W
WetCatechumen
Guest
The shroud is a photographic negative.
- Status
T
theistgal
Guest
From the article:
*
“Fanti’s recent findings, which are also about to be published in a specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee.”*
Perhaps we should hold off saying it has been confirmed, until it’s confirmed.
*
“Fanti’s recent findings, which are also about to be published in a specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee.”*
Perhaps we should hold off saying it has been confirmed, until it’s confirmed.
J
JimG
Guest
A quite readable review of the earlier findings on the shroud, written by two scientists involved in the Shroud of Turin Project, is Verdict on the Shroud. It was written before the disputed C-14 test and before the more recent testing. But overall it has some very good material about the history of the shroud, the pollen findings, and the composition of the image.
It’s still a compelling read for anyone interested in the subject.
It’s still a compelling read for anyone interested in the subject.
T
Tampa_Dave
Guest
I’ll bet the DNA test results conclusively prove by a ratio of 1 trillion to 1 that God is the Father.The next step is to map out the DNA.
N
Nan_S
Guest
Only problem: God the Father didn’t provide a cheek-swab sample, and neither did the Virgin Mary or Saint Joseph.
So you can do all the DNA testing you want, but all you’re going to get is proof that the DNA came from an anonymous Middle-Eastern male of Jewish descent.
K
KEP1983
Guest
Photography didn’t exist at the time the shroud was made, even if you assume it was made in the medieval age.
J
JimG
Guest
It was exactly this which first brought the shroud to the attention of the scientific community. The Shroud had been exhibited on many occassions, but nobody noticed this remarkable quality. Until photography was invented.
A photographer took a photo of it, and then developed it. What would normally be the photographic negative as it came from the developing solution, looked like a photographic positive print of Jesus. It’s nearly impossible that a medieval artisan would even have been able to think in terms of a photographic negative, let alone paint one. And of course, the image is not painted. That’s another remarkable story.
E
EmperorNapoleon
Guest
Well, someone was able to reproduce the shroud using medieval methods. Whether it is authentic is still a matter of scientific and historical debate. There is no historical record of this shroud prior to the mid-14th century and scientific testing did reveal the presence of red ochre. So, there are still three possibilities. It could be real, it could be a medieval fake, or it could be real with medieval embellishment.
K
KEP1983
Guest
What I think is remarkable is the “style” the shroud is “painted” in. Unfortunately the scientists/“experts” who wish to debunk it simply won’t be able to understand this, because they have no clue what an artist must know to create realistic art.
I’ve been a professional artist since I was 23, and am a realist painter. I’ve done in-depth study of drawing and painting techniques, anatomy, and art history among other things. Realistic art is a knowledge that is learned. It’s developed from generation to generation, and each generation builds upon the knowledge acquired by the last.
The shroud was supposedly “painted,” at the latest, in the 14th century. Yet the artwork created during this time period was mostly of a Gothic/Byzantine style, which is very iconographic and not very realistic. Yet the shroud shows a clear understanding of anatomy, drawing, and values. But the Renaissance-- and thus the study of anatomy, form, light and shade, and perspective-- had not yet started. Yet the artist who “painted” the shroud seemed to have a knowledge of all of these, hundreds of years ahead of his time, centuries before Da Vinci and other Florentine artists made these discoveries. Yet we have no record of such an artist.
J
JimG
Guest
An examination of the Shroud shows that the image is not produced by pigment. It is rather constructed of a sort of ‘burn’ of the underlying material, rather like a radiation burn, but I don’t remember the details of the book, so it would be best to read the book “Verdict on the Shroud” which has a great deal of that sort of information.
K
KEP1983
Guest
I assume you don’t know a lot about painting.
Red ochre is simply a natural pigment found in the ground (dirt). So as long as the shroud got dirty there’s a chance of finding some sort of dirt pigment within it.
So if you’re saying that the dirt pigment was used for painting then you would be implying that the pigment was suspended in a binder of some sort. Today we usually use oil, but the 14th century would have used egg tempera.
Of course, there’s no evidence that this was painted with egg tempera. Egg tempera is also very stiff and brittle, which is why all the medieval paintings are on wood. If this was painted on cloth using 14th century techniques, the paintwould be cracked to pieces.
Another painting-hypothesis problem is that painting requires a PH neutral ground before applying paint to a surface (a gesso of some sort); otherwise the acidity of the binder will eat away the material that it’s painted upon. But the use of a ground is completely obvious and would easily have been noticed.
Also, oil painting didn’t exist in the 14th century, so people were not yet painting on cloth. Paintings before the Renaissance were done on wood panels, because earlier paints were not flexible.
The “artist” was also painting in a negative image that no one would notice until 600 years later. That doesn’t make much sense.
E
EmperorNapoleon
Guest
Yet the Shroud was reproduced, down to the negative image, using very simple medieval methods.
L
livingwordunity
Guest
How would that take away from the finding that it’s from the first century?
P
patrick457
Guest
To summarize what we do know about the Shroud:
1.) It is a rectangular piece of cloth, measuring approximately 4.4 × 1.1 m (14.3 × 3.7 ft), woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils.
2.) Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, yellowish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and point in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth.
3.) It bears what looks reddish brown stains that are said to be blood. In addition to this, serum stains - invisible to the naked eye - have also been reported to be visible under ultraviolet photography. The blood on the Shroud purportedly showed a serum separation, visible as a lighter ring around a darker center.
4.) A very thin (180-600 nanometers thick, is thinner than most bacteria), clear polysaccharide residue coats the outermost-topmost fibers of the cloth. In places, that residue has changed into a caramel-like substance. And it is the brownish-yellowish color, here and there, that makes up the image we see. The images reside on sections of fibers that are at the surface or within one or two fibers deep from the surface: the image is actually thus very fragile.
http://www.shroudfaq.com/images/shroud23a.jpg
Polysaccharide coating
5.) By contrast, there is no image below the ‘blood’ stains, which might suggest that the stains were formed before the image. We know this because there is no image under the stains: these acted to inhibit the image formation mechanism. Unlike the image proper, which is very fragile and superficial, these stains had seeped through the entire thickness of the cloth as a liquid material, reaching the opposite side.
http://euro-med.dk/billeder/billederblood64.jpg
6.) A second, faint face has been purportedly found at the back of the cloth in 2004. Like the image at the front, the back image is thin and superficial.
http://alwaysproventrue.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/shroud-of-turin-3d-back-of-head.jpg?w=590
7.) Some factors of the Shroud is also being investigated, such as its three-dimensional properties and whatnot.
http://shroud3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Picture2-300x292.jpg
P
patrick457
Guest
A little repost:
On 13 May 1981, Dr. John Jackson (the leader of STURP), along with some associates, were on St. Peter’s Square awaiting a prearranged papal audience to brief the recently-elected John Paul II on the team’s findings. The audience never happened: as you all know, of course, the pope was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca and was subsequently rushed away for surgery. Karol Wojtyla, even before he became Pope, had a genuine and profound personal interest on and devotion to the cloth: it was no wonder that Umberto II of Savoy signed a formal will just a month before this incident, on 27 March, to the effect that “after [his] death the entire property of the Holy Shroud shall be donated to the Holy See.” (Recap: the Shroud was officially owned by the House of Savoy ever since Margaret de Charny sold it to Louis, Duke of Savoy in 1453. It, along with other Savoy possessions in Italy, became the property of the Italian state in 1946, although Umberto II still upheld the principle of his continued ownership of the artifact. Umberto apparently decided to not pass the relic to his only son, Vittorio Emmanuele - who married without his father’s permission in 1971, thereby breaking a venerable family law which stipulates that the crown prince must always consult his father concerning his choice of marriage partner, and who was involved in the murder of Dirk Hamer in 1978 - but to the Church.)
The new advances in radiocarbon dating at the beginning of the 80s was very quickly being perceived as the next logical step in scientific approaches to the Shroud. The progressively-minded John Paul II, who, upon Umberto’s death in 1983, was the first papal ‘owner’ of the artifact, welcomed such an initiative. However, ownership of the Shroud, even by a Pope, carried some serious limitations due to highly convoluted politics. Umberto in his will stipulated that the Shroud must not ever leave Turin. Also, the Shroud, while it remained housed on the chapel specially built by Guarino Guarini, was on Italian state property, hence, any initiative required delicate diplomatic negotiations with the government. Furthermore, the ecclesiastical establishment of Turin, enjoying the ‘hands-on’ power over the Shroud ever since Umberto went into exile, had adopted some proprietorial attitudes towards the cloth and guarded it fiercely. When the Shroud passed on to the pope, the people at the Vatican wanted to have more say in matters than was welcomed by the folks at Turin. As a result, before any tests could be undertaken, a little jostling of power between the Pope’s chief scientific adviser Carlos Chagas (president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) and Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero of Turin’s Luigi Gonella had to happen. Chagas clearly had the upper hand in this tug-of-war: aside from his position as president of the Pontifical Academy, he was also an internationally-recognized neuroscientist and in addition, is the son of the researcher of the same name who discovered Chaga’s disease (and who was nominated for a Nobel Prize for it, twice). Gonella, on the other hand, was merely a lecturer on physics in the Polytechnic University of Turin. The difficulty is that, the Shroud is on Gonella’s home turf. Hence, when Chagas (who had a way better command of English than Gonella) began initiatives to hold an international-level high-powered scientific workshop to discuss the carbon dating, Gonella felt his authority being undermined.
Chagas proposed a protocol which involved seven named laboratories, some of which will use the old Libby method of radiocarbon dating, others the new AMS method. It was a highly well-researched plan, but Gonella would have none of it. Things then began to go really nasty, what with stances being taken and angry messages being hurled back and forth between the two sides. Eventually, Chagas’ protocol was scrapped, much to the consternation and disappointment of the seven laboratories who were supposed to be involved in the project. They sent a letter to Cardinal Ballestrero in 1 July of 1987, where they warned:
On 13 May 1981, Dr. John Jackson (the leader of STURP), along with some associates, were on St. Peter’s Square awaiting a prearranged papal audience to brief the recently-elected John Paul II on the team’s findings. The audience never happened: as you all know, of course, the pope was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca and was subsequently rushed away for surgery. Karol Wojtyla, even before he became Pope, had a genuine and profound personal interest on and devotion to the cloth: it was no wonder that Umberto II of Savoy signed a formal will just a month before this incident, on 27 March, to the effect that “after [his] death the entire property of the Holy Shroud shall be donated to the Holy See.” (Recap: the Shroud was officially owned by the House of Savoy ever since Margaret de Charny sold it to Louis, Duke of Savoy in 1453. It, along with other Savoy possessions in Italy, became the property of the Italian state in 1946, although Umberto II still upheld the principle of his continued ownership of the artifact. Umberto apparently decided to not pass the relic to his only son, Vittorio Emmanuele - who married without his father’s permission in 1971, thereby breaking a venerable family law which stipulates that the crown prince must always consult his father concerning his choice of marriage partner, and who was involved in the murder of Dirk Hamer in 1978 - but to the Church.)
The new advances in radiocarbon dating at the beginning of the 80s was very quickly being perceived as the next logical step in scientific approaches to the Shroud. The progressively-minded John Paul II, who, upon Umberto’s death in 1983, was the first papal ‘owner’ of the artifact, welcomed such an initiative. However, ownership of the Shroud, even by a Pope, carried some serious limitations due to highly convoluted politics. Umberto in his will stipulated that the Shroud must not ever leave Turin. Also, the Shroud, while it remained housed on the chapel specially built by Guarino Guarini, was on Italian state property, hence, any initiative required delicate diplomatic negotiations with the government. Furthermore, the ecclesiastical establishment of Turin, enjoying the ‘hands-on’ power over the Shroud ever since Umberto went into exile, had adopted some proprietorial attitudes towards the cloth and guarded it fiercely. When the Shroud passed on to the pope, the people at the Vatican wanted to have more say in matters than was welcomed by the folks at Turin. As a result, before any tests could be undertaken, a little jostling of power between the Pope’s chief scientific adviser Carlos Chagas (president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) and Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero of Turin’s Luigi Gonella had to happen. Chagas clearly had the upper hand in this tug-of-war: aside from his position as president of the Pontifical Academy, he was also an internationally-recognized neuroscientist and in addition, is the son of the researcher of the same name who discovered Chaga’s disease (and who was nominated for a Nobel Prize for it, twice). Gonella, on the other hand, was merely a lecturer on physics in the Polytechnic University of Turin. The difficulty is that, the Shroud is on Gonella’s home turf. Hence, when Chagas (who had a way better command of English than Gonella) began initiatives to hold an international-level high-powered scientific workshop to discuss the carbon dating, Gonella felt his authority being undermined.
Chagas proposed a protocol which involved seven named laboratories, some of which will use the old Libby method of radiocarbon dating, others the new AMS method. It was a highly well-researched plan, but Gonella would have none of it. Things then began to go really nasty, what with stances being taken and angry messages being hurled back and forth between the two sides. Eventually, Chagas’ protocol was scrapped, much to the consternation and disappointment of the seven laboratories who were supposed to be involved in the project. They sent a letter to Cardinal Ballestrero in 1 July of 1987, where they warned:
We urge Your Eminence before making a final decision on this question to reconvene a meeting of the seven carbon dating laboratories and the British Museum with your science adviser, Professor Gonella, to more fully apprise him of the dangers of modifying the Turin Workshop Protocol in this fundamental way. The protocol was carefully crafted to meet your charge that the results of the measurements be credible to the general public and to knowledgeable scientists alike. As participants in the Workshop who devoted considerable effort to achieve your goal we would not be irresponsible if we were not to advise you that this fundamental modification in the proposed procedures may lead to failure.
Cardinal Ballestrero faxed back in 10 October. His answer: there would be no reconvened workshop, the number of laboratories would be reduced to three, and the Pontifical Academy will henceforth take no further active part in the exercise.
Cardinal Ballestrero faxed back in 10 October. His answer: there would be no reconvened workshop, the number of laboratories would be reduced to three, and the Pontifical Academy will henceforth take no further active part in the exercise.
B
BigBlueCane
Guest
As I said even IF this was reproduced in medieval times, how would they know to make a 3D image with no brush marks or tool marks of any kind so that it can pass the scrutiny of today’s technology and successfully fool everyone?
P
patrick457
Guest
(Continued)
We wind the clock back for a few years here. STURP initially planned to conduct a range of different studies on the cloth, including radiocarbon dating. A commission headed by chemist Robert H. Dinegar and physicist Harry E. Gove (under the prodding of the Rev. David Sox, then secretary of the British Society for the Turin Shroud) consulted numerous laboratories which were able at the time (1982) to carbon-date small fabric samples. The six labs that showed interest in performing the procedure fell into two categories, according to the method they utilised: Brookhaven (New York) and Harwell (Oxfordshire) used a proportional counter approach (the old Libby method), while Rochester, Oxford, Tucson (Arizona), and Zurich used the newly-developed accelerator mass spectrometry or AMS. To obtain independent and replicable results, and to avoid conflict between the laboratories, it was decided to let all interested laboratories should perform the tests at the same time.
Under the traditional method, radiocarbon-dating the Shroud would not have been feasible since it would have required at least one pocket handkerchief-sized piece of the Shroud to be destroyed for sampling purposes, and indeed, Harwell advised against such a prospect in the 1960s. The development of AMS in the late 70s, wherein smaller samples (about the size of a postage stamp) could be tested, and with much the same precision as the old method, is thus a godsend.
STURP published the list of tests which would be performed on the Shroud in 1982; However, a disagreement between STURP and the candidate laboratories devolved into a P.R. rift: STURP expected to perform the radiometric examination under its own aegis and after the other examinations had been completed, while the laboratories considered radio-carbon dating to be the priority test, which should be completed at the detriment of other tests, if necessary. There was also the behind-the-scenes rivalry between the laboratories themselves: the inception of AMS, which needed some heavy investment and some lengthy installation time for laboratories opting for it (like Oxford), was hotly followed by traditional laboratories (like Harwell) developing a rival version which claimed to be nearly as capable of accurate radiocarbon dating from very small samples.
By 1986, the Turin protocol drafted with the help of Dr. Chagas offered a compromise. It was decided that (1) carbon-dating would be the only test performed; (2) as a blind test, original and control samples, indistinguishable from each other, would be provided; (3) the test would be performed concurrently by seven laboratories, under the joint supervision of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the archbishop of Turin, and the British Museum; (4) both dating methods would be adopted; (5) the sample offered to each laboratory would weight 28 mg, equivalent to 9 sq. cm. of cloth; (6) the British Museum would manage the distribution of the samples; and (7) laboratories would not communicate with each other during the analysis, nor divulge the results of the tests to anyone but the three supervising authorities.
Of course, the events both at the front and backstage (public violation of the protocol on four counts, the feud between Chagas and Gonella and their sides, etc.) led to the eventual scrapping of this protocol, as mentioned. In 27 April, a spokesperson at the Vatican announced that contrary to the stipulations, the test likely be performed by two or three laboratories at most, which is confirmed by Cardinal Ballestrero’s 10 October reply to the laboratories.
At the end, there were three laboratories chosen on the basis of their “experience in the field of archaeological radiocarbon dating”: Oxford, Zurich, and Tucson, all of which are AMS laboratories. The traditional proportional counter method was apparently rejected because as mentioned, it would require too much Shroud material. However, this decision was hardly perfect: the rejected Harwell alone has much more ‘experience’ than all three chosen laboratories put together. Since the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was struck out of the project (only being invited as an observer) the sole supervising institution ended up being the British Museum under Michael Tite.
This decision attracted some controversy. Gove, then director of Rochester’s laboratory (one of the rejects), argued in an open letter that discarding the blind-test method would expose the results - whatever they may be - to suspicion of unreliability. We don’t know what really happened behind the scenes, but Gonella, it seems, had had his way.
We wind the clock back for a few years here. STURP initially planned to conduct a range of different studies on the cloth, including radiocarbon dating. A commission headed by chemist Robert H. Dinegar and physicist Harry E. Gove (under the prodding of the Rev. David Sox, then secretary of the British Society for the Turin Shroud) consulted numerous laboratories which were able at the time (1982) to carbon-date small fabric samples. The six labs that showed interest in performing the procedure fell into two categories, according to the method they utilised: Brookhaven (New York) and Harwell (Oxfordshire) used a proportional counter approach (the old Libby method), while Rochester, Oxford, Tucson (Arizona), and Zurich used the newly-developed accelerator mass spectrometry or AMS. To obtain independent and replicable results, and to avoid conflict between the laboratories, it was decided to let all interested laboratories should perform the tests at the same time.
Under the traditional method, radiocarbon-dating the Shroud would not have been feasible since it would have required at least one pocket handkerchief-sized piece of the Shroud to be destroyed for sampling purposes, and indeed, Harwell advised against such a prospect in the 1960s. The development of AMS in the late 70s, wherein smaller samples (about the size of a postage stamp) could be tested, and with much the same precision as the old method, is thus a godsend.
STURP published the list of tests which would be performed on the Shroud in 1982; However, a disagreement between STURP and the candidate laboratories devolved into a P.R. rift: STURP expected to perform the radiometric examination under its own aegis and after the other examinations had been completed, while the laboratories considered radio-carbon dating to be the priority test, which should be completed at the detriment of other tests, if necessary. There was also the behind-the-scenes rivalry between the laboratories themselves: the inception of AMS, which needed some heavy investment and some lengthy installation time for laboratories opting for it (like Oxford), was hotly followed by traditional laboratories (like Harwell) developing a rival version which claimed to be nearly as capable of accurate radiocarbon dating from very small samples.
By 1986, the Turin protocol drafted with the help of Dr. Chagas offered a compromise. It was decided that (1) carbon-dating would be the only test performed; (2) as a blind test, original and control samples, indistinguishable from each other, would be provided; (3) the test would be performed concurrently by seven laboratories, under the joint supervision of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the archbishop of Turin, and the British Museum; (4) both dating methods would be adopted; (5) the sample offered to each laboratory would weight 28 mg, equivalent to 9 sq. cm. of cloth; (6) the British Museum would manage the distribution of the samples; and (7) laboratories would not communicate with each other during the analysis, nor divulge the results of the tests to anyone but the three supervising authorities.
Of course, the events both at the front and backstage (public violation of the protocol on four counts, the feud between Chagas and Gonella and their sides, etc.) led to the eventual scrapping of this protocol, as mentioned. In 27 April, a spokesperson at the Vatican announced that contrary to the stipulations, the test likely be performed by two or three laboratories at most, which is confirmed by Cardinal Ballestrero’s 10 October reply to the laboratories.
At the end, there were three laboratories chosen on the basis of their “experience in the field of archaeological radiocarbon dating”: Oxford, Zurich, and Tucson, all of which are AMS laboratories. The traditional proportional counter method was apparently rejected because as mentioned, it would require too much Shroud material. However, this decision was hardly perfect: the rejected Harwell alone has much more ‘experience’ than all three chosen laboratories put together. Since the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was struck out of the project (only being invited as an observer) the sole supervising institution ended up being the British Museum under Michael Tite.
This decision attracted some controversy. Gove, then director of Rochester’s laboratory (one of the rejects), argued in an open letter that discarding the blind-test method would expose the results - whatever they may be - to suspicion of unreliability. We don’t know what really happened behind the scenes, but Gonella, it seems, had had his way.
P
patrick457
Guest
(Continued)
At daybreak on 21 April 1988, with representatives of the three laboratories present at the old sacristy at the cathedral (who, according the protocol, should in fact not have been present), the Shroud was solemnly brought into the room and unrolled. It was only at this point that Gonella and his associate Giovanni Riggi proceeded at length to deliberate on the best location from which to take the sample. There was a claim that they took two hours to decide, but the eventual choice was the top left corner.
As a precautionary measure, a piece twice as big as the one required by the protocol was cut, measuring 81 x 21 mm. At the same time, a strip showing coloured filaments of uncertain origin was discarded. The remaining sample, measuring 81 x 16 mm and weighing 300 mg, was first divided in two equal parts, one of which was cut into three segments. The unused half was preserved in a sealed container, in case of future need.
The laboratories were also each given three control samples (one more than originally stipulated): (1) a fragment of weave from a medieval Egyptian burial (carbon dated to AD 1100), discovered in 1964; (2) a piece of mummy bandage carbon-dated to AD 200; and (3) a sample of King St. Louis IX’s cloak, woven between 1240 and 1270. The British Museum’s Dr. Tite, along with Cardinal Ballestrero, took the three portions to a side room, where, unobserved by any camera, they placed them along with the control samples into carefully labeled sealed canisters.
In yet another violation of the agreed protocol, the laboratories did not work separately and simultaneously. Rather, Tucson performed the tests in May, Zurich in June, and Oxford in August, exchanging information in the meantime. The findings were supposed to be kept secret, but on August 26, news of the Shroud having been dated to 1350 was leaked to the British newspaper Evening Standard by a Cambrige librarian with no known connection either to the Shroud or to the laboratories and who simply declared labs to be ‘leaky institutions’.
On 28 September, Dr. Tite communicated the official results to the Archdiocese of Turin and to the Holy See. Press conferences were held on October 13 simultaneously in London and Turin. In the British Museum’s basement press room, Dr. Tite, together with Professor Edward Hall and Dr. Robert Hedges of the Oxford laboratory, fronted the London gathering.
The official result: the Shroud dates from AD 1260-1390 with 95% confidence. The uncalibrated dates from the individual laboratories, with 1-sigma errors (68% confidence), were as follows:
At daybreak on 21 April 1988, with representatives of the three laboratories present at the old sacristy at the cathedral (who, according the protocol, should in fact not have been present), the Shroud was solemnly brought into the room and unrolled. It was only at this point that Gonella and his associate Giovanni Riggi proceeded at length to deliberate on the best location from which to take the sample. There was a claim that they took two hours to decide, but the eventual choice was the top left corner.
As a precautionary measure, a piece twice as big as the one required by the protocol was cut, measuring 81 x 21 mm. At the same time, a strip showing coloured filaments of uncertain origin was discarded. The remaining sample, measuring 81 x 16 mm and weighing 300 mg, was first divided in two equal parts, one of which was cut into three segments. The unused half was preserved in a sealed container, in case of future need.
The laboratories were also each given three control samples (one more than originally stipulated): (1) a fragment of weave from a medieval Egyptian burial (carbon dated to AD 1100), discovered in 1964; (2) a piece of mummy bandage carbon-dated to AD 200; and (3) a sample of King St. Louis IX’s cloak, woven between 1240 and 1270. The British Museum’s Dr. Tite, along with Cardinal Ballestrero, took the three portions to a side room, where, unobserved by any camera, they placed them along with the control samples into carefully labeled sealed canisters.
In yet another violation of the agreed protocol, the laboratories did not work separately and simultaneously. Rather, Tucson performed the tests in May, Zurich in June, and Oxford in August, exchanging information in the meantime. The findings were supposed to be kept secret, but on August 26, news of the Shroud having been dated to 1350 was leaked to the British newspaper Evening Standard by a Cambrige librarian with no known connection either to the Shroud or to the laboratories and who simply declared labs to be ‘leaky institutions’.
On 28 September, Dr. Tite communicated the official results to the Archdiocese of Turin and to the Holy See. Press conferences were held on October 13 simultaneously in London and Turin. In the British Museum’s basement press room, Dr. Tite, together with Professor Edward Hall and Dr. Robert Hedges of the Oxford laboratory, fronted the London gathering.
The official result: the Shroud dates from AD 1260-1390 with 95% confidence. The uncalibrated dates from the individual laboratories, with 1-sigma errors (68% confidence), were as follows:
Tucson: 646 ± 31 years;
Oxford: 750 ± 30 years,
Zurich: 676 ± 24 years
The weighted mean was 689 ± 16 years, which corresponds to calibrated ages of 1273-1288 with 68% confidence, and 1262-1384 with 95% confidence: the three scientists thus declared the odds ‘astronomical’ against the Shroud dating from the 1st century. The following February the official and complete report on the experiment, jointly authored by all twenty-one scientists who had participated in these results, was published in the highly-respected scientific journal Nature (Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin).
Not long afterwards Hall’s Oxford laboratory received an anonymous funding of a million pounds, bringing into being a permanent professorship post that was immediately filled by Dr. Tite (and hordes of conspiracy theories circulating mainly among supporters of the Shroud), while Harwell’s Libby method laboratory quietly went out of business.
Oxford: 750 ± 30 years,
Zurich: 676 ± 24 years
The weighted mean was 689 ± 16 years, which corresponds to calibrated ages of 1273-1288 with 68% confidence, and 1262-1384 with 95% confidence: the three scientists thus declared the odds ‘astronomical’ against the Shroud dating from the 1st century. The following February the official and complete report on the experiment, jointly authored by all twenty-one scientists who had participated in these results, was published in the highly-respected scientific journal Nature (Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin).
Not long afterwards Hall’s Oxford laboratory received an anonymous funding of a million pounds, bringing into being a permanent professorship post that was immediately filled by Dr. Tite (and hordes of conspiracy theories circulating mainly among supporters of the Shroud), while Harwell’s Libby method laboratory quietly went out of business.
J
JimG
Guest
F
Falco
Guest
- Status