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:
There wasn’t room for this graphic in the banner – which would precede the others. It shows the crucial ‘LOTTO’ imprinting procedure in my new impovred method. The heated crucifix is underneath, linen is laid across it, and then a damp overlay placed on top (LOTTO = Linen On Top, Then Overlay). The fabric layer is then patted gently round the contours of the template until one can no longer stand the heat conducting through. That’s the time (or a little longer) to peel back the linen to see the negative image on the contact side of the linen, usually with nothing visible on the reverse side, such is the superficiality of the image and its light toasted appearance under the microscope. The image responds well to light/dark inversion in ImageJ AND reasonably well to 3D enhancement in the same program (see banner).
I will be placing this graphic at the top of all future postings, believing as I do that I have finally sussed out the the Shroud image was made (or could have been made) with a medieval setting, consistent with the radiocarbon dating. if folk wish to reject the dating, and stick with the idea that the Shroud is the real burial robe of the crucified Christ, and that the bloodstains preceded the image, then they are at liberty to do so. I’m a nuts-and-bolts kind of science bod who prefers to operate within the envelope of known or credible science, while thinking outside of the numerous man-made boxes that can exist with
in that envelope. 😉
What are the biggest ‘plus factors’ when comparing the previous (LUWU) and the new (LOTTO) imprinting procedure? The old LUWU method (Linen Underneath, with Underlay) required very brief contact time, at most a few seconds, with a template initially neither too hot nor too cold and with the ever-present risk of over-scorching, especially as the geometry makes it difficult to monitor degree of scorching.
The new LOTTO method (Linen On Top. Then Overlay) needs the template very hot to start with, and a surprisingly long contact time (minutes rather than seconds) to get a decent scorch. During those minutes there is time to mould the fabric manually around the contours, but importantly there is very little risk of overscorching, especially as one can lift a corner to check on progress. Manual moulding offers a far greater degree of flexibility than the passive moulding to relief that occurs when a solid template is prodded down into linen and underlay with a wooden stake or similar – with the ever present risk of tenting of stretched linen between prominences, and thus failure to imprint the parts in between.
The LOTTO image, perhaps not surprisingly, looks softer and fuzzier than the instant LUWU imprint. I’m not sure how one compares fuzziness on a scientific basis*, but it’s always a factor that seems to be implicit or explicit in aesthetic judgements when folk look at any of our feeble attempts to reproduce the Shroud image. The result, before being mercilessly subject to 3D imaging and microscopy, MUST have that certain indefinable wraith-like quality you understand if it is to stand any chance of being considered at least a “decent effort, a jolly good try old chap, but still lacking that certain je ne sais pas quoi, know what I mean like?”
*Update: 25 Jan have just this minute comes across a reference to and ‘edge-finding’ on Mario Latendresse’s site:
http://shroudstory.com/2014/01/25/photomicrographs-and-more-at-mario-latendresses-sindonology/
I’ll need to study it carefully before commenting in detail. For now, it’s worth pointing out that the Shroud image lacks edges – which is another way of saying it is fuzzy, an observation that should surprise no one, but backed up by a measurement process. Quite how it works at the pixel level I shall need to find out. It’s presumably something to do with gradation of density across given linear distances. Is there an arbitrary criterion built into that one wonders?
Theoretical footnote: why should it make so much difference as to which of the two procedures one uses to imprint, with one producing a scorch in seconds, the other in minutes? Both have a hot template, a sheet of linen and a thick piece of damp cloth (folded I might add to get two or more layers).
I don’t pretend to understand all the subtleties, but would suggest the following for starters. It’s to do mainly with applied pressure and the degree of contact between metal and linen. In the earlier LUWU method, there was a strong force applied to the template from above, pushing it into the linen. That resulted in a high degree of atom-to-atom contact between metal and linen, allowing heat transfer by conduction. Steam and pyrolysis gases had to escape as best they could in an unnatural direction (downwards and sideways) instead of upwards, the preferred direction for convection currents.
When linen is draped over a hot template, followed by the damp overlay, the only pressure is from the weight of the fabric itself, and the manual patting. That results in much less atom-to-atom contact, so initial heat transfer by conduction will be smaller. However, another possibility for heat transfer arises – convection. Even with relatively little contact initially the air space between metal and linen will heat up, the expanded air will tend to escape, and, IMPORTANTLY, its place will gradually be occupied by steam (linen is reckoned to have about 8% moisture typically which needs to be driven off before pyrolysis can take place). Maybe that steam become a means of transferring heat from metal to linen via a gaseous but still material carrier. In other words, the pyrolysis is less about metal-linen contact (producing sharp image edges) and more about pyrolysis caused by laminar flow of superheated steam (and other pyrolysis gases). The image is still primarily a contact scorch but is softened , i.e. made fuzzier, through being a convection scorch too. Whilst pyrolysis is in essence temperature-dependent, it is probably immaterial whether the temperature rise is due to direct contact with hot solid metal at, say 225 degrees C, or contact with superheated steam and other gases at the same temperature. What matters is the temperature, not the means by which heat was supplied to produce the temperature increase.
Summary: how to produce a ‘Shroud of Turin’: slow- roast linen over a shaped metal template, with an overlay of damp cloth, and occasional moulding of the fabric layers to the template to capture relief.
“Slow roast”? Ring any bells. Think Knights Templar. Think Jacques de Molay. Think slow-roasting over charcoal, Paris, 1314.
Update, Sunday 1 December: I have just this minute resurrected my more polemical strawshredder.com site in order to respond to a posting that has just appeared on shroudstory.com from Kelly M.Kearse.
Update, Monday 2 December: another posting on The Other Site (mine, this time):
My answer to the steeped-in-mystique Turin Shroud - evolving gradually from some 10 years of science-based experimental modelling. 