The Shroud of Turin

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Shroud name index `H'

This is my Shroud of Turin name index, "H",

for key persons associated with the Shroud whose surnames begin with "H."

[Right: Late Dr. John H. Heller, in Case, T.W., "The Shroud of Turin and the C-14 Dating Fiasco" (1996).]

See main name index A-Z for more details. See also `tagline' quotes below about each person, in surname alphabetic order and then date order (most recent uppermost).

Heller, John H. (1921-1995). M.D. Biophysicist. Professor of Internal Medicine at Yale. Established, and was a research scientist at, the New England Institute, Connecticut, where he worked with Alan D. Adler. Member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), but not one of the original team who in 1978 examined the Shroud in Turin. Einstein was his "unofficial undergraduate adviser" at Princeton. Helped show that the bloodstains on the Shroud are real blood. Book: Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin" (1983). Papers: Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 1980, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin," Applied Optics, Vol. 19, No. 16, 15 August, pp.2742-2744; Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 1981, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society for Forensic Science Journal, Vol. 14, pp.81-103.

"Back in their laboratory at the New England Institute, Dr John Heller and his colleague, research chemist Dr Alan Adler, the late Professor of Chemistry at Western Connecticut State University, examined under a microscope the spectrum of visible light transmitted from their sticky-tape samples of reddish brown-stained fibrils. Their results suggested that haemoglobin was a component of the colour. To further test their evidence they removed iron from the samples in an attempt to isolate a component of blood called porphyrin which, if present, would fluoresce red under ultraviolet light. This test revealed porphyrin - another sign that the stains are blood. Their further examination produced a particularly intriguing result After removing pieces of blood from the fibres, Adler saw that the fibres were white, not yellow, as were the rest of the fibres of the linen This meant the blood stains were on the Shroud before the image was formed, and there is no image in the area of the bloodstains - the blood somehow impeding the image formation, protecting the Shroud from the image-making process. [Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983]" (Whiting, B., 2006, "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, pp.122-123).

"To the team who had been to Turin McCrone's findings simply did not make sense, so they were very relieved when a second opinion, from the Yale University chemist Dr John Heller and the Jewish-born blood expert Dr Alan Adler, produced completely different interpretations. As Heller and Adler showed, McCrone was correct that the Shroud indeed has iron oxide particles scattered across its surface. And, like him, they too found particles of vermilion and other artists' pigments. But they were emphatic that neither of these materials was responsible for the Shroud's `body' and `blood' images. The artists' pigments, for instance, are random, and quantitatively distributed no more strongly in the image than the non-image areas. Their presence is easily explained as mere strays left on the Shroud's surface from the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century practice of pressing freshly painted artists' copies against it to give them special holiness. Several painted copies of the Shroud bear inscriptions attesting to their having been deployed in this way, as in the case of one in Toledo worded: `This picture was made as closely as possible to the precious relic ... at Chambéry [i.e. the Turin Shroud] and was laid upon it in June 1568.' [Leone, D., "El Santo Sudario en Espana," Biblioteca Sindoniana: Barcelona, 1959, pp.47-56] According to Heller's and Adler's analysis, [Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1983] and consistent with the 'on-site' observations, the Shroud's fibres which represent the `body' image have no identifiable substance added to them that might be responsible for this image. It is as if they have simply been degraded, or `aged', at those places where the imprint appears, in much the same manner that newspaper turns yellow when exposed to strong sunlight, except that the `yellowing' has occurred selectively, at strengths relative to the (theoretical) body's distance from the cloth at any one point." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, pp.73-74).

"The blood on the Shroud has been identified by the late Dr. John H. Heller as being mammalian, primate and probably human. Dr. Alan D. Adler, a research chemist who worked with Dr. Heller at. the New England Institute, even declared: `It is as certain that there is blood on the Shroud as it is that there is blood in your veins. The marks on the shroud are of exuded blood, belonging to a man who was tortured and crucified. It cannot be from the 14th century, but is much older and far more consistent with what we know of the crucifixion of Christ.' [New York Daily News, June 12, 1997] Professor Pier Luigi Baima Bollone reported in the, journal Sindon that by use of fluorescent antibodies he has demonstrated the presence of human globulins in the Shroud bloodstains, a fact confirmed by Adler and Heller. [Sindon, December 1981] Whereas the bodily images have a mist-like quality with no sharp lines, the bloodstains are richer and darker in color and have more precise lines. They also have a `halo effect' typically suggestive of the separation of blood and serum, which happens after the heart has stopped." (Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, pp.65-66. Emphasis original).

"Accordingly, for a second opinion the thirty-two sticky-tape samples were passed to the now late Dr John Heller of Connecticut, a professor of internal medicine and medical physics at Yale University, and to Heller's long-time colleague, research chemist Jewish-born Dr Alan Adler of Western Connecticut State University. Analysing under the microscope the very same sticky tapes that McCrone had studied, Heller and Adler specifically tried to find the iron oxide that both sides, from their different perspectives, were already agreed was present. They quickly found it, but the immediate surprise to them was that it was quite exceptionally pure. As they were already aware, most artists' pigments tend to be contaminated by impurities. Accordingly, they began badgering museums to be allowed to study their ancient textiles, immediately finding that these, too, often exhibited the same chemically pure iron. As they gradually determined, the answer to where this iron came from probably lay in the fact that when flax is retted, that is, soaked in water, during the linen manufacturing process, it draws up into itself iron, along with calcium and strontium, as trace elements from the water. As Heller and Adler reasoned, at the time of the 1532 fire this very fine iron probably migrated from where it had been taken up within the fibres and became washed to the edges of where the fire-dousing water had been splashed on the cloth. This was why it showed up at these edges under the X-rays and from there, with the Shroud's repeated handling, became lightly distributed all over the cloth. But they felt adamant that wherever this iron came from, it was not responsible for what the eye sees as the Shroud's body image. What, then, in Heller's and Adler's judgement could have created this image? After studying the body image under any and every variety of magnification, they came to the firm conclusion that it derived from nothing at all that had been added to the Shroud, in the manner that any conventional artist would have used. For instance, when they applied the tests for proteins by which McCrone claimed he had been able to identify an artist's use of a tempera binding medium, they found no evidence for such proteins. Instead, the impression they gained was that the image derives from something taken away. Thus, if high magnification photographs of body-image fibres are studied, some of these actually appear to show an eating away of the fibres, as if they have been aged, or degraded significantly more than their non-image-bearing counterparts... . STURP's Ray Rogers described the image just resting on the tops of the fibrils, and as there are fibrils in the off-image areas that look exactly like those that make up the image itself, this: `... suggests that what we are dealing with is some change in the chemistry of the cloth itself. It has been aged. For some reason, the fibrils that make up the image got older faster than the rest of the fabric.' [Rogers, R., in Sox, D., "The Shroud Unmasked," Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, 1988, pp.67-8]" (Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, pp.80-81).

"Dedicated to the memory of John H. Heller, whose curiosity was aroused by the phrase `physics of miracles' in a 1978 Science article [Culliton, B.J., 1978, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July, pp.235-239, 236]; whose exacting chemical analysis proved that the Shroud image could not be a forgery; and who passed into the hands of God on December 13, 1995. Requiescat in pace" (Case, T.W., 1996, "The Shroud of Turin and the C-14 Dating Fiasco," White Horse Press: Cincinnati OH, p.5).

"Case: Neither of you were original members of STURP, the Shroud of Turin Research Project composed mostly of American scientists, who investigated the Shroud in 1978, nor did you make the trip to Italy with the team. However, Dr. Heller's 1983 book, Report on the Shroud of Turin, is far-and-away the best piece of scientific writing I have read on the subject. What first piqued your interest in the Shroud? Dr. Heller: It's a mystery. It's an unanswered question that should lend itself to scientific verification. I read the article by Barbara Culliton in Science. Where she was talking about the physics of miracles. [Science, vol. 201, 21 July 1978]" (Case, 1996, "Interview with John H. Heller and Alan D. Adler," p.51. Emphasis original).

"Once the intransigence of McCrone's views was realized, the individuals invited by STURP to address themselves to these questions were physician Dr. John Heller of Connecticut's now defunct New England Institute, and more impressively, ebullient chemistry professor Dr. Alan Adler of Western Connecticut State University. Of Jewish parentage, and a noted specialist in the heme and porphyrin components of human blood, Adler became associated with the Shroud project at Heller's instigation, initially anticipating that the work might take him a mere couple of days. As time progressed, he found himself undertaking more than a thousand separate tests on the Shroud's body and blood image chemistry. As reasoned by Adler, McCrone looked down his microscope and pronounced only on the basis of optical criteria. But the only true way to understand the nature of the Shroud body and blood images is to study their chemical reactions under a variety of chemical treatments." (Wilson, I., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, p.89).

"BY FAITH, I am a Christian; specifically, a Southern Baptist. By profession, I am a scientist; specifically, a biophysicist. By genesis, I am a New Englander, with all the skepticism and conservatism of the breed. All this being the case, I have always felt that relics are nothing but flummery from the Dark Ages. In 1978, I had never heard of the Shroud of Turin, let alone seen a picture of it. When I did, I was surprised. I thought I would see something analogous to all the paintings and statuary of Jesus that I had ever seen. I had viewed Oriental portrayals of Christ in Japan and China, and black ones in Africa, a host of medieval and Renaissance forms in Florence and elsewhere in Europe, as well as Byzantine and modern versions. This was different. It was anything but artistic. In addition, everything was reversed. Its images were like photographic negatives, with black and white, left and right, reversed. The cloth was also very bloody, with the `nail holes' in the wrong place; they were in the wrists, not in the palms. There were large scorch marks and burn holes down both sides of the fabric. The man was nude, his hands folded over the groin. I did not know at the time that the photograph I was looking at had been enhanced; the actual images were so faint that they could not be seen from up close, but only at a distance of about one or two yards. Yet if one was too far away, they faded into the background of the cloth. I could not imagine a more unlikely object for veneration. Then I was shown photographic negatives of the Shroud, which made the human images become positive. This helped considerably by showing a man in a way familiar to our perception. However, now the blood was negative, or white, which detracted from the whole. To say I was still unimpressed would be an understatement. About a month later I read a report by Dr. Robert Bucklin, the deputy coroner and forensic pathologist of Los Angeles County. Dr. Joseph Gambescia, a pathologist in Pennsylvania, concurred in the findings. Forensic pathologists specialize in causes of violent death, and it was this report which first caused my eyebrows to rise a bit. I have, tucked far away in my background, an M.D., though I do not use it much. I had also spent eight years on the faculty of Yale University School of Medicine: two in pathology and six in internal medicine. The forensic report said (with some translation from the medical jargon): Irrespective of how the images were made, there is adequate information here to state that they are anatomically correct. There is no problem in diagnosing what happened to this individual. The pathology and physiology are unquestionable and represent medical knowledge unknown 150 years ago. That, I thought, is a remarkable statement." (Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, p.1-2. Emphasis original).

"At this point, I decided to carry out some gedankenexperiments. A favorite ploy of Albert Einstein's, gedankenexperiment literally means `thought experiment.' One attacks a problem by setting up a series of events and constraints, and then solves the problem in one's head, rather than in the laboratory. By a series of flukes, Einstein had been my unofficial undergraduate adviser. Once or twice every year, I would travel from Yale to Princeton to seek counsel. On one of those occasions Einstein told me that I should always remember that a gedankenexperiment requires a very small research budget." (Heller, 1983, pp.200-201).

"The Bloodstains ... The most important and conclusive work was done by John Heller and Alan Adler in their laboratory at the New England Institute. [Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., "Blood on the Shroud of Turin," Applied Optics, Vol. 19, 1980, pp.2742-2744] Heller and Adler examined several `sticky tape' samples which contained pieces of `bloodstained' fibrils. They looked at the spectrum of the visible light transmitted from these samples under a microscope, a test known as microspectrophotometry. The results suggested that hemoglobin was a component of the color. To further test this possibility, Heller and Adler removed the iron from the samples and tried to isolate porphyrin, a component of blood which fluoresces red under an ultraviolet light. Indeed, the substance which the chemists isolated from the samples fluoresced red under ultraviolet light. This confirmed that the substance was porphyrin, and thus strongly indicated that the bloodstained areas really were blood." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, pp.78-80. Emphasis original).

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

Posted 17 February 2008. Updated 23 August 2025.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Shroud name index `A'

This 2008 Shroud name index has been superseded by my 2019 Turin Shroud Encyclopedia.

Here is my Shroud of Turin name index `A', for key persons

[Left: Late Prof. Alan D. Adler, American Society for Photobiology.]

associated with the Shroud whose surnames begin with "A."

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Shroud Dating May Have Been Inaccurate - Radiocarbon Expert

I was going to post this in February's Shroud News, but since I have not yet posted January's Shroud News (although I am working on it!), I felt this was too important to wait! The article is in bold to distinguish it from my comments.

Shroud Dating May Have Been Inaccurate - BBC Interviews Radiocarbon Expert, LifeSiteNews.com, February 5, 2008, Hilary White ...

[Left: Prof. Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit]

NOVARA, Italy ... The techniques used in 1988 by three separate teams of scientists to date the Shroud of Turin to the middle ages, may have been inconclusive, a radiocarbon dating expert at Oxford University has told the BBC. This is astonishing news, not that the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin was "inconclusive" (to put it mildly!), but that finally, in the 20th anniversary year of that dating, a radiocarbon scientist has the honesty, and the courage, to admit it. And not just any radiocarbon scientist, but the Director of one of those three radiocarbon-dating laboratories (Oxford) that 20 years ago produced that "inconclusive" result, and claimed that it was "conclusive" (see `tagline' quotes).

According to the Church official in charge of the Shroud, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, director of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator, whose specialty is the use of radiocarbon dating in archaeological research, told the BBC that radiocarbon dating techniques have developed since 1988, and that the Shroud's long history of travel, exposure to the elements and handling could have skewed the results. Indeed! This has been repeatedly pointed out by the Shroud pro-authenticity community, but they have generally been ignored, and/or dismissed as having a religious bias (usually with derogatory terms such as `true believers,'`religious fanatics,'`flat earthers,' etc).

But such dismissals are a prime example of `the pot calling the kettle black' in that by the same token, those in the Shroud anti-authenticity community have an anti-religious bias. Modern science is so completely dominated by Naturalism, the metaphysical assumption that "nature is all there is" (i.e. there is no supernatural), that most scientists are blissfully unaware of their own personal anti-religious bias, and are therefore predisposed to accept evidence too easily that points to the Shroud not being authentic and too easily reject evidence that points to it being authentic.

For example, Prof. Harry E. Gove, co-inventor of the

[Right: Harry E. Gove, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Rochester]

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating method that was used by all three laboratories, was aware that "scientists ... can sometimes obtain a desired scientific result by subconscious manipulation of the technique or the data" by "having preconceived notions of what the answer should be," so he was very (if not fanatically) concerned to neutralise the "belief that the shroud was the genuine article":

"It is well known to scientists that one can sometimes obtain a desired scientific result by subconscious manipulation of the technique or the data. It is a human flaw that must be carefully guarded against. It is most easily circumvented by not having preconceived notions of what the answer should be. A belief that the shroud was the genuine article was the stuff of which STURP was made and I am happy to say that, in the end, they played no role in its carbon dating." (Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK, pp.8-9).

with no apparent self-awareness of his opposite "preconceived notions of what the answer should be," namely that "the shroud was" not "the genuine article"!

The BBC interview, that has yet to be broadcast, was discussed by Mgr. Giuseppe Ghiberti,

[Left: Giuseppe Ghiberti, Papal custodian of the Shroud of Turin]

president of the Diocesan Commission for the Shroud of Turin, at a conference in Novara Italy. Mgr. Ghiberti speculated that the Shroud's long history, including travels from Palestine to Europe, damage by fire in the 16th century, and much handling over the centuries could have influenced the outcome of the tests. Indeed! As Ian Wilson pointed out, if "Many materials ... may be impossible to remove subsequently," by "pre-treatment," including "glues, biocides," "ordinary packing materials such as paper, cardboard, cotton wool and string" which "contain carbon and are potential contaminants," as well as "Cigarette ash":

"What seems unavoidable, as has been candidly pointed out by Professor Murdoch Baxter of the Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre, East Kilbride, is that `other unaccounted-for sources of error occur during the processing and analysis of samples [italics mine].' [Coghlan, A., "Unexpected errors affect dating techniques," New Scientist, 30 September 1989, p.26] Just what those unaccounted for sources of error might be is undoubtedly the hardest question to answer. Quite definite is that there are varieties of contamination that can affect the reliability of carbon-dating readings. 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, particularly in the case of highly porous materials, such as linen, which do not have the advantage of being able to be independently cross-checked by dendrochronology. As again remarked by Dr Sheridan Bowman, in her recent British Museum publication on radio-carbon dating: `Many materials used for preserving or conserving samples may be impossible to remove subsequently: do not use glues, biocides, ... [etc.]. Many ordinary packing materials such as paper, cardboard, cotton wool and string, contain carbon and are potential contaminants. Cigarette ash is also taboo.' [Bowman, S., "Radiocarbon Dating," British Museum Publications: London, 1990, p.56]" (Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, 1991, pp.175-176. Emphasis original).

then 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":

"In the light of such concerns, the shroud's known history, that is, its universally accepted history subsequent to the mid-fourteenth century, provides an almost copy-book case of an object seriously unsuitable for carbon-dating. Quite aside from it having been subjected to centuries of smoke from burning candles, an equivalent surely to cigarette smoke, well-known also, not least from the scorches and patches it carries to this day, is that the shroud was involved in a serious fire in 1532. In this latter it came so close to destruction that the silver of its casket melted, destroying one corner of the cloth as it lay folded inside. Knowing that this process could only have happened at temperatures in excess of 960°C, silver's melting-point, Manchester textile specialist John Tyrer has remarked: `In these circumstances moisture in the shroud would turn to steam, probably at superheat, trapped in the folds and layers of the shroud. Any contaminants on the cloth would be dissolved by the steam and forced not only into the weave and yarn, but also into the flax fibres' very lumen and molecular structure ... [They would] become part of the chemistry of the flax fibres themselves and would be impossible to remove satisfactorily by surface actants and ultrasonic cleaning.' [Tyrer, J., Shroud Newsletter, British Society for the Turin Shroud , 20 October 1988, p.11] Furthermore, two years after the fire the shroud was sewn onto a backing made up from three portions of sixteenth-century holland cloth. Inevitably this linen must contain carbon with equally as much contamination potential as the paper, cardboard and cotton wool mentioned by Dr Bowman. And it has now been in the closest contact with the shroud for over four hundred and fifty years." (Wilson, 1991, pp.176-177).

In 1988, three groups of scientists made an attempt to use radio carbon dating techniques to determine the age of the Shroud, concluding that the linen cloth could only date to the middle ages and not to the first century near east. Their "concluding that the linen cloth could only date to the middle ages" is despite Prof. Gove before the 1988 radiocarbon-dating being very concerned that the then "new procedures" were "fraught with peril," in that if "one of the three laboratories obtained an outlier result as one did in the British Museum inter-laboratory comparisons" then "it would be impossible statistically to identify it and ... would all have to be included in the average thereby producing an incorrect result":

"My main concern was that this highly public application of the AMS technique, which I had played a major role in inventing and developing, be successful. The new procedures seemed to me to be fraught with peril. If one of the three laboratories obtained an outlier result as one did in the British Museum inter-laboratory comparisons it would be impossible statistically to identify it and the three measurements would all have to be included in the average thereby producing an incorrect result. The inclusion of the other laboratories would have obviated this potential risk. As it turned out my fears were not realized. The three laboratories performed their measurements flawlessly and the final result is a public triumph for AMS if not for the `true believers'. That the shroud's age is the historic one is the dullest result one could have wished for. But in science as in many other aspects of life one does not always get what one wishes." (Gove, H.E., "Letter To The Editor: The Turin Shroud," Archaeometry, Vol. 31, No. 2, 1989, pp.235-237, p.237).

According to the 1988 studies, the Shroud, venerated for centuries by Catholics as the burial cloth of Christ, could only have been a hoax or the product of some unknown natural process. So against all the odds of: 1) the Shroud being "an almost copy-book case of an object seriously unsuitable for carbon-dating"; 2) major anomalies in "the dry run" intercomparisons tests before the dating of the Shroud, where radiocarbon dates for the same three ancient artifacts differed between the laboratories by "1100 years," 450 years" and "over 1100 years" respectively:

"More germane to the issue is the dry run of C-14 testing, which was detailed in the journal Radiocarbon in 1986. Scientists used C-14 to date an Egyptian Bull Mummy linen (the wrappings from an ancient Egyptian burial) as well as two Peruvian linen cloths. The results of this testing using the new accelerator method was extremely revealing. First of all, it underscored the fact that the method is somewhat wanting in accuracy. On the Egyptian Bull Mummy linen, the dates ranged from 3440 to 4517 B.P. (before present)-a span of 1100 years. Although the known age of the cloth was 3000 B.C., the closest date they could get using C-14 was 2528 B.C. ..., a date which required a calibration of 472 years to correct it. That should raise plenty of eyebrows. The second sample, one of the Peruvian cloths, was not much better, with a span of 450 years and the closest date 250 years off. Finally, the third, also a Peruvian cloth, had a span of over 1100 years and the closest date less than 100 years off. This Peruvian cloth was a much easier target to hit because the date was `guesstimated' between A.D. 1000-1400. That range gave the testers a built in window of +/- 200 years to start with! After the tests on these three samples were run, the farthest dates were 1549 years, 709 years, and 439 years off respectively. To allow that margin of error on calibration alone would be ridiculous. Moreover, even admitting that errors of contamination would radically affect the test results still underscores the inherent weaknesses of this dating method. In fact, when the testers accredited these poor results to contamination during pretreatment and reran the tests with significant improvement, the oldest cloth still showed an error of nearly 1,000 years. Most importantly, it was 1,000 years on the young side !" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, pp.53-54. Emphasis original).

we are expected to believe that, "The three laboratories performed their measurements flawlessly and the final result" just happened to be "That the shroud's age is the historic one," i.e. ~AD1260-1390 or AD1325 ± 65 years. That is immediately before the Shroud's undisputable historic appearance at Lirey, France in AD1355.

That means that the pre-treatment by the three labs would also have to have been done "flawlessly i.e. they were each able to remove all the contamination of extraneous, younger carbon, that would have accumulated over "the Shroud's long history of travel, exposure to the elements and handling" and fire which would "have skewed the results."

But the problem is that if, as Prof. Ramsey now acknowledges, "the Shroud's long history of travel, exposure to the elements and handling could have skewed the results" then how is it that the three laboratories just happened to agree on the too good to be true date, "1350 AD ... the time its historic record began":

"The first sample run was OX1. Then followed one of the controls. Each run consisted of a 10 second measurement of the carbon-13 current and a 50 second measurement of the carbon-14 counts. This is repeated nine more times and an average carbon-14/carbon-13 ratio calculated. All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed on a cathode ray screen. The age of the control sample could have been calculated on a small pocket calculator but was not-everyone was waiting for the next sample-the Shroud of Turin! At 9:50 am 6 May 1988, Arizona time, the first of the ten measurements appeared on the screen. We all waited breathlessly. The ratio was compared with the OX sample and the radiocarbon time scale calibration was applied by Doug Donahue. His face became instantly drawn and pale. At the end of that one minute we knew the age of the Turin Shroud! The next nine numbers confirmed the first. ... Based on these 10 one minute runs, with the calibration correction applied, the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD-the shroud was only 640 years old! It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth but dated from the time its historic record began." (Gove, 1996, p.264).

Especially as that was the date, i.e. "shortly before the first exhibition, or about 1355," predicted in 1981 by the late Shroud anti-authenticity theorist Walter McCrone in 1981:

"My conclusions published in October 1980-March 1981 (McCrone and Skirius 1980) (McCrone 1981) were as follows: `Our work now supports the two Bishops and it seems reasonable that the image, now visible, was painted on the cloth shortly before the first exhibition, or about 1355. Only a carbon-dating test can now resolve the question of authenticity of the 'Shroud' of Turin. A date significantly later than the first century would be conclusive evidence the `Shroud' is not genuine. A date placing the linen cloth in the first century, though not conclusive in proving the cloth to be the Shroud of Christ, would, no doubt, be so accepted by nearly everyone. Our work would then indicate later embellishment of an earlier image or, much less likely, that an artist was able to obtain a 14 x 3+ foot linen cloth dating from the first century. That an artist either enhanced an earlier image or created the entire image is inescapable.'" (McCrone, W.C., "Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin," Prometheus Books: Amherst NY, 1999, p.138).

including McCrone's very words, "conclusive evidence" being twice used by the author(s) of the 1989 Nature paper which announced that, "The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich ... provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval":

"Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval." (Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 1989, pp.611-615, p.612).
"The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of AD 1260 - 1390 (rounded down/up to nearest 10 yr). These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval." (Damon., et al., 1989, pp.611-615, p.614).And despite:

That the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud could be manipulated to give the desired result was admitted by "the unchosen" four laboratories who were "privately ... saying the three" chosen laboratories, "were going to make certain they agreed":

"[Cardinal] Ballestrero gave the laboratory representatives a letter to enable the containers to pass though customs without any difficulty. Teddy Hall placed his in his briefcase, and with Hedges was the only one of the scientists to meet television cameras when returning home. They didn't say much to BBC except when pressed about when the world would know the answer. Hall responded: `We've waited five years for this.' In another interview Hall repeated his earlier remark that `I'd be hopping mad if I wasn't chosen', but added: `Having only three labs doesn't undermine the validity of the dating. I think it was absolutely the right decision. You only need one lab to get it badly wrong to confuse everything, and the chances of that are higher with seven than with three. [Schoon, N., "Analysing the Strands of Time," The Independent, 25 April 1988] That was hardly the way the unchosen saw the matter, and privately they were saying the three were going to make certain they agreed - no matter how long it took." (Sox, H.D. , 1988, "The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," The Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, p.134).

and by Prof. Gove who did not deny as impossible the claim by Brookhaven National Laboratory's Dr. Garman Harbottle and Harwell Laboratory's Dr. Robert Otlet that "there was no possibility this time of any outliers because the three labs would consult together so the answers would come out the same":

"On 25 April at 11 am, Harbottle called. He had learned from Otlet that the shroud samples had been removed on 21 April 1988. Hall had flown into London on 25 April with the samples in hand and he received a lot of publicity. The archbishop had been, according to Harbottle, furious about Hall's trying to commercially capitalize on the venture. Harbottle also said that the BBC were going to film the measurements at Zurich. He said that, according to Otlet, there was no possibility this time of any outliers because the three labs would consult together so the answers would come out the same. I must say I thought that Otlet was being either paranoid or surprisingly cynical." (Gove, 1996, p.252).

There is in fact evidence of collusion because[the then British Museum coordinator, Prof. Michael Tite, later admitted that "results from each testing centre have been circulated to the others with a proposal for a coordinated date on the Shroud from the samples":

"Contrary to Tite's protocol letter which stated the labs would not communicate with one another, he acknowledged that the `results from each testing centre have been circulated to the others with a proposal for a coordinated date on the Shroud from the samples....' [Shroud News, October 1988, p.7 ] Years later it was reported that the Arizona laboratory had produced eight different measurements rather than the four mentioned in the Nature report. [Van Haelst, R., "Radiocarbon Dating the Shroud of Turin: A Critical Review of the Nature Report," p.7]" (Guerrera, V., 2000, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.132).

And Gove himself records that "the date" AD1350 that Arizona laboratory's Prof. Douglas "Donahue announced to me when I was present at the first radiocarbon measurement on the shroud" was leaked by one of the laboratories, probably Arizona, the first of the three laboratories to date its portion of the Shroud, to a 'Cambridge University professor" who had nothing to do with the dating:

"The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle also carried the story on the front page of their 27th August edition under the headline 'UR (University of Rochester) scientist rejects story of relic's age'. The subhead read 'London paper claims tests show Shroud of Turin a fake'. The report read: `The ... London Evening Standard yesterday reported, without attribution, that radio-carbon tests at Oxford University showed the shroud was made about 1350. ... The article stated that Luckett, whose university is an ancient rival of Oxford, was not connected with the tests but had been associated with investigations of the shroud's history. `He wrote in a separate article in the Evening Standard that laboratories "are rather leaky places" but did not elaborate.' ... An Associated Press story appeared in the 9 September 1988 issue of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle headlined 'Shroud's age remains secret Oxford research chief says', with the subhead 'He claims forgery report was just a guess'. Teddy Hall was quoted to this effect in the Oxford Mail. The article went on `But Dr Richard Luckett, a Cambridge University professor, said he stood by his word, adding, "I had an absolutely marvellous leak from one of the laboratories and it wasn't Oxford." Luckett, last month, said tests at Oxford showed the shroud was made in 1350. ... I must say I wondered about Luckett's date of 1350 because it was the date Donahue announced to me when I was present at the first radiocarbon measurement on the shroud in 6 May 1988. Of course, it also corresponds very closely to the shroud's known historic date. However, I still assumed Luckett had said he got the number from Oxford. When I read that he claimed he got it from one of the other two labs I worried that it might have come from someone who was present at Arizona during the first measurement." (Gove, 1996, pp.278-279).

The highly publicized study was published in 1988 in the scientific journal Nature. That conclusion, however, has not halted the debate over the origin of the Shroud, although Church officials have declined to allow the fragile cloth to be so closely examined since then. If no further samples of the Shroud's linen will be allowed to be destructively tested, then hopefully eventually some of the Shroud's pollen will be radiocarbon dated.

In 2005 a second analysis indicated that the cloth sample used by the 1988 teams had been taken from a part of the Shroud that was not part of the original cloth. That was by the late chemist Ray Rogers, who in an article in a leading peer-reviewed chemical journal, reported that "microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin" and so "The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud":

"In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich determined the age of a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They reported that the date of the cloth's production lay between A.D. 1260 and 1390 with 95% confidence. This came as a surprise in view of the technology used to produce the cloth, its chemical composition, and the lack of vanillin in its lignin. The results prompted questions about the validity of the sample. Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow-brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud." (Rogers, R.N., 2005, "Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin," Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, Nos 1-2, 20 January, pp.189-194, 189).

Here is what Rogers wrote in Thermochimica Acta in 2004, and was published in 2005, about the Shroud's vanillin content indicating that it was "between 1300- and 3000-years old" [see 01Dec07]:

"The fact that vanillin can not be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicates that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests that the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years." (Rogers, 2005, p.192)

If the Shroud was 1300 years old in 2004, its linen would date from ~AD 704. If it was 3000 years old in 2004, its linen would date from ~996BC. That is a range of ~996BC to ~AD 704, or ~146BC ± 850 years. Jesus' crucifixion was in AD 30, which was ~176 years after ~146BC, and the Shroud's flax would have been harvested and its linen woven before AD30.

If Rogers was right (which is disputed even within the Shroud pro-authenticity community) and the sample tested was a 16th century patch which was rewoven into the Shroud, it still will not explain how all three labs dated that 16th century patch to "1350 AD... the time its historic record began," unless by an amazing coincidence the patch itself was 14th century!

The interview with Dr. Ramsey will be broadcast by the BBC on Easter Saturday. This promises to be very interesting! Maybe this is the beginning of Ian Wilson's prediction that, "the shroud, even now, frail and discredited as it might seem, is part of a cosmic drama not yet played out":

"But the alternative, inevitably, is even more daunting. In the shroud we have a piece of cloth that men cast lots over when they put it to the test (remember the cowboy boots?). A piece of cloth they mocked when their instruments of destruction showed it, seemingly, as of mere human frailty. Is it not all strikingly evocative of what they did when they committed the body of Jesus himself to crucifixion and the grave? And did not something mind-blowingly unexpected happen to this, just when Jesus's followers felt at their most defeated? It all gives one the unnerving feeling that the shroud, even now, frail and discredited as it might seem, is part of a cosmic drama not yet played out." (Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, 1991, p.189).

See also this same story in La Stampa, Catholic World News, ReligionAndSpirituality.com and Interfaith,

Posted 12 February 2008. Updated 23 August 2025.

"There followed in February 1989 a formal paper in the highly respected, international scientific journal Nature, carrying as its signatories the names of twenty-one of those most closely involved in the carbon dating. After carefully setting out all the procedures that had been followed to obtain the dating result, the paper commented: `These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the shroud of Turin is medieval.' [Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 1989, pp.611-615, p.614]" (Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, pp.9-10).

"Inevitably there were a number of individuals, among them the present author who, having conducted their own prior researches on the shroud, felt that the word `conclusive' for such a date seemed overstrong, particularly given that carbon dating on its own could certainly not yet offer any explanation for how someone of the Middle Ages had produced an image of the shroud's extraordinary subtlety and complexity. Nonetheless, such was the seemingly overwhelming acceptance with which the results were received that most objections of this kind, if voiced at all, were tossed aside by the media. To the glee of the British press, Oxford's Professor Hall derisively labelled such protestors `Flat-Earthers'." (Wilson, 1991, p.10).

"Shooting the Fox There are two main ways of dealing with foxes. Ladies and gentlemen dress up smartly, mount fine horses, and have a splendid time chasing them all over the countryside before finally watching them being torn to bits by hounds. Farmers shoot them. It is considered unsporting but is quick and effective. For our present purposes to shoot a fox is to bring an argument to a sudden conclusion by cutting through the peripherals and getting to the heart of the matter in one stroke. Often people get to love an argument for its own sake. Indeed they can get so wrapped up in it that they lose sight of its original purpose. If you have the wit and presence of mind to grasp what is essential you can score a speedy and decisive victory. Take as an example the controversy surrounding the Shroud of Turin. This holy relic was traditionally supposed to be the shroud that had covered the body of Christ. In some miraculous way the image of Jesus' body had become printed on the cloth and could, using a photographic negative, be clearly seen. But was it genuine? It was a truly fascinating argument with endless ramifications. For example, the image was only clearly visible, as mentioned before, if you first photographed the cloth and then viewed the photographic negative. Yet, even if the shroud was, as some suspected, a fake, it certainly predated the invention of photography by many years. How could anyone produce a fake that was only visible using a process that had not yet been invented? The complications were endless. The nail holes in the body were in the correct place. Traditionally painters and sculptors had shown Christ's wounds to be in his hands. Anatomically and historically this was nonsense because the hands would not have borne such a weight. The actual method of crucifixion was to drive the nails through the wrist bones. The shroud showed this quite accurately. On the other hand the image on the shroud showed the hands modestly covering the genitals, but if a body has been `laid out' the hands would not normally reach so far. Also the image showed that blood had run from the wounds. Biblical evidence tells us that the body was washed before burial and, of course, dead bodies do not bleed. This argument looked set to go on for ever. It got extremely heated and some of the scholars involved got so emotionally and intellectually bound up in the struggle that religious conversions were reported to have taken place among them. Then, at long last, permission was given to take a small portion of the shroud and subject it to carbon dating. The results were conclusive. The cloth was of such late manufacture that the image could not be genuine. The fox had been shot. In a way it was a pity that such an entertaining argument should come to such an abrupt end. Many of the issues that had been raised were interesting and worthy of serious consideration but, once the fox was dead, they were quickly disregarded by all but a dedicated few." (Allen, R., 1996, "How To Win Arguments: The Complete Guide To Coming Out On Top," Thorsons: London, pp.71-72. Emphasis original).

"Scientifically the coup de grâce came on 16 February 1989 with the scientific journal Nature's publication of the radiocarbon-dating laboratories' formal technical report. Authored by no less than twenty-one of the scientists who had played some part in obtaining the final result, this claimed `conclusive evidence that the linen of the shroud of Turin is mediaeval'. [Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon dating of the shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February 1989, pp.611-615] As the Oxford laboratory's Professor Edward Hall repeatedly stressed in accompanying interviews and talks, no one of any scientific worth could any longer believe in the possibility of the Shroud being genuine. If they did, they might just as well join the Flat Earthers. Thus it seemed that anyone who had previously upheld any serious case for the Shroud's credibility, among whom I numbered myself, had been dealt a fatal stab to the heart. And sadly, the quality of argument on the part of those who refused to accept that they were `dead' quickly degenerated into the unworthy. For some Shroud supporters in continental Europe, for instance, the chief defence offered was that it was the radiocarbon dating, not the Shroud, that must be the fraud." (Wilson, I. , 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, pp.8-9).

"All this inevitably gives rise to the question, can anyone any longer be quite so sure of radiocarbon dating's claim `conclusively' to have proved the Shroud a mediaeval fake? Can we really still believe in a mediaeval forger? Of course, it may still be difficult to conceive that the radiocarbon dating of 1988, as conducted by three internationally respected scientific laboratories, could have erred by as much as 1300 years. But is it not time, now, to look just a little more critically at the technique's own credibility when its scientists so confidently claim `accuracies' to within a hundred years or so?" (Wilson, 1998, p.174-175).

"On the other side of the Atlantic, Professor Hall was similarly upbeat. In a lecture provocatively entitled `The Turin Shroud: A Lesson in Self-Persuasion' he told a packed audience of the British Museum Society in London that radiocarbon dating had so conclusively proved the Shroud to be a fake that anyone who continued to believe it genuine had to be a `Flat Farther. And in the March of 1989 his efforts to drum up the maximum publicity reaped their rewards when he was able to announce (for publication on, of all days, Good Friday) that his laboratory's future was secure. Following his retirement from the Oxford laboratory, this was now to be awarded a permanent professorship, financed with a million pounds donated by forty-five rich businessmen. Who was the person chosen for this post? Dr Michael Tite." (Wilson, 1998, pp.185-186).

"Archaeologists, who routinely call upon radiocarbon-dating laboratories' services, tend to shy from openly criticising the results they receive, even if they do not necessarily agree with some of them, but one who certainly has had no such qualms is Greece's Spyros Iakovidis, speaking at an international conference in 1989: `In relation to the reliability of radiocarbon dating I would like to mention something which happened to me during my excavation at Gla [in Boeotia, Greece]. I sent to two different laboratories in two different parts of the world a certain amount of the same burnt grain. I got two readings differing by 2000 years, the archaeological dates being right in the middle. I feel that this method is not exactly to be trusted.' [Iakovidis, S., "Thera and the Aegean World III.," Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, 3-9 September 1989 , Vol. 3, 1990, p.240] Nor are such examples isolated and anecdotal. In the same year of 1989 Britain's Science and Engineering Research Council commissioned a special inter-comparison trial for radiocarbon-dating laboratories in which altogether thirty-eight different laboratories took part, collectively representing both the conventional Libby method and the accelerator mass spectrometer one. Each laboratory was given artefacts of dates known to the organisers, but unknown to them. The shock finding of this totally scientific trial was that the laboratories' actual margins of error were on average two or three times greater than those that they quoted. Of the thirty-eight who participated, only seven produced results that the organisers of the trial considered totally satisfactory, with the laboratories using the new accelerator mass spectrometer technique faring particularly badly. [Coghlan, A., "Unexpected errors affect dating techniques," New Scientist, 30 September 1989, p.26.] It is also a matter of record that the Oxford laboratory ... inevitably the highest profile of any, actually declined to take part. Yet this is the method that we are supposed to believe `conclusively' proved the Shroud a mediaeval fake." (Wilson, 1998, p.193. Emphasis original).

"This is not to say that any of the possible sources of contamination that have been pointed out in this chapter were necessarily the reason why the Shroud radiocarbon dating erred by thirteen centuries, if indeed this was the case. As we will he learning later in this book, there is another possible source of error that even the science of 1988 would have been some way from anticipating. Rather, the point of major concern is that the radiocarbon laboratory scientists, in their eagerness to present a copybook example of the accelerator mass spectrometer method's prowess before the world, seriously neglected to take due account of any way in which their findings might be wrong in respect of the Shroud. In the Nature report they described their findings as `conclusive'. Professor Hall, in his post-dating lecture to the British Museum, most ebulliently derided any suggestion of how his laboratory's findings might be in some as yet undetermined way mistaken. And this even though neither he nor any of the other laboratory scientists could offer any properly thought-out explanation for how the Shroud image might have been made in the century they claimed it to be made. ... And of the Shroud itself, and the utterly valid question of how, if the carbon-dating method really is right, someone of the fourteenth century produced a fake that `good', one looks in vain for the slightest light on this in Gove's book. Professor Hall said likewise that this question was of absolutely no interest to him and he would be giving no thought to it. But the Shroud simply cannot be left in such limbo. The carbon-dating verdict was either right or it was wrong. And if it was right, just how could someone have produced something like it back in the fourteenth century?" (Wilson, 1998, pp.193-194. Emphasis original).

"Unfortunately, as often happens, the newspapers printed the results prematurely. The London Times stated on August 27, 1988 that Oxford scientists had leaked the results. Shortly thereafter, the Vatican made an announcement in Turin, Italy on October 13, 1988. The results of the test were first officially published in an article entitled `Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin' in 1989 in Nature Magazine. [Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature February 16, 1989, p.612] The official report stated that the Shroud of Turin was dated between 1260-1390, and this would make the Shroud between 607 to 737 years old. ... The report stated the following conclusion: `The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95 percent confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of A.D. 1260-1390. These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval.' [Ibid.] Headlines all over the world jumped on this report and, ignoring the vast body of evidence to the contrary, and the warnings of the perils of the C-14 test, prematurely accepted the results of this one test to condemn the Holy Shroud as a `fake or fraud.' Sensationalism was the operative word. The newspapers in New York, as an example, capitalized on the negative test results of the Holy Shroud. Some headlines read as follows: `Test Shows Shroud of Turin to be Fraud, Scientist Hints,' read the New York Times on September 22, 1988. `Turin Shroud Made After Crucifixion,' was the Associated Press headline in the Daily News, September 28, 1988, which went on to explain that the Shroud was created almost a millennium after the death of Jesus. `Shroud of Turin Legend in Tatters: Carbon Tests Date it to the 14th Century,' was the headline in the New York Post on September 28, 1988." (Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, pp.164-165).

"The first lab to report its results to Tite was the Tucson laboratory on May 6, 1988. The second lab to submit its data was Zurich on May 26. Finally, Oxford submitted its results several months later on August 8, more than ample time to hear of the results of the other two labs. Subsequently, the journal Nature reported that `the results of radiocarbon measurements in Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of A.D. 1260-1390... . These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.' [Nature, February 16, 1989, p.614] Even before the data was officially reported to the proper Church authorities, there were leaks in the media. Sox, who was privy to the tests in Zurich, anticipated the publication of the results by producing a program for the BBC which aired on July 27, 1988. The program, originally entitled Verdict on the Shroud, was surreptitiously renamed Threads of Evidence when the results were not forthcoming. The following month, on August 26, the headline for London's Evening Standard was `The Shroud of Turin is a Fake.'" (Guerrera, V., 2000, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.131).

"Then ten years later, in 1988, radiocarbon dating of the cloth was done by three independent research laboratories. In the February 1989 issue of Nature (one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world), it was announced by these scientists that the cloth was a fraud. The cloth was far too young to have existed at the time of Christ. Of all the data ever collected on the Shroud, scientists finally found one piece of evidence that questioned the possibility that the Shroud wrapped the body of Christ. With this evidence, they concluded `conclusively' that the image must have been created during the Middle Ages by some natural or man-made process. They failed to mention that their `conclusive' conclusion was based only on circumstantial evidence. It is the weight that is given to this single piece of evidence from radiocarbon dating which clearly demonstrates how scientists, wanting to reach a predetermined conclusion, will let their own prejudices dictate how they interpret the data. To declare conclusively that this article is a fake based only on radiocarbon dating, you need to manipulate the scientific facts, accepting some and ignoring others. And declaring the Shroud a fake raises some very difficult questions that cannot be answered by the state-of-the-art technology. Because of the significance placed on one piece of evidence, the only evidence that questions the Shroud's authenticity, other questions regarding how and why it was made are simply tossed aside." (Chiang, R.G., 2004, "Science and the Shroud," in "Overcoming Prejudice in the Evolution Creation Debate: Developing an integrative approach to Science and Christianity," Doorway Publications: Hamilton ON, Canada)

"Nevertheless, as it is with the theory of evolution, this naturalistic theory of the Shroud has been given serious consideration because it does not require the existence of a supernatural force. By having a totally naturalistic explanation, it is no longer necessary for skeptics to worry that a supernatural force could have created the image on the Shroud. Although the Picknett and Prince theory is very, very weak, it does represent a significant change in the attitude of the skeptics. No longer do these skeptics insist that the image on the Shroud is a painting. This turnabout may have been encouraged by the fact that the radiocarbon dating showed `conclusively' that the Shroud was too young to have been around to wrap the body of Christ. Possibly, with the assurance of the radiocarbon dating, the opponents of the Shroud have been more willing to concede that the facts are indeed overwhelmingly in favour of the image not being a painting. Unfortunately for the skeptics, who had their day when the radiocarbon results were first reported, radiocarbon dating is not thought to be as conclusive as it once was. It is quite possible that antique relics, like the Shroud, which have been exposed to everything from extreme heat and smoke to the touch of human hands, have too many variables associated with them to accurately determine their age using radiocarbon dating." (Chiang, 2004, "The Shroud: A Primitive Photograph").

"Since the Shroud is made of materials that were once living plants, radiocarbon dating can be applied to the Shroud. Before 1988, the Shroud had already undergone several forensic tests made by many experts in the field, and each finding supported the belief that this cloth was approximately 2000 yrs old, and that it originated from Israel. For example, the weaving is distinctive to the time of Christ and microscopic pollen grains found embedded in the cloth are from plants endemic to regions around the Dead Sea. Supposedly, radiocarbon dating would be able to tell us whether or not the cloth were old enough to have been around at the time of Christ. If it were significantly younger than expected, this would support the theory that it was not the death shroud of Christ. And if, by chance, this cloth were as young as the Middle Ages, this would confirm the theory that the image was produced by someone using a natural process to help support a fledgling church. In the winter of 1989, Damon et al. announced to the world the results of the radiocarbon dating. Their article in Nature stated, `The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is Medieval.' [Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 1989, pp.611-615] It is interesting that a reputable science journal like Nature would permit any author to claim that his results were conclusive unless one takes into account the deep-seated prejudice that the scientific community has against any theory that is not purely naturalistic. To claim conclusively that the Shroud is Medieval demonstrates this prejudice and deflects attention from the difficult questions regarding the Shroud's origin. The evidence they presented was not conclusive; it was, at best, supportive. The only definitive conclusion that can be made from this data is that the Shroud has enough carbon 14 in it to suggest that it is relatively young - provided that the assumption concerning the amount of carbon 14 in it to begin with is true, and that carbon 14 was not added after the cloth was made. To conclude that the Shroud is Medieval is an extrapolation of the facts, and should, in proper science, never be portrayed as `conclusive.' Conclusive proof should be reserved for data that are independent variables free of unprovable assumptions. The amount of carbon 14 in the cloth, and the rate of decay of carbon 14, are testable variables that can be measured over and over again, but the amount of carbon 14 present in the cloth when it was originally made, and the exclusion of extraneous sources of carbon 14 after death, are assumptions that must be accepted by faith." (Chiang, 2004, "The not-so conclusive radiocarbon dating").

"The international team of scientists who convened in 1987 to put a date on the shroud probably did not expect to banish such fantasies. But by applying radiocarbon dating to the fabric, they were at least employing the most definitive of archaeological tools. Or so they thought. The textile sample was cut from the shroud in Turin Cathedral in April 1988, under the supervision of textile experts, representatives of the laboratories in Arizona, Oxford and Zurich selected to perform the analyses, a conservation scientist from the British Museum, and the Archbishop of Turin. The three measurements indicated with 95% confidence that the shroud's linen dated from between AD1260 and 1390. This, the researchers said, was `conclusive evidence that the linen of the shroud of Turin is medieval" [Damon, P.E., et al., Nature, Vol. 337, 1989, pp.611-615]. ... And yet, the shroud is a remarkable artefact, one of the few religious relics to have a justifiably mythical status. It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made. It does not seem to have been painted, at least with any known historical pigments." (Ball, P., "To know a veil," Nature news, 28 January 2005).

Monday, February 11, 2008

Shroud name index `R'

This is my Shroud of Turin name index, "R", for persons associated with the Shroud whose surnames start with "R."

[Right: In Memoriam: Raymond N. Rogers, Shroud.com]

See main name index A-Z for more about this Shroud name index.

Rogers, Raymond N. 1927-2005. A chemist with Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories, Rogers joined the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), which examined the Shroud in July 1978. He initially believed the Shroud to be a painting and that it would take him only 20 minutes to prove it! Rogers task was to collect particles from the Shroud's by pressing sticky tape on its surface and then later help analyse them. Rogers authored a number of important scientific papers on the Shroud. Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin," Analytica Chimica Acta, 135, 1982, pp.3-49, reported STURP's finding that the Shroud's image was not a painting and the bloodstains really were blood. Rogers, R.N., "Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin," Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, 2005, pp.189-194, found that the sample radiocarbon-dated in 1988 was not part of the original Shroud, and therefore could not validly be used for determining its true age. Obituary, In Memoriam, Ray Rogers FAQ, Wikinews & Wilipedia

PS: See `tagline' quotes below which will be about each person, in alphabetic of surname, and then in date order (most recent uppermost).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc. (Biology).
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

"A chemist who worked on testing of the Shroud of Turin says new analysis of the fiber indicates the cloth that some say was the burial linen of Jesus could be up to 3,000 years old. The analysis, by a scientist who was on the original 1978 team that was allowed to study tiny pieces of the cloth, indicates the shroud is far older than the initial findings suggesting it was probably from medieval times, and will likely be seized on by those who believe it wrapped the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. ... Raymond N. Rogers, a retired chemist from the University of California-operated Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said in a telephone interview Friday from his home. `The chemistry says it was a real shroud, the blood spots on it are real blood, and the technology that was used to make that piece of cloth was exactly what Pliny the Elder reported for this time,' about 70 A.D. ... Rogers, whose findings were published recently in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta. Rogers wrote that in 2003, the scientist advising the cardinal of Turin, where the shroud is kept, provided him with pieces of thread taken from the radiocarbon sample before it was distributed for dating. The American chemist said he decided to analyze the amount of vanillin, a chemical compound that is present in linen from the flax fibers used to weave it. Vanillin slowly disappears from the fiber over time at a calculated rate, he said. Judging by those calculations, a medieval-age cloth should have had some 37% of its vanillin left by 1978, the year the threads were taken from the shroud, Rogers said. But there was virtually no vanillin left in the shroud, leading the chemist to calculate it could be far older than the radiocarbon testing indicated, possibly some 3,000 years old. Asked why carbon-dating might have been off, Rogers contended that `the people who cut the sample didn't do a very good job of characterizing the samples,' that is, taking samples from many areas of the cloth. .... Disputes have flourished over the 1988 declaration by the scientific team that carbon-dating indicated the cloth came from medieval times. Researchers at The Hebrew University has said that pollen and plant images on it put its origins in Jerusalem sometime before the eighth century." ("Shroud of Turin could date to time of Jesus, examiner says," USA Today, January 29, 2005).

"The most recent scientific study of the Turin shroud will not surprise anyone with even a passing interest in this mysterious bit of cloth. Retired chemist Raymond Rogers claims that the sample used for radiocarbon-dating studies in 1988 - which suggested that the shroud was a medieval forgery - is quite different from the rest of the relic. Rogers, who worked on explosives at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, presents chemical arguments for the shroud being much older than those datings implied. It is, he says, between 1,300 and 3,000 years old. Let's call it somewhere around the middle of that range, which puts the age at about 2,000 years. Which can mean only one thing... But it would be unfair to imply that Rogers has steered his study towards a preconceived conclusion. He has a history of respectable work on the shroud dating back to 1978, when he became director of chemical research for the international Shroud of Turin Research Project." (Ball, P., "To know a veil," Nature news, 28 January 2005).

"Rogers has pursued another objection. ... the suggestion that the carbon-dated fragment was taken from a patch repaired in the sixteenth century did not look promising. The shroud was indeed damaged by fire and patched up in 1532, but those patches, called the Holland cloth, are obvious. Rogers thought that he would be able to `disprove [the] theory in five minutes'. But he now says that there is something in it. Luigi Gonella, the Archbishop of Turin's scientific adviser, provided Rogers with a few threads from the piece cut for dating, which he compared with the samples he collected during the Shroud of Turin Research Project. The radiocarbon sample, but not other parts of the shroud, seems to have been dyed with madder, a colorant not widely used in Europe until after the Crusades, Rogers writes in Thermochimica Acta [Rogers, R.N., "Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin," Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, 2005, pp.189-194]. This suggested that the fabric could have been inserted during repair, after being dyed to match the original, older cloth. Well, maybe. Perhaps more compelling is that most of the shroud lacks vanillin, a breakdown product of the lignin in cotton fibres. There is vanillin in the Holland cloth, and in other medieval linen. Because it decomposes over time, this suggests that the main body of the cloth is considerably older than these patches. By calculating the rate of decay, Rogers arrives at his revised estimate of the shroud's age." (Ball, 2005).

"The Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen long-believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, is much older than radiocarbon tests suggest, according to new microchemical research. Published in the 20 January issue of Thermochimica Acta, a peer-reviewed chemistry journal, the study dismisses the results of the 1988 carbon-14 dating. At that time, three reputable laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona, concluded that the cloth on which the smudged outline of the body of a man is indelibly impressed was a medieval fake dating from 1260 to 1390, and not the burial cloth wrapped around the body of Christ. `As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the shroud in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the shroud. Indeed, the patch was very carefully made. The yarn has the same twist as the main part of the cloth, and it was stained to match the colour,' says Raymond Rogers, a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratories and former member of the STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) team of US scientists that examined the Shroud in 1978.The presence of a patch on the shroud doesn't come as a surprise. The linen cloth has survived several blazes since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a church fire in 1532. Badly damaged, it was then restored by nuns who patched burn holes and stitched the shroud to a reinforcing cloth now known as the Holland cloth. ... In his study, Rogers analysed and compared the radiocarbon sample with other samples from the controversial cloth. `As part of the STURP research project, I took 32 adhesive-tape samples from all areas of the shroud in 1978, including some patches and the Holland cloth. I also obtained the authentic samples used in the radiocarbon dating,' Rogers says. It emerged that the radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the shroud, Rogers says. `The radiocarbon sample had been dyed, most likely to match the colour of the older, sepia- coloured cloth. The sample was dyed using a technology that began to appear in Italy about the time the Crusaders' last bastion fell to the Mameluke Turks in 1291. `The radiocarbon sample cannot be older than about 1290, agreeing with the age determined by carbon-14 dating in 1988. However, the Shroud itself is actually much older,' says Rogers. ... Evidence came from microchemical tests ... These revealed the presence of vanillin in the radiocarbon sample and in the Holland cloth, but not in the rest of the shroud. Vanillin is produced by the thermal decomposition of lignin, a chemical compound of plant material including flax, and levels decrease and disappear with time. It is easily detected on medieval linens, but cannot be found in the very old ones, such as the wrappings of the Dead Sea scrolls. `A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests that the shroud is between 1300 and 3000 years old,' Rogers writes. According to Tom D'Muhala, the president of the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research, the new chemical tests produced `conclusive evidence'. `They indicate that the linen shroud is actually very old, much older than the published 1988 radiocarbon date,' D'Muhala says. ... In 1988, the Vatican approved carbon-dating tests. Three reputable laboratories concluded that the shroud was medieval, dating from 1260 to 1390, and not a burial cloth wrapped around the body of Christ. But since then a growing sense that the radiocarbon dating might have had substantial flaws emerged among shroud scholars. The history of the cloth has been steeped in mystery. It has survived several blazes since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a mysterious fire at Turin Cathedral in 1997." (Lorenzi, R., "Turin shroud older than thought," ABC/Discovery News, 26 January 2005).

"In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich determined the age of a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They reported that the date of the cloth's production lay between A.D. 1260 and 1390 with 95% confidence. This came as a surprise in view of the technology used to produce the cloth, its chemical composition, and the lack of vanillin in its lignin. The results prompted questions about the validity of the sample. Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow-brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud." (Rogers, R.N., "Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin," Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, Nos 1-2, 20 January 2005, pp.189-194).

"THE year 1978 marked the 400th anniversary of the Shroud's transfer from Chambery to Turin. To celebrate this occasion, the newly-appointed Archbishop of Turin, Anastasio Ballestrero, through the diplomatic efforts of Fr. Peter Rinaldi, a Salesian priest stationed in New York, had the Shroud exposed for public veneration from August 27-October 8. Following this exposition, over forty scientists from Italy and America were given five days to carry out non-destructive tests on the Shroud. The thirty-plus members of the American group known as the `Shroud of Turin Research Project,' or STURP, were headed by Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper, two United States Air Force captains and physicists. The team brought with them seventy-two crates of equipment. The group was composed of specialists from different disciplines: Donald Lynn headed a group from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena, including Jean Lorre, and Donald Devan from the Oceanographic Services, Inc., of Santa Barbara. Bill Mottern, from the Sandia Laboratories, led the team of specialists who carried out a series of radiography exams of the Shroud with the following group from Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories: Robert Dinegar, Donald and Joan Janney, Larry Schwalbe, Diane Soran, Ron London, Roger Morris, and Ray Rogers who took various sticky tape samples of dust particles from the surface of the Shroud. Joseph Accetta from Lockheed Corporation coordinated the group that inspected the Shroud with infrared rays. Roger and Marion Gilbert from the Oriel Corporation of Connecticut examined the light spectrum emitted by fluorescence beneath ultraviolet lighting." (Guerrera, V., 2000, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, pp.60-61).

"More importantly, the single most significant conclusion of STURP was that the Shroud image cannot possibly be a painting. Two of STURP's members, Rogers and Schwalbe, state for the team: `The primary conclusion is that the image does not reside in an applied pigment. The reflectance, fluorescence, and chemical characteristics of the Shroud image indicate ... some cellulose oxidation/ dehydration process.' [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin," Analytica Chimica Acta, 135, 1982, pp.3-49, p.60] Naturally speaking, some form of drying, aging (advanced decomposition) process has occurred on the image." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, p.29).

"In terms of religion, STURP members belong to various Protestant churches or are Roman Catholics, Jews or even agnostics. However, what they have in common is that each one is the type of person who is challenged by puzzles and `unsolvable mysteries,' and is unwilling to believe that any problem can stump him for long. When chemist Ray Rogers joined the organization, he was quoted by Cullen Murphy in `Shreds of Evidence,' published by Harpers in 1981, as having said, `Give me twenty minutes, and I'll have this thing shot full of holes.' That was several years ago. As this seemed to be a common opinion among members of STURP, they soon began to feel the need to observe and to study the Shroud at first hand, and they took steps toward that end. ? in July, 1978, when the Shroud was once again shown to the public, time was reserved for members of the STURP committee." (Adams, F.O., 1982, "Sindon: A Layman's Guide to the Shroud of Turin," Patrick Walsh Press: Tempe AZ, pp.94-95. Emphasis original).

"Conclusions The evidence seems to be sufficient to conclude that the Shroud `blood' areas are blood. The presence of protein, bilirubin, and albumin, the optical absorption and fluorescence characteristics of individual fibrils, and the iron concentrations determined by x-ray fluorescence, all support this hypothesis. This contradicts earlier tentative conclusions that were drawn mainly from the negative results of less sensitive tests." (Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, No. 1, pp.3-49, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co: Amsterdam, 1982, p.40. Emphasis original).

The Shroud of Turin

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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

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The Shroud of Turin

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Shroud name index `H'

Friday, February 15, 2008

Shroud name index `A'

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Shroud Dating May Have Been Inaccurate - Radiocarbon Expert

Monday, February 11, 2008

Shroud name index `R'

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