's linen, he would need to have manipulated a ~4.4 x ~1.1 metre (~14.4 x ~3.6 feet) linen cloth over two bas reliefs, heated at just the right temperature to not burn the cloth[03Mar12; 29May22], when the only heat source was burning wood, charcoal, coal or oil, because electric heating was not invented until the 19th century[03Mar12; 29May22]. A heat scorch of a cloth draped over a hot bas relief inevitably causes hot spots (e.g. the tip of the nose) on the image, but there are no hot spots on the Shroud image[03Mar12; 11Feb2229May22]; • Heat scorches fluoresce but the Shroud image does not fluoresce[03Mar12; 23Jun15; 11Feb22; 29May22]. • The blood was on the Shroud's linen before the image[see above], which also rules out heated bas reliefs which would cook the blood[03Mar12]. • If the Shroud was printed on linen laid over two bas relief, then the forger could run off many Shrouds, so why did he stop at one Shroud[01Nov08; 03Mar12]? • How did the forger obtain a ~4.4 x ~1.1 metre rare and expensive herringbone twill linen cloth, which the Shroud is[10Jul15; 08Apr20]? Which `just happens' to be close to 8 x 2 Assyrian cubits of 21.6 inches[10Jul15; 08Apr20]!]

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]

Posted 6 March 2026. Updated 6 March 2026.