"1898 Secondo Pia photographed the Shroud and found that the image seemed to be a negative image since his negative glass plates showed a positive image". 1931 Giuseppe Enrie, a professional photographer took new photographs of the Shroud. His negatives confirmed what Secondo Pia had discovered more than 30 years earlier. 1955 Monsignor Guilio Ricci studied the Sudarium of Oviedo, believed to be the face cloth used on Jesus before his burial, and discovered striking similarities of blood stain patterns on the Sudarium with those on the Shroud. Dr Alan Whanger, using the Polarized Image Overlay technique, and Thomas Vuke, using computerized analysis has confirmed the similar patterns. 1973 (And 1978) Swiss criminologist Dr. Max Frei took particle samples from the Shroud by rubbing transparent sticky tape into the surface of the cloth. Frei identified 58 different pollens, many which established that the cloth had been in the Jerusalem area as well as parts of the Middle East which include Constantinople and Edessa. 1976 Research physicists Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper discovered that the Shroud image produced a 3-dimensional image when analyzed with the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer at the Sandia Scientific Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Normal photographs and works of art do not produce this effect. 1978 A team of over forty scientists, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) conducted a comprehensive investigation of the Shroud. Detailed photographs were taken, particulate matter was collected using sticky tape and detailed scientific observations and analysis about the Shroud were extensively documented. This material has been the basis for much of the subsequent research on the Shroud. 1988 A small sample of the Shroud's linen fabric was tested using carbon 14 dating methods. The conclusions of the tests suggest that the linen was produced between 1260 and 1390 CE. These tests have since been questioned on the several grounds. 1994 Dr. Dimitri Kouzenetsov and Dr. A. Ivanov proposed that biofractionalization in flax as well as the fire of 1532 could have altered the carbon 14 testing results significantly. 1995 Dr. Kouzenetsov demonstrated through experiments that a fire such as the one in 1532 would, in fact, modify the carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratio in the Shroud's fabric. He calculated that the change in radioactive carbon showed that the Shroud's linen could have indeed originated in the first century CE. 1995 Dr. Mattingly and Dr. Garza-Valdez found a bioplastic coating on some fibers which could alter the carbon 14 testing results".

Images of coins, minted by Pontius Pilot for use in Palestine, have been identified over both eyes. In 1978, scientists, including Dr. John P. Jackson and Dr. Eric J. Jumper, while working with NASA's VP-8 3-D Image Analyzer, discovered what appeared to be raised button-like shapes over each eye.

About 1980, the late Rev. Francis Filas, S.J., of Loyola University in Chicago and Michael Marx, an expert in classical coins, examined the area over the right eye and detected patterns of what appeared to be the letters UCAI (from TIBERIOU CAISARUS) and a lituus design (an auger's staff). Father Filas concluded that this was a lituus lepton coin minted by Pontius Pilate between 29 and 32 CE. Over the left eye, Father Filas also identified what he believed to be a Juolia lepton with a distinctive sheaf of barley design. The Juolia lepton was only struck in 29 CE in honor of Tiberius Caesar's wife, Julia.

Subsequent computerized image enhancement analysis at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory supports, though cautiously, the existence of the lituus lepton over the right eye and an outline of a coin over the left eye.

Using an independent method, the Polarized Image Overlay Technique, Dr. Alan Whanger, of Duke University, identified both coins. Dr. Alan found 74 points of congruence with an existing lituus lepton and 73 points with a Juolia lepton".

Over the years a number of natural cause theories have been advanced to try to explain how the image was created. These included: The body produced a vapor or chemical gas that imprinted the image on the cloth: This theory was first advanced by Paul Vignon who also established the pattern of markings found on the Shroud and early depictions of Jesus in art. Given the right mixture of sweat, bodily vapors, and burial spices a brownish stain can be produced on linen. Several other scientists pursued this theory further. As was discovered, gases in such a scenario would diffuse and run throughout the linen fibers. Any image would be very distorted and fail to meet the criteria of 3 dimensionality. The image is produced by some contact mechanism: As with a vapor theory, this mechanism requires a chemical reaction to cause a chemical change in the fabric. There are several problems, however. Even more so than with a vapor mechanism, is the problem of distortion because of the roundness of body parts, especially the face. Nor can the resulting image satisfy the 3-dimensionality criteria. The dorsal (backside) view would be more saturated because of the weight of the body and certain recessed parts of body would not be visible because they would fail to touch the cloth. The Volkinger Effect: One contact theory that seemed to hold so promise was proposed by Dr. Jean Volkinger, a member of the French Academy of Science. He discovered that certain plant leaves produce images when pressed between the pages of books for over 100 years. The images are very detailed and do provide 3-dimension characteristics. The characteristic of the image is dehydration and oxidation in the same way as the Shroud image was formed. The process, however, is very slow and we know from the forensic evidence that the image of the man on the Shroud shows no sign of decay. It is, in fact, still in rigor mortis. There is no known parallel for such an image of a person, even among thousands of burial Shrouds from ancient tombs. Heat Scorch: To many researchers, the image seemed much like a scorch. Scorching produced by heat results in dehydration and oxidation of linen fibers and darkens the linen in very much the same way as the image on the Shroud. But scorched linen fluoresces under ultraviolet light (because of chemical by-products) and the image of the man on the Shroud does not. (The burns from the 1532 fire do fluoresce as would be expected.) Significantly, what can possibly explain a body producing enough heat to scorch a piece of linen or a statue producing the precise level of heat needed? Heat simply cannot produce the level of detail found in the Shroud since it disperses in all directions. X-Ray: Giles Carter, a Shroud researcher has suggested the possibility that the body emitted x-rays. There is some indication of x-ray imagery in the area of the mouth and the fingers on the hands. Dr. Alan Whanger has identified teeth and carpal bones in the hands. But as Dr. Alan Adler has noted, whereas it makes sense chemically and physically, it is biologically bizarre. Anyone with that much radiation in them would have been dead long before being crucified, according to Adler".

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), June 05, 2002

Answers

Exactly how does this information confirm the autheniticity of the Shroud? If anything it seems to disprove it's authenticity. Aside from some very incongruous information (coins over Christ's eyes?) there is simply too much that can not be explained, as evidenced in this excerpt (and for argument's sake I will assume this is from a reputable source). And at no time is a lack of a suitable explanation considered evidence in and of itself. At best,all you can say is that the issue has not been decided one way or the other.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Well... now I feel stupid.

-- Kristine Rooks (mbkrooks@bellsouth.net), June 05, 2002.

hate to burst anyone's bubble, but... http://www.mcri.org/Shroud.html

"The Shroud of Turin According to Dr. Walter McCrone and his colleagues at McCrone Associates, the 3+ by 14+ foot cloth depicting Christ's crucified body is an inspired painting produced by a Medieval artist just before its first appearance in recorded history in 1356. The faint sepia image is made up of billions of submicron pigment particles (red ochre and vermilion) in a collagen tempera medium. Dr. McCrone determined this by polarized light microscopy in 1979. This included careful inspection of thousands of linen fibers from 32 different areas (Shroud and sample points), characterization of the only colored image-forming particles by color, refractive indices, polarized light microscopy, size, shape, and microchemical tests for iron, mercury, and body fluids. The paint pigments were dispersed in a collagen tempera (produced in medieval times, perhaps, from parchment). It is chemically distinctly different in composition from blood but readily detected and identified microscopically by microchemical staining reactions. Forensic tests for blood were uniformly negative on fibers from the blood-image tapes. There is no blood in any image area, only red ochre and vermilion in a collagen tempera medium. The red ochre is present on 20 of both body- and blood-image tapes; the vermilion only on 11 blood-image tapes. Both pigments are absent on the 12 non-image tape fibers. The Electron Optics Group at McCrone Associates (John Gavrilovic, Anna Teetsov, Mark Andersen, Ralph Hinsch, Howard Humecki, Betty Majewski, and Deborah Piper) in 1980 used electron and x-ray diffraction and found red ochre (iron oxide, hematite) and vermilion (mercuric sulfide); their electron microprobe analyzer found iron, mercury, and sulfur on a dozen of the blood-image area samples. The results fully confirmed Dr. McCrone's results and further proved the image was painted twice-once with red ochre, followed by vermilion to enhance the blood-image areas. The carbon-dating results from three different internationally known laboratories agreed well with his date: 1355 by microscopy and 1325 by C-14 dating. The suggestion that the 1532 Chambery fire changed the date of the cloth is ludicrous. Samples for C-dating are routinely and completely burned to CO2 as part of a well-tested purification procedure. The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century (see Carbon 14 graph). Besides this, the linen cloth samples were very carefully cleaned before analysis at each of the C-dating laboratories. Experimental details on the tests carried out at McCrone Associates or the McCrone Research Institute are available in five papers published in three different peer-reviewed journal articles: Microscope 1980, 28, 105, 115; 1981, 29, 19; Wiener Berichte uber Naturwissenschaft in der Kunst 1987/1988, 4/5, 50 and Acc. Chem. Res. 1990, 23, 77-83."

-- skye (skyknyt@aol.com), June 06, 2002.

This site is in dire need of an updated response to the hard facts of this matter. The theory that this image is purported to be a medieval forgery by way of a painting is just completely absurd. No one has produced a convincible explanation of how a medieval artist could have produced the image itself. All careful investigators have concluded that there is no evidence that the image on the shroud is formed by any paint or dye. The image is actually composed of millions of slightly discolored linen fibers. These fibers are less than one-tenth the width of a human hair, causing the image to be composed of millions of randomly distributed picture elements, much like the pixels on a computer screen. Some scientists have speculated that it would have taken an incredibly accurate laser to perform such precise picture elements. It has been determined that the original 1988 radioactive tests to carbon date the shroud were flawed because the fibers contained contamination from what has been found to be a bioplastic coating on the examined fibers which would make an honest dating of the artifact flawed indeed. COLD HARD EVIDENCE: Here follows a brief description of current accepted evidence regarding the shroud 1)Scientific medical analysis reveals a naked crucified man well formed and muscular in his mid thirties. The body measures approximately 5 foot 10 inches in height with a weight estimated at about 175 pounds. The image of the body reveals as many as one hundred and twenty wounds, each approximately one and one half inches long on the back, arms, shoulders and sides. They appear to be produced by dumbell shaped objects and are consistent with wounds formed by the Roman whip, known as the flagrum. The evidence suggests that the man may have been near death from the repeated whippings before the crucifixion. Note that there are nail holes consistent with that of a crucifixion in the wrists and at the tops of the feet. All of the blood stain on the shroud corresponding to each and every wound differ from the rest of the image in that they obviously penetrated the fibers of the linen as a liquid. It has also been determined that the blood flowed according to gravity.Is has been proven conclusively that the blood on the shroud is human blood. There have been discovered plant and flora on the shroud which are only indigenous to Jerusalem. Remarkably, the majority of the plants are spring flowers that blossom at the very time the gospels record the crucifixion of Christ. Dirt has been discovered and samples taken from the heel of the image and this to is indigenous to Jerusalem.Another point is that we know that a painting is a two dimensional image. Well, the shroud is not. It is a three dimensional one. This is just a brief hint at the overwhelming evidence much of which I have not touched upon. So we must conclude one of three things. 1) Some unrecognized fourteenth century (this was the incorrect dating of the shroud) artistic genius using unknown but astonishingly advanced techniques of which no one else in the world at that time knew about, created a work of art that reveals knowledge of remarkably accurate medical details about a crucified body that no one else in the medieval world apparently knew. This artist would somehow have to obtain herbs and microscopic grains of pollen from dozens of species of plants that grow only in Israel and around Jerusalem to place on the shroud cloth, despite the fact that no one would be able to see the evidence that indicates an Israeli origin. He somehow creates the worlds first and only negative artistic image that will not be revealed until centuries later. In addition, he would have to obtain an almost invisible amount of dirt (limestone dirt) from the Jerusalem area and not to mention two ancient palestine coins minted by Pontius Pilate, even though no one would discover the photographic technique to verify the existence for six more centuries. 2) The image on the shroud is some absolutely unprecedented natural chemical or radiation phenomenon produced the image of an unknown crucified man on the shroud which cannot be duplicated by twentieth century science, or last but not least

3) The image of the man on the shroud is in fact Jesus Christ. The remarkable image was produced by some unknown radiation phenomenon that was associated with the supernatural event known as the resurrection.

Don't be doubting Thomas, but believing. Look to your heart and past your own ego. What man among you can claim to be more intelligent than God? Did you have a hand in creation? Humble yourself and the truth will be made known to you. Peace Out.

-- p.sparks (galilee67@aol.com), April 06, 2004.