Here’s my simple no-nonsense explanation for the Turin Shroud. Think roasted whole-body medieval FLOUR IMPRINT.

Late insertion (Dec 20, 2020) It’s now 6 months to the day since I added this Final Posting (last of some 370 over a 9 year period). Well well. There’s been total silence – or nearly so – from the world of authenticity -promoting Shroudology these last 6 months re my “FILM-SET” Model 10!

Why? I think I’ve discovered why. One has only to look at the writings of the chief spokesperson for the so -called “Shroud Science Group” (Prof. Giulio Fanti of Padua University).

Here’s the offending article: “A Dozen Years of the Shroud Science Group”, 2014.

Here’s the particular passage, underlined in bright yellow – my addition – that leaves this scientist speechless:

Giulio Fanti, chief spokesman of the Shroud Science Group, is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Padua University, Italy.

Yet here he is, telling the world what CANNOT be reproduced scientifically.

What right does an ENGINEER have to say what experimental SCIENTISTS, pursuing their own specialist creative ideas and hypothesis-testing MO, cannot hope to reproduce scientifically – and indeed to claim they are wasting time and money in attempting to do so?

What we see here is arrogance, sheer overweening arrogance.

I say it’s time the SSG found themselves a new spokesperson. Either that, or change their name, omitting any reference to “science” in their present SSG title!

If I had to choose just four words to sum up the mainstream opposition to what I consider my commonsensical, science-based views, emanating from religionists of one kind of another, what would they be?

Answer: histrionic bible-thumping hyperactivity!

Moving on: the next step?

There are two totally separate phases re model building.

First, establish facts, then present one’s explanation, aka rationale,

Second: then try to win over entrenched ideas.

Be patient as regards the latter.

Start of original posting…

…

“FILM-SET” (centre above): closest model yet to the body imprint on the Turin Shroud?

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16th/17th century artists  like Della Rovere had a simpler take on how the TS image came to be, uninfluenced by 19th century to-and-fro negative to positive conversions in the photographic darkroom.  They recognized that tone-reversed images could be generated via IMPRINTING, i.e. via physical contact alone, requiring  neither an artist’s brush, far less a sudden burst of supernatural radiation … Note, btw, the  negative (tone-reversed) nature of the dual body image as well as the two pots in foreground (oils? spices?   Hinted at additional aids to unintended body-imprinting in pro-authenticity context?).

Be warned folks. This is a long, long posting. But then it is the last of some 370 that this retired  Shroud-curious scientist has posted to the internet via this and other sites since the tail end of 2011!

If you’ve limited time, and are looking for a simple take-away message, then here it is: Shroud so-called ” science” should abandon its notion of the body image being “highly superficial” on image fibres, indeed confined to a mere 200 nanometres thick layer of chemically modified linen carbohydrate, aka the PCW (primary cell wall).

Hard scientific evidence for that oh-so-handy bit of pro-authenticity window-dressing, one that opens the glittering multi-department store door to Resurrectional snapshots by one means or another? 

Radiation aplenty from on high. All that’s missing is the Shroud of Turin….

Answer: essentially zilch, despite that much cited 2010 paper from 6 closely-closeted members of the SSG, aka Shroud Science Group, or as I would say, Shroud “Science” Group.  There’s science, and there’s “science”. ..

My Model 10 explains how the central pro-authenticity, dare one say,  drum-banging idea of a seemingly superficial body image (correction: “ultra-superficial” body image -confined we’re told to the PCW)  could have arisen through a simple experimental device deployed by the 1978 STURP team – namely to deploy STICKY TAPE  to strip off individual image fibres. The microscope was then focused on the tiny residue  of  faintly-yellow body image pigment  aka chromophore that came off with stripped fibres,  AS DISTINCT FROM THE MUCH GREATER MASS OF WHAT WAS LEFT BEHIND. Which was?   Chemical composition? Answer: probably, nay almost certainly, inter-fibre SOLIDIFIED  glue (micro-particulate Maillard browning products,  and no doubt maybe much else besides exuding at elevated temperature – 180 degrees C or more – from a roasting,  but closely monitored FLOUR IMPRINT).  Yes, those medieval  modellers of the J of A lien no doubt roasted (whether by oven or over open fire) until they got the right degree of colour, one that could  be communicated as  the age-yellowed body imprint  (plus blood stains) left on J of A’s “fine linen” , deployed as stretcher, en route from cross to tomb…

Its essential message: my flour-imprinting  (phew, final!) Model 10 is almost certainly the means by which the Turin Shroud body image was produced in the mid-14th century (as per radiocarbon dating). It was the second-stage heating step that generated the yellow/brown body image, comprising the same class of chemical end-products  – solid, albeit micro-particulate Maillard browning  products – first flagged up by STURP’s lead chemist (Raymond N Rogers) albeit via an entirely different chemical pathway with different starting ingredients!

Late insertion (July 7, 2020) : see tail end postscript, under heading (guess what?) , “Postscript”.

It has my latest thinking re the nature of what one really sees under the microscope when viewing my Model 10 image threads and fibres (and, by implication, maybe, just maybe , the Shroud of Turin!) . You may think you are looking at coloured image FIBRES. But might you in fact be looking at something else, something that might seem to resemble interspersed fibres within bundles (inviting that mystique-fostering  tag “half-tone effect”) but  which is, if the truth be told,  something entirely different ...?   

Nuff said for now.  Scroll down  to end of this, my Final Online Shroud Blog Posting, approx No 371, for RED postscript!

These photomicrographs of a Model 10 image fibre at two levels of magnification provide a foretaste:

Yes, image colour both faint AND blurred – but for a reason!

Here you see a linen thread that has been partially unspun, and a drop of red dye then placed on a nearby unspun portion. The dye migrates at high speed in the gaps between fibres, then comes to an abrupt halt when the fibres are too far apart to permit capillary migration.  See later for the proposed relevance to the Shroud body image, based on my growing conviction that  the body image chromophore was generated initially as a short-lived liquid,  but only capable of migrating a few millimetres at most before turning into a high molecular solid (i.e. a melanoidin, aka Maillard browning product)

Summary (initially the posting’s Title!):

Shroud of Turin – herewith my final internet Report of an 8 year learning curve (concluding with the flour-imprinting Model 10).

Main conclusion: crucial second-stage ROASTING of a 14th century whole body FLOUR IMPRINT – designed to mimic an aged sweat-imprint left on Joseph of Arimathea’s “fine linen” (deployed EXCLUSIVELY stretcher-wise for cross-to-tomb transport!) momentarily generated thread-penetrating LIQUEFIED chemical species, the latter quickly depositing between linen fibres as a SOLID micro-particulate GLUE of , among other things, visible Maillard browning products. (That’s as distinct from the exclusive focus in the 1981 STURP Summary on largely-conjectural chemically-modified linen fibres per se as the sole origin of body image colour) .

Here’s how the core idea of this posting began, way, way  back in Oct 2014  on my science buzz blog site. The key word is FLOUR, more specifically white MEDIEVAL flour!

If I had to choose just one paper from the 370 or so this science bod has published on the Shroud of Turin these last 8 years, experimentally modelling the means by which the  pilgrim-attracting body image could  have been fabricated in the mid-14th century, it would probably be this.

(More editing to follow. Please bear with me…)

Apols for the posting’s  original exceptionally lengthy title.  Why so long? Answer: because it attempted to summarise my 100 month “learning curve”, the latter begun at the tail-end of 2011 no less, culminating finally in my 2015 Model 10, the basis for which took shape between 2012 and 2014.

https://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com/2015/05/modelling-turin-shroud-my-flournitric.html

Added note: 1 week after posting. Normally I leave postings untouched, free of alterations, afterthoughts etc. However, this being the last posting on this, my specialist Shroud site,  I reserve the right to edit at will. So please don’t take anything you read here as my last word on the matter. Blink and you may see a massaged passage or two – or worse – like deletions or indeed new insertions. 

What brought me into Shroud research?  Answer: it was an article in the UK-based Independent newspaper, Dec 2011, highlighting the claims of  Government scientists at Italy’s ENEA research institute. They  had made use (after hours as I seem to recall) of their employer’s pulsed laser beam generators to colour up linen. They claimed they had a model for the mechanism by which the Shroud acquired its faint yellow/brown body image!  Think flash of radiation!

No, not a 14th century artefact, as per report in Nature  journal on the tri-centre 1988 radiocarbon dating  (Arizona, Oxford, Zurich) but a product of biblical Resurrection!

I baulked, as I suspect did many others! Here was my immediate response, posted to my science buzz site .

It showed how one could  intercept and entrap conventional radiation (a mix of heat and light from a filament lamp) onto linen, using a black absorber of radiation, generating – guess what a yellow brown coloration.  No pulsed uv laser beams  are needed. What’s more, by drawing or imprinting with charcoal, one could fashion images of a sort (the Italians having overlooked to mention image production, being content with their trumpeted  “discoloration” of linen).

So what had led them down that particular road, one which featured  (one has to say) a highly unusual form of radiation, one that does not exist in nature, at least that we are aware of – laser beams with their totally-in-step wave forms being 20th century ?

The chief author was Dr. Paolo di Lazzaro

His name was one of 6 on a 2010 paper that had appeared the previous year,  all fellow members of the somewhat secretive and mysterious “SSG”  (Shroud Science Group) claiming among other things that the Shroud body image was highly superficial, confined to the outermost PCW (primary cell wall) of linen fibres, with none visible in the SCW (secondary cell wall of a damaged fibre) and, importantly, no mention of the possibility that the image colour might reside between linen fibres, as distinct from a chemically-modified PCW.

Back to my 2015 Model 10.

(Ignore the initial use of Model 8 nitric acid used to develop the contact  imprint of my own face. Computerised-imaging software  alone was shown to be sufficient to develop a negative tone-reversed Shroud like image – see the margin entry on on the top right hand side of this site’s Home Page. 

Here’s a reminder (to save you having to scroll back):

It shows the computer-enhanced image of my own facial contact imprint. Shame about that beard and moustache – both of which I lack,  generated as an artefact of  imprinting a facial prominence (chin!) under applied manual pressure (face first coated with imprinting medium – a wet slurry of flour and water – then pressed down onto a sheet of linen with underlying pillow to help mould the fabric to the facial contours – with a little flattening of the nose.  Do these incidental details  – “beard”, “moustache”,  “flattened nose”  ring any bells?). 

Oh, and here’s another application of essentially the same methodology to get an imprint off a small (14cm high) plastic figurine. (Note the extraordinary capture of fine detail, despite the 3D nature of the template):

Here’s some quickie ImageJ processing of my Model 10  roasted flour imprint on the right,  done just 5 minutes ago for this posting,. First  step: light/dark inversion, then 3D enhancement. Yes, a mere 5 minute job!

Not bad, eh?

That’s  a brief glimpse of my flour imprinting methodology  used from a presumed  (14th century) adult male body  to fabricate the TS body imprint -front and rear  – probably using one (or maybe 2!)  of 6 or so Lirey clerics employed by the knightly battle-hardened Geoffroi de Charny – ostensibly to pray for his soul.    Those volunteers were probably also coated from head-to-toe, front and back with an imprinting medium (white flour too?) then had wettened,  contour-hugging  linen laid over the whole-body   – which was then firmly pressed manually from above  only (not sides!). Then the crucial step: roast the imprinted linen gently over a source of heat (red hot, flame-free wood or charcoal embers?) until the desired degree of yellow coloration had been obtained, then wash the imprinted vigorously with soap and water to dislodge loose-bound material, leaving a faint but firmly-bound residue.

Purpose? To simulate/mimic  the body imprint  that one could IMAGINE had been left by transport of a certain crucified body from cross to tomb in Joseph of Arimathea’s hastily- obtained “fine linen” (deployed stretcher-wise|).  .

Forget  the authenticity-smitten  STURP-initiator’s  early pro-authenticity “lateral distortion” arguments assuming body imprinting  via loosely draped, gravity- mediated (no manual-pressure) contact only at the later Stage 2 (Gospel of John only) tomb-emplacement  stage!).

Yes, that would have imprinted sides of body as well. But read the Bible!

J of A’s linen was NOT used for final burial in the tomb (and is almost certainly NOT a “shroud” in the sense of “burial shroud”.

It was a mimicking of J of A’s “fine linen” deployed for transport only – NOT final burial. Get that right, and everything else falls  into place where the Shroud of Turin is concerned (subsequent to its  radiocarbon dating to the 14th century, post the little we know starting with its exhibition in the remote village of Lirey by  the knightly G. de Charny, close associate of  his  monarch King John (“The Good”) , with whom he fought alongside to his death at the Battle of Poitiers , 1356,  chosen to bear his King’s ensign .

Pro-authenticity sindonology generally says next to nothing about the first recorded owner of the Shroud of Turin –   Crusader Knight G. de Charny – far less  speculate on why he – or his widow especially, post his death  in battle at Poitiers especially , may have instructed his private Chapel’s clerics to create the artefact (and later promote it as a genuine relic).

Mote to follow (via serial additions over the next few days tomorrow only).

June 21:

Here’s a flavour of the kind of research I’m doing right now with Model 10 threads – the assumption being that the methodology (flour imprinting/heating) was that deployed in the mid-1300s, that anything I can learn about Model 10 threads and component fibres could give insights to the Shroud.

First, here’s a quickie  experiment. Take a Model 10 image thread (faint yellow). Using sticky tape, place side-by-side with a non-image control thread from the same treated linen.

Top: Model 10 image thread (yellowish); bottom: control, non-image thread – both from same treated linen.

Then, holding  the sticky-tape grips at both ends, first twist both threads clockwise  then anti-clockwise.  (20 one way, 20 opposite direction, 20 first way etc etc). Compare the ease with which the two threads can be unspun to separate the fibres within each thread:

Here’s how the two threads compare after a couple of hundred back-and-forth twists:

The darning needle was used merely as a weight, and reference to size. (It was not used to tease out fibres).

Yes, the fibres separate more easily on the control (non-image) thread. Why? That’s still a matter for speculation, but there’s an obvious explanation. The image chromophore was formed initially as a liquid which then proceeded to penetrate the channels between fibres via capillary action, which then solidified to form an adhesive that bound fibres together.  Implications? The chromophore is not an ultra-superficial layer confined to the PCW of image fibres. It’s present throughout  the interior of each image thread, occupying spaces between fibres. Strip out a single fibre, as Rogers did with his sticky tape, and you may well see a a thin coating on each fibre surface.  But don’t jump to conclusions. One could merely  be seeing what was left behind when the individual fibres were stripped away from their immediate neighbours.

The above experiment gives only a behavioural comparison between image and non-image-bearing threads. It rarely gives anything useful visually, such is the subtlety of the image chromophore, depending on whether fibres are viewed collectively in threads or well-separated from each other.  But there’s a variant on the above experiment that is presently being investigated (and shows promise). One places grip tapes just a few millimetres apart on each thread, and in addition to unspinning, one puts rhythmic pressure on the opposite ends, as if a concertina. That helps to gently separate the individual fibres, allowing one to view the appearance and/or disappearance of the image chromophore.   (Aside: should the combination of unspinning and ‘concertining’ fail to split up the fibre bundles, banishing from view that now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t yellow-tinted image chromophore  at the same time, then there is an ultimate solution – prod, poke and tease out  the cut end of an image thread with the finest darning needle you can find – under the microscope.

Observe the faint presence of particulate material, especially top left, where it seems that a solid-state glue has disintegrated as a result of separating fibres with the tip of the darning  needle (lower right)

Here’s the same after photoediting  (adjustment of brightness/darkness, colour, clarity) with a white circle and oval to highlight the places where a superficial frost-like  encrustation on the fibres is especially apparent:

Were there ever to be a STURP Mk2, I would advise a second round of microscopy to seek out McCrone’s “sub-micron” particles. No, not jeweller’s rouge (superfine Fe2O3)  for late touching up as he claimed, but the same light-reflecting encrustation you see highlighted in the Model 10 image above. I suspect the latter to be solid-state Maillard browning products, lodged initially in inter-fibre channels, into which they had migrated in their briefly liquid precursor state. Those longitudinal streaks of invasive solid  were subsequently broken-up and better revealed when the above thread was teased apart into separate fibres using the point of a darning needle (white streak lower right)

(Oops. I see from current reading that Walter McCrone later retracted  his somewhat bizarre claim for a later addition via ‘touching up’  of an anachronistic superfine  post-18th century ‘jeweler’s rouge’ (American spelling). I’ll spare you the details. Where and how that retraction appeared is anyone’s guess given the  self-enriching $ paywall that blocks access to his 40-year-old Shroud findings on his still-surviving  microscopy.org site. 

Suffice it to say that the brief intrusion onto early Phase 1 STURP of  then ” microscopy consultant”  Walter McCrone who was later denied full STURP-associate status (reportedly for pursuing his own agenda) created huge areas of uncertainty  as to precisely what he saw. and /or correctly interpreted (or otherwise) under his microscope.  Try finding,  dear site visitor,  an image file on Shroud fibres under his name and you will see what I mean.  My own  body-fibre image researches thus far : zilch, absolute zilch! I shall  consequently make no further reference to McCrone’s  claims for “sub-micron’ particles if  likely to be seen  as a  means of bolstering my own final  Model 10 image chromophore.  A few strands of evidence  re the TS are  gold-plated. Not so that from the late Walter McCrone who basically “saw” under his microscope  basically what he wanted to see…  Such is the nature and vulnerabilities of science  versus “science”)

(Oops! That microscope-aided needling technique  above  for separating linen fibres from their neighbours comes with a little practice – and patience! Yes, back to the no-nonsense science…). 

I prefer to interpret what I see (or don’t always see)  from current experimentation at the thread and fibre level as a thin inter-fibre glue, as distinct from the ultra-thin membrane film confined to the PCW  (so beloved by those wishing to promote one or other kind of ‘radiation photography’ – closing their minds completely to  more down-to-earth image production from simple  medieval-era imprinting via physical contact, followed by  fairly-undemanding second-stage thermal processing. Like, er, you know, my Model 10!

Here’s  btw is another experiment I did just yesterday.

It used threads taken from a Model 10 (roasted/washed  flour imprint of my own hand, comparing the behaviour of (a) image zone threads (b) non-image zone threads when the cut ends were dipped into a solution of red dye.

(I’ll say more in a minute as to why I’m reporting the results here. Suffice it to say the  results are not, repeat NOT earthshaking. They are here simply to give a flavour of my ongoing Shroud research aided by the three microscopes that sit side-by- side on the dining room table.

Thread from non-image zone, left of centre; thread from image zone (faint yellow coloration), right of centre. Each end sits in its own puddle of red food colouring (anthocyanins etc). Snap shot at start, before dye has started to migrate  via capillary action along the two threads.

The “Model 10” linen is shown in this photo. My imprinted fingers are just visible. The dye has started to migrate

Here’s the result just over 20 mins later. Note that the dye runs further and faster along the control (non-image) thread. Curiously (?) it also looks a little darker, despite the absence of image chromophore. (Maybe the image-free thread can accommodate more dye having vacant unoccupied capillary channels to start with?). See following image and caption for a microscopic view.

Yes, here’s a microscopic comparison of  my Model 10 flour-imprinted linen stained with the same red dye (left side) compared with the non-image zone from the same sample, but also stained with red dye (right side). Illumination was from below (not above).

The difference is subtle, but it’s there. provided one illuminates from below.  The existence of image chromophore on the left plus red dye gives a discernible difference. There’s another important feature too, not immediately obvious in the photograph, better seen through the microscope eyepiece.  I shall try to capture it on photo before commenting further.

Here’s the same photomicrograph as above. It’s been been lightly photoedited (colour, clarity). It gives a better idea of what one actually sees directly through the microscope eyepiece:

As above: Model 10 imprint image zone (left), control, non-image zone (right) both after exposure of  the same sample of treated linen to migrating red dye.

Am I content to look at threads or even individual fibres from the side only, as seen above?  Good heavens no. What do you take me for?  A mainstream sindonologist? Nope, I’m a boring  old real scientist, one  who likes to tick all the necessary boxes. Am busy right now looking at  essential  cross-sections too. It’s not been easy, not having a microtome at my disposal for creating ultra-thin wax-embedded slices.

(Anyone wishing to acquire a microtome should  maybe take a look at this  commercial website  – giving a clue to the cost of suitable science-capable  microtomes, glorified ham slicers,  i.e starting   between about £300 and £800 .

http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/microtomy.html

(I personally have  invested a total of  4 figures  – £ sterling-  on my 3  increasingly sophisticated microscopes.  But given the virtually zero feedback  from ‘ mainstream sindonology’  on my  8 years of online communicated data and conclusions,  much of it microscope-based, I  shan’t be wasting a further penny of my  modest pensioner income on  expensive hardware!)

So,  by way of  makeshift alternatives,  I’m currently developing  rough-and-ready techniques for looking at stubs of threads and indeed individual fibres  END ON of ever decreasing length (am currently down to less than a millimetre!). Oh boy, is it subtle, at both thread and especially fibre level  – viewed, as I say,  END ON!

Similar results to the ones above have been obtained using other dyes (e.g. methylene blue, iodine solution, i.e. faster migration along non-image zone threads). The iodine test showed an additional feature of interest where image-zone threads are concerned, but I shall be keeping that to myself for the foreseeable future (see below).

Yes, as flagged up above, what you see here are my final experimental data being posted as an online learning curve. I’ve completed most of my learning now where the Shroud is concerned via some 370  postings here and on my sciencebuzz site, and via thousands of comments (literally) posted to other sites, notably Dan Porter’s now-finally retired shroudstory,com, via international skeptics forum, via skeptics and seekers etc etc.

But it has to be said: sharing one’s data online, inviting criticism etc etc has  to be largely a one way street. I summed up my frustration back in 2018, asking in a post title why my “simulated sweat imprint” Model 10  was getting no attention whatsoever, not even  references in the wider Shroud literature (bar Dan Porter’s site, this posting in particular used to temporarily reopen his site after a 3 year shutdown)), why there was no entry of this site  or its central idea on the 20 pages/200 Google  returns under (shroud of turin). I’v said in the past all I need to say about Google and its contemptible modus operandi. The one regret this blogger had about voting for Brexit in 2016 was that continued membership of the  otherwise tediously legalistic EU might finally produce an ultimatum to Google: either you clean up your act,  Google, or you are banned from European laptops and cellphones.

(Late insertion: see this article in today’s Mail, June 24, 2020,  confirming everything I’ve long suspected regarding overnight, secretive changes in the algorithms used to determine what does or does not appear in Google’s search listings.)

From Mail Online, 24 June, 2020.  (My highlighting in yellow of unannounced change in algorithm that determines rankings in Google search returns – reinforcing this science blogger’s similar disgust and contempt expressed periodically over a number of years).  That’s assuming, btw, that Google listings are determined purely by computer algorithm, that not a  single one of Google’s tens of thousands of employees are able – for whatever reason – to override that algorithm  – read human intervention…

I’ve decided to waste no more time where the internet is concerned. I’ll leave it to others to decide where I’ve done right, where I’ve done wrong. As I say, the last 8 years have been useful, allowing me to develop and report a learning curve on a tricky topic – one where one has no access to the actual material that is housed in Turin, one where one has to be content with modelling, progressing as I have done through 9 discarded or rejigged models before settling on my final Model 10.

( July 1, 2020 :  Late insertion – a retrospective view of my 10-stage model development between 2011/12 and 2015:  yes, I hesitate to admit it, but my Model 3 from October 2014 (see screen shot just added to the  top of this posting) was essentially a preliminary version of, guess what, the final Model 10?!  Why? Answer: I had taken one of the bas relief horse brasses used in Model 2 – direct heat-scorching off the heated template –  much criticized and rightly so by the impressive Thibault Heimburger – and as a variant, smeared it with oil, dusted with white flour (yes, WHITE FLOUR!),  pressed down onto linen to get an imprint, then held the imprint over a hot oven ring to get a yellow-brown negative imprint. Yes, a breakaway from  ‘simple’ one -stage scorching (Model 2) off  a hot metal  statue or bas relief, substituting unclothed whole-body male volunteer(s)!

Late insertion/correction – oops it was. I was initially thinking that a coating of white flour on linen might render it more sensitive to scorching with a heated metal template – as indeed proved to be the case – yet another reason for  initially thinking of white flour merely as an adjunct to  one-stage Model 2, i.e. direct scorching off a hot metal template. It took a while (years!) for the full potential of white flour as an imprinting medium from whole body anatomy  onto linen, followed by independent second-stage heating of the  imprinted linen, to be appreciated!

It was the linen with its flour imprint that was heated as a bit of a side-show – or so it seemed at the time!  So why did I not immediately drop Model 2, and  proceed to promote variant Model 3 with its 2-stage process featuring flour as a mere sensitizer to heated metal template as the likely solution to medieval production of the Shroud body image (i.e. still a one-stage process)? Answer: I simply did not fully appreciate at the time that if an image could be taken from a metallic bas relief  horse brass using merely oil, flour and heat,   all available in the mid 1350s  – as per 3-centre radiocarbon dating – then the same could in principle be done with 3D human anatomy, whether a hand, face or entire body.  Oh. And one other thing – a  mere practical detail: I had also imprinted onto DRY linen in Model 3, getting a somewhat  unsatisfactory image that was excessively fuzzy and flaky in the extreme.  My later Model 10 used imprinting with dry flour onto  3D CONTOUR-HUGGING WET LINEN. So 6-7 years ago  I  unthinkingly moved on  immediately from Model 3 to Model 4 (imprinting with  an entirely different model deploying liquid tannins with added viscosity agents). Yes. my ‘head was turned’ by the briefly attractive Joe Accetta tannin-imprinting model, weaning me off, albeit briefly  from thermal imprinting.  Oops. Such is the nature of scientific investigation – one doesn’t always appreciate the pros of new developments, being hung-up on  the cons of practical details. It  occasionally, nay invariably takes time for theoretical implications to be  fully appreciated, given one was not born with Albert Einstein’s mental faculties.  On the other hand, think  super-IQ hares and  lower IQ tortoises …).

I had originally intended to round off this final posting with a summary of the main features of Model 10, and why I believe it to be the correct one, consistent with a 14th century modelling  (probably by Geoffroi de Charny’s home-based band of clerics) of the kind of body imprint that could, repeat COULD (in theory) have been left on Joseph of Arimathea’s “fine linen”, deployed as a stretcher between cross and tomb (no, NOT as the final burial shroud for tomb-interment, so not a recipient for a supernatural flash  of unspecified radiation at the instant of Resurrection, leaving a fanciful “proto-photograph” on the ultra-superficial primary cell wall only of linen fibres. (Or so we’re told in that SSG paper from 2010, whose chief author bombarded me  via email some 15 months ago with its 24 so-called Shroud  “characteristics”.  (OK, so a few of that  plethora of listed so-called “characteristics” were valid – but  many were anything but). I cannot ever recall seeing a so-called scientific paper, least of all in a peer-reviewed journal  in which half-baked fanciful notions are listed as “characteristics”, indeed in the title no less.  Prime example: the body image is confined exclusively to a 200nm PCW (primary cell wall).  That claim can be shot down on theoretical grounds alone!

SSG?  Shroud Science group? As I’ve said elsewhere,  that ghastly paper should be retracted, preferably by the SSG itself if it has any respect for the term “Science”. Failing that, especially if continuing its private chats behind its closed doors, its private online website etc, it should rename itself, (e.g. SRG, Shroud Research Group?). Change of name would not prevent it remaining the same remote, elitist, superior-than-thou entity that exists at present…

But it’s all be said before on this site, and, as I say, totally ignored for the most part.

What I shall do in the next few days and weeks is maybe create a list of what I consider my more significant findings, either in the home or the garage.

Comments are still invited, hopefully addressed to the science, though I don’t promise to respond to each and every one.

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Postscript (yup,  frightfully overlong and repetitive in places, added June 23:

My current thinking re what was going on inside linen threads (maybe fibres too) is currently in a state of re-evaluation – based on the possible relevance of the capillary migration comparisons of image v non-image fibres shown above.

Here’s a possible scenario – though it’s not one that is easy to test, least of all with the real item.

Heat was deployed to create the yellow chromophore (whether from white flour or some other organic, i.e. carbon-based imprinting agent). It exuded from each flour particle in my Model 10 as a liquid – the mobility no doubt aided by the trace of oil that was smeared on the subject’s body initially to assist with even distribution and weak attachment of the flour. Chemical composition of the liquid? Complex, but one that can be summarised as precursors of melanoidins, i.e. Maillard browning products, essentially the same as those that are formed on the surface crust in bread baking etc.
That “goo” soaked into the underlying thread and its 200 or so constituent, closely packed fibres. It then proceeded to insinuate itself into the tiny spaces (aka capillary channels) that exist between each of the fibres, and then proceed to migrate a short, repeat SHORT distance between and along fibres. (When I say short, I mean millimetres rather than centimetres). Why not further? Answer: because the melanoidin precursors proceed to polymerise en route to form high molecular end-product melanoidins which are SOLIDS.

(Late insertion: I plan to do an experiment soon where I take a single thread of linen, enclose all but a few cm with aluminium foil, then dab the exposed part with oil and flour (i.e. Model 10) and heat the assembly, probably held horizontally over a ceramic hob. When the exposed stretch turns the expected yellow or brown, the aluminium foil will be stripped off. How far will the yellow colour have penetrated to either side of the part exposed to flour and oil (while still receiving some heat)?  Current Model 10 (July 2020) predicts that the colour will creep just a few millimetres or so  under the aluminium foil BETWEEN linen fibres via capillary migration before the briefly liquid melanoidin precursors polymerise and solidify, accounting for the distinct but SLIGHT fuzziness only of the TS body image.)

In other words, solid-state chromophore was quickly formed as a resinous type material that then partly (but not completely) blocked those capillary channels between the linen fibres. Now here’s the new thinking: when Mark Evans and others viewed image fibres they saw an amazingly-even colour within the threads that extended for a short length and then abruptly ended. It was that “either-or nature” of the even colour (either presence or absence, no in-betweens) which gave rise to the slightly licentious essential term “half-tone effect” and to what were termed “discontinuities”. (Let’s omit the reference to striations” which I don’t pretend to understand).
Now here’s the essential new input. It may have seemed – at a quick glance – as if they were looking at yellow fibres, aligned side-by-side, when viewing the image fibres. But there’s an alternative explanation.
Linen fibres are said to be polygonal in cross-section, i.e. like irregular pentagons, hexagons etc. That means that the channels between closely -spaced fibres may also be polygonal in cross-section, and then look for all the world as if yellow fibres when viewed from the side in intact linen threads. It was my failure to see, least of all focus with the microscope onto the fibres in my Model 10 threads – and Mark Evan’s notion of “half-tone effect” that gave rise to the thought that I might not looking at yellow fibres, but inter-fibre channels at least partly and in some instances fully occupied by a migrating liquid that had quickly solidified.

Left: Model 10 image-zone fibres at low magnification. Right: the same at x10 magnification. Note first the curious interrupted nature of the colour seen at low magnification, and somewhat smeared- out distribution of  colour. The colour is even more  patchy and smeared out at high magnification, hardly what one would expect to see if confined to fibres. I propose the colour is not  IN the fibres, or even a thin coating onto the fibres, least of all confined to the 200nm thick PCW.  I propose  it’s  trapped within capillary channels BETWEEN the fibres, having accessed (briefly) in the liquid state prior to rapid solidification to micro-particulate  Maillard  browning products generated by  Rogers’ amino-carbonyl reacions. . I say Model 10 is a valid model for the TS body image with its so-called “half-tone” effect, a term coined by Mark Evans for the peculiar  blurry nature and colour distribution seen under the microscope.

What about a vital cross-section (bizarrely omitted from “official” TS reporting on image threads and fibres)?  Ah, there’s the problem: I don’t have a microtome  for creating thin sections. My stubs of threads, placed end-up, are too thick to allow one to distinguish between fibres and inter-fibre channels, making it impossible to know where the colour is located:

A Model 10 image-zone thread was placed in a fold of white sticky tape that was then cut to a short height, allowing the cut end to be viewed  end-on through a light microscope (top illumination).  Oh dear! No conclusions possible as yet with present home-based technology…

One thing’s for certain. One can take a Model 10 image-zone thread, pull it into two longitudinally to get two roughly equal halves with partially separated fibres, then examine under the microscope. What does one see? Answer: relatively little colour, compared with an intact thread, but here’s the crucial observation. The surface of the individual fibres is peppered with reflective “gritty” looking particles, almost as if sugar-coated (with the faintest hint of yellow). What is one looking at?  Answer: almost certainly the image chromophore – initially forming tubular plugs within the inter-fibre channels. When the threads are subject to rough treatment, the fibres separate and those tubular plugs then proceed to disintegrate into  masses of small  coating particles. Wasn’t there a reference  made to a “frosty” appearance to the surface of image fibres some 40 years ago, either by Ray Rogers or maybe Alan Adler/John Heller?

Back now to the red font passage, having concluded that brief excursion into home-based thread/fibre microscopy…

If  the image chromophore were to be mainly or even exclusively located  between fibres as packed solid-state Maillard rbrowning products, then there are two implications. First, my previous notion of chromophore getting across  the PCW into the SCW with its own inner cache of intervening channels between microfibrils may need to be qualified or even discarded. Why? Because soldification of the initially liquid chromophore mix between fibres, creating pseudo-fibres under the microscope may mean that the colour stays OUTSIDE the PCW, with little if any getting across.

What’s needed is a search for solid-state chromophore particles, whether between fibres or maybe albeit less probably microfibrils. Yes, maybe detectable under the microscope as sub-micron size particles as claimed by McCrone, but no, not iron oxide, but melanoidins formed by Maillard condensation reactions, as featured in Rogers’ model, albeit from entirely different starting materials (no, not a 14th century imprinting agent, like my white flour, but a claimed Roman era additive to early-stage linen – namely starch, interacting with body decomposition vapour ).

Let’s quickly summarise: the image chromophore was initially in the capillary channels between fibres. (It may later have invaded the capillary channels between the microfibrils of fibres, but that is no longer my major focus – we scientists being entitled to shift focus, especially if influenced by our own new experimental data – like that oh-so-crude experiment described here with the thread-penetrating coloured dyes).
But while a liquid initially, it only remained in that physical state for a short time, quickly becoming a solid (high molecular weight melanoidin). It then partially “clogged up” some but probably not all the inter-fibre channels (leaving others open in my Model 10 imprints for new entrants like my red dye etc).

When sindonologists came along, stripping out individual fibres with their sticky tape etc, they tore one fibre apart from another, demolishing the seeming “pseudo-fibre” that existed in the intervening spaces between channels. They homed in on the PCW outermost layer of the fibre, saw the colour they expected, failed to look at image cross-sections to see what might be inside the SCW (a single damaged fibre being cited as showing a colour-free SCW) and then went on to propose that the chromophore was located EXCLUSIVELY on the outermost surface of the PCW.
In so doing they overlooked the possibility flagged up here, namely that chromophore had clogged up a proportion of the channels between fibres during the imprinting process , and accordingly that the image chromophore was in fact a lot more dominant, dare one say omnipresent, than being merely confined to an ultra-thin PCW surface.
So, along comes mystique-promoting sindonologist, message-promoting bit between teeth, strips out (sticky tape or otherwise) a single fibre, sees colour on surface, and declares the image is confined to the most superficial layer of the fibre. Hey presto, that then opens the door to all kinds of radiation-generated proto-photography (1st century, approx 33AD!), miraculous, semi-miraculous, faintly miraculous (take your pick).

I say no, repeat NO! All that was needed was for a briefly liquefied chromophore, generated by a second stage heating of an imprinting medium (probably wheat flour) to insert itself between the individual fibres of linen threads, to migrate a short distance (mm), then solidify, with or without further penetration within fibres, to form a resinous solid (particle?) between fibres. When the fibres were stripped out, hey presto there was an apparent chromophore coating on those fibres.

Late insertion: here’s a couple of graphics hastily put together a few minutes ago that sum up the current thinking:

First, here’s the model proposed by the 2010 SSG paper with the yellow colour  confined to the PCW of image fibres, polygonal in cross-section,  to which I’ve made an addition: namely the surrounding inter-fibre channels, also polygonal in cross-section (colour-coded in grey):

There we see 5 image fibres in cross-section with the image colour confined to the 200nm thick PCW – shown above with exaggerated thickness. It’s a model that I reject entirely! Why? Note how I have surrounded each polygonal image fibre with an enveloping surround of inter-fibre channels, ALSO POLYGONAL IN CROSS-SECTION,  coloured coded GREY (as if lacking yellow colour!)

How has the above model been modified? Here’s a hastily-put together 3-part graphic that hopefully conveys the essence of the new thinking:

LEFT:  what one might expect to see under the microscope if the colour were present in image fibres only, but not, repeat NOT, confined to the PCW, but spread throughout the entire polygon. (It’s a model I considered but have now discarded), Centre: abandon the idea of colour being confined to the fibre cells .  CENTRE:  Re-start  from scratch with a clean slate where there’s no colour in the fibre cells per se or the surrounding inter-fibre channels; RIGHT: now put the yellow colour NOT in the fibre cells but into the surrounding inter-fibre channels, filling most or all those available space,  Leave the fibre cells devoid of colour – or largely so – whether PCW only, SCW only or both. The colour is now transferred to pseudo-fibres, i.e. longitudinal  inter-fibre channels masquerading under the microscope as if fibre cells, due to their near-identical narrow extended length  and similar polygonal cross-section!

Here’s a attempt to link what you see above with the earlier-described red-dye penetration experiment:

Observe the solid white spot in one of the central inter-fibre channels. That’s to show that it does not need to be completely occupied, the spot representing an unfilled zone. That’s why red dye  – see earlier – can migrate via capillary creep  – albeit slowly along image-fibres –  because the latter, while partially obstructed –  are not totally blocked and sealed off  by solidified image pigment. ( Alternatively, some channels get used by image pigments, but not all, the latter available for later passage of red dye.)

Warning: the above schematic diagrams are first thoughts, which crystallized in my head just yesterday. On reflection, I’ve created too many inter-fibre channels, over and above what’s allowed by the polygonal cell walls of fibres. Here’s another slimmed-down version – probably more realistic with a greater ratio of fibre cell to inter-fibre space:

Grey represents polygonal-shaped FIBRE cells, yellow represents inter-fibre spaces occupied by body image pigment. The schematic needs expanding to create more polygons that can then be designated  as fibre or inter-fibre – thus the provisional question marks.

Yes, the inter-fibre spaces should be totally bounded by polygonal fibre cells, as suggested in the revised diagram above.  But the revised diagram is not without its problems : it would fail to give coloration to all the polygonal walls of the affected fibre cell!   Drat!

In fact, why bother with polygonal geometry for inter-fibre channel cross-sections? Who’s to say it’s not just the fibre cells per se that are polygonal, with intervening spaces between them with no particular geometry that simply get penetrated by body image pigment, migrating through via capillary action.

What you see here is preliminary reporting of a new hypothesis ‘on the hoof’ so to speak – but (sorry to repeat myself)  it’s my LAST POSTING on the Shroud, so I feel at liberty to flag up future directions for speculation, hypothesis generation, experimental testing and re-testing, amended hypothesis etc etc . It’s my understanding of that tedious oh-so-old-fashioned “scientific method”.  😉

Incidentally, my Model 10, with its feature of a migrating liquid, quickly solidifying to a high-molecular solid in the channels between linen fibres, gives an explanation for a rarely-commented upon feature of Shroud image fibres. I refer to the brittle nature of image fibres – recalling Rogers’ observation that they tended to fracture more easily than non-image fibres when pulled away from the Shroud with his Mylar sticky tape. Why?  Because the threads and especially their component fibres were rendered brittle by the presence of that solid intrusion between fibres. When the micro-pipes of intrusion broke, then it tended to break the adjacent fibres at the same time! I have yet to see an explanation for why an oh-so-superficial image layer on a 200nm PCW, a mere fiftieth or less of the diameter of a fibre, allegedly a mere ‘photograph, should render the entire fibre prone to fracture! Model 10 supplies the answer. Think briefly-liquid chromophore, turning to a solid in the blink of an eye!

Oh, and intrusive (albeit briefly) liquid chromophore also accounts for the so-called “double superficiality” aka reverse side image breakthrough. I’ll leave you to guess why, dear reader! Hint: the feature, described on Mario Latendresse’s splendid sindonology.org  site,  is restricted to those parts of body anatomy that would be most prominent (highest relief), i.e. nose and crossed hands laid across abdomen,  if imprinting via physical contact (applied manual pressure, no air gaps permitted). Nuff said.

Yes, I shall be following up my comparison of capillary creep along  Model 10 threads, image v non-image, with one of comparison of mechanical strength, i.e. proneness to fracture when dangled vertically, then loaded with weights.  No, I shan’t be reporting results to the internet (having drawn a line under that unrewarding chapter in 8 years of internet blogging).

Guess what? The image chromophore was  declared (SSG, 2010) to be exclusive (no ifs, no buts) to the outermost layer of those fibres, ignoring or overlooking that there was a more substantial presence BETWEEN the fibres, notably those greatly overlooked capillary channels between fibres . No,  NOT JUST the channel-facing surface of those fibres.  No  microscopic cross-section of an image fibre  was shown – an amazing  nay extraordinary omission (nuff said!). What we saw in 2010  is an unforgiveable skimping of necessary research.

Science cannot progress by skimping,  Science (REAL science)  progresses by obsessive attention to detail ( and yes, inviting all kinds of negative response in our modern age to nitpicking observers, online especially, forever on the hunt for alleged  hang-ups, ipso facto alleged character defects on which they can home in and feast).

To which I say, science as reported here these last 8 years with its MO  of obsessive attention to detail IS the REAL McCoy.  OK, so retired scientists  – like myself – may initially have seen the internet  through rose-tinted spectacles as an opportunity to deliver an online learning curve. But it does not alter one jot the basic MO of science (read: review available data, hypothesize, test hypothesis, re-review with additional data, critically scrutinize  previous hypotheses,  proceed if necessary to create new hypotheses, retest etc etc.).

Yes, I know, tedious, time-consuming. long-winded but that is the science MO. Beware those who, driven by their premature conclusions or assumptions, try to take short cuts, while declaring they are pursuing a scientific MO. Not so. They are substituting pseudo-science for the real commodity. There are no short cuts in science. For a prime example of a pseudo-science shortcut, see that 2010 SSG paper, claiming the TS body image to be ultra-superficial, confined to a 200nm thick PCW! Nothing could be more misleading, further from the truth (my view, based admittedly on a mere 8 years of internet reported model development via 9 stages of learning curve to my final Model 10!).
There are theoretical grounds for rejecting a body image exclusive to a 200nm layer (I’ll spare you the details). Suffice it to say it detracts enormously for the far more likely mechanism of BODY CONTACT image imprinting (no, not supernatural photography across air gaps!).
Yes, 14 th century physical contact imprinting, deploying a simple kitchen commodity (white flour, maybe with an oil accompaniment) as imprinting medium, followed by gentle roasting to obtain the desired degree of faint yellow coloration that can be said/claimed to mimic, whether by “forgery” or mere “simulation” an ancient body sweat imprint!()

Why the negative reception to flour-imprinting, not only from dyed-in-the-wool advocates of authenticity?

Simples: the world at large has gone overboard for the notion that the Shroud body image as some kind of photograph, regardless of time or place of origin.

Here’s a prime example, from the Stephen Jones never-a-shred-of-doubt, 100% pro-authenticity website (2011)

http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2011/10/shroud-of-turin-burial-sheet-of-jesus-4.html

Reminder from above!

The world at large cannot believe that Secondo Pia’s 1898 iconic reversed negative of the face of the Man on the Shroud could be the result of anything but some kind of photography. The idea that it’s fully realizable by initial imprinting as a contact negative,  then and only then  followed by photographic processing, simply doesn’t get a look in. The fact that Pia was allowed to enhance his photo of the Shroud face initially not only by the much-publicized reversal of  negative to positive, but by enhancement of tone, definition, clarity, dark v light balance etc simply gets ignored or glossed over.  Yes, late 19th century photography got the first look-in where initial  popularised media and public perception of the Shroud image was concerned. It’s never looked back since (at least not till the 1988 radiocarbon dating came along, reversing the attempts on the part of the dubious STURP enterprise to add its largely semi-scientific tuppenceworth (nay, multi-US dollars-worth) to the alleged Shroud “enigma”).

See this pdf  from the ‘Coordinator”  of the (so-called)  Shroud Science Group (SSG). Date?

One can save oneself a lot of time by going straight to the final paragraph!

” The author is convinced after 14 years of study that, despite the impossibility of confirming authenticity from a strictly scientific view with 100% certainty, that it is the only one “photograph” of Jesus Christ who resurrected from the dead.”

I could say more, but won’t (see gist of current posting – online reporting of a scientific learning curve is, or seemed to be, back in 2012 – a valuable internet facility – but is well-nigh worthless in terms of feedback – notably SCIENCE-BASED feedback.

Nuff said… Sorry. Someone had to say it… What one gets instead is wool pulled over the eyes, not just the upturned hem of a woolly hat, but bales and bales of half-processed fleece straight off the backs of sheep (SSG follow-my-leader sheep especially, nuff said)  …

Good bye folks. As I say, Comments are still open, but there will be no more postings .

FINIS

Colin Berry (retired PhD biomedical scientist).

Shroud-blogger, among other things (plus Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, current science etc) with a final total – yawn – of 371 or so Shroud postings, December 2011 – July 2020.

Onetime Head of Nutrition and Food Safety (1978-1990), Flour Milling and Baking Research Association, Chorleywood, Herts, UK.  (Early inspiration for my final flour-imprinting/roasting Model 10? Who says man cannot live by bread alone?).

Published  October 1986

Published July 1990  (when I finally abandoned Govt. -funded scientific research – er, thanks Maggie! – for  private tutoring and secondary-school teaching , becoming Head of Science at an independent school in outer London ).

Contactable (spammers excepted) at: sciencebod01(at)aol.com

Postscript (added Aug 31, 2020)

Have just added a comment of my own to the end of this posting. It’s the end-stage in rounding off this FINAL posting of mine with a concluding message re the Shroud of Turin.

Here’s how it starts:

“So what’s the overall conclusion of this weblog and my two other TS-reporting internet sites, started in Dec 2011, now concluded with a total of some 370 postings?

Answer: It began with a strong critique of the claims made by …  “

Here’s something I’ve added to one of my own comments (Sep 2, 2020):

#################################################

Here’s a mass spectrograph I’ve found in the recent literature (2017) showing how Maillard browning products in a model system increase in number with increasing incubation/browning time. (Needed to illustrate one of my own appended comments – see below)

Why mention it here and now?

Answer – the above technology appears to provide a potential means for exploring the chemical make-up of the image chromophore (something that has evaded science for the best part of 40 years – and more!).

More to the point, it provides a means (hopefully) for distinguishing between rival models – notably the ones supplied by STURP (2 contrasting models – modified cellulose v Maillard!) and now my own Final Model 10 (“FILM-SET”).

No, we don’t need – as yet – to go the whole hog, i.e. to determine the detailed chemical structure of the image chromophore. No, far from it. Let’s be content (for starters) with determining whether or not the fragmentation pattern seen on mass spectrometry is that from a chemically-modified cellulose – as declared by STURP’s 1981 Summary – formed with no extraneous add-ons- OR whether it shows a better match with Maillard browning products, involving amino-carbonyl reactions in the first instance (the nitrogeneous amino groups supplied by additional non-cellulosic participants!).

Further Appendix: Screen shot of video supplied by Tamara for use in my return comment (preliminary)

Site visit statistics, Dec 7, 2020:

Still getting the visitors, despite some 5 months since putting up last posting (and 6 weeks since attaching last comment to that posting).

Heartening, I must say, most heartening (despite continued absence from Google listings under (shroud of turin) search!

Update (Jan 2, 2021)

I can presently be found (in a light-hearted mood) on the Boadicea Chariot site, run by an Australian called Bearsy and his Brit wife. Previously I have submitted comments only, going back 12 years and more, but today I was invited to submit a full posting!

Suppose I were allowed to re-visit just one previous holiday destination only. Where would it be?

Postscript (added Aug 9, 2021)

Here’s a screen shot (reduced size) from my Model 1 (“thermostencilling”) reported on my sciencebuzz site back at the tail-end of 2011 (later prompting the creation of this site a couple of months later). The screen shot is needed in my reply to “jp” under Latest Comments:

.Postscript (added Aug 12, 2021)

Here’s a couple of screen grabs from internet postings I’ve only just spotted, being very recent:

They sum up (in my humble view) everything that’s wrong about Shroud so-called “science”.

I’ll say no more for now, merely display this so-called “pro-authenticity” evidence from a mere 3 months ago or so that should have vanished years, nay decades ago…

Link to site with book review:

https://mercatornet.com/re-examining-the-shroud-of-turin/71666/

Comments and/or questions invited!

Image required for my latest comment on this posting, Dec 4, 2021

PS added Feb 27, 2022

• Haven’t posted (excluding updates) since Jun of 2020. That was a strategic decision – one that flagged that I was content with my Model 10 – any further time would go on checking out details re new or older data – mine or others.
• Haven’t added anything to comments or that final posting for almost 2 months. That too is/was a tactical move on my part – to show that I was not overly hung up on the TS as a research topic, despite the input of time and effort over 10 years. But then – it was a late 2011 newspaper article re alleged image characteristics (mainly colour) being duplicated with uv pulsed laser beam that brought me in – plus references to the hosting “governmental research laboratory”) not the vast amount of published literature preceding it – STURP Summary included.
• .Finally (for now) – reasons for my deciding at the outset against submitting research findings to the “peer-reviewed literature”.
• Why not? Answer: I accept (provisionally) the approx dating of the TS obtained by 3 independent labs, reported in 1988, namely 1260-1390. That makes the TS an object of medieval fabrication, excluding anything involving biblical era input. To use the peer-reviewed literature would give undeserved status to the TS, despite modern day veneration. There is, by implication, implied criticism of those who continue to use or praise the peer-reviewed literature published in the 30+ years post-1988. Excluding the peer-review literature from my reporting of data and new ideas was another STRATEGIC DECISION.
• I shall now sit tight – and SILENT – to see what emerges, wherever, whenever published. Naturally I hope my work wins recognition, but will be doing nothing to promote it further.