Here’s one good reason for thinking the Turin Shroud to be a medieval fake – namely that ‘cardboard cut-out look’, with frontal v dorsal views of body only – NO SIDES!

 

Site banner (wet hand imprint, showing immediate response of both the negative and tone-reversed  ‘positive’  images to commercial 3D-rendering software):  see end of posting (also in red)

Summary (this posting): the Turin Shroud is essentially a contact imprint off a whole adult male body, fabricated on to high quality linen to simulate that supplied by Joseph of Arimathea  as per first 3 Gospels  (Matthew, Mark, Luke) to transport the crucified Jesus from cross to tomb (acquiring its  iconic sweat/blood imprint on the way). Ignore the account of John (which skips the initial transport phase from cross to tomb). 

But there’s a crucial qualification needed in this (new?) narrative: note the word “essentially”.  No, it’s not a 100% real-body imprint. It’s had cosmetic additions (addition of  “artificial” head hair and neck especially, otherwise missing from a pure body imprint).

Why? Because a 100% imprint might turn off (or at any rate befuddle) first-time pilgrim viewers, descending on the remote hamlet of Lirey in the 14th century.  The imprint-only image was considered too direct, too brutal in its simplicity. It needed those cosmetic additions to make it more viewer-friendly, more instantly recognizable –  and acceptable – as that of the founder of Christianity between cross and tomb, between crucifixion and Resurrection.

No, the image was not intended to represent a resurrectional ‘selfie’, generated by a flash of supernatural  body-emitted radiation. That is late 20th/early 21st century fantasy, based on misinterpretation of image characteristics (e.g. negative image, responsiveness to 3D-rendering computer software, continuing ignorance of  and indeed indifference to the chemical nature of the image chromophore) to say nothing of stubborn rejection of the radiocarbon dating.)

Now to business, to the nitty-gritty:  here in brief outline is why I consider the absence of sides to the body image (i.e. frontal v dorsal images only) to essentially rule out authenticity.

(This posting is a cut-and-paste from the  Comments section of the previous posting.  It evolved over several days as a considered response to a question put to me by a first-time visitor to this  site – Shroud-blogger  Stacey Reiman of Anchorage, Alaska.  It was clearly not the answer she was expecting  on account of my decision to focus on a single (much neglected in my view) feature of the Shroud body image – namely the lack of sides. Oh well, you win some, you lose some).

1. Imaging of frontal and rear sides only (no sides) is easily modelled using a variety of templates, human or inanimate. See numerous postings on this site, using plastic toys of differing size (up to approx half human scale), my hand, even my own face :

 

The early claims from Jackson and others that imprints taken from 3D objects show grotesque lateral distortion simply have not been encountered, and for very good reasons (the linen is not allowed or able to make contact with the sides, either through placing the recumbent subject on a flat surface – which prevents linen from draping vertically down the ‘falling-away- sides’ of the subject – or – as above –  by selective application of an imprinting medium – painted (liquid) or sprinkled (solid) on the frontal v dorsal surfaces only, not on the sides).

2. Imprinting via obligatory physical contact makes sense in a biblical context, whether real or medieval simulation, if one imagines Joseph of Arimathea’s linen used as a transport stretcher, as indeed displayed in much early art (“Descent from the Cross”) .

Cut-and-paste from the above link (shroudstory, Dec 2014) showing association in early 17th minds between deposition of the newly crucified Jesus into Joseph of Arimathea’s ‘fine linen’ and the creation of a body image. (The blue image to the left is from this site, showing how even the painted double-body image in the same picture responds to 3D-rendering in ImageJ (eliciting much sound and fury in the previous day’s Comments on the Porter site!)

 

The use of “fine linen” (upmarket herringbone twill) makes sense in the transport situation where the body is still visible to spectators, needing discreet concealment, buit arguably less so in the context of later burial shroud, especially if the latter was a ‘winding cloth’ as per Gospel according to John.

3. Claims that imaging by contact should not be entertained due to claimed imaging across air gaps – provided those gaps are no greater than 4cm approx – involve modelling in a pro-authenticity context, one where linen is draped loosely over a recumbent body. They do not do proper justice to a medieval forgery scenario, one in which linen is manually pressed into the recessed parts of the body as well. There are other reasons too that can be adduced in the context of forgery where there can be conscious control over what is to be imaged versus what is not, either through choice of locations as to where or where not imprinting medium is to applied (or not applied) , or through use of a brush post-imprinting, loaded or unloaded with imprinting medium, to supplement or even remove the latter prior to final colour development (by whatever means, thermal, chemical or both).

4. Attempts to account for lack of sides in terms of ‘imaging via radiation’ , with the qualifying assumption that the radiation is only able to travel vertically from subject to linen (i.e aligned with gravity) are simply unscientific, as is any subsequent ‘mathematical’ modelling of such gravity-constrained radiation. Gravity is far too weak to affect any conceivable kind of electromagnetic radiation, especially radiation energetic enough to chemically modify linen carbohydrates so as to leave a yellow image.

5. The commonsensical interpretation of a faint negative (tone-reversed) image, deposited along with fresh-looking bloodstains on linen, is a SWEAT IMPRINT from contact with a naked body, whether in an authentic scenario or medieval simulation thereof. The imprint may be near-invisible initially, but have become yellowed and thus more visible with centuries of ageing.

6. STURP team members ruled out sweat-imprinting in an authentic context through inability to see any signs of liquid capillary spread in the linen fibres. But if John Heller’s account is anything to go by, there was no consideration given to a medieval forgery scenario, one that merely SIMULATED an aged sweat imprint, without needing to deploy artificial “sweat” or indeed any kind of liquid. Anything that left a final faint yellow stain on the linen would have sufficed: that could have involved use of a solid, as distinct from liquid imprinting medium. I have obtained Shroud-like imprints via solid flour dust imprinting onto wet linen, followed by thermal or chemical development to convert the Stage 1 flour imprint to Stage 2 faint yellow or yellow-brown stain, especially convincing after a final wash with soap and water to remove surface encrustation, leaving just faint yellow residue, presumably solid (microparticulate) polymeric Maillard products ( aka melanoidins, using the inspired Ray Rogers’ nomenclature).

7. Alleged 3D properties of the Shroud body image are a total irrelevance. My flour imprints also show 3D response in appropriate 3D-rendering software, as indeed do virtually any imprints, including those with no 3D history whatsoever. It is the software that produces the 3D effect, largely artefactual (which is not to say that imprinting off a 3D template does not produce additional subtleties in the “3D” rendering as is only to be expected (through better imprinting of more raised superficial contours than ones that are semi-recessed, but still amenable to the probing pressure-applying fingers of a medieval artisan engaged on contact- imprinting).

8. Real or simulated imprint?
The absence of any hint of sides (including top of head – which is also a “side” in a manner of speaking – is strongly suggestive of medieval simulation, rather than real 1st century “accidental” imprinting. Why?

Consider absence of top of head first. Suppose the top of head had been imaged. Yes, fine for authenticity, but think how that would look in practice – with two heads fused together, making them look less like separate views of the same head at least at first sight. So a decision was made to leave the top of head from the imprint making it an easier-to-interpret ‘double-body- imprint’. Few medieval pilgrims would have bothered to inquire anyway, one suspects, and had they done so, been given some kind of pat, pre-prepared answer that would have allayed suspicions of forgery.

So why the absence of any hint of sides for the rest of the body, making the image less like that of an easy-on-the-eye painting, and more viewer-unfriendly by virtue of the tone-reversed negative character? Answer: because the image had to be INSTANTLY recognizable as a crude unflattering IMPRINT, not a meticulously-executed medieval painting (Charles Freeman please note!)

But imprints, well-defined ones at any rate, are created by application of PRESSURE . It is that pressure that gives/generates the severe cut -off between horizontal and vertical planes, i.e a clear demarcation that eliminates the impression of life-like roundedness at the edge of an image of face or body. Put more simply, the TS body image is more comparable to that of a line cartoon ( albeit with solid colour infill) than is the case with the softer edge of a modern-day photograph (or arguably most paintings) where the meeting point between horizontal and vertical planes is more blurred, i.e with a transition zone that is neither obviously horizontal nor turned-through- 90 degrees- vertical.
( Yes, this passage is of necessity ‘wordy’, attempting as it does to distinguish between two kinds of image – one that is simple and idealized – ‘cardboard cut-out like’ and another which supplies hints to real-life 3d-ness through deliberate avoidance of abrupt transitions between one relief plane and another – keeping an essential ‘soft fuzzy edge’.

But it attempts, successfully or otherwise, to convey the reason for regarding the no-sides TS body image as both deliberately-intended and subsequently engineered – in order to convey an INSTANT impression of, guess what? – yes, forceful IMPRESSION. But while manual pressure is/was used in a forgery workshop to generate the imprint-like character, that was not the conclusion that those artisans wished the medieval pilgrim to imagine. Oh no. The applied impression was not from applied manual pressure. It was from the force of GRAVITY acting on linen from the WEIGHT of a body suspended/supported in a linen stretcher.

But hold on a minute. That body weight can be easily grasped as sufficient to generate the dorsal image. But what about the ventral image, where there’s no force of gravity worth speaking of – merely the weight f the linen? Doesn’t that invite expressions of doubt that the double body image was acquired ‘accidentally’ during 1st century transport between cross and tomb? How does one explain away a ventral imprint that is for all intents and purposes of approx the same level of image intensity? Should it not have been made less intense, i.e. by medieval artisans applying less pressure, or less imprinting medium?

There is no simple answer to that question, none at any rate that I can think off. No doubt the radiation-invokers will have a field day, claimimg that their imaging burst of radiation was the same intensity upwards as well as downwards.

9. But there is an ‘out’ from this seeming visual illogicality. It’s those scourge marks, allegedly 372 of them, evenly distibuted over the entire body surface, both sides, except for the face. Why so many, one might ask, sufficient surely to cause clinical shock and death even before arrival at the cross? And why are the scourge marks entirely BLOOD imprints, we are told, with no signature whatsoever in the body image?

Might it be that our medieval forgers made a decision to discard 100% realism re the intensity of the frontal v dorsal body image, given that would have made the less appealing dorsal image more conspicuous than the frontal (it being practically easier to keep both the same, albeit BOTH faint, neither terribly conspicuous). Then create a distraction from the faint body image by adding those 372 scourge marks as images in red blood, distracting from the body image, making it likely that few if any would spot, far less see fit to comment on the equal intensities of the background body images, i.e. ventral v dorsal.

Put more simply we have a rationale for the arguably excessive number of scourge marks – they serve to distract from one of the several instances of an exercise of ‘artistic licence’, designed to keep the first impression of the TS one in which immediate visual impact and mental challenge are the crucial considerations, even at the expense of strict credibility, as judged through a cold 20th/21st century forensic eye.

There are other instances one can cite where artistic licence has been given free rein. Examples?

10. Another instance that can be cited is the imaging of a “neck” joining head and torso. Shoulld it really be there, or not?

More to follow…

Expect a further 5 aspects pertinent to “no sides” and “contact imprinting only” to appear soon, on this same comment, under the following topic headings:

(10- Neck)

There’s a lot I could say about the neck anomaly, my having flagged it up as a curious and indeed tell-tale feature as far back as Feb 2012 ( re that prominent ‘scorched-on’ crease mark on which sindonology has rarely commented):

http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-does-turin-shroud-appear-to-have.html

But why bother? Based on past performance these last 6 years and more, sindonolology (as it likes to call itself, as though an academic discipline) won’t bother to respond, certainly not to any points this retired scientist makes. Why not? Because I’m not a member of their ‘secret garden’ see (like that so-called mysterious “Shroud Science Group”” that lurks behind its closed doors….

Briefly summarised, and put more simply:

Sindonology, if the truth be told, is a perversion of plain logic, science and scholarship.

More to follow (summarily) regarding: :

11. Feet – differential imprinting re upper v lower surfaces
12. Closed eyelids
13. Bony fingers, maybe elongated, maybe not
14. Head hair, beard, moustache
15. Nose, reason for exceptional imaging of sides

I say “summarily”. Why bother with the detail? Detail is wasted on closed ears, closed minds, agenda-driven certainty…

11. Yes, those feet, with soles of feet part of the body image (plus bloodstains) with scarcely any imaging of the upper sides., Why should that be the case.? Customary answer (pro-authenticity sindonology): it’s the result of rigor mortis causing profound muscle seizure, the soles of the feet being pulled into line with the legs. Leaving aside the improbability of that happening (try doing it voluntarily!) that would surely bring the upper surface into alignment with the shins of the leg too.

There’s an alternative explanation. Our medieval simulators (aka forgers, fakers etc) wanted to plant an additional visual clue to the use of Joseph of Arimathea’s sheet of fine linen as a stretcher, for which purpose the lower free end of the linen was turned up around the soles of the feet. But the upper surface of the linen failed to make contact with the upper sides of the feet. Why? Because the linen was stretched taut between topsides of ankles and tips of toes, in other words, failing to make contact with the skin.. No contact, no imaging.

Shhh. Don’t mention the “stretcher” scenario to mainstream sindonologists. They don’t wish to hear any talk of imaging having occurred en route to the tomb. It’s imaging via ‘resurrectional incandescence’ (supernatural radiation) or nothing! Yawn…

12. Closed eyelids (?)

I have alreadty shown, contrary to received wisdom, that it’s fully possible to imprint off a real human face, provided one does not mind a nose that is flattened and/or bent to one side as a consequence of applied manual pressure (see this posting). Bu then the nose of the Man in the Shroud IS bent and flattened, is it not, especially apparent in those 3D-renderings?

But if one did imprint off a real face, there’s another downside: it would be difficult to imprint the eyes/eyelids, given they lie at the bottom of bony hollows . Sure, one could just omit the eye itself, making for an even more realistic “imprinted” look (as distinct from friendlier artistic portrait).

But my flour-imprinting procedure (“Model 10”) offers a simple solution. After imprinting the face, with empty eye hollows, simply load a brush or even finger with more flour, and dab into the centres of each hollow. Hey presto, one has one’s “eyes”.

Be warned however – centuries later your makeshift “eyes” will be confidently identified as tiny coins from the Roman era (like 1st century, coinciding with the rule of that Pontius Pilate!). The combination of weave pattern on the linen and pareidolia will provide sufficient evidence of design and lettering to sustain your case at the podium of one sindonological conference after another – yet more ‘compelling’ proof of authenticity… 😉

13. Ah yes, those peculiar fingers – so spindly, so bony-looking. 
For a 20th century explanation, see the heroic experiment that August Accetta MD did on himself, injecting a gamma-radiation emitter (a short-lived technetium isotope) and capturing an image of himself on sensitive film.

https://wordpress.com/comment/shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com/11253

Might there be a more down-to-earth explanation, like, you know, contact imaging.

There’s a simpler way of modelling bony-lookign fingers, one that requires no more than a tub of Nutella, as I reported a few years ago.

http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com/2014/07/it-seems-so-obvious-now-why-man-on.html

Yes, imprinting off the human form works best over bony parts, where the flesh encounters resistance, and is less able to simply absorb and dissipate the applied pressure.

So the apparent thinness of the fingers, with spaces between them even when the fingers are non-splayed, is easily explained as a predictable consequence of imprinting technology.

Might those bony fingers have been intended by our medieval simulators to serve as yet another clue for those 14th century pilgrims descending on Lirey that they were looking at aa passive IMPRINT( “a genuine one you understand, dear pilgrim !”) of the crucified Jesus onto J of A’s linen stretcher, NOT a conventional artist’s portrait. (Since when has additional and realistic looking blood been used in portrait-painting?)

14. Head hair, beard, moustache

Here’s a 3D-rendering I did some years ago of the Man on the TS using ImageJ software (using carefully chosen settings – normalised against an experimental scorch imprint):

It’s tone-reversed i.e. negative- to- positive. What’s of special interest is the black region that separates cheeks from hair (which would be white and thus image-free on the initial negative iimage).

In other words, there’s a lack of continuity between cheeks and hair. So who’s to say that cheeks and hair were not produced at separate imprinting sessions, 1 and 2 ? Might the face have been imprinted first (and if so how?) and the hair, correction “hair”, maybe added later?

Why do it that way?

Answer: becaause it’s hard to see how genuine hair can be imprinted, unless there’s something substantially solid behind it, like bone. But that’s hardly the case for hair on the sides of the skull, where the bone is side-on to the hair, not directly behind.

Even the “hair” on a quickie charcoal sketch of the TS face responded to a combination of tone inversion and 3D-rendering with ImageJ software, as I showed back in May 2012!

 

Tentative conclusion: the “hair” at least was not imprinted off a real head of hair. It was imprinted off a bas relief that was placed around the previously-imprinted head. Indeed, the head itself may also have been “fake”, itself another bas relief, as others before me have suggested.

Head hair visible  (just!) on the so-called ‘second face’ (opposite side of linen)? Maybe – see this image from Mario Latendresse’s sindonology.org site.

Circumstantial evidence perhaps for an imprinting mechanism that is different – and slightly more efficient – than that for the face itself?

For now I try to keep an open mind as regards the nature of the head, pre-hair, as to whether real or bas relief. But as indicated I reject the main reason given for a bas relief head, namely that the nose and other facial angularities make it impossible to imprint off a real face.

Not so. Crucial angularities, like the nose, deform and flatten under applied pressure, features which are said to be discernible also on the real TS. Indeed, they are immediately interpreted by pro-authenticity sindonologists, (or by some at any rate) as evidence of pre-crucifixion torture at the hands of Pontius Pilate’s mocking soldiery.

Beard? Moustache? One cannot help but wonder if they are created by inexpert dabbing on of additional imprinting medium (e.g. white flour) onto chin and upper lip, given their blotchiness and incompleteness. Indeed, some may be entirely artefactual. I personally acquired a suggestion of beard and moustache after imprinting my face using wet flour slurry, assisted admittedly by a pre-shave stubble which acted as trap for the medium (see the posting).

15. Nose, commented-upon imprinting of sides of nose especiallly (by Thibault Heimburger and others as evidence against imprinting by contact)

See my comment from November of last year, following evidence from Gérard Lucotte and his microscopists in Paris for the presence of “osseous remains” (read bone!) on the face of the Man on the TS.

See also this posting on the shroudstory from 2015, with mention of the unexpectedly flat nose of the Man on the TS, responding poorly to 3D-rendering.

To summarize: the TS image was intended to be quickly perceived as a body imprint: the combination of fresh-looking bloodstains on a yellowed body image were together intended to signal that the linen was Joseph of Arimathea’s linen, imprinted soon after crucifixion, probably en route from cross to tomb.

But that description alone does not allow one to say with confidence whether the imagery is authentic 1st century or a medieval simulation thereof. So what does, if anything?

Answer: it’s the simplification and doctoring that is the giveaway. Simplification? Faint, negative image, front and rear sides of body, not so much as a hint of sides, nor top of head, making for the uncompromising ‘cardboard cut-out’ appearance, intended to signal IMPRINT at very first sight. Yes, first impressions DO count!

But the imprint had to be subtly doctored to render the image a little more appealing to the eye, less a gross assault on the senses How? By adding a neck, given that would be missing from a simple imprint. Why? Because a detached ‘floating’ head would almost certainly have attracted negative comment, or merely puzzled and confused. Head hair also needed to be added, but again in a manner that could be surmised to have been acquired via imprinting, even if improbable in practical terms. Thus the lank, rigid appearance of the head hair bordering the left and right cheeks.

The TS image is best viewed, then, as a cunning blend of technology (primarily) but tempered here and there with those cosmetic additions. It’s that dual nature, one suspects –  in essence a manicured imprint – that explains why the image has defied easy interpretation over so many centuries, and indeed fazed the STURP team in 1978, who concluded it was still a mystery.

Overview: a crude contact-imprint, the appearance of which is softened by some crucial cosmetic additions, might arguably be deemed at least semi-artistic. To which I say NO! There is nothing in the least bit artistic about the image of the Man on the Turin Shroud. It was designed to shock via its brutal realism. No, not to enchant or enrapture, but to sustain, indeed reinforce religious belief (while mentally disarming and stunning those pesky sceptics into silence?) …

 

Added Sat 8th September, 2018

Have just been made aware of this recent paper  in Academia by the author himself (there being no listing anywhere on past or current Google search under (shroud of turin) – why not Google?)

 

See  mine and Hugh’s comments on this posting.

Added Sun 9th Sept, 2018

Image-analysis enthusiast LeeJay has just sent me the following  B/W image derived from the Durante 2002 portfolio, but of that faint and indistinct so-called ‘second face’ on the opposite side of the TS linen.

(I had to change the file type from tif to png to make it acceptable to WordPress software)

The image (make of it what you will dear reader)  was accompanied by this description which I’ve copied from Lee’s posting to the Comments:

leejay1985 says:

August 27, 2018 at 3:28 am (Edit)

Hi all 🙂 In the last few weeks i have been doing a bit of messing about with a high res image of the reverse side of the turin shroud .. I focused mainly on the face area and tried a few different processing techniques. I can safely say that i believe there is a faint image of certain parts of the face. I cant upload the images to this site so if anyone is interested then let me know and i will use a 3rd party file sharing site to upload the images. I have quite a few with different filters,processing algorithms etc that i used. The results are interesting 🙂

 

The question I find myself asking, even now, concerns the fairly prominent hair, or should i say “hair” (a crucial determinant some might think in deciding whether the ‘second face; is real or not)?  Is it really hair one is seeing, or just the bleed-through of some or all of those extensive bloodstains one sees on the hair, image-side? A B/W picture makes it even harder to decide than the  the Durante 2002 colour-version of the ‘second face’ supplied on Mario Latendresse’s sindonology.org site.

Further addition (pm, Mon 10th Sept):

LeeJay, aka LeeJones, mentions the Enrie 1931 image acquired pre-digital photography, using a silver salt emulsion, and its exceoptionally good defintion (agreed).

Here’s my quickie 5 minute job at putting  the two side-by-side, at approx same level of magnification:

Would I be correct in thinking that what goes through to the opposite side is not just one component (blood, not surprisingly) but the more prominent features of the body image (nose etc) that would have imprinted better by virtue of greater impact pressure against the linen in a 3D-imprinting situation (i.e. from a real person’s angular face, not a mere bas relief)?  Hugh Farey please note (not that I regard real body v bas relief as a crucial issue when it comes to deciding on authenticity or even means of fabrication! The crucial issue is imprinting versus the alternatives, like “just a painting”  or ‘selfie’ image from pro-authenticity flash of resurrectional incandescence.

Added Tue 11th Sep 2018

Why is this piece of discredited work still being promoted, such that it is currently on Page 6 of Google returns under a (shroud of turin) search.

While on the subject of the mysterious Google, why has this site now disappeared totally from the same listings (until recently showing up anywhere between Pages 7 and 12)?

Might we be seeing the work of those SEOs (who email me from time to time, offering to get this site promoted to the top of search engine  listings)?

Added Thur 13th September, 2018 (image needed for current comments attached to this posting).

Here’s the title page from a splendid specialist paper on flax fibres (presumably relevant to linen derived therefrom via retting)

Link:

 

Here’s an approximate cross-section of a single (damaged) fibre obtained with SEM:

Note the microfibrils densely packed within the fibre, the presence of which is normally hidden from view by the outer sheath we call the PCW (primary cell wall). Sindonology talks a lot about the image chromophore being confined  (allegedly) to the PCW, though rarely if ever any mention of the underlying microfibrils, and the capillary channels between them and never (as far as I’m aware) the display of the kind of cross-sectional view we see above.

Added 14th September, 2018

Have managed to track down a view of the front cover of this month’s edition of

Más allá de la Ciencia

(Spanish magazine), the one I mentioned earlier with the Isabela Herranz-penned summary of current Shroud research (including  a brief summary of this blogger’s 6 years of modelling plus mugshot!)

 

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/mas-alla/20180901/283184379311874

Later today:

Thanks to HF for a link to a PhD thesis with more splendid SEM views of quasi-cross-sections in 3D, one  that show the multitude of microfibrils inside each flax/linen fibre (which I say  simply cannot be ignored when discussing TS image chromophore thickness given likely intra-fibre penetration below and beneath the outer PCW sheath)

Here’s an especially good view:

 

Note the scale for 1 micrometre (1000 nanometres). Yup, that’s roughly as expected if the PCW is approx 200nm thick, i.e. a tiny fraction (<10%)  or thereabouts of the fibre diameter. But is the image chromophore really confined to that PCW, when there’s so much complexity underneath, notably horizontally-running microfibrils AND  their associated capillary channels, capable of wicking away any (momentarily) liquid chromophore precursors generated by my Model 10’s  proposal for a thermal Stage 2 processing of a Stage 1 flour imprint?

Update, 2nd October, 2018

Just back from delightful Jerez, in the south of Spain (the 14th visit to Spain by this Hispanophile and wife these last 40 years!).  Met up with feisty freelance journalist Isabela Herranz in Madrid.  Her article for Mas Alla, mentioned previously on this posting,  is still on the newstands:

 

Recognize a particular face and name  (one of several) that appears on Page 25?     😉

 

 

Word of advice to travellers: don’t use Iberia Airlines (unless you’ve purchased a  multi- subcategory “Priority Boarding” ticket).

 

Don’t be deceived by Iberia’s so called “Group 1” ticket  – NOT in the above list – which virtually guarantees cattle-class treatment to holders at the otherwise unsegregated boarding gates at both Jerez pint-size airport AND Madrid’s Terminal 4.

Back to topic: yes, yours truly assisted Isabela in the production of her article (which also features Dan Porter’s now retired shroudstory site).  Ano Cero (also partly visible on the above newstand) rejected her first article (“too sceptical”), and sadly there wasn’t space in the Mas Alla article for Isabela’s specially-commissioned one-off flour imprint of my hand, obtained with Model 10, before and after 3D enhancement.

(Better than the Sunday Times, which refused some 2 years back to publicize my Model 10 unless I was willing to provide a whole-body imprint – though that was the least of its Chief Reporter’s shortcomings, given other issues we needn’t go into!  As for the ST’s so-called “Science Editor” , words fail me…).

Oh well, you win some, you lose some (but in my experience invariably LOSE where the UK’s appalling anti-science – or,  at best, science-blind MSM – are concerned).

Thank heavens then for the Isabela Herranzs of this world, thank heavens for Continental Europe (shame however about the language barrier).

Moving on: arriving back from a late-summer/early autumn holiday break, mentally -refreshed, so to speak, I’ve started to give thought to my next posting.

Maybe a  listing of reasons that support  my Model 10  (flour imprinting, followed by thermal development of yellow/brown colour)?

I thought initially I might be able to give 2 , maybe 3 compelling  reasons …

Am currently up to 23!   (Maybe some more compelling than others).

But there’s no point in proactive posting on a Web-forum,  supposedly more user-friendly than the peer-reviewed journals and their paywalls,  unless there’s feedback.

I shall wait for feedback  – whether positive or negative, days, weeks, months if necessary…

So it’s over to you, dear reader.   Is  (or is not?)  the Shroud of Turin a medievally- produced simulated sweat/blood  imprint of the newly crucified  Jesus onto Joseph of Arimathea’s linen?  Was the intention  to trump the then celebrated Veil of Veronica (face-imprint only) as a pilgrim-attracting money-spinner – if only briefly successful to begin with?

I say it was.  But I’m open to alternative suggesions (provided, that is, respect for the facts, as distinct from wild preconception-based fantasy,  gets a look-in).

PS: that list of reasons in favour of the image being a heat-treated flour imprint is now at 29, up from the 23 cited above!

 

October 4, 2018

Hey! Look what I’ve discovered, on Dan Porter’s shroudstory site from December 2011!

 

 

Unbelievable!  Almost 7 years have passed since the colourful (and hugely perceptive) Joe Nickell pointed out a major omission from the Shroud data base, namely the absence of a simple image fibre CROSS-SECTION, aka transverse section.

Yes, here we are, 7 years later and STILL no transverse section (at least that I’m aware of).  Yet image ultra-superficiality, based on nothing more that  ‘views from the outside, attempting to see what’s inside’ have become the stock-in-trade of those claims for  a non- forgeable, supernaturally-generated pro-authenticity message.

As I say  – unbelievable – displaying a total dereliction of the scientific method (where  no microscopy can be considered complete without a simple, look-inside TRANSVERSE section).

 

 

Site banner: see how a simulated sweat imprint (my wet hand pressed down onto dark fabric) responds magnificently to 3D-rendering computer software (ImageJ) before and after tone-reversal (negative back to positive image). Remind you of anything? Like those supposedly “unique”  and “encoded” 3D-properties of the Shroud of Turin body image? For a more realistic aged/yellowed sweat imprint, see the many postings on this site since 2014 obtained with the aid of my Model 10 (imprinting off  parts, notably head and hands, of a real body (mine!) onto linen with white wheaten flour, followed by heat-development of the image to generate carbon-based and thus bleachable straw-coloured melanoidins via Maillard reactions between wheat proteins and reducing sugars). 

 

Appendix: 

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