Shroud of Turin Carbon Dating
Dennis Hussey
Cecil mentioned that the Shroud of Turin was supposed to be carbon dated.
Has anyone heard of the results, or lack thereof?
--
Dennis Hussey
Intel Inc.
Note: The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Intel
Corporation.
S.C.Sprong
In article <MPLANET.31de13ddhussey989687@news>, hus...@rt66.com says...
>Cecil mentioned that the Shroud of Turin was supposed to be carbon dated.
>Has anyone heard of the results, or lack thereof?
Oh dear, yes. There's a homepage devoted to the Shroud. IMO the maintainers
are of the camp that *want* to believe, so be careful of what you might
find there. They have a FAQ, pictures, the whole works. Take a look and
shudder:
<http://www.langsys.com/npacheco/shroud/turin.html>
From their FAQ:
"The most condemning evidence that the Shroud is not legitimate came from
a scientific expedition in 1987 that carbon dated some fibers from the
Shroud as being no more than 750 years old. However, current research
is re-examining that dating as being wrongly affected by a fire that
almost destroyed the Shroud in 1532."
And it goes on and on like that. For every pro there is con; on both
sides there are scientists, clergymen and loonies.
Take your pick.
regards,
scsprong
--
"No wonder you don't like subtlety expressed by smilies, you don't
understand them! <4qj07q$d...@news2.cais.com> Floyd L. Davidson
"Of course I didn't claim that using smileys is sense, common or
otherwise." <e31_960...@gifl.com> Floyd L. Davidson
STramp
> >Cecil mentioned that the Shroud of Turin was supposed to be carbon dated.
> >Has anyone heard of the results, or lack thereof?
>
For a more interesting look at the Shroud issue, check out Thomas Hovings
book False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes (Simon & Shuster).
Hoving is the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York and has been interested in forgeries for some time. His book is
fantastic and lists hundreds of fakes (both acknoledged and those he feels
will some day be acknowledged). As far as the Turin deal goes, he states
that it was known to be a fake at the time of its 'discovery' in the
1300's. A man at that time even confessed to have painted it. The story
about how it made it from known fake in the 1300s to revered relic today
is very interesting. Check it out.
Robert C. Bradley
(Dennis Hussey) wrote:
>Cecil mentioned that the Shroud of Turin was supposed to be carbon dated.
>Has anyone heard of the results, or lack thereof?
Sorry for the lack of precision in the answer, but it has been about a year
since I saw the documentary on Discovery Channel (or was it A&E?). They spent
about 5/6 of an hour explaining the processes used to test, the screening of
the 3 different labs, etc. After the last commercial, the results were
given: it was from circa 1000 CE (give or take a hundred years), obviously
well beyond its purported period of creation/imprinting.
STramp
In article <MPLANET.31de13ddhussey989687@news>, hus...@rt66.com (Dennis
Hussey) wrote:
> Cecil mentioned that the Shroud of Turin was supposed to be carbon dated.
> Has anyone heard of the results, or lack thereof?
> --
> Dennis Hussey
> Intel Inc.
> Note: The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Intel
> Corporation.
Well, not to keep you in suspense, here are some excerpts from Hovings
text. (From False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes by THomas
Hoving)...
"It first showed up in the years 1353-1356 in the small church in the olf
French town of Lirey, a gift from a local seigneur named Geoffrey de
Charny. The shroud came into the possesion of his son, then his
granddaughter Margaret who exhibited it in a church in the Liège in 1449.
Thence it went to the house of Savoy in 1453. It venerated at the house of
Savoy capital of Chambéry for more than a century when it passed on to
Turin in 1578. ...
A photograph was taken in 1898 that showed the image on a man in the
negative. All hell broke loose. In 1977-78 the Shroud of Turin Research
Project, or STURP was funded and one researcher, Walter McCrone was quoted
as saying " THose of you who are a bit emotionally wrapped up in the
shroud had better relax your feelings a bit." He had found a high
concentration of iron oxide throughout the samples which points to one
thing, paint.
Then in the 1980's a New Testiment scholar named Robert A. Wild asked why
none of the blood stains were smeared? And why the modesty? Why the hands
covering the genitals? This couldn't be, he said since no matter how one
arranges a body after rigor mortis. the hands can be made to cover the
genitals only if the elbows are propped up on top of the body and the
hands bounfd tightly in place. The shroud image showed nothing like that.
The first carbon14 tests dated it to early 14th century.
The date accorded perfectly to what a fakebuster had long ago learned and
published in 1356, albeit in Latin and in an obscure letter to an Avignon
pope, one of those of the so-called Babylonian Captivity.
Geoffrey de Charny of Lirey, the forst owner, had bequethed the linen to
his son. THe father dies in the Battle of Poiters. He wanted very much to
show his prize in the parish church. But the bishop of the region, Pierre
d'Arcis, didn't. He wrote to the pope in Avignon about the annoyance at
the pressures to have a "scandalous exposition of a certain cloth
cunningly painted, upon which by clever sleight of hand was depicted the
twofold images of one man, that is to say the back and the front, they
[the canons of the church in Lirey] falsely declaring and pretending that
this is the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in
the tomb."
Bishop d'Arcis also wrote that his presecessor Henry of Poitiers "after
diligent inquiry and examination" had declared the Lirey cloth to have
been "painted," the truth being "attested by the artist who had painted
it, to wit, that it was the work of human skill and not miraculously
wrote..."
Henry Poitiers had ordered the exposition of the cloth by Geoffrey's wire,
Jeanne De Virgy, stopped, and was having a terrible time with the son who
also wanted to give it an exhibition. But in fakebusting, politics and the
powerful sometimes intervine.
Jaenne de Virgy remarried. Her new husband was one Aymon of Geneva, uncle
to the future pope. Through hin, Jeanne bypassed both Bishop Henry and
Bishop d'Arcis. The pope effected a cover-up. He wrote a letter stating
that Geoffrey's son could show the shroud , if he stated openly that the
piece was a "figure or representation" of Christ. And that Pierre d'Arcis
should keep quiet and speak no more about its true nature, on pain of
excommunication. And all other bishops in the vicinity of old Lirey must
agree to keep silent as well."
well, there you have it (typos and all)
Cheney
samiam
Read "Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?" by Lynn Picknett and Clive
Prince (1994 - HarperCollins). They present a nice history of the
shroud, and to top it off, they claim they know who made it and how.
I found the book for $2 in a discount bin....
Later,
Rich
"If I had a million dollars, I'd be rich..."
-Barenaked Ladies
sam...@interaccess.com
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~samiam/
Shack Toms
co...@airmail.net (STramp) wrote:
>A photograph was taken in 1898 that showed the image on a man in the
>negative. All hell broke loose. In 1977-78 the Shroud of Turin Research
>Project, or STURP was funded and one researcher, Walter McCrone was quoted
>as saying " THose of you who are a bit emotionally wrapped up in the
>shroud had better relax your feelings a bit." He had found a high
>concentration of iron oxide throughout the samples which points to one
>thing, paint.
The thing that puzzles me about the shroud is that its appearance
is so odd. It is hard to believe that someone would invent a
painting like that. What about the notion that, if not genuine
itself, that it is a painted copy of the genuine shroud?
There are so many things about the shroud that seem to require so
much scholarship and modern technology to explain. Does anyone
have a good explanation as to how this particular work of art and
no other has these unique features?
I am referring to features such as the negative image. The
placement of the wounds (contrary to the earlier theory that the
nails were driven through the wrists). The positioning of the
hands (contrary to the earlier theory that such bodies were laid
flat). The use of pigment density to form a sort of bas-relief
of the figure. Many details, such as the bandage around the
head, that are only apparent with modern image processing.
It seems very far-fetched that a single, obscure artist would
create a single work with such features. Yet if there had
existed an actual shroud it is not so far-fetched to imagine that
a talented individual could copy its appearance accurately.
Shack
STramp
> The thing that puzzles me about the shroud is that its appearance
> is so odd. It is hard to believe that someone would invent a
> painting like that. What about the notion that, if not genuine
> itself, that it is a painted copy of the genuine shroud?
To those who believe, no amount of conflicting evidence is enough. A
painted copy of the original? How does someone in the 13th century paint
something and then all knowledge of hte original is lost? The people that
originally displayed the painting (against the wishes of the local priest
who knew it was fake) never made any reference that it was a copy of
something else.
> There are so many things about the shroud that seem to require so
> much scholarship and modern technology to explain. Does anyone
> have a good explanation as to how this particular work of art and
> no other has these unique features?
> I am referring to features such as the negative image. The
> placement of the wounds (contrary to the earlier theory that the
> nails were driven through the wrists). The positioning of the
> hands (contrary to the earlier theory that such bodies were laid
> flat). The use of pigment density to form a sort of bas-relief
> of the figure. Many details, such as the bandage around the
> head, that are only apparent with modern image processing.
The positioning of the hands is biologically impossible due to rigor
without propping up the elboes. Was it just 13th century modesty that made
them paint hands in front of the guys dick? Probably. There are too many
things wrong with it to be real. No blood smearing for one. Who says the
image is a negative? Most people in the middle east look pretty dark
skinned to me. Why is it we only gave it credence when the image was
reversed and a white face showed up?
> It seems very far-fetched that a single, obscure artist would
> create a single work with such features. Yet if there had
> existed an actual shroud it is not so far-fetched to imagine that
> a talented individual could copy its appearance accurately.
>
> Shack
Put it behind you. It was a hoax. Nothing more.
Alan Drogin
In article <31ffec43....@news.esinet.net>, sh...@esinet.net (Shack
Toms) wrote:
>On the other hand, other medieval art does not seem particularly
>prudish about displaying genitalia. Indeed the modesty seems to
>contradict rather than reinforce a 13th century origin.
While the Virgin Mary will commonly be shown offering her bare breast to
the naked baby Jesus, I personally am unaware of any pictures of the adult
Jesus with exposed genitalia from the 13th Century. In fact, most
religious art, up until the Florentine masterpieces of Giotto of the
latter part of that century, were still pretty iconic in representation.
I think comparing art of that time (which was predominately religious at
that time) to the shroud, which is either real or intended to be real, is
not a good idea. Back in the 13th Century, art in Italy was not intended
to be realistic at all. While Jews were into modesty throughout history,
the Romans of Jesus' time, certainly were not (not that that means
anything either).
Besides, you avoid answering the real question which is why are the hands
in such an unnatural position. I think that was where the forger had to
show a little 13th Century restraint (whether s/he knew of rigor mortis or
not).
> Even if it were a hoax it would surely be more than a hoax. It
> is an amazing work. Besides, why make a hoax that only seems
> realistic centuries later?
I'm not sure if this logic applies. Sure some priest could deny its
authenticity for some power-play reasons, but that doesn't mean it didn't
appear as real to people 8 Centuries ago as it does today (although see
below). Anyone traversing Europe will encounter hundreds of "reliquaries"
containing hair from the Virgin Mary or the left pinky bone of one of the
apostles mounted in sublime display. I don't think people back then had
much scientific authority outside of the Church, to understand "hoaxes" as
we do today.
The facts are that such objects, be they bones, hair, blood, or cloth,
where not uncommon and were effective in captivating many a religious
pilgrim back then as they still do for many Catholics today. I don't find
the shroud to be so unique as you say, but then again, if it's not for
real (and I tend to believe the scientists who've put forth their
reasons), then it is certainly one of the "finer" masterpieces of fakery
done for its time. However, we do have proof of hoaxes back then, too. I
remember that some towns in France would have arguments about which church
contain the real bones of some saint or that they found some statues with
canals drilled in them for blood to miraculously appear. Does that make
all reliquaries hoaxes...not necessarily.
> It just doesn't appear to be a hoax. It is too careful, yet too
> wrong for the times. There is too much hidden detail, available
> for view only with modern analysis of the image. To the unaided
> eye viewing the faint image closely causes it to be lost. But
> modern analysis of the image, enhancing contrast &c causes a very
> detailed representation of a tortured man to appear.
Perhaps this detail was not "hidden" in the 13th Century but faded over
time and only know is recognizable with modern technology. In fact,
perhaps the detail made it look hoakier to that priest back then, and now
is so ambiguously obscure, that it's harder to tell, our imagination fills
in more.
> You are suggesting an artist of extremely subtle talent and
> knowledge who painted a forgery that was sure to be misunderstood
> in his own time as obviously wrong, yet would prove to be
> intriguing to people 500 years later. Further that this work of
> art is based on techniques that were developed for that work
> alone.
I'm not too clear on the negative imaging concept. I thought that the
shroud was supposed to have wrapped Jesus and through some divine
intervention, his body left an indelible image where the shroud contacted
the skin (isn't that what a shroud is for?). I'm unaware of any theories
that say this isn't case, and this has no relevance whether one believes
it's real or not.
If I'm wrong, well I'd like to hear more. If not, then if I were around
in the 13th Century, I could believe in this theory of imaging the
shroud. And if I were to create a hoax, I wouldn't be thinking about
"artistic merit", I'd simply try to copy the supposed real thing. Get
someone who looked like Jesus to strip, rub him down with some colored
substance (and the scientists have said it's some organic compound typical
of homebrew paints), tell him to hide the naughty bits, and then wrap him
in the shroud - but very carefully as to preserve an image that could not
be distorted and mistaken (probably more like imprint him with it from
above). Then I'd do a little touch up, remove the distortions, introduce
the blood stains where they should be (and again, science has shown there
is NO human blood contained on the shroud). There's my shroud, it took
more work than finding a human bone and saying it belonged to a saint, but
hey, this is the big enchilda, so I want to put extra effort into this
one.
Now perhaps it looked pretty silly back then anyway, but it was kept
around as a novelty, it faded, people questioned the authority of that
priest who died years before, and besides, they wanted to believe it was
true. Now it's so faded, it's hard to tell.
>yet would prove to be
> intriguing to people 500 years later
Here it is 800 years later, the National Enquirer knows only two things
about it's readership, gullibility and short term memory, and they have a
hell of a photo-retouch department, and the "mystery" of the shroud lives
on. Every year they produce the predictions for the next year, do the
readers check from the previous year? Every few years they'll introduce
the miracle of iridology (sp?) - medical diagnosis by looking at the
patient's iris despite the fact that it was found to be a fraud that had
been proven to have not validity by theory or by experiment in the 1920s.
Does anyone ask, how can something so obviously a hoax 80 years ago is
still such a "mystery" today?
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
NYC
Shack Toms
dro...@panix.com (Alan Drogin) wrote:
>While the Virgin Mary will commonly be shown offering her bare breast to
>the naked baby Jesus, I personally am unaware of any pictures of the adult
>Jesus with exposed genitalia from the 13th Century. In fact, most
>religious art, up until the Florentine masterpieces of Giotto of the
>latter part of that century, were still pretty iconic in representation.
>I think comparing art of that time (which was predominately religious at
>that time) to the shroud, which is either real or intended to be real, is
>not a good idea. Back in the 13th Century, art in Italy was not intended
>to be realistic at all. While Jews were into modesty throughout history,
>the Romans of Jesus' time, certainly were not (not that that means
>anything either).
I don't think it was that 13th century art was not intended to be
realistic so much as that things like drawing with perspective
had not been invented yet. This makes the realism of the shroud
quite remarkable. Realism in art became widespread in the 14th
century when perspective drawing was invented.
Even as late as the 16th century, maleness was displayed in
religious figures. Consider the "Creation of Adam" in the
Sistine Chapel. The genitalia of Adam and of God are depicted.
Later on, art became more modest and much of the Catholic art was
covered.
>Besides, you avoid answering the real question which is why are the hands
>in such an unnatural position. I think that was where the forger had to
>show a little 13th Century restraint (whether s/he knew of rigor mortis or
>not).
I don't think I avoided that at all. I noted that the unusual
feature was not the placement of the hands but the position of
the knees and noted that it looked as though the corpse had been
placed in a bathtub.
>> Even if it were a hoax it would surely be more than a hoax. It
>> is an amazing work. Besides, why make a hoax that only seems
>> realistic centuries later?
>
>I'm not sure if this logic applies. Sure some priest could deny its
>authenticity for some power-play reasons, but that doesn't mean it didn't
>appear as real to people 8 Centuries ago as it does today (although see
>below). Anyone traversing Europe will encounter hundreds of "reliquaries"
>containing hair from the Virgin Mary or the left pinky bone of one of the
>apostles mounted in sublime display. I don't think people back then had
>much scientific authority outside of the Church, to understand "hoaxes" as
>we do today.
But it doesn't appear particularly realistic today unless you
understand that the image is a mathematical transform of a
realistic image.
The creation of the shroud out of the imagination of the artist
seems to demand that the artist be a genius who could invent
realistic art, and who was interested in some personal gain from
a single forgery, yet who would not try to realize any gain from
his unparalleled artistic ability.
>The facts are that such objects, be they bones, hair, blood, or cloth,
>where not uncommon and were effective in captivating many a religious
>pilgrim back then as they still do for many Catholics today. I don't find
>the shroud to be so unique as you say, but then again, if it's not for
>real (and I tend to believe the scientists who've put forth their
>reasons), then it is certainly one of the "finer" masterpieces of fakery
>done for its time. However, we do have proof of hoaxes back then, too. I
>remember that some towns in France would have arguments about which church
>contain the real bones of some saint or that they found some statues with
>canals drilled in them for blood to miraculously appear. Does that make
>all reliquaries hoaxes...not necessarily.
Exactly. The fact that some relics are fake is not at all
challenging to faith. I do not know whether the shroud is
genuine. Theologically, it is probably better for it not to be
genuine, but I could deal with its being genuine.
Genuine or not, I think that there are a lot of unanswered
questions about the shroud.
>Perhaps this detail was not "hidden" in the 13th Century but faded over
>time and only know is recognizable with modern technology. In fact,
>perhaps the detail made it look hoakier to that priest back then, and now
>is so ambiguously obscure, that it's harder to tell, our imagination fills
>in more.
But a positive image of the shroud does not look realistic even
when enhanced. The image looks more realistic when viewed as a
negative.
>I'm not too clear on the negative imaging concept. I thought that the
>shroud was supposed to have wrapped Jesus and through some divine
>intervention, his body left an indelible image where the shroud contacted
>the skin (isn't that what a shroud is for?). I'm unaware of any theories
>that say this isn't case, and this has no relevance whether one believes
>it's real or not.
No, that theory doesn't hold up. It has been well-established
that the density of the pigment varies inversely with the
distance from the shroud to the body. Realistic constructions
of the body have been created under this assumption. Such
constructions reveal such details as the compression of the beard
where the head was wrapped.
This would not be the case, for example, if a statue or model
that were covered with pigment were rubbed with the shroud. You
wouldn't get such fine variations of shading that would permit a
3-d image to be reconstructed.
>If I'm wrong, well I'd like to hear more. If not, then if I were around
>in the 13th Century, I could believe in this theory of imaging the
>shroud. And if I were to create a hoax, I wouldn't be thinking about
>"artistic merit", I'd simply try to copy the supposed real thing. Get
>someone who looked like Jesus to strip, rub him down with some colored
>substance (and the scientists have said it's some organic compound typical
>of homebrew paints), tell him to hide the naughty bits, and then wrap him
>in the shroud - but very carefully as to preserve an image that could not
>be distorted and mistaken (probably more like imprint him with it from
>above). Then I'd do a little touch up, remove the distortions, introduce
>the blood stains where they should be (and again, science has shown there
>is NO human blood contained on the shroud). There's my shroud, it took
>more work than finding a human bone and saying it belonged to a saint, but
>hey, this is the big enchilda, so I want to put extra effort into this
>one.
Such experiments have indeed been done with little success.
>Now perhaps it looked pretty silly back then anyway, but it was kept
>around as a novelty, it faded, people questioned the authority of that
>priest who died years before, and besides, they wanted to believe it was
>true. Now it's so faded, it's hard to tell.
I think that interest in the shroud dramatically increased when
it was first photographed and the image was recognized as a
negative.
>Here it is 800 years later, the National Enquirer knows only two things
>about it's readership, gullibility and short term memory, and they have a
>hell of a photo-retouch department, and the "mystery" of the shroud lives
>on. Every year they produce the predictions for the next year, do the
>readers check from the previous year? Every few years they'll introduce
>the miracle of iridology (sp?) - medical diagnosis by looking at the
>patient's iris despite the fact that it was found to be a fraud that had
>been proven to have not validity by theory or by experiment in the 1920s.
>Does anyone ask, how can something so obviously a hoax 80 years ago is
>still such a "mystery" today?
There is a big difference, though. We understand iridology.
We do not understand the shroud.
Even considering it "only" as a work of art, it is a mystery.
It is easy to explain iridology as a fake because as a fake it
does not involve any technology that is unknown. Yet the shroud
seems to be beyond the technology of the era.
In this case, it seems that you are presuming that an artistic
breakthrough would be advanced by an unknown prankster who was
completely uninterested in any personal gain from his inventions
and uninterested in further applying his talent to the glory of
God.
Shack
STramp
> What made the local priest think it was a fake?
He stated that he knew the man who claimed to have painted it. I suggest
you read a book by Thomas Hoving called False Impressions: The search for
big-time art fakes. He goes into goes into great detail on all the
evidence (both historical and artistically) that prove it is a fake.
> Why do you say there is no blood smearing? There are smears of
> blood at the hands and fee as well as the forehead.
Those are not smeared. It looks like it was drawn to look like what blood
looks like on your forehead. Take a bloody person and wrap their head in
cloth. The blood smears around and makes a non distinct mark on the cloth.
The stains on the cloth are too well defined.
>
> Even if it were a hoax it would surely be more than a hoax. It
> is an amazing work. Besides, why make a hoax that only seems
> realistic centuries later?
It isn't realistic. I've been over that.
Alan Drogin
In article <3200b87a....@news.esinet.net>, sh...@esinet.net (Shack
Toms) wrote:
> I don't think it was that 13th century art was not intended to be
> realistic so much as that things like drawing with perspective
> had not been invented yet. This makes the realism of the shroud
> quite remarkable. Realism in art became widespread in the 14th
> century when perspective drawing was invented.
I usually tremble to argue about anything with you, but while I'm no
expert of Medieval Art and I also was once taught that the invention of
perspective begat realism, it's a very overly simplified view of Art
History. The Romans did pretty well, despite fairly crude 2-dimensional
drawings, of depicting realism through sculpture and got pretty far with
architecture without it, too.
Although one could argue the chicken or the egg about this, a deeper
understanding of the greatest Medieval artists (say the icon-painter Andre
Rubelev) shows that aesthetically, they had no DESIRE to paint
realistically and that that parallels quite nicely the spiritual climate
of the day, that the material world was a chimera and the spiritual world
the "real". Regardless of perspective, artists where more interested in
symbolizing that ideal-real spiritual world. Trying to capture the
material world was considered base. Anything close to "real" during that
time was most likely done by badly motivated/trained folk artists whose
output surely quite crude and wasn't very coveted. Perhaps the shroud was
executed by one of these rare exceptions. (For an example, why weren't
any realistic Roman-like statues ever done during the Middle Ages?)
When perspective was finally employed, it was during a time when there was
a great blending of the arts (whence the concept - Renaissance Man) - most
of the early experimenters (like Brunelleschi) where heavily into
architecture, i.e., perspective probably was first employed in
architecture, and by association, spilled over into realist painting along
with shading theory (which the Romans also knew something about, too).
>>Besides, you avoid answering the real question which is why are the hands
>>in such an unnatural position. I think that was where the forger had to
>>show a little 13th Century restraint (whether s/he knew of rigor mortis or
>>not).
> Even as late as the 16th century, maleness was displayed in
> religious figures.
But I said the 13th Century, when the shroud was supposedly dated to. Of
course by the 16th (already considered the Mid to Late Renaissance)
Michaelangelo and his ilk where reveling in the human form. I repeat, you
find me a Medieval work of art that depicts adult genetalia (every
depiction of Adam and Eve will always have those "symbolic" fig leaves).
The shroud was very much in keeping with its time was prudish rather than
realistic. A lot can happen in 300 years.
>[...negative imaging...]
> I think that interest in the shroud dramatically increased when
> it was first photographed and the image was recognized as a
> negative.
My memory is jogged, yes, the miracle was that the image is so clearly
seen in its negative form rather than as is and this is where all this
primitive photography speculation came from. Miracle or accident? Quite
a lot of miraculous stuff can be heard by playing records backwards too.
Not to belittle this but I think you could entertain the notion that
certain psychological gestalt mechanisms are put into play when we see
things in negative or hear things backwards that really trick us into
seeing or hearing things that aren't really there. I suspect these
negative images are whole sections (especially the face) but not really
true close-inspection negatives.
> In this case, it seems that you are presuming that an artistic
> breakthrough would be advanced by an unknown prankster who was
> completely uninterested in any personal gain from his inventions
> and uninterested in further applying his talent to the glory of
> God.
Okay, if you truly believe the negative photo-imaging stuff, then I can't
find a good argument to back up such scientific breakthroughs by almost
800 years, however, if perhaps you can doubt this negative imaging stuff
as being a freaky accidental byproduct of our own technological advances
at looking at things, then I must emphasize how the shroud is NOT so
miraculously extraordinary. You seem to think until perspective was
invented, all artists were just too plain dumb to do anything realistic,
that this shroud either is real or the work of some genius 200 years ahead
of his time.
First, I re-iterate, unlike the artists of his time, he was not
approaching this as an "aesthetic" task like his fellow "artists", but to
be a realistic hoax. Thus, it stands to reason that his approach would
look wildly different than the art of his time (and yet follow certain
cultural biases). Why else would an artist of his time want to debase his
craft with realism? It's not that the hand, the eye, and the mind of that
time were incapable of it (perspective not withstanding), it's just that
they were busy with more "important" things of that time.
Second, while many historians have put forth reasons "why" it was a hoax
or a honest piece of work (I think PRANK is the wrong word and further
distorts its miraculousness), I don't think personal gain of the type we
envision today applies. Many of the greatest artists of the Middle Ages
were monks (and while many were materialistic, they at least feigned not
to be). Before the Renaissance, most non-monk artists were not more than
middle-class laborers. Giotto, one of the greatest artists of the late
13th Century Western World would have been considered a mild
petit-bourgeous worker who along with the brick layers and glass makers,
where not much better paid but felt better that they were serving both God
and the community. After performing the shroud, why would he be motivated
to produce another? Wouldn't that undermine the first hoax? And who said
it was created by one person anyway?
Third, unless we can mimic the wear and tear of 800 years, trying to
re-create what we see now or think was seen 800 years ago is not a good
indicator of what's possible. For example, art restoration is an art
form, argued continuously. The restorers of the Sistine Chapel argued
about the proper way to restore gesso techniques long forgotton and
apparently "miraculous" in their execution. How it "should" have looked
is constantly debated.
Quite honestly, after a few visits to Notre Dame, finished by the 13th
Century before perspective, before realism, before photography, to me and
to anyone without a complete in depth knowledge of the economics of the
community and clergy, the architecture of buttressing, and the technology
of scaffolding of that time, surely appears miraculous, perhaps even more
miraculous than a shroud of the same period.
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
NYC
STramp
> In this case, it seems that you are presuming that an artistic
> breakthrough would be advanced by an unknown prankster who was
> completely uninterested in any personal gain from his inventions
> and uninterested in further applying his talent to the glory of
> God.
How do you know the guy who painted this cloth DIDN'T have a personal gain
in mind? You think he painted it for free? You think the people that
started showing it didn't charge admission? Applying your talent to the
glory of God assumes that 1.) the guy believed in God (which in that era
he probablly did) and 2.) The glory of God puts food on the table (which
unless you are Robert Tilton, it doesn't). I'm sorry. People painted all
those wonderful pictures in churches because the church paid them to.
Lucy R F
If it was Jesus's real shroud, surely there would be distortion effects?
Try painting your face, wrapping your head in a cloth and then peeling it
off - what you get looks more like the Mask of Agamemnon than a picture of
you.
And people in medieval times were just as intelligent or talented than any
of us.
Plus, there was a great trade in fake relics - see Chaucer. One of C's
characters carried around a 'glass of pigge's bones' which he persuaded
people were relics. Making money out of the gullible was the whole idea.
Lucy Fisher
Shack Toms
co...@airmail.net (STramp) wrote:
>> What made the local priest think it was a fake?
>
>He stated that he knew the man who claimed to have painted it. I suggest
>you read a book by Thomas Hoving called False Impressions: The search for
>big-time art fakes. He goes into goes into great detail on all the
>evidence (both historical and artistically) that prove it is a fake.
I will try to find the book in my library. Perhaps you could
cover some of the evidence he presents.
I believe that the Bishop of Troyes was the priest in question
and that he stated that he had conducted an investigation into
the shroud which turned up the artist who had confessed. The
letter goes on to state theological reasons for saying that there
was no image on the burial shroud. The Bishop was claiming that
if the shroud were genuine that it would call into question the
accuracy of the gospels.
Besides, I am not arguing that the shroud was not a work of art.
I am arguing that there are aspects of it as a work of art that
raise questions. It is not representative of art of the era.
I suppose you might find it hard to understand that advances in
art must be invented just as advances in technology are invented.
In a sense, advances in technology are easier since reality acts
as a guide. But the attributes of the shroud stand out in the
same sense that it would be surprising to find a medieval digital
watch with an LCD display.
It may be a human creation, but it cannot be *dismissed* as a
human creation.
>> Why do you say there is no blood smearing? There are smears of
>> blood at the hands and fee as well as the forehead.
>
>Those are not smeared. It looks like it was drawn to look like what blood
>looks like on your forehead. Take a bloody person and wrap their head in
>cloth. The blood smears around and makes a non distinct mark on the cloth.
>The stains on the cloth are too well defined.
I accept that they are indeed more well defined than fresh blood
would have been. But perhaps not more well defined than
coagulated blood would have been.
The stains also seem consistent with the body, nearly drained of
blood, having been washed before being covered with the shroud.
The blood could then have been just the amount that would have
weeped out of the wounds.
>> Even if it were a hoax it would surely be more than a hoax. It
>> is an amazing work. Besides, why make a hoax that only seems
>> realistic centuries later?
>
>It isn't realistic. I've been over that.
Not in very great detail. You spoke of the blood. You spoke
of the position of the body. Neither of these attributes seems
particularly remarkable. I addressed the blood above, the
position of the body is not remarkable if the body had been
placed in a somewhat confined space. Indeed the position of the
body seems less consistent with a 13th century origin for the
work since it is so unusual.
The realism of the shroud has been of no little concern to shroud
critics. Some critics have resorted to claiming the shroud is a
medieval photograph. Others have found that it might have been
produced by applying powdered pigment to a piece of paper and
transferring that image to the cloth. I don't think that anyone
has yet been successful in producing an image with the properties
of the shroud image.
(But the notion of direct transfer of a powdery image from one
cloth to another could explain the existence of a faint
miraculous image on a new piece of cloth.)
In any case, the creation of the image is still a mystery. We
know how to make a digital watch with an LCD display, but we
don't know how to make a copy of the shroud. It seems that
whoever made the shroud had some insight that modern science and
art do not yet have. Your theory seems to be that an entire
genre and art technology was created by an obscure art forger for
a single work of art.
Shack
Shack Toms
co...@airmail.net (STramp) wrote:
>> In this case, it seems that you are presuming that an artistic
>> breakthrough would be advanced by an unknown prankster who was
>> completely uninterested in any personal gain from his inventions
>> and uninterested in further applying his talent to the glory of
>> God.
>
>How do you know the guy who painted this cloth DIDN'T have a personal gain
>in mind? You think he painted it for free? You think the people that
>started showing it didn't charge admission? Applying your talent to the
>glory of God assumes that 1.) the guy believed in God (which in that era
>he probablly did) and 2.) The glory of God puts food on the table (which
>unless you are Robert Tilton, it doesn't). I'm sorry. People painted all
>those wonderful pictures in churches because the church paid them to.
He may have gotten something for painting the shroud itself.
What I was talking about was getting something for the inventions
that are represented in the shroud. For example, the invention
of perspective, a century or two later, led to an art boom and
made a lot of money for the people who promoted it.
Here is a person with a mind that can invent a new way of
painting that does not reveal brushstokes, a method such that
the image does not craze over time, a method of painting that
presents a well-proportioned perspective, a genre of painting in
which Jesus is portrayed as a realistic figure--no nimbus, not a
medieval ideal in his body type, &c. (Is there another 13th
century depiction of Jesus with no nimbus?) And with a
willingness to attend to details so fine that they are not
apparent to the unaided eye, but only with equipment that would
be invented centuries later.
With all of that going for the artist, the artist should have
been better known. It is puzzling that a person with the
inventiveness of a Leonardo Da Vinci would have remained so
obscure.
Shack
Andrew Ryan Chang
In article <4u7fbn$a...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, Lucy R F <luc...@aol.com> wrote:
>If it was Jesus's real shroud, surely there would be distortion effects?
>Try painting your face, wrapping your head in a cloth and then peeling it
>off - what you get looks more like the Mask of Agamemnon than a picture of
>you.
I thought Cece said the Shroud really does exhibit this
distortion effect. But I haven't read any of the SD books lately.
--
Check Ping Fnord Fire Cup Zero
Clam Adjective Prometheus Tray Ball
Coke Two Fig Chip Light Zone
Gabbo Three Verb Ice Reflection
Alan Drogin
In article <320bd640....@news.esinet.net>, sh...@esinet.net (Shack
Toms) wrote:
>
> Besides, I am not arguing that the shroud was not a work of art.
> I am arguing that there are aspects of it as a work of art that
> raise questions. It is not representative of art of the era.
And I keep on saying, that's true, it's not a representative piece of art
from that era, it's "supposed" to be real, while artists making "art"
thought that copying the materialist world was base. However, those that
want to form a hoax aren't concerned with current artistic aesthetics of
their time.
>[from a previous post...]
>He may have gotten something for painting the shroud itself.
>What I was talking about was getting something for the inventions
>that are represented in the shroud. For example, the invention
>of perspective, a century or two later, led to an art boom and
>made a lot of money for the people who promoted it.
You have to get off the perspective stuff. It was a real boom to
architecture, and artists, being the Renaissance people they were, having
to draw architecture quite a lot, employed it. Some artists of the LATE
Renaissance decided to employ perspective "tricks", and it didn't always
work. And so what? What does perspective have to do with the shroud?
Are you telling me the shroud employed vanishing points? If you're
talking about shading, or the simply placement of front and back, larger
and smaller, that was commonly known among Roman artists and architects.
Giotto and artists of his time (Late 13th Century) heavily employed such
techniques as they diverged from the iconic way of artistry. What
separated Giotto and the beginning of the Renaissance artists from the
past was not so much perspective/realism as was "humanism and emotion".
> The realism of the shroud has been of no little concern to shroud
> critics. Some critics have resorted to claiming the shroud is a
> medieval photograph. Others have found that it might have been
> produced by applying powdered pigment to a piece of paper and
> transferring that image to the cloth. I don't think that anyone
> has yet been successful in producing an image with the properties
> of the shroud image.
[reversed]
> I suppose you might find
>it hard to understand that advances in
> art must be invented just as advances in technology are invented.
And you keep on finding it hard to believe that just because we currently
don't understand how something was executed 800 years ago, it must mean
divine intervention and the creator should be remembered throughout the
annals of time. The reason those "critics" give the matter short shrift
is because unlike you, they see such ambiguities ALL THE TIME. Art
restorers still can't figure out how to recreate the ceiling gessoes used
by the early Renaissance painters, that doesn't mean they immediately jump
to the conclusion that some schmoe got the formula from GOD. The Chinese
artisans of the 12th Century (most who remain anonymous), had figured out
techniques for creating bone china that took the English over 500 years to
figure out. But that didn't mean the English thought the Chinese had done
it with magic (although the Chinese would probably have liked them to
think that!) The 12th Century was full of artisans and tradesman running
material experiments for glass, glaze, pottery, metals, and paints (just
think about alchemy!) Many formulas survived, a handful of people got
remembered for their labor, some formulas just wound up lost, a lot was
purposefully done in secret (either to protect the formula, or in the case
of a hoax, to hide the real creater). Although printing with "moveable"
type hadn't been invented until the 15th Century, transfering images
using wood cuts was - so why not experimentation with transference with
other materials (the Japanese had).
We are still figuring out how the pyramids were built (by aliens, of
course), and the amazing amount of effort that went into chapels like
Notre Dame. Why all the hoopla about the shroud? Simply because of the
religious nature of the subject matter, anything the least amount suspect
has to be hyped with divine intervention. And the public just laps this
stuff up. They don't care that hoaxy reliquaries were COMMON for that
age, they don't care about chapels or architecture, hell that means
leaving the suburbs to cross the ocean, perhaps reading a book on art
history (yech!), it's so much more interesting to read the tabloids of my
own home supermarket. It's big businesss, scientists can make big bucks
applying their wares to a fascinated yet stupid public on such a
religiously charged subject. Do you think art historians see that kind of
money studying gothic butresses or the chinese invention of lacquerware
(some works defy artisans today in their inlaid delicacy, taking years to
make a bowl!)
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
NYC
Alex Kasman
In article <320bd6ac....@news.esinet.net>, sh...@esinet.net (Shack
Toms) wrote:
> co...@airmail.net (STramp) wrote:
>
> >> In this case, it seems that you are presuming that an artistic
> >> breakthrough would be advanced by an unknown prankster who was
> >> completely uninterested in any personal gain from his inventions
> >> and uninterested in further applying his talent to the glory of
> >> God.
It is well documented that painting fake "Jesus" items was a "big
business" during the turn of the millenium. For example, several "Jesus
Towels" on which he dried his face (which somehow got his image) were
travelling around Italy at one time. They were treated like "travelling
side shows" and made lots of money for the artists. I'll address this
strange idea of an "artistic breakthrough" below. Here I will just
mention that I think the shroud was created by someone who profitted from
it immediately by convincing others that it was the Shroud.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that I heard somewhere that the Catholic Church
claims to have the confession of the artist who felt guilty about it.
> Here is a person with a mind that can invent a new way of
> painting that does not reveal brushstokes, a method such that
> the image does not craze over time, a method of painting that
> presents a well-proportioned perspective, a genre of painting in
> which Jesus is portrayed as a realistic figure--no nimbus, not a
> medieval ideal in his body type, &c. (Is there another 13th
> century depiction of Jesus with no nimbus?) And with a
> willingness to attend to details so fine that they are not
> apparent to the unaided eye, but only with equipment that would
> be invented centuries later.
This idea that the creator of the Shroud did something amazing IS amazing
to me. First of all, this idea that the image on the shroud is somehow
realistic is completely ridiculous. This thing was supposed to be WRAPPED
AROUND the body, right? Try wrapping a piece of paper around your face,
mark where your ears, eyes and mouth are. It looks odd when you flatten
it out. The image on the Shroud does not look like an image that would be
created by "magic" when something is wrapped around someone. The artist
just painted an image of what you would see if you were standing in front
of someone....just like all of the other paintings of the period. I fail
to see how the image on the shroud represents "well-proportioned
perspective!" My favorite line in the famous book about the shroud is the
one that claims that the image is realistic and not the creation of an
artist because the left and right pectoral (chest) muscles are not the
same size. They claim that an artist would have made them exactly the
same and since they are not it must be real. GIVE ME A BREAK!
Now, this may be a matter of opinion, but I always thought that the image
on the Shroud DID look like a midieval painting. A ridiculously thin and
gaunt figure with pointy European features and a "V" on his forehead. I
looked through books of midieval art and EVERYONE (male and female) seems
to look like that Jesus on the shroud. Nobody I know or have ever seen
looks like that. It is what people looked like in midievil paintings. I
don't see how you can deny it unless you (a) have never compared the image
on the shroud to midievil paintings and are just trusting the authors of a
book who made a lot of money by claiming that the shroud is real or (b)
have a lot of emotional investment in the shroud being authentic.
Although there are some people out there who think Jesus spoke English, I
doubt that he would have looked so European. Do you see any Semitic
features in the Shroud? Is this due to the brilliance of the artist or
because he (or SHE) was probably Northern Italian and had never been to
the middle east.
Other bits of pertinent information: The image which remains on the
shroud seems to have been created by rubbing minerals (e.g. rust) on it
and so it is not surprising that there are not brushmarks. You can make a
good shroud yourself by making a relief image of a person (like a flat
sculpture), laying a sheet over it and rubbing it with charcoal or
something. You'll find that the resulting image has an eerie quality to
it and that it has dark and light spots in the same places as the Shroud.
There probably WERE painted images on the Shroud as well, at least this is
what we are led to believe by old paintings of the shroud which show color
and details which are not on it at present. It seems that it used to look
more like a painting and less like an X-ray...Perhaps the halo is one of
the features which DID vanish over time leaving only the rust (and some
bright red "blood" splatters --- if this artist was so brilliant how come
he didn't know that old blood turns dark brown?) The cloth of which the
shroud is made has a weaving pattern which was invented and popularized in
Europe and has never been found on any cloth older than midievil or from
the middle east. (This agrees with the carbon dating results.)
As a closing remark, let me say this: READ MORE THAN ONE SOURCE OF
INFORMATION. There are many papers and books on the shroud. I found the
famous one to be full of ridiculous statements. For example, they were
way off on Jewish customs, they don't mention that the blood (which they
analyzed to see if it is real) was bright red in color although other
sources do, and then there was that claim about the symmetry of the
chest! In other words, I stopped believing anything that book said. Once
that book with its amazing claims is out of the way, you'll find that
other books and articles present a much less exciting but more believable
history of the shroud, including a sneaky but not brilliant artist and
lots of gullible believers.
-ak