Late addition (July 2019)
Please forgive this postscript, correction, “prescript”, correction, intrusion, added many years later – based on some 350 and more postings here and elsewhere.
That’s including some 7 years of my hands-on investigation into image-forming techniques, chosen to be credible with simple, indeed crude, medieval (14th century) technology etc etc.
(Oh, and yes, I accept the radiocarbon dating, despite it being restricted to a single non-random corner sample, making all the oh-so-dismissive, oh-so-derogatory statistics-based sniping totally irrelevant – a ranging shot being just that me dears- a single ranging shot, albeit subdivided into three for Arizona, Oxford and Zurich).
Sindonology (i.e. the “science” , read pseudoscience – of the so-called “Shroud ” of Turin) can be simply summed up. It’s a re-branding exercise, one designed to pretend that the prized Turin possession is not just J of A’s “fine linen”, described in the biblical account as used to transport a crucified body from cross to tomb.
Oh no, it goes further, much further, way way beyond the biblical account. How? By making out that it was the SAME linen as that described in the Gospel of John, deployed as final “burial clothes”. Thus the description “Shroud” for the Turin Linen, usually with the addition “burial shroud”. Why the elision of two different linens, deployed for entirely different purposes (transport first, then final interment)?
Go figure! Key words to consider are: authentic relic v manufactured medieval icon; mystique, peaceful death-repose, unlimited opportunity for proposing new and ever more improbable image-formation mechanisms etc. How much easier it is to attach the label “Holy” to Shroud if seen as final burial clothes, in final at-peace repose – prior to Resurrection- as distinct from a means of temporary swaying side-to-side transport in an improvised makeshift stretcher !
As I say, a rebranding exercise (transport to final burial shroud) and a very smart and subtle one at that . Not for nothing did that angry local Bishop of Troyes suddenly refer to a “sleight of hand” after allegedly accepting it when first displayed. Seems the script was altered, or as some might say, tampered with! It might also explain why there were two Lirey badges, not just one. Entire books could be written on which of the two came first… I think I know which, with its allusion (?) to the Veil of Veronica… yes, there are alternative views (the face above “SUAIRE” a visual link to the face-only display of the Linen as the “Image of Edessa” or as that on the then current “Shroud” per se.
Face shown (left) on mid- 14th century Machy Mould (recently discovered variant of the Lirey Pilgrim Badge) above the word “SUAIRE” (allegedly meaning “shroud”). Inset image on the right: one version among many of the fabled “Veil of Veronica” image. I say the two are related, and deliberately so, but this is not the time or place to go into detail.
No, NOT a resurrectional selfie, but instead a full size version of, wait for it, the legendary VEIL OF VERONICA , product of inital body contact – no air gaps- between body and fabric, but with one important difference. The Turin image was intended to look more realistic, less artistic.
How? By displaying a negative tone-reversed image implying IMPRINT (unless, that is, you’re a modern day sindonologist, in which case ‘resurrectional proto-photographic selfie” becomes the preferred, nay, vigorously proferred explanation assisted by unrestrained imagination, creation of endless pseudoscience etc etc, with resort to laser beams, corona discharges, nuclear physics, elementary particles, earthquakes etc etc – the list is seemingly endless!
Welcome to modern day sindonology.
Personally, I prefer no-nonsense feet-on-the-ground hypothesis-testing science, aided by lashings of, wait for it, plain down-to-earth common sense.
IMPORTANT NOTE ADDED 10 JUNE 2012: MUCH OF WHAT I SAID IN THE FOLLOWING POST IS NOW RENDERED LARGELY REDUNDANT BY MY LEARNING OF M.LATENDRESSE’S “SHROUD SCOPE” . THIS SPLENDID RESOURCE- ONE THAT DESERVES TO BE MUCH BETTER KNOWN – ALLOWS ONE TO ZOOM IN IMAGES OBTAINED IN 2002 (OF SUFFICIENTLY HIGH RESOLUTION SUCH THAT PIXELLATION IS RARELY A PROBLEM EVEN AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF MAGNIFICATION).
SEE ALSO MY OWN HIGH-CONTRAST VERSIONS OF SHROUD SCOPE PICTURES, e.g. A SELECTION OF 20
Documentary-maker David Rolfe (he of “The Silent Witness’, 1978) has recently provided an intriguing glimpse of a still-under-wraps HD image of the Shroud of Turin. See his ‘Enigma’ website.
Update: 16th May 2012: at some point, in the last few days, David Rolfe has removed the high-definition image that is the subject of this posting, and replaced it with something different. Yet my comment is still there, referring to what I consider a valuable and hitherto unavailable resource, where I enquire as to its provenance, and ask why it is not more generally available. I do not know Rolfe’s reason for removing it, and cannot inquire openly, since he has blocked me (and at least one other) from placing new comments on his “Challenge” site. However, I see no reason to delete this post, which is motivated by genuine research interest, with no commercial angle whatsoever (unlike Rolfe’s Challenge), and consider the use of that now disappeared image to fall within the realms of “fair use” where copyright is concerned, especially as I consulted with him before posting here. If he wants the HD image removed from this post, then he has only to ask.
Good stuff – shame there’s not more to see…
It is part of an unreleased 12.8 billion-pixel HD (high definition) image of the Shroud that was taken in 2008 (or at any rate, that was the year in which Rolfe announced its existence to the world in a short documentary).
As much as I would like, I can’t say much about it at the present – it a relatively small part of the image – mainly the eyes and bridge of nose. One would like to see a larger section before making generalisations. Sadly the latter requires a “release note” from its owners, with some minor but irritating strings attached, to say nothing of delay which I shan’t elaborate upon right now.
So for now I shall content myself with making a few cursory observations on what’s available, with the caveat that everything said here is provisional for the reasons stated.
Observations:
First, let’s convert that positive image in Rolfe’s banner back to an original pseudo-negative, albeit in monochrome, so that it resembles the Shroud as viewed on one of its rare showings.
The above – but light/dark reversed to restore original Shroud (b/w monochrome)
The first thing to note is that the image is almost entirely confined to the diagonal ribs of the herringbone twill. Yet that image comprises diverse features that are or might variously be described as eyelids, eyebrows, blood stains etc. Is it not strange that there is nothing in close-up that suggests hair (as on eyebrows) or blood (that one might expect to be in the furrows between the ribs)?
Enlargement of brow ridge region between the two “blood” spots
Yes, we know the image is not a painting, since there is no evidence of applied pigment – but an image confined to the ribs that is intrinsic to the fabric, e.g. through chemical modification of the linen fibres per se, makes it highly probable that it is a superficial SCORCH, as I have maintained previously.
There are certainly no grounds for thinking that any kind of at-a-distance radiation – heat, light, least of all ultraviolet – produced so selective an image, confined to the most superficial part of the linen, i.e. the diagonal ribs.
Given the absence of “eyebrows” except as a darkening of the image along the brow ridge – who is to say that there are eyebrows – as distinct from a pressure imprint off a bony prominence? What about the moustache and beard? Are they really there, or do we just interpret the darker image above and below the mouth as facial hair? Who is to say that they too are not mere prominences that are preferentially imaged.
Consecutive vertical planes (reading left to right) intercept features of this face in particular order
The first part of the face that impacts on a parallel plane (i.e. forcibly apposed linen sheet – NOT just loosely-draped) is the tip of the nose (v.prominent on Shroud). The next is the brow ridge – then the end of chin/lips –then the cheekbones – again all v.prominent. Do I hear an objection that they would all be prominent in a photograph – through scattering more light? Yes, that is true. But the Shroud is not any kind of photograph, given there is no directionality in the image as would be expected from uneven illumination. It is a pseudo-negative certainly – but that does not make it a photograph, any more than the branded image from a hot metal template is a photograph (while being a pseudo-negative).
“Brand” (thermal imprint, aka scorch) onto linen, taken from a heated horse brass
So where do we go from here? The top priority is for the powers-that-be to release the entire HD image of the Shroud. I for one want to examine the “moustache” and “beard” closely.
You see, there is something not quite right about either of those – at least in the low-definition images that we have to be content with so far. The “moustache” looks too straight-sided geometrical:
Focus on the moustache
(This is my “optimised” 3D image – optimised using a model scorched image to ensure greatest correspondence with original template) – converted back to a pseudo-negative.
Note the “beard” is largely missing on one side (tugged out by Christ’s tormentors according to some scriptural scholars?), and shows up as white in parts on the positive image (prompting some to ask what a grey or silver beard is doing on someone in their early 30s).
Optimised 3D image – positive version of above – showing what looks like a silver or grey beard (but is it really either of those?)
Note too the preferential imaging of one side to the left of the midline as viewed.
Am I the only one to find it incomprehensible that a HD image should have been taken of the Shroud in 2008, and made the subject of a documentary – while here we are, over 4 years later speculating on what it might or might not show – except for the small part that the documentary-maker currently uses as banner on his blog?
RELEASE THE FULL HD IMAGE NOW, PLEASE TURIN – WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED
It is totally unacceptable that controversy and speculation should continue to this day, when much of it is uninformed or pure guesswork – the result of commentators being ignorant of, or denied (easy) access to the facts.
Additional reading: Did Jesus have a beard?
Important: have just realized, two days after posting this, that the image also has “hair” – it’s the darker band on the left that occupies about 1/5th the width of the image. Note that it too shows nothing in this HD close-up that would distinguish it as strands of hair. The darker image is essentially no different from what one sees, say, on the bridge of the nose.
As before, the caveat is needed that one needs to see the HD image of the entire face and head. But some tentative conclusions are possible: while one can argue, as I have done above, that the “eyebrows” are not really there – that it is the brow ridge that could have been imaged by a kind of pressure imprinting (“barography”?) the same can hardly be said of the “head of hair”, given that the outer margin of the hair (at leas)t does not have underlying bone if viewed as a frontal image. So what would cause head hair, if indeed real hair, to be imaged if neither photography nor “barography” can be invoked? Certainly not vapourography either (see comments) given that hair does not putrefy to form those organic amines (putrescine, cadaverine) that Ray Rogers thought were instrumental in image formation via Maillard reactions. The plot thickens, as they say…
My answer to the steeped-in-mystique Turin Shroud - evolving gradually from some 10 years of science-based experimental modelling. 
Pingback: The Image on David Rolfe’s Website: Absence of Eyebrows? « Shroud of Turin Blog
Colin,
The apparent absence of eyebrows on the Shroud face is most likely due to the presence of objects placed or displaced on the corresponding areas (such as a small band shaped papyrus
fragment written both in Hebrew and Greek/Latin on one side and covering the right eyebrow arch and a coin and the petalless head of a crown daisy on the left one).
For research purpose (to triple check my fondings), i myself wrote to Turin (in January2010 and February 2011). They did not even have the courtesy to reply.
For information sake, a first and even second generation 1931 Enrie Shroud face photograph is better stuff than the positive image in Rolfe’s banner.
Don’t you ever forget, it is common knowledge in archaeology, glyptology and criminology to use flash in an oblique angle to make appear imprints/impressions that do not appear under other lightings.
I doubt very much that there is an image anything like as good as the one we are discussing now, which I mischievously refer to as ‘Rolfe Panel A’. Where else can you see the relationship between image and weave in such high definition? If you think Enrie’s images have that same clarity – as if examining under a hand lens – then please let me know. Better still, provide a link.
Your comments re interposing of objects between face and linen are noted – but are pure speculation on your part, needless to say, and pretty fanciful at that too. Your initial assumption is that the image is from Palestine, 1st century AD. Mine is not. Until the C-dating is repeated, I am happy to accept the findings of the three labs, and view the Shroud as a very clever medieval artefact.
It may not have been made in Europe, needless to say. That French knight may have acquired it in the Middle East while away on his Crusades. He may have been offered the Shroud as the next best thing to the Holy Grail.
In order for a professional numismatist, archaeological or archaeocryptological analyst to ideally detect and analyse valuable impressions on the eye areas that are not easily seen under normal lighting conditions, high quality (orthochromatic, traditional silver and/or extensive digital), close-up
photographs of the Shroud face under appropriate lighting conditions are required. Still ideally, when using a flash, the flash should be held at a 17-18 degree angle and fired from four different positions with at least 90 degrees separation.
The “I think I see” or “I don’t see” argument is of no value here.
By way of reply to this point, i have added another photograph to the posting 9second one, immediately after ‘Rolfe Panel A positive’.
I’m no expert, but it looks like a pretty professional set up to me, what with the glide rails, and the angled cameras – probably sources of illumination too.
But why nitpick on the technical minutiae? It should be clear that there is nothing imaged that anyone would have recognized as “eyebrows”, had the surrounding area been blanked out, andthe observer told merely that it was part of a face.
I strongly suspect that the same would be true for “moustache” and for “beard” in close-up too, which is why the absence of the complete image is so frustrating, especially as Rolfe was saying 4 years ago about interesting features – which is a bit of a tease given he gave no specifics. It is ludicrous that a documentary maker can see and report on the HD image, whetting appetites so to speak, and for scientists like myself to have to jump through hoops to get access…
I do agree with you. We cannot see any eyebrow imprints whether on HD 1931 Enrie or 2002 Durante Shroud face photographs. However, e.g. on Tamburelli 3D close up of the face, we can distinctly see a somewhat rounded protrusion on the left eyebrow arch. Cannot you see for yourself?
Actually, There are more speculations on your side than on mine. The Shroud sample (you are happy to blindly accept as valid) is not representive of the whole. This is a proven fact.
…unless you totally overlook or ignore Rogers’, Brown’s and Villareal’s analyses.
Ihave been in email contact with David Rolfe. He confirmed my hunch that his banner was the real McCoy.
Neither you nor I can know at this stage whether Rolfe Panel A is representative of the whole of not – although Rolfe did say that the entire image was “homogeneous” in character. I take the latter to mean that the image is confined almost exclusively to those diagonal ribs of the herringbone weave (strongly suggestive of a contact scorch, as I have suggested many times now).
“Factual [or physical] evidence cannot be wrong […], only its interpretation can err. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.” (Paul L. Kirk 1974)
Colin,
This is not a “scorchgraphy” but a vaporographic mordanting (of a thin impurity layer).
For a HD 1931 Enrie Shroud face photograph at scale 1/1, see Yves Delage’s photographic file.
“This is not a “scorchgraphy” but a vaporographic mordanting (of a thin impurity layer).”
I have taught chemistry and biochemistry to medical school students, and chemistry to A-level pupils still at school. No disrespect to Ray Rogers, who was clearly an ill man (died 2005) but I like to think that any one of them could have shot down that vapour theory in seconds (based on the science of gaseous diffusion etc).
That theory depended on not just one but two qualifying assumptions, both highly speculative. To support an hypothesis that the image was the product of Maillard (sugar-amine) reactions he first proposed the presence of impregnating saponins in the cloth to provide chemically-reactive pentosans, and then the presence of advanced decomposition gaseous organic amines (cadaverine etc). That’s two small probabilities multiplied together to get an overall probability that is close to zero… and that’s without taking gaseous diffusion into account that would have prevented recognizable images being formed…
Sorry, but dreaming up possible scenarios without rigorously testing them is not science. It’s daydreaming.
Fortunately, there is a way of testing Rogers’ highly improbable ideas. If he had been correct, then the image areas should contain higher levels of nitrogen from those decomposition amines, bearing in mind that linen fibres contain little nitrogen (being mainly non-nitrogeneous carbohydrates).
I confidently predict that there is no enhanced level of nitrogen in any of the the image-bearing areas, including those that are said to be “blood”.
Why did Rogers not perform that simple test?
Rogers, towards the end of his life, was sadly “losing it”. That’s not to demean the accomplishments of his earlier career.
Colin, Too bad you make a confusion between Rogers’ theory and mine (The vaporographic mordanting theory). You should read my letter to David Rolfe on facebook shroud enigma.
You can hardly expect me to know everyone else’s theory, your own included, if you are content to publish your ideas as comments on other people’s sites. Life is too short to go trawling elsewhere on the offchance of learning something new.
If your theory differs importantly from Rogers’, and is soundly based, then OK, let’s hear it. But beware. I have little patience for “explanations” that are scientifically-illiterate…or even semi-literate. The world of Shroudology is awash with enough of those as it is.
Any theory that involves vapours looks doomed from the start – unless you have a way of making gaseous molecules travel in straight lines…
I myself have little patience too for “explanations” that are both archeaologically-illiterate and scientifically pseudo-literate”…
Here is my letter to David Rolfe:
David,
It is just too bad you don’t reserve the £20 000 to REALLY solve the mysterious image formation process of a human male body covered in blood on the Turin Shroud, namely to have an “open-minded Shroud researcher dream team” reconstruct the Shroud man’s burial in keeping with the most likely hypothesis the Shroud is Yeshua’s.
When studied in the light of the Gospels, the Oral Torah (see tractates Semahot, Sanhedrin, Pessah and Sabbath), the Judean burial customs and practices of the Second Temple period (mostly pre-70CE Judaism History & Archaeology), archaeoastronomy (to determine the exact burial minimum & maximum time frames for Yeshua’s emergency burial on a Sabbath eve), philology (to take into account Hebrew time markers; Hebrew & Greek action & object markers), ancient textiles, paleopathology and archaeological blood pattern analysis, all points to one naturalistic/ritualistic direction and nothing to the contrary: a “vaporographic mordanting” (of a thin impurity layer) based on (inner-)shroud-to-body gradual loss of direct contact mechanism (as the compressed lengthy shroud got taut again through shrinking).
This most likely burial scenario to be tested and controlled via a very specific archaeological experiment implies the following:
First, Yeshua’s stiff rigid naked body covered in dried or drying bloody wounds and resting in extra height on two stones in the tomb antechamber, was tautly wrapped lengthwise in a lengthy burial sheet of fine linen (or inner shroud) soaked with an alkaline solution (warm waters mixed with the purifying ashes of the Red Heifer and/or rich in Jerusalem limestone?) and then his legs and torso compressed/fastened widthwise, with fresh antiseptic insect repellent aromatic plants (together with a prayer shawl used as shorter shroud?), in two long strips first cut off/torn off from the main burial sheet and a shorter strip and/or a gauze veil to tie around the head (together with three wooden pieces — cut off/sawed off the titulus crucis? — to be used as a “small jaw box” to make up for a faulty skullcap?).
Once his body (still in hyperthermia at 41-42° C?) was thus tightly wrapped up in linen and still resting in extra height, it was subjected to myrrhic-aloetic fumigation and left to dry up first on its left and then right side. Finally, his tightly wrapped up body was taken down to the tomb chamber and placed in supine position inside the sole funerary niche on a bed of blended myrrh and aloes to keep it from putrefying and the burial cave entrance sealed by a large stone disc. [In anticipation of honorary visits, his linen wrappings were to be anointed with the perfumed spicy oils the women had prepared immediately after the Sabbath and brought at the first hour of the first day of the Judean week (Sunday) to mask the stench of his decomposing corpse. However the anointing was not done as they found the tomb empty of Yeshua’s body on that very day].
Archaeologically Yours,
Max Patrick Hamon
It is just too bad you don’t reserve the £20 000 to REALLY solve the mysterious image formation process of a human male body covered in blood on the Turin Shroud, namely to have an “open-minded Shroud researcher dream team” reconstruct the Shroud man’s burial in keeping with the most likely hypothesis the Shroud is Yeshua’s.
When studied in the light of the Gospels, the Oral Torah (see tractates Semahot, Sanhedrin, Pessah and Sabbath), the Judean burial customs and practices of the Second Temple period (mostly pre-70CE Judaism History & Archaeology), archaeoastronomy (to determine the exact burial minimum & maximum time frames for Yeshua’s emergency burial on a Sabbath eve), philology (to take into account Hebrew time markers; Hebrew & Greek action & object markers), ancient textiles, paleopathology and archaeological blood pattern analysis, all points to one naturalistic/ritualistic direction and nothing to the contrary: a “vaporographic mordanting” (of a thin impurity layer) based on (inner-)shroud-to-body gradual loss of direct contact mechanism (as the compressed lengthy shroud got taut again through shrinking).
This most likely burial scenario to be tested and controlled via a very specific archaeological experiment implies the following:
First, Yeshua’s stiff rigid naked body covered in dried or drying bloody wounds and resting in extra height on two stones in the tomb antechamber, was tautly wrapped lengthwise in a lengthy burial sheet of fine linen (or inner shroud) soaked with an alkaline solution (warm waters mixed with the purifying ashes of the Red Heifer and/or rich in Jerusalem limestone?) and then his legs and torso compressed/fastened widthwise, with fresh antiseptic insect repellent aromatic plants (together with a prayer shawl used as shorter shroud?), in two long strips first cut off/torn off from the main burial sheet and a shorter strip and/or a gauze veil to tie around the head (together with three wooden pieces — cut off/sawed off the titulus crucis? — to be used as a “small jaw box” to make up for a faulty skullcap?).
Once his body (still in hyperthermia at 41-42° C?) was thus tightly wrapped up in linen and still resting in extra height, it was subjected to myrrhic-aloetic fumigation and left to dry up first on its left and then right side. Finally, his tightly wrapped up body was taken down to the tomb chamber and placed in supine position inside the sole funerary niche on a bed of blended myrrh and aloes to keep it from putrefying and the burial cave entrance sealed by a large stone disc. [In anticipation of honorary visits, his linen wrappings were to be anointed with the perfumed spicy oils the women had prepared immediately after the Sabbath and brought at the first hour of the first day of the Judean week (Sunday) to mask the stench of his decomposing corpse. However the anointing was not done as they found the tomb empty of Yeshua’s body on that very day].
Archaeologically Yours,
Max Patrick Hamon
It is just too bad you don’t reserve the £20 000 to REALLY solve the mysterious image formation process of a human male body covered in blood on the Turin Shroud, namely to have an “open-minded Shroud researcher dream team” reconstruct the Shroud man’s burial in keeping with the most likely hypothesis the Shroud is Yeshua’s.
When studied in the light of the Gospels, the Oral Torah (see tractates Semahot, Sanhedrin, Pessah and Sabbath), the Judean burial customs and practices of the Second Temple period (mostly pre-70CE Judaism History & Archaeology), archaeoastronomy (to determine the exact burial minimum & maximum time frames for Yeshua’s emergency burial on a Sabbath eve), philology (to take into account Hebrew time markers; Hebrew & Greek action & object markers), ancient textiles, paleopathology and archaeological blood pattern analysis, all points to one naturalistic/ritualistic direction and nothing to the contrary: a “vaporographic mordanting” (of a thin impurity layer) based on (inner-)shroud-to-body gradual loss of direct contact mechanism (as the compressed lengthy shroud got taut again through shrinking).
This most likely burial scenario to be tested and controlled via a very specific archaeological experiment implies the following:
First, Yeshua’s stiff rigid naked body covered in dried or drying bloody wounds and resting in extra height on two stones in the tomb antechamber, was tautly wrapped lengthwise in a lengthy burial sheet of fine linen (or inner shroud) soaked with an alkaline solution (warm waters mixed with the purifying ashes of the Red Heifer and/or rich in Jerusalem limestone?) and then his legs and torso compressed/fastened widthwise, with fresh antiseptic insect repellent aromatic plants (together with a prayer shawl used as shorter shroud?), in two long strips first cut off/torn off from the main burial sheet and a shorter strip and/or a gauze veil to tie around the head (together with three wooden pieces — cut off/sawed off the titulus crucis? — to be used as a “small jaw box” to make up for a faulty skullcap?).
Once his body (still in hyperthermia at 41-42° C?) was thus tightly wrapped up in linen and still resting in extra height, it was subjected to myrrhic-aloetic fumigation and left to dry up first on its left and then right side. Finally, his tightly wrapped up body was taken down to the tomb chamber and placed in supine position inside the sole funerary niche on a bed of blended myrrh and aloes to keep it from putrefying and the burial cave entrance sealed by a large stone disc. [In anticipation of honorary visits, his linen wrappings were to be anointed with the perfumed spicy oils the women had prepared immediately after the Sabbath and brought at the first hour of the first day of the Judean week (Sunday) to mask the stench of his decomposing corpse. However the anointing was not done as they found the tomb empty of Yeshua’s body on that very day].
Archaeologically Yours,
Max Patrick Hamon
“Any theory that involves vapours looks doomed from the start – unless you have a way of making gaseous molecules travel in straight lines…”. This is precisely where my vaporographic mordanting theory comes in…
Correction: “my autoregulated vaporographic mordanting theory”
Any kind of ‘vaporographic’ theory, autoregulated or otherwise, would require a molecular beam, which in turn would require a collimator and a vacuum tube. I doubt that kind of hardware was available in 1st century tombs;
Oh, and the idea that a blow-fly protected cadaver a few days old is going to be producing a stench, and enough putrescine, cadaverine etc to react with linen components to form an image is also pretty fanciful. Anyone who has hung game, even in warm surroundings, or even stored meat in a room- temperature “safe” behind perforated zinc prior to fridges becoming common, will know that the sort of advanced decomposition implied by Rogers’ chemical musings, does not take place as quickly as implied. It can get a bit high, certainly, but stench and olfactory assault by organic amines? I think not. Frankly I find it incredible that Shroudology is still cluttered with such superfluous baggage. I trust you are not proposing to add to it with your theory.
Are you scientifically-qualified, btw?
I am a former university research professor and created 5 new approaches in cryptology to be applied to archaeology, psychophysiotherapy and criminology. It is most obvious you are neither archaeologically nor forensically qualified. You may be a good chemist; you are a very poor physicist, forensic examiner and archaeologist all the more so as you are blinfolded by your pet theory (“scorchography”, what a barbaric name!). BTW my autoregulated vaporographic mordanting theory has NOTHING TO DO with decomposition of a “few day old” cadaver but with a specific Judean ritual that was performed about TWO HOURS AFTER the Shroud man’s death. You are totally off track. Cannot you read (my) English? I do have the feeling you are reading things I haven’t even implied! You wrote “Rogers, towards the end of his life, was sadly “losing it”. I can’t help thinking the same applies to you. “That’s not to demean the accomplishments of (your) earlier career”. BTW how are your “lightly baked/cooked mummified monk skeletons/cadavers in the manner of the Turin Shroud” doing? CAN YOU show us (before Trinity, Christmas or next Easter) any “thermostencil”/”scorchography” on linen of the face, arm, leg, toe or even fingernail of any of them just in case it is not mere scorchoscientistic kitchen mummo-numbo-jumbo which in this instance would have contributed precisely NOTHING but to pseudo scientific blabla?
Continue to post here if you wish – seeing as how you use other people’s sites to promulgate your own eccentric views. Just don’t expect me to respond.
Hope some day you will be able to REALLY understand what I wrote (Ever heard of mordantings ancient textile with ashes? Ever heard of water mechanically entrapped in the void spaces among the flax fibres and evaporating while compressed? Ever heard of the effect of alkali pretreatment on mechanical and morphological properties of flax? Ever heard of a compressed linen burial sheet in direct contact with a stiff rigid body and gradually getting taut again while shrinking and acting like a collimator? Ever heard of 3/1 twill weave linen fabric return force? etc).
Did Occam provide a machete too?
You are “losing it”.
OK I better leave you scorching/cooking your mummies! The eccentricity is most definitively on your side.
Colin,
Don’t you waste your time and energy with your “scorchographic hypothesis” to explain how the image got onto the lengthy linen cloth (your explanation is chemically, physically, archaeologically and forensically illiterate). In all likelihood, I repeat, the image results from an auto collimated vaporographic mordanting.
For anyone still following this thread, apart from (clearly) non-scientifically qualified advocate of ‘auto-collimated vaporographic mordanting’, I have just added the following as a postscript to this posting:
“Important: have just realized, two days after posting this, that the image also has “hair” – it’s the darker band on the left that occupies about 1/5th the width of the image. Note that it too shows nothing in this HD close-up that would distinguish it as strands of hair. The darker image is essentially no different from what one sees, say, on the bridge of the nose.
As before, the caveat is needed that one needs to see the HD image of the entire face and head. But some tentative conclusions are possible: while one can argue, as I have done above, that the “eyebrows” are not really there – that it is the brow ridge that could have been imaged by a kind of pressure imprinting (“barography”?) the same can hardly be said of the “head of hair”, given that the outer margin of the hair (at leas)t does not have underlying bone if viewed as a frontal image. So what would cause head hair, if indeed real hair, to be imaged if neither photography nor “barography” can be invoked? Certainly not vapourography either (see comments) given that hair does not putrefy to form those organic amines (putrescine, cadaverine) that Ray Rogers thought were instrumental in image formation via Maillard reactions. The plot thickens, as they say…”
I have two more postings planned. One will be to document a curious effect I discovered last night, and briefly reported to Dan Porter’s site, namely the loss of the herringbone weave pattern in 3D imaging (ImageJ software) and its replacement by a uniform mesh pattern (the implication of which need to be considered by the high priests of Shroud image analysis). The second will be a brief one on what can, or rather cannot be seen, in that shank of head hair(?) which intrudes on ‘Rolfe Panel A’…
All your “scorchographic hypothesis” is based on biased photographic material. Your approach is therefore most clearly unscientific and your alleged “discovery” just an eccentric’s pseudo scientific blabla.
Rolfe’s HD images are stills from a video.
To anybody reading this who has a grain of common sense: suppose your were given a choice between two Shroud images for close study of the image characteristics. Which would you choose? One with the herringbone weave clearly visible, or one without? I know which one I would choose, because I know objectively that the real object in the Turin cathedral has a herringbone weave. Any image that fails to show that weave pattern must clearly be a defective one.
I personally had never encountered a Shroud image that showed the herringbone weave so clearly until last week – viewing the banner on David Rolfe’s relatively new Enigma blog. I don’t know if it is or is not a video still. It may well be. If it is, then it was taken with a good tripod support that eliminated camera shake – because there is no hint of blurring. The only limitation is the inevitable pixellation that occurs on magnification, but one can enlarge sufficiently to see that the image is confined almost exclusively to those diagonal ribs, and that the superficial image on those ribs is largely of the same character wherever one looks – the bridge of the nose, the eye ridges, and even the vertical shank of “hair” on the left side, showing no discernible strands of hair.
For a unique HD image to appear as a blog banner, unlabelled, unheralded, is a curious way for a valuable research resource to enter the public domain with no fanfare whatsoever. Hopefully David Rolfe will provide some background in due course, and better still release the entire HD image. Until then, let’s not look this gift horse in the mouth…
If the shroud is Yeshua’s, his hair was anointed with perfumed spicy oil before his death on the cross (see The Gospels). This is one possible explanation to account for the hair image to say nothing of the strong possibility the burial sheet had been soaked in waters either mixed with ashes or rich in Jerusalem limestone or both. It was just in case you don’t know or fall short to give any satisfactory archaeological/scientific explanations…
You can have a better HD image of the Shroud face, scale 1/1 (to start with). Try to buy Yves Delages’s photographic file. You’ll see the weave even more clearly than on any of Rolfe’s banner.
Sorry. For HD image of the Shroud face at scale 1/1, get Antoine Legrand’s photographic file “la fiche anthropométrique de Jésus, Linceul de Turin”.
You wrote: “I personally had never encountered a Shroud image that showed the herringbone weave so clearly until last week”. One of the basic parameters for good Science, is to work from unbiased material…”Losing it”, I tell you!
Rofe’s video stills are still biased….
To double or triple check your analyses, you should use only 1st generation (authentic) Shroud photographs by Enrie (1931), Vernon Miller ( 1978, B/W + UV) , Riggi (1988, transmitted lght) or/and Durante (2002). If your are lucky enough you can aslo use 2008 Haltadefinizione photographs (not to be mistaken with Rolfe’s HD video stills).
OK, you’ve made your point (in triplicate). We cannot hope to resolve all the uncertainties this afternoon – no doubt all will become clear in the fullness of time, once we know more about the provenance of Rolfe’s banner – the one I have called Rolfe Panel A from the outset.
Now why don’t you go and find a nice pavement cafe somewhere and relax and unwind? I’m told that Nantes is one of France’s most delightful cities. We are touring the Cevennes in a few week’s time, but I hope to look in on Nantes before I run out of available lifespan…
You also need macrophotographs and close-ups (not to be mistaken with details from overall photographs).
Geekish addition: I reported earlier a strange observation, namely the loss of the herringbone pattern on converting 2D images of Rolfe panel 1 to 3D in ImajeJ software – and cautioned against generating artefacts of 3D imaging. I have since discovered that the herringbone can be restored simply by increasing the “Grid Size” setting, right up to 100(max) if necessary. Having read the accompanying notes, it seems I should not have included Grid Size in my standard ‘optimized’ settings, since it has to be adjusted to suit the size in terms of pixels for each new inputted image – indeed one should match the other. These things are sent to try us.
That’s one less post to write (not a bad thing since I’m somewhat weary of writing posts at the moment, given the kind of reception they get in the Shroudie world – which seems to be 95% true-believer where authenticity is concerned and keen to trash anything that doesn’t fit with their preconceptions.
I am reading Sam Christer’s “The Turin Shroud Secret” (Sphere 2012) at the moment. It is very well written – the dialogue between the LA detectives being sharp and witty.
Correction: … Rolfe Panel A to 3D in Image J software
Colin you wrote: “I’m somewhat weary of writing posts at the moment, given the kind of reception they get in the Shroudie world – which seems to be 95% true-believer where authenticity is concerned and keen to trash anything that doesn’t fit with their preconceptions”.
It is quite well deserved as you yourself are all too keen to be unpleasant, arrogant (even at times insulting) and trash anything that doesn’t fit with YOUR PRECONCEPTION (this is all the more deserved as the latter is based on highly biased shroud material and illiterate subjectivity). Personally, it took me several years before I came to the archaeocryptological and forensic conclusion the Turin Shroud was Yeshua’s…. I myself have to fight back assaults from both sides (pro-fraud and pro-miracle arch-advocates). You’d better not complain.
You have come onto my site – the site of a retired scientist – one that has been relating week by week an interplay of experiment and ideas – the scientific method – and wasted no time in attacking my scientific credentials. You have then used my site to promote your own outlandish and unscientific ideas (“autocollimation”, “vaporographs”), clearly with no intention whatsoever of performing a single scientific experiment, all the while promoting yourself as an expert in this or that, none of which has any bearing on the scientific method.
You are, my friend, what is known as a ‘crackpot’. I am not a crackpot. I am a published scientist with a solid reputation in all the areas I have worked, in all the problems I have addressed.
Now may I politely suggest that you sling your hook…
Colin Berry MSc, PhD
Your expertise is only in your pseudo scientific blabla based on most unscientific ground (you are archaeologically and forensically illiterate and dare sign Colin Berry MSc, PHD while even ignoring the basic parametres of GOOD SCIENCE! You are just fit for MIchey Mouse science!.
“Your friend” Di Lazzaro is also a publshed scientist… Remember what you said of him?
Have you ever heard od Gedenken experiment?
Have you ever heard of experimental archaeologiy?
…they coud help!
I see you have set out your imaginary scenario for how the image was formed on Dan Porter’s site.
http://shroudofturin.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-image-on-david-rolfes-website-absence-of-eyebrows/#comment-10596
As I suspected from your use of fanciful terms like “auto-collimation” etc is absolute tripe from start to finish.
Everything there exists purely in your own head. There is nothing that is rooted in reality. Now look at my comments. They invariably start with an experimental finding, either my own or someone else’s. They relate to the real world as we perceive with our senses. Folk are then free to accept or reject my interpretation – but irrespective are always left with something concrete in terms of physical science – one or more experimental findings.
It’s the difference between a fairy story (yours) and film review (mine). One is about fairies, which are entirely imaginary. The other is about a film – which one can still go and check out for oneself, whether one likes what the reviewer says or not, with a view to deciding for oneself, having to take nothing on trust.
Have you ever heard of Archaeology and Forensics, you dumb ignorant scientist! You are totally off track from the start. Your approach is unscientific (use of hihly biased material), unarcheaological and unforensic. Get it?
I used the terms “autocollimated” as words have to be adapted to reality and not the reverse, you old fool! Do you really know what is (ancient textile) MORDANTING (you do seem toeven ignore this term or the realities it covers)?
I leave you to your scorching/cooking mummies and your NightDaymare tales.
Enjou you meal!
Enjoy your meal!
I see. Because I omit to mention all your daft ideas, mordanting included, having contented myself with “auto-collimation etc” (and it was I who introduced collimation on this thread, not you) that means this Biochemistry PhD is ignorant of mordanting. Is that the extent of your intellect this morning – to imagine that failure to parrot each of your terms, the way you parrot mine, implies ignorance on my part? I also mentiond the requirement for a vacuum tube as well as a collimator if you wish to think in terms of molecular beams. But you have made no mention of that. By your logic that means you have no idea what a vacuum is, or why it would be needed in your idiotic model, along with much else besides. In fac t what your model needs is nothing more sophisticated than a waste paper bin.
For your information, I first encountered mordanting as a young teenager with a home chemical laboratory, a friendly local pharmacist who supplied me with virtually any chemical I asked for. I probably encountered mordanting as I worked my way through every fat textbook of descriptive chemistry in the local library – the kind they don’t write anymore – probably under the chapter headed “aluminium”, more specifically alum and aluminium oxy- or hydroxyanions,
Now kindly stop plastering my site with your Walter Mitty fantasizing. You clearly don’t have the first clue about the scientific method: you are simply making it up as you go along, pretending to knowledge you do not possess, except at the most superficial wiki-page level. You are also highly insulting towards someone who, unlike you, has solid research credentials, ones that are easily checked (I can supply you with some keywords if your wish).
Better still, find somewhere else to post. You have outstayed your welcome… I shall try to ignore anything else you post here, and may at some stage have to set up a block with WordPress if you persist.
“Scientific ignorant” is the title that suits you best. You have no notion at all of ancient textiles and you claim to solve the Turin Shroud mystery?! Are you kidding?
You said Di Lazzaro (who has an even better academic stature than yours) made Mickey Mouse science. Do SERIOUSLY think you are doing any better than him?
I was born in Nantes which is also the native city of Cambronne… Ever heard the story?
Ever heard of the word?
Are you testing ancient, medieval or 21th century linen samples? Have you ever considered there may be a world of difference between what you think the reality of the Shroud is and the real thing, you dumb fool? You made all a fuss when Dan Porter limited you access because of your arrogance and insults. This is the boomerang effect?
The first time I had the idea of an autocollimated vaporographic mordanting was in 1994 (I sent my theory to the CIELT). English is only my eigth language. To the sole exception of the past 6 months, I very seldom practice English whether written or oral etc.
I got a pretty good idea of what vaccuum means not only when I think of the void spaces present in the flax fibres but also when I read your eccentric pseudo scentific claim, you old mummy!
Archaeo(crypto)logically and forensically (blood pattern analysis) speaking, auto-collimated vaporographic “coloured mordanting” of a very thin layer of impurities on the top surface of the cloth is the most likely theory to account for the Shroud image WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!
The lab chemist needs (absolute or relative) vaccum tubes to explain what archaeology can explain without… Lab/kitchen chemistry JUTS CANNOT explain all and be substituted to a multidisciplinary scientific/archeaological approach.
correction: “what experimental archaeology can explain/elucidate without recurring to all this “little chemist” paraphernalia”
test
I have obtained the 2002 images used for the shroudscope alongside 2 dorsal and ventral images of around 300MB per image. The resolution is brilliant and they dont start to get pixelated until the thread level.
Upon further research .. Durante took a photo of the shroud in 2000 which is by far alot better than the 2002 photo he took (the one used on the shroudscope) I managed to get both TIFF files .. 1 is 600mb and the other 550mb .. In my last comment where i said about the 300mb files .. they are from Barrie Schwortz .. I got the Durante images from somebody else .. The 2008 scans by Haltadefinizione are better than the Durante 2000 & 2002 images 🙂 and have helped me greatly in my research of the shroud .. Especially in the face area. The 2002 image of the entire reverse side of the shroud brought some interesting results also .. i focused mainly on the facial area where the alleged “second face” resides .. I ran a few processing techniques & filters etc and i can quite comfortably say that i believe there is a facial image there .. Albeit a very faint one.
Thanks for giving us the benefit of your observations, Lee, here and in your previous comment. I note what you say regarding the “second face”, though as you must know, there are those, e.g. Mario Latendresse, who consider it largely a pareidolia thingy (i.e. imagined rather than real).
I shan’t bore you with my thoughts just yet on the second face – not having the means to pursue them further by way of systematic and scientific hypothesis-testing.
Any thoughts on those Halta offerings? Do they show anything one cannot see with Mario’s Shroud Scope based on Durante 2002 (but why was he supplied with imagery whose contrast had been messed with, makig blood virtually indistinguishable in colour from body image).
Do let us know if you see anything new or unusual when perusing your higher-quality images. There may be things we have thus far overlooked with our rough-and-ready lower contrast and/or lower magnification/resolution images.
PS: Heres’s a link to my posting from approx 3 years ago, with evidence from rgb analysis that someone or other had messed with the contrast on the Durante 2002 images supplied to Mario L, almost certainly the reason for the the drab, lifeless washed out monochrome look. Fortunately contrast can be restored if you have appropriate photoediting software (I used MS Office Picture Manager).
It’s a long posting. Scroll down until you see the before v after rgb pie chart
I think maybe the Durante 2002 image on shroud scope has had the contrast enhanced after the original photos were taken. Just a guess but maybe its so people can se the image alot easier. The image to the naked eye as you know is very hard to see in close proximity. What hig res images do you use personally Colin? The shroudscope? or do you have your own images? I recently got a 1st generation Enrie image. I will send it over if you want?
Yes, I think it goes without saying that any photographic image of the TS will have artificial enhancement of contrast – nobody wants to see something that is scarcely visible against background.
Having said that, I think there’s an important point that needs making: There were no Durante 2002 images in the public domain – at least not that I’m aware of – until the ‘insider’ Mario Latendresse placed his Shroud Scope on the internet. (I have him to thank for tipping me off a year or so later on Dan Porter’s site in 2012, at a time when I was complainng at the appearance of other pictures appearinng mysteriously on others’ ‘privileged’ sites, despairing at the manner in which key imagery was being released in so spasmodic and grudging a fashion).
Yes, the Durante 2002 images would have been contrast-enhanced, but as stated earlier, I believe the contrast level was subsequently de-enhanced in the Shroud Scope images. The clue was the relatively monochrome appearance, with blood scarcely distinct colour-wise from body image, which could be easily corrected as I showed by simply applying commercial photoediting software (e.g. MS Office Picture Manager) and adjusting brightness and contrast. Hey presto – the images suddenly came alive, with a clear difference between blood and body image,i.e. indeed a yellow-brown colour for the body image and purplish for the blood.
I challenged Mario to explain the apparent reduction in contrast and with it colour discrimination. He denied all knowledge, and suggested it had been done by others before him, maybe to achieve a more uniform ‘look’ to the images overall. Possibly , but I have my doubts… I suspect there’s a reluctance on the part of the powers-that-be at custodian level to allow sceptics like myself to see the best of available images, whether enhanced or not.
I’ll respond to your second comment tomorrow Lee. Thank you for your input.
Certain people recieved a copy of Durantes’s 2002 image prior to Mario’s shroudscope i believe. The image Durante took in 2000 is the best 1 by far. It’s quite alot sharper than the 2002 image. I wonder if Mario only had the 2002 image because the 2000 image would be a far better choice for the shroudscope. The HAL9000 2008 images are not contrast enhanced and look alot better than Durante’s 2000 & 2002 images. Enries 1931 images are also brill. You can see the weave detail. I hate working with JPEG images as the artifacts due to the compression process introduce things that are not really there and do not show a true color representation. TIFF and Bitmap are my preferred choice but coming across such images is a task in it’s self lol. The original Durante 00 and 02 images are TIFF .. the 02 image used on the shroudscope was converted to JPEG and “chopped” up into segments like a mosaic. So the TIFF file of the original shroudscope image looks alot better than the 2nd generation image Mario used. Let me know what images you have and the details (file formats,file size,resolution etc) and i will do the same. I will make a list with the specs in a moment and comment them here for you. Im looking forward to your replies Colin. Speak soon 🙂
Hi again Colin. Just looking at the image of the eye area of the turin shroud image further up the page. This is the Enrie image im sure of it. Not the HAL9000 image. Im just comparing it with the Enrie image’s i have on my desktop. Theres the drumscan that DR Petrus soons and Walter Spierings used to make the Holograms in 2005 and the first generation digitization (without the Emulsion damage). It looks like the 1st generation image that was digitized from Francis L Filas original negative plates. The HAL9000 images taken in 2008 are alot more revealing in resolution,detail and sharpness.