Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin

[Beorn]

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.
"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.
A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
The Shroud of Turin shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair, his arms crossed on his chest, while the entire cloth is marked by what appears to be rivulets of blood from wounds in the wrists, feet and side.

Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.
But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.
Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.
They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith, but says it should be a powerful reminder of Christ's passion.
One of Christianity's most disputed relics, it is locked away at Turin Cathedral in Italy and rarely exhibited. It was last on display in 2000 and is due to be shown again next year.
Garlaschelli expects people to contest his findings.

"If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me," he said.
The accuracy of the 1988 tests was challenged by some hard-core believers who said restorations of the Shroud in past centuries had contaminated the results.
The history of the Shroud is long and controversial.
After surfacing in the Middle East and France, it was brought by Italy's former royal family, the Savoys, to their seat in Turin in 1578. In 1983 ex-King Umberto II bequeathed it to the late Pope John Paul.

The Shroud narrowly escaped destruction in 1997 when a fire ravaged the Guarini Chapel of the Turin cathedral where it is held. The cloth was saved by a fireman who risked his life.
Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.
"Money has no odor," he said. "This was done scientifically. If the Church wants to fund me in the future, here I am."


Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5943HL20091005)

[Murphy]

The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith, but says it should be a powerful reminder of Christ's passion. Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results:rolleyes:.

And anyway, all they have proven is that there is a method available to reproduce to a reasonable degree the results seen on the shroud.

Also, this article does not say anything about the other scientific evidence that was on the Shroud. The pollen from plants that are specific to the Galilee-Jerusalem area of Israel, nor the fact that ancient cloth expert revealed that the linen stitching was that of the type done in the first century, that pathologists testified to the fact that the image depicted a crucified man (according to the wounds and how the blood flowed, etc). And the article did not mentioned why it is felt by many that the carbon 14 dating is off. The sample was taken from the edge of the Shroud, which had been either repaired or reinforced for displaying. Close examination of the cloth under a microscope reveals that the area where the sample was taken was made of a different material than the original shroud, and was added later. There is a lot of other evidence, but if you don't have faith that the Shroud is real, it doesn't matter what the science says.

Regards,
Eóin.

[Hussar]

Ahh....I'm from TURIN.

The news here was published several weeks ago. Interesting.

[Lutiferre]

And anyway, all they have proven is that there is a method available to reproduce to a reasonable degree the results seen on the shroud.

Also, this article does not say anything about the other scientific evidence that was on the Shroud. The pollen from plants that are specific to the Galilee-Jerusalem area of Israel, nor the fact that ancient cloth expert revealed that the linen stitching was that of the type done in the first century, that pathologists testified to the fact that the image depicted a crucified man (according to the wounds and how the blood flowed, etc). And the article did not mentioned why it is felt by many that the carbon 14 dating is off. The sample was taken from the edge of the Shroud, which had been either repaired or reinforced for displaying. Close examination of the cloth under a microscope reveals that the area where the sample was taken was made of a different material than the original shroud, and was added later. There is a lot of other evidence, but if you don't have faith that the Shroud is real, it doesn't matter what the science says.

Regards,
Eóin.
And certain other interesting facts as well, notably this:

Using techniques of digital image processing, several additional details have been reported by scholars.

NASA researchers Jackson, Jumper, and Stephenson report detecting the impressions of coins placed on both eyes after a digital study in 1978.[75] The coin on the right eye was claimed to correspond to a Roman copper coin produced in AD 29 and 30 in Jerusalem, while that on the left was claimed to resemble a lituus (lepton) coin from the reign of Tiberius.[76] Greek and Latin letters were discovered written near the face (Piero Ugolotti, 1979). These were further studied by André Marion, professor at the École supérieure d'optique and his student Anne Laure Courage, graduate engineer of the École supérieure d'optique, in the Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée in Orsay (1997).

On the right side coin Prof. Francis Filas of the Chicago Jesuite University identified the letters ΨΣ ΚΙΑ (UCAI), fragments from a Latin-letter transliterated Greek text. This was a common minting practice, because the more complicated shape Greek alphabet was difficult to imprint on mass produced mint using antique technology.

The coin circular text reads (TIBER)IOU CAICAROC, which means Tiberius Caesar in Greek. This lepton coin of the emperor was circulated between 29AD and 32AD in the Holy Land area. The other eye's coin, which depicts three leafs of oars banded together, is also known from the 1864 edition of F. W. Madden's Catalog of Ancient Holyland Nunismatic Rarities. This coin was minted in 29AD by Pontius Pilate to praise the emperor's mother, Julia.

Skeptics claim there is no recorded Jewish tradition of placing coins over the eyes. However, two first-century Jewish graves unearthed in the outskirts of Jericho contained skulls with coins inside, although it was not possible to determine, if those coins had originally been placed on the eyes or under the tongue, more in line with the Hellenistic Charon's obulus myth. In Judea, a pair of silver denarii have been found in the eye sockets of a skull. The Kaiafas crypt, recently unearthed near Jerusalem also contained a female skull with coin inside: that particular coin was minted during Agrippa I.'s reign.