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.
Start of original posting:
Comment from Richard Savage on The Other Site
“But is Berry correct that our opinion (the blood being on first) “rests on somewhat token and insubstantial evidence based on a single spot test with proteolytic enzyme on a microscope slide.” In http://shroud.com/pdfs/adler.pdf, Adler bases his claim on publications by himself, Heller and Jumper — but, are they all referring to “a single spot test”?
In all my reading, Richard, I have only ever seen one experiment cited in support of the “blood first, image second” dogma. It was the Adler/Heller experiment with the proteolytic enzyme, performed on a microscope slide, which described how digestion of the bloodstain left clean image fibres i.e. with fibres underneath resembling clean non-image fibres.
Conclusion: the blood came first, the body image second – suggestive evidence, but hardly definitive or clinching on which to base so major a claim
However, I do not claim to have read every word that has been written on the subject. So if anyone knows of supplementary experiments to back that claim, then please let me know (with a link too if possible).
As a retired biochemist who spent years handling enzymes, I have a number of reservations about that experiment. I shan’t bore the pants of people by listing them all. Suffice it to say that the experiment makes a number of assumptions (unwarranted assumptions in my view). Personally, I believe that in attempting to establish what came first, the initial experiment should have been a dry, not wet system, using mechanical and optical methods only. Here’s the kind of thing I have in mind, using a miniature version of an angle grinder and a lens or microscope.
“Blood first, body image second” scenario, with angled abrasion and microscopic examination. The linen would first be embedded in paraffin wax or resin. It could then be sectioned in a microtome to get thin slices for microscopy, those sections being permanent after mounting and available for a range of opinions.
Body image first, blood second scenario, abraded and examined as before.
One abrades the surface at as gentle as possible an angle the normal, as in the diagrams, and examines the abraded surface under the lens. One seeks to identify blood that is not overlaid with body image, or body image that is not overlaid with blood, deducing which came first.
I don’t imagine for one moment that the experiment is a doddle, given the thinness of the body image (allegedly less than 200nm in thickness) but it is worth trying in the first instance, using if necessary a range of image enhancement techniques. If it gives an unambiguous yes/no answer, then that is a result that is not hedged around with uncertainties, unlike the wet enzyme system.
My answer to the steeped-in-mystique Turin Shroud - evolving gradually from some 10 years of science-based experimental modelling. 
So did the “blood” come first? Or image. The stains aren’t realistic and look painted.
Also just another question, I read your post about scorches and fluorescence. So the reason the 1500s burn fluoresced red (and the image didn’t) was because they didn’t use a strong enough UV light? The same one as yours which didn’t make fluorescent images? Just a little confused.
As I expect you know, Matt, John Heller and Alan Adler produced evidence for blood before body image, using protein-digesting enzymes. One can nitpick if not liking that conclusion, given it makes life a little more difficult for forgers if they can’t simply paint blood onto the linen after imprinting the body image. For my part I provisionally accept the blood-first ‘dogma’ since it does not present an insuperable problem to a forger. Why not?
There are at least two ways round the problem, maybe more, which can be used if imprinting with powdered white flour onto wet linen (my Model 10!). The first is to sprinkle the flour onto the oil-smeared subject first, then paint or dribble the blood (or “blood”?) onto the flour-coated skin, then imprint onto the wet linen. The blood goes onto the linen first, meeting the Adler/Heller claim. But there’s a problem – the blood would look nothing like blood after the oven-roasting stage for image development!
There’s an alternative means which I strongly suspect was used for the site (at least) of the lance-blood. One uses an offcut of linen to protect a sizeable patch of skin from being coated with flour. One then does the oven-roasting stage, and then and only then one paints blood onto the blank area of the linen. That could explain how the area is said to show water as well as blood, as required for strict biblical ‘authenticity’. Of course, it’s not really “water” one sees mixed in with blood, evaporated water being invisible but small patches of blank linen, free of yellow body image! Clever these medievals!
I’m not sure if the masking technique would work with all the blood stains, especially the more intricate ones like those on the arms etc.
Uv fluorescence? Nope, I doubt if the intensity of uv light is a major factor, though wavelength might be. Personally I think it was a mistake on the part of Barrie Schwortz and others to make statements like “all scorches fluoresce under uv” when based purely on the weak pinkish-red fluorescence of the charred edges of the 1532 burn holes. Those edges are not experimental scorches, using the term in its broadest sense to mean linen that has acquired a thermal imprint by one means or another. Those edges have been exposed to far higher temperatures (800 degrees of more) if the molten silver reliquary narrative is correct, compared with the temperatures required for my flour-imprinting model (180 to 200 degrees C) or the slightly higher ones used in my now abandoned direct contact Model 2 using a heated bas relief.
None of my thermal imprints, whether one-stage “scorches” or two-step flour imprints show any fluorescence whatsoever under uv, so the attempts by promoters of authenticity to dismiss thermal imprinting out of hand via fluorescence simply don’t stand up to experimental test. It’s simply empty propaganda if the truth be told.
I hope that helps. Don’t hesitate to keep the the questions flowing. It’s good to see some interest being shown out there!
Thanks, it just seems suspicious the evidence for painted stains and painted stains where there is hair. If these “blood” stains were painted first it wouldn’t take that much effort to align the bas relief. As for Adler and Heller, I’m skeptical of the results any STURP member given some of their pseudoscientific methods and claims. Shroudies are just saying that the blood-first is slam dunk evidence that it is the real thing. As for the fluorescence your post “Most definitely no”, was very good. I was just reading what Hugh said “The implications are that, yes, scorches always fluoresce, but only at high power. There is thus no reason why the ‘image’ of the Shroud is not a scorch!”. I guess used a different wavelength of UV.