Shroud chronology; Pia's discovery; Pray Manuscript
david ford
by 1.1 meter (14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches) strip of cloth
bearing the straw-yellow image of the front & back of a nude,
apparently scourged and crucified, male.[a]
Because the body image's wounds and their accompanying 'blood'
images correspond with the biblical accounts of Jesus Christ's
crucifixion, the Shroud's body and blood images are universally
believed to depict Jesus. However, there exists heated
controversy about whether the Shroud is the actual/ authentic
burial shroud of Jesus, or merely an artist's representation of a
dead Jesus.
The conventional wisdom is that the Shroud can be historically
traced with surety to about AD 1355. An about-1356 medallion
clearly depicts the Shroud, including its herringbone weave.[b]
In late 1389, the bishop Pierre D'Arcis alleged in an undated and
apparently never-sent memorandum that his predecessor, the bishop
Henri of Poitiers, had investigated about 34 years previously
(i.e., in about 1355) the claim that the Shroud was Jesus' actual
burial shroud, and found the claim to lack merit. Wrote Pierre
D'Arcis,
Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he
[Henri] discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been
cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist
who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human
skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.[c]
On 4 December 1532, a fire broke out in the building holding the
Shroud. The Shroud's silver casket melted, and molten solar
dropped to set a corner of the folded Shroud ablaze. Water was
doused on the burning corner, thereby causing water damage. Fire
left the body image largely unscathed, burning away only the
shoulders.[d] In April 1534, nuns at the Poor Clare convent
stitched the damaged Shroud to a Holland backing cloth, and sewed
patches over the burn holes; their patches were augmented by 1694
patches.
On 28 May 1898, the Italian Seconda Pia took black & white (not
color) photographs of the Shroud.[e] In 1963, the well-respected
journalist John Walsh published an acclaimed book that had taken
4 years of hard work to put together.[f] Here now is what Walsh
wrote about Pia's discovery:
A small, red light shone feebly in Pia's darkroom as he
gingerly placed the large glass plates in a solution of
oxalate of iron. When the first vague outlines began to
appear under the shimmering liquid, the anxiety left Pia's
eyes and the frustrations of the past few days began to
lift. At least there was something. In the dim, red glare,
he held the dripping plate up before his eyes. Clearly
visible was the upper part of the altar with the huge frame
above it containing the relic. But the brown stain-image
seemed somehow different from the way it looked on the cloth
itself. It had taken on a molding... a depth... a
definition. Turning the plate on its side, he gazed at the
face. What he saw made his hands tremble and the wet plate
slipped, almost dropping to the floor. The face, with eyes
closed, had become startlingly real.
"Shut up in my darkroom," Pia wrote later, "all intent on my
work, I experienced a very strong emotion when, during the
development, I saw for the first time the Holy Face appear
on the plate, with such clarity that I was dumbfounded by
it." All his life Pia was to remember that moment, speaking
of it as a great glory. An emotional man under his
old-fashioned reserve, his eyes were often wet after
relating the details to a spellbound audience. More than
once in these talks, he spoke of the "trepidation" that had
seized him and made him tremble.
His first reaction to the unexpected sight in the negative,
however, had been mixed with uncertainty. What he saw
violated all the laws of photography and he knew it.
The stain-image, diffuse and flat on the relic, now stood
out like a picture of an actual body, the contours indicated
by minute gradations of shading. The face, so bizarre when
viewed on the cloth, had become a harmonious, recognizable
portrait of a bearded man with long hair. Emotions frozen
in death emanated from the features; a vast patience, a
noble resignation spoke out of the countenance. Even with
the eyes shut, the face was suffused by an expression of
majesty, impossible to analyze. All this on his _negative_
plate![g]
Pia knew that in any negative there should be only a
rearrangement of lights and shadows and a reversal of
position. Light areas should become dark and dark areas
light. Left should be right and right, left. The result
should have been the usual grotesque caricature of the
original that would make good sense only when printed in
positive. Instead, here in his negative was a positive as
real as any Pia had ever seen.
As he carefully lowered the plate into a fixative bath of
hyposulphate of soda, he turned over in his mind the
possible answers to the phenomenon. Had there been some
kind of rare photographic accident, something never before
encountered? Perhaps some strange property of lighting or
camera could account for it. But Pia was an expert with a
confidence born of a quarter of a century of experience; he
had a sure grasp of photographic principal. He soon
rejected any explanation but the obvious one: what showed on
the negative was exactly what his camera had seen on the
cloth. It was still dark on the morning of the twenty-ninth
when he hastily wrote a short note to Baron Manno to
announce the success of his undertaking. He didn't mention
the unexpected discovery in his note; that news he would
convey personally.
Later that morning, with a positive print made from the
negative, he compared the two. There was no longer any
doubt. This incredible portrait existed in the stain-image.
Although to the naked eye the brownish stains on the relic
presented only haphazard outlines, they must, in reality,
form a negative, or least they must possess, in some
mysterious way, the qualities of a negative. Thus, when a
picture is taken of the cloth, and the negative plate
developed, the stain-image is reversed in light values and
relative position and shows positive characteristics.
Exactly the same process would occur if a picture were taken
of a real photographic negative.
As dawn crept through the streets of Turin, Pia sat before
the negative and its print, occupied with a sudden, stunning
thought. No human being could have painted this negative
that lies hidden in the stains.... If it was not painted,
not made by human hands, then... gazing fixedly, Pia felt a
numbing certitude that he was looking on the face of
Jesus.[h]
In short, upon developing his photographic plates, Pia discovered
that his photographic negatives contained a positive body image.
Thus, the Shroud body image has the qualities of a negative;
Pia's negative of that negative body image was a quite lifelike,
realistic, and detailed positive image.
About 1900, French historian Abbot Ulysse Chevalier and English
Jesuit Father Herbert Thurston submitted the D'Arcis memo and the
Shroud's seeming absence from pre-1350s history as evidence that
the Shroud was of medieval manufacture.
When Chevalier attacked the Shroud, the Catholic Paul Vignon lost
interest in it. However, the person Vignon was an assistant for,
the agnostic and renowned zoologist Yves Delage, was disturbed by
the Shroud image, and so got Vignon and some other scientists to
investigate.[i]
Even supposing someone _could_ have painted a negative image in
the 1300s, Vignon noted the very recent appearance of the concept
of negativity, and considered it unlikely that someone would have
made a negative image that could only be appreciated with the
advent of photography.[j]
Vignon obtained linen of similar weave and thickness as the
Shroud, and painted it using various watercolors and oils with as
little paint as would make an image. Rolling and folding the
paintings resulted in the paint crumbling and flaking off.[k]
About the possibility that the Shroud body image had been
painted, and that the paint chemically changed to bring about
negativity, Vignon replied that paint would have crumbled and
flaked away from the Shroud's repeated folding.[l] No such
damage is visible at the Shroud's fold marks. Plus, since the
body image is of only one color, there's no evidence of any paint
in any stages of chemical transformation, and that would include
image areas near the burn marks.[m]
Vignon covered himself with powdered red chalk, and linen coated
by a sticky material was laid over him. The areas of the cloth
that touched his body had gross distortion, in sharp contrast to
the Shroud's realism and detail.[n] On the basis of the team's
experiments, Vignon concluded that the Shroud image wasn't the
result of application of paint.
Vignon and Delage wrote a paper, which Delage read to the French
Academy of Sciences on 21 April 1902. Delage described the
Shroud's properties and the research and experimentation done,
and concluded that the Shroud was medically accurate, wasn't a
painting, wasn't a forgery, and did wrap Jesus' body.[o]
On 21 & 23 May 1931, the Italian Giuseppe Enrie photographed the
Shroud.
In 1931 and 1932, the Frenchman Peirre Barbet performed
experiments on cadavers to learn more about crucifixion in
relation to what is seen on the Shroud. Barbet discovered that
nails driven through the palms of the hands wouldn't support a
body; in contrast, nails driven through the wrists _would_
support a body, and furthermore, would damage nerves in the
wrists, causing thumbs to retract into the palms. On the Shroud,
a wound appears in the visible wrist, and no thumb is apparent.
Barbet published in 1950 _A Doctor at Cavalry: The Passion of Our
Lord Jesus Christ As Described by a Surgeon_.
Vignon (in the 1930s) and the American Robert Wuenschel (by 1954)
found at-least 15 peculiarities shared by 1) the Shroud face and
2) many Byzantine portraits of Jesus from the 6th-12th
centuries.[p]
On 16-18 June 1969, a group of individuals examined, took black &
white and color photographs of, and discussed the Shroud, but
they didn't perform any testing.
On 24 November 1973, a group of individuals examined the Shroud,
and removed 'blood' samples for later testing; no positive tests
for blood were obtained. April 1976 saw the release of the 1973
Turin Scientific Commission's report.[q]
On 19 February 1976, Mottern and Jackson placed a transparency of
the Shroud into a VP-8 Image Analyzer and viewed a 3-D rendition
of the body image, thereby discovering that the body image
encodes 3-D information.[r]
On 23-24 March 1977, the United States Conference of Research on
the Shroud of Turin was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[s]
In 1978, Ian Wilson's _The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of
Jesus Christ?_ appeared. In 1996, McCrone had this to say about
the book:
Ian Wilson... has been interested for years in the "Shroud"
and has made a monumental scholarly investigation covering
the whereabouts of the "Shroud" for 1300 years [i.e., for
the 1st century to 1356]. His carefully researched
reasonable scenario was then published by Doubleday in
1978....[t]
Writing again in 1996, McCrone disagreed with himself, stating
that pre-about-1356
circumstances, proposed by Ian Wilson (Wilson 1978), are so
conjectural that it seems reasonable that it [the Shroud]
was painted about 1355.[u]
Compare "so conjectural" with "reasonable scenario."
In the 21 July 1978 issue of _Science_, reporter Barbara J.
Culliton's "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges
20th-century Science" appeared, sparking Heller's interest in the
Shroud.
On 2-3 September 1978, a group of American scientists to be
called STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project, Inc.) met in
Connecticut to do a dry run of the tests that would be performed;
D'Muhala told Heller his job would be to determine whether or not
blood was present in the samples to be gathered in Turin.[v]
For 120 hours on 8 October - 13 October 1978 in Turin, Italy,
STURP took photographs of the Shroud and collected data using a
variety of nondestructive physics-based tests.[w] Rogers and
Dinegar applied 32 sticky tapes to the Shroud and removed
them.[x]
During the week of 15 December 1978, McCrone traveled from
Chicago to Los Alamos to pick up 32 tapes.[y] Or: prior to late
November, and shortly after Rogers had returned, McCrone visited
Rogers and obtained 32 tapes.[z]
On 25 December 1978, McCrone began examining the Shroud
tapes.[aa]
Heller called Rogers and found out that McCrone had obtained
tapes with instructions to send Heller any that might have blood.
Heller phoned McCrone, and McCrone sent Heller 4 slides. Heller
got Adler involved, and they did hydrazine + formic acid testing
on control samples. H&A's investigation was suspended so they
could go to the first post-Turin STURP meeting.
On 24-5 March 1979, STURP had its First Data Analysis Workshop
(or: First Post-Data-Acquisition Conference, or: Post-Testing
Meeting) in Santa Barbara, California.[bb] All the presentations
pointed away from the possibility that the Shroud was a painting,
except for McCrone's.[cc] McCrone said the body and 'blood'
images consisted of artist's iron oxide pigment particles that
had been applied by finger in a dry form, with higher iron oxide
concentrations in the 'blood' images.[dd] "Finger-painting,"
i.e. application of simply a dry pigment, is to be distinguished
from "brush-painting," i.e. applying pigment in a paint medium/
vehicle, i.e. applying liquid paint.
Here's McCrone making the finger-painting claim in a 28 January
1980 letter:
The particles of iron oxide are rubbed into the fibers, most
likely, by "finger painting" of the dry pigment. I have
been able to simulate the appearance of the [Shroud body]
image in this way and both the gross image and the
microscopical appearance are accurately duplicated by this
procedure.[ee]
Compare this 1996 McCrone remark:
The "Shroud" was brush-painted by an artist. The
microscopical appearance of the [brush-] painted "Shroud"
fibers is very different from a finger-painted image.[ff]
Apparently the Shroud's "microscopical appearance" went from
1) being "accurately" like a finger-painting, to
2) being like a "very different" brush-painting.
Six months after Santa Barbara (i.e., around September 1979), a
meeting was held in Los Alamos, at which time McCrone said the
iron oxide he saw through a microscope was a post-1800s iron
oxide.[gg] Jackson tapped Heller to investigate the claim.[hh]
In a 28 January 1980 letter, and a 7 February 1980 memo printed
in STURP's February 1980 newsletter, McCrone dropped the
post-1800s claim.[ii] I quote from the letter:
I thought at first that only a synthetic iron oxide,
Jeweler's rouge, available only after about 1800, was
present on the Shroud. However, I now see evidence for
older forms of iron oxide, especially, natural iron oxide
pigments that have been used for many hundreds of
years....[jj]
Apparently the appearance of the "iron oxide" changed.
In January 1980 (McCrone also says on 1 April 1980, and says in
June 1980), McCrone returned to Rogers 31 of the 32 tapes.[kk]
"Soon" thereafter, McCrone turned over tape 3-CB.[ll]
On 2 February 1980, McCrone used Amido black, a dye used to stain
and thereby detect protein, to obtain (false) positive results on
'blood' and image fibers.[mm]
On 1 March 1980, McCrone gave the McCrone Associates electron
optics group some fibers and red particles for study, supposedly
from tape 3-CB.[nn] If this 1 March 1980 date is correct, then
McCrone returned to Rogers the 31 tapes prior to 1 March 1980.
A 1980 spring-break (i.e., sometime around Easter Sunday, 6 April
1980) Colorado Springs conference was held, and at the last
moment, McCrone said he couldn't come.[oo] Heller introduced
Adler to the rest of the team.[pp] Those present began testing
the retrieved tapes, and provisionally concluded that the 'blood'
was blood, and provisionally rejected McCrone's claim that the
body image fibers contained protein.[qq] Following Colorado
Springs, H&A solidified the preliminary conclusions regarding the
absence of body image protein and the presence of blood, later
publishing their work in their 2nd paper.
_Applied Optics_ received H&A's 1st paper on 4 May 1980 and
published it on 15 August 1980. The 1st paper was based in part
on chemistry and physics testing of 1 of the 4 slides Heller
received at the outset.
In an 18 June 1980 letter, McCrone resigned from STURP.[rr]
In October 1980, McCrone published his first 2 Shroud papers,
which discussed his iron-oxide-in-a-proteinaceous-medium painting
claims.[ss]
In March 1981, McCrone published a 3rd paper, again in his
personal publication, _The Microscope_. The 3rd paper detailed
the McCrone Associates electron optics group's claim of finding
mercury in 8 of about 13 particles, and stated that iron oxide
and vermilion were in the particles tested.[tt]
On 27 July 1981, _Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal_
received H&A's 2nd paper, which H&A presented to a 24-8 August
1981 CSFS Annual Meeting. Though McCrone had accepted an
invitation to come to the meeting, he failed to appear.[uu]
In New London, Connecticut, on 10 October 1981 (i.e. exactly 3
years after the data collection), STURP presented its findings to
the public.[vv] McCrone declined an invitation to
participate.[ww]
During a 12-17 September 1982 symposium sponsored by the Division
of the History of Chemistry at the 184th meeting of the American
Chemical Society, a paper by Jumper, Adler, Jackson, Pellicori,
Heller, and Druzik entitled "A Comprehensive Examination of the
Various Stains and Images on the Shroud of Turin" was presented.
In the early 1980s, STURP papers appeared in _Analytica Chimica
Acta_, _Applied Optics_, _Archaeological Chemistry_,
_Archaeology_, _Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal_,
_IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on
Cybernetics and Society_, _Industrial Research and Development_,
_Journal of Biological Photography_, _Materials Evaluation_, and
_X-Ray Spectrometry_.
In February 1983 at the latest, McCrone claimed to have done his
own testing for blood with negative results.[xx]
In 1983, Heller's _Report on the Shroud of Turin_ and Nickell's
_Inquest on the Shroud of Turin_ appeared. A 2nd edition of
_Inquest_ appeared in 1987.
On 21 April 1988, a sample of the Shroud was removed for carbon
dating. On 13 October 1988 in Turin and London press
conferences, the Shroud was announced to have been carbon-dated
"with at least 95% confidence" to between AD 1260 and 1390.[yy]
However, a 1192 - 1195 Shroud-like illustration casts doubt upon
the 1260 - 1390 date. In 1516 (i.e. prior to the fire of 1532),
a copy of the Shroud was painted with what's termed "poker holes"
as if created with a hot poker: 3 holes in a line and 1 offset
hole, all in an "L" shape.[zz] The pre-1532-fire poker-holes
appear in an illustration in a 1192-5 book, the "Pray
Manuscript."[aaa]
The illustration depicts a Shroud-like frontal depiction of a
dead Jesus, with the poker-hole pattern appearing once in a
burial shroud, and once on a sarcophagus lid.[bbb] Additional
similarities between the Shroud and the 1192-5 illustration are
as follows:
2) the sarcophagus depicts a sort of herringbone-type
pattern; the Shroud's linen is woven in a herringbone weave
3) the illustration depicts Jesus' hands with 4 fingers but
no thumb (even as the book's other depictions of Jesus have
thumbs)
4) right above Jesus' right eye, there's a single forehead
bloodstain depicted in red; on the Shroud in the same place,
there's a distinct bloodstain shaped like a "3"
The question arises, what influenced what? Did the illustration
(or one of its cousins) influence the making of the Shroud say in
1355, or did the Shroud influence the making of the 1192-5
manuscript (or one of its cousins)? I consider it much more
likely that
a) the Shroud's poker-holes, herringbone weave, and 4-finger
depictions influenced the making of the 1192-5 illustration
(or one of its cousins), than
b) the 1192-5 illustration (or one of its cousins)
influenced the making of the Shroud in 1355 with
poker-holes, a herringbone weave, and 4-finger depictions.
I conclude that the person making the 1192-5 illustration either
saw the Shroud or was copying a derivative of the Shroud.
Therefore, the Shroud existed prior to 1195, and therefore, the
1988 carbon-dating results are erroneous.
In 1996, McCrone's _Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud_ appeared.
Gove, Harry E. _Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin
Shroud_ (Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics
Publishing, 1996), 336pp.
Heller. _Report on the Shroud of Turin_ (1983).
Humber, Thomas. _The Sacred Shroud_ (NY: Pocket Books, 1977),
222pp.
Minnery, Tom. "The Shroud of Turin: a Hung Jury" _Christianity
Today_ (6 Nov 1981), 68-9, 88.
McCrone, Walter C. _Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud_
(Chicago: Microscope Publications, 1996), 341pp.
_Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on
the Shroud of Turin_ (NY: Holy Shroud Guild, 1977).
s&h90 = Stevenson, Kenneth & Gary Habermas. _The Shroud and the
Controversy_ (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers,
1990), 248+pp.
Thurston, H. "The Holy Shroud as a Scientific Problem" _The
Month_ 101: 162-79 (1903).
Wilson, Ian. _The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus
Christ?_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc.,
1978), 272pp.
Wilson, Ian. _The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the
World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real_ (NY: The Free Press,
1998), 333pp.
much of Wilson's chronology:
<http://www.shroud.com/history.htm>
Notes
a. for a general picture of the Shroud, see near the top of
<http://www.shroud.com/meacham2.htm>; for the ventral and
dorsal sides see <http://www.shroud.com> and
<http://www.shroud.com/examine.htm>
b. iw98, 127
c. cited in iw78, 230-1. For more on the memo and related
documents, see Daniel Scavone et al., "Deconstructing the
'Debunking' of the Shroud" <http://www.shroud.com/bar.htm>
(1999)
d. iw98, 65
e. one of Pia's photos is at Luigi Fossati, "Photographing the
Holy Shroud During the 1898 Exhibition"
<http://www.shroud.com/colleg10.htm>
f. Luigi Fossati, "Remembrance of the 1898 Exhibition"
<http://www.shroud.com/colleg14.htm>
g. positive and negative pictures of the face are at
<http://www.shroud.com/shrdface.htm> and
<http://www.shroud.org/galrm01.shtml>
h. Walsh, _The Shroud_. Cited in Humber, 29-32
i. hum, 117, 118
j. hum, 119
k. hum, 120
l. Thurston, 168
m. hum, 120
n. hum, 121
o. hum, 124; Fossati, "Remembrance"
p. iw78, 84-5
q. iw98, 302; m96, 11
r. iw78, 198-9
s. _Proceedings_
t. m96, 177
u. m96, 140
v. iw98, 304; Heller, 74, 77, 83
w. 117; iw98, 304
x. s&r, 11
y. m96, 78
z. 121
aa. m96, 81
bb. iw98, 305; Gove, 50, 52; Heller, 135; s&h90, 227. McCrone
(1996), 85 incorrectly says it happened on 25-7 March 1979
cc. 141
dd. 140. Gove, 52
ee. m96, 114
ff. m96, 114
gg. 148
hh. 149
ii. m96, 111, 309, 312
jj. m96, 114
kk. m96, 161, 126, 123
ll. m96, 124
mm. m96, 187-8
nn. m96, 208; mIII, 19. Based on phraseology on m96, 124 and
126, I have doubts about the claim that the material came
from 3-CB
oo. 153, 154
pp. 154
qq. 159-65
rr. m96, 172
ss. m96, 138
tt. m96, 138; mIII, 26
uu. 205, 213
vv. s&h90, 235; Minnery, 68
ww. 214
xx. special report "Archeological chemists grapple with the
Shroud of Turin" _Chemical and Engineering News_ (21 Feb
1983), 34-5
yy. iw98, 309, 310; P.E. Damon, et al., "Radiocarbon dating of
The Shroud of Turin" _Nature_ 337: 611-15 (1989),
<http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm>
zz. iw98, 146
aaa. iw98, 147, plate 35a. A poor copy is about 3/4ths down in
<http://www.historian.net/shroud.htm>
bbb. iw98, 146
david ford
method Jackson, Jumper, & Ercoline used to conclude that there
exists a relationship between
1) Shroud body image intensity and
2) the distances from a male model's body to a cloth draped over
the model.
Using the method, a 3-D statue was constructed; it could very
well be the case that the statue is, as Mueller charges, "some
blend of the human model and the shroud image."[m82, 23] Oddly
enough, Mueller failed to discuss the VP-8 results.[m82 article,
n's book, p&p, 144]
what the VP-8 images look like:
The 3 Dimensional Properties Room
http://www.shroud.org/galrm03.shtml
takes a while to load, but a brief sample of a sequence of
VP-8s of the Shroud face appears at the bottom of
http://www.shroud.com/78strp10.htm
Jackson et al. write that a VP-8 image analyzer
displays image shading... as proportionate degrees of
spatial relief on a CRT [cathode ray tube] screen [i.e., on
a TV-like screen] in real time.[jje2247]
With the VP-8, one can "determin[e] whether a given image
contains distance information":[jje2247] the darker a part of an
image is, the further the VP-8 makes that part appear, while the
lighter parts appear on the CRT to be nearer.[39] For example,
if one were to take a VP-8 of a person's face that had a shadow,
the shadow part would appear on the CRT as farther away, while
the brighter part would be out in front, and consequently, the
VP-8 face would appear "grossly distorted."[39] Adds Heller,
Indeed, any photograph of a man or a statue or a landscape
-- which are, after all, flat or 2-D -- results in a badly
contorted image on the VP-8 screen. It is only when
_actual_ depth or remoteness is shown by less light that the
VP-8 can produce a 3-D picture.[39]
(As seen at the 1st of the above websites, by adjusting its
"gain," a VP-8 can also make darker appears closer, while lighter
appears further.)
Using Jackson as a source,[40] Heller reports that the first use
of the VP-8 on the Shroud occurred in the following manner:
"Why," he [Mottern] suggested, "don't we put the photos of
the Shroud into the VP-8?" Never loath to try a new idea,
Jackson agreed. All in all, it should have been a stupid
waste of time, for a flat photo will, and can, give only a
warped picture. They placed the Shroud photo in the VP-8
and twiddled the dials, focus, and rotation. Suddenly, both
men saw, swimming up from the electronic fog of the screen,
a perfect three-dimensional image of a scourged, crucified
man. Impossible! Ridiculous! Outrageous! Yes. But it
was there.[39]
According to Wilson, the discovery occurred on 19 February 1976
and in the following manner:
Mottern had not even heard of the Shroud before, but as
Jackson talked about it, he [Mottern] asked whether a
specific laboratory machine might be of help. This was an
Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer, a device which
plots shades of image brightness as adjustable levels of
vertical relief. Jackson handed over an ordinary
three-by-five inch transparency of the Shroud, obtained from
the Holy Shroud Guild, and Mottern set this up in the
machine and casually flipped the switches. The next moment
he and Jackson gaped astonishedly at the result. On the
television screen to which the image analyzer was linked was
the Shroud figure, seen for the first time ever from the
side [i.e., at an angle], in perfect three-dimensional
relief. Using a facility built into the machine, Mottern
rotated the image to view the other side. The effect was
the same. .... A separate photograph of the face also
showed up with the same high-relief effect.[w78, 198-9]
They took photos of the 3-D image displayed on the CRT, and that
evening, Jackson phoned Eric Jumper with the news. As related by
Heller,
"Eric," said Jackson, "you're not going to believe this."
After describing the VP-8 and how it worked, he [Jackson]
then described the picture in front of him. "Eric, I'm
looking at a perfect 3-D body shape. It's as lifelike as
you can possibly imagine."[41]
The 3-D effect was confirmed using 1978 photos, for Schwalbe &
Rogers wrote in 1982,
Preliminary VP-8 analyses of these latest [i.e., just
mentioned 1978] photographs have shown results that are
quite similar to those obtained from the original studies;
the frontal images yield rather impressive three-dimensional
relief figures whereas the dorsal images remain
comparatively flat in appearance. The effect, therefore,
does not seem to arise from some peculiarity of the [1931
Giuseppe] Enrie photographs but appears to be a genuine
property of the image.[s&r, 8]
Jackson, Jumper, & Ercoline write that they
secured the assistance of two certified forensic artists,
who in their professional work compose realistic monotone
imagery, qualities found in the Shroud image.[jje2251]
Compared with the Shroud VP-8s, the VP-8s of the artists'
Shroud-like sketches "do not seem particularly convincing and in
general have a masklike quality," and each had "relief
deformities."[jje2252] Such was apparently also the case with a
VP-8 of Nickell's Bing Crosby bas-relief rubbing image: writes
Murphy,
"Here's what Joe Nickell's version looks like," says
Jackson. He clearly feels avenged as a puts Bing Crosby
under the camera. The 3-D image comes up on the screen. It
looks terrible.[murphy, 61]
It's no wonder that Mueller whines about "STURP's procrustean
'3-D test.'"[m82, 25]
[the _Pop Photog_ picture]
The Bing Crosby photo used was originally a "half-tone magazine
photograph"[m82, 24] measuring 3 and 1/8 by 4 inches, and was, I
suspect, transferred to a transparency for use in the VP-8. I
don't know whether the 3 by 5 inch Holy Shroud Guild transparency
was derived from a half-tone rendering of Ernie's work, or
directly from an Ernie photographic plate, or something else.
Evidently more than just Nickell's Bing Crosby was fed into the
VP-8, for Schwalbe & Rogers state,
Jackson has analyzed some of Nickell's images with the VP-8
system, but the results have been quite disappointing.[s&r,
30]
I don't know whether any of Sanford's paintings have been
subjected to the VP-8 test.
Oddly, Jackson et al. observed that the VP-8
generally failed to model relationships of vertical relief
between image locations separated by large scale distances.
For example, the set of image points in the vicinity of the
nose (e.g., eyes and lips) had a reasonable relief structure
between themselves as did the fingers of the hand, but the
large scale relief relationship between the general hand and
nose areas did not appear to be correct. This lack of large
scale relief correlation gives the full body VP-8 image... a
flat or stiff quality.[jje2248]
They note that
this effect might imply that the correlation of shading with
distance varies from region to region over the image,
but go on to downplay that possibility with a reason I don't
understand.[jje2248]
In the VP-8 images, the protuberances in the eye regions have
been hypothesized to be coins. If that's the case, we have the
question of how coin images appeared on the cloth.
Heller. _Report on the Shroud of Turin_ (1983).
Jackson, John P., Eric J. Jumper, and William R. Ercoline.
"Correlation of image intensity on the Turin Shroud with the
3-D structure of a human body shape" _Applied Optics_ 23:
2244-70 (1984).
Mueller. "The Shroud of Turin: A Critical Appraisal" _The
Skeptical Inquirer_ (spring 1982), 15-34.
Murphy, Cullen. "Shreds of Evidence" _Harper's_ (Nov 1981),
42-65.
Nickell. "The Turin Shroud: Fake? Fact? Photograph?" _Popular
Photography_ (Nov 1979), 97-9, 146-7.
Nickell. _Inquest on the Shroud of Turin_ (1987), 186pp.
Picknett and Prince. _Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?_ (1994).
Schwalbe and Rogers. "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of
Turin: A Summary of the 1978 Investigation" _Analytica
Chimica Acta_ 135: 3-49 (1982).
Wilson, Ian. _The Shroud Of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus
Christ?_ (1978), 272pp.
Chris Cunningham
david ford wrote:
>
> As dawn crept through the streets of Turin, Pia sat before
> the negative and its print, occupied with a sudden, stunning
> thought. No human being could have painted this negative
> that lies hidden in the stains.... If it was not painted,
> not made by human hands, then... gazing fixedly, Pia felt a
> numbing certitude that he was looking on the face of
> Jesus.[h]
> In short, upon developing his photographic plates, Pia discovered
> that his photographic negatives contained a positive body image.
> Thus, the Shroud body image has the qualities of a negative;
> Pia's negative of that negative body image was a quite lifelike,
> realistic, and detailed positive image.
>
First of all, what evidence does Pia have that it was impossible
to paint the image? Such images have been created in modern times by
Nickell et. al. He begs the question by assuming that it wasn't
possible. After all, he may be a photographic expert, but that
doesn't necessarily translate into a painting expert.
Furthermore, nowhere in this article do you mention the
work of Dr. Nicholas Allen in South Africa, who has recreated the
image using early photographic techniques known to people from the
11th century. The results are so impressive that even Ian Wilson
can say nothing against it other than question the source of model.
Attacking the validity of a source because it changes its
mind is a common tactic of psuedoscience. McCrone in particular is
a popular target for anti-authenticity bashing. Is it not more likely
that further study has caused McCrone to alter his judgement as any good
scientist must when presented with new data? Taking McCrone's remarks
out of context doesn't help matters, since we can't tell what may
have changed his mind, if he presents it.
>
> In January 1980 (McCrone also says on 1 April 1980, and says in
> June 1980), McCrone returned to Rogers 31 of the 32 tapes.[kk]
> "Soon" thereafter, McCrone turned over tape 3-CB.[ll]
>
And curiously enough, no one can now get access to these
tapes since McCrone has cast doubt on the shroud using them.
>
> A 1980 spring-break (i.e., sometime around Easter Sunday, 6 April
> 1980) Colorado Springs conference was held, and at the last
> moment, McCrone said he couldn't come.[oo] Heller introduced
> Adler to the rest of the team.[pp] Those present began testing
> the retrieved tapes, and provisionally concluded that the 'blood'
> was blood, and provisionally rejected McCrone's claim that the
> body image fibers contained protein.[qq] Following Colorado
> Springs, H&A solidified the preliminary conclusions regarding the
> absence of body image protein and the presence of blood, later
> publishing their work in their 2nd paper.
What of the supposed albumin, bilirubin, and DNA detected
later? Which tests are incorrect?
>
> The question arises, what influenced what? Did the illustration
> (or one of its cousins) influence the making of the Shroud say in
> 1355, or did the Shroud influence the making of the 1192-5
> manuscript (or one of its cousins)? I consider it much more
> likely that
> a) the Shroud's poker-holes, herringbone weave, and 4-finger
> depictions influenced the making of the 1192-5 illustration
> (or one of its cousins), than
> b) the 1192-5 illustration (or one of its cousins)
> influenced the making of the Shroud in 1355 with
> poker-holes, a herringbone weave, and 4-finger depictions.
> I conclude that the person making the 1192-5 illustration either
> saw the Shroud or was copying a derivative of the Shroud.
> Therefore, the Shroud existed prior to 1195, and therefore, the
> 1988 carbon-dating results are erroneous.
You make this conclusion based on what? What is the context
of the images? I do not find it at all impossible, nor even unlikely,
that a person would make a thorough forgery down to the holes if he
thought it would provide a significant income. This is an unanswerable
chicken-or-egg question, albeit one which currently leans towards the
images being the source of the shroud based on the carbon dating.
--
Chris Cunningham
><NOTE: Remove the last 'o' from my e-mail to reply><
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"The best defense is to keep your conscience clean....
If you don't lose your integrity, you can't be had and you
can't be hurt"
--VADM James B. Stockdale, USN (ret.)
/|\ "Y GWIR YN ERBYN Y BYD"
Bobbycindi
about Dr. Allen's effort in his latest book The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated
Evidence. It reads in part;
"Based on this method, Professor Allen, to his very considerable credit,
has produced an undeniably convincing- looking "negative" on cloth of the two
sides of the body, one that represents by far the best replication of the
Shroud's hidden "photographic" that anyone has come up with to date. Yet even
so, it nowhere near establishes that this was how the Shroud actually was
produced in the middle ages. As Barrie points out, images that have been
created using light as the imaging mechanism, as in any type of photographic
process, display a lighting directionality obvious to even the least
experienced viewer. In Allen's "negative" there are deep shadows under the
nose and chin and in the eye sockets, from which it is clear that the light
came almost directly above the model's vertical image. Yet in the case of the
man of the Shroud's image, there is absolutely no directionality. Furthermore,
whereas the edges of Allen's model are very distinct and sharp, as one would
expect in a properly focused photograph, the Shroud man's body image has no
such edges. Most important of all, Allen's version fails to exhibit the 3-D
characteristics of the Shroud image which we noted earlier, characteristics
which simply cannot be achieved using light or any other modern photographic
means.
Even if all these serious difficulties were set aside, the Allen method
demands a distance of 9m from "body" to "
Shroud". This most certainly cannot account for the Shroud's "blood" stains,
which can only have been created either by direct contact with a crucified dead
body or by being artificially daubed on. And in the later case an impressive
array of international expertise attesting to the fact that the blood flows are
medically convincing would have to be tossed aside as mere moonshine."
Wilson goes on to detail other problems with Allen's Shroud, but I'll save
that for later. What strikes me as pertinent (again) is this question; why
would a medieval "photographer" go to all the trouble to make an unconvincing
two-dimemsional looking image that can't be appreciated until the advent of the
modern camera? That is to say take a picture of his effort, look at the
resulting negative and thereby see how astonishingly lifelike his image really
was.
The same question would also apply to a medieval artist by the way. That is,
why would he paint such an image?
Bob
Bobbycindi
generally failed to model relationships of vertical relief between image
possible that I'm not understanding the problem. But if I am, I think I may
have a possible solution.
In looking at Jackson's paper, I notice the following; "These results
(experiments using a curved reference surface) demonstrate that the image
shading on the Shroud correlates with distance between two surfaces, one which
can be interpreted as a body shape and the other as a cloth draping over that
surface."
What I had in mind was the following possibility. First, suppose the
Shroud image was the result of a "collimated radiation" event. That is to say,
suppose a mysterious burst of radiant energy operating parallel to gravity came
from the body and marked its enclosing shroud with its characteristics front
and back. Next, suppose that at the time of the radiant flash the "frontal"
half of the cloth (the part overlying the body) was neither flat or uniformly
draped but rather somewhat "saddle" shaped. The result, to my way of thinking,
would be a lack of uniformity in terms of the large scale cloth to body
distances. It would be this lack of uniformity that is, if I understand the
problem correctly, responsible for the differences in the levels of shadings
between the large scale distances. The bottom half of the cloth, which was
lying on the ground, is not affected. As I understand it this in fact appears
to be the case.
Now the reason I think the overlying part was saddle shaped is based on my
theory that the two "individuals" reported in the tomb by both Luke and John
"the one at the head, and the other at the foot of where the body of Jesus had
lain" had, prior to the "radiation event," pulled the cloth flat. This would
have been necessary to ensure a relatively undistorted image. (It's my belief
that this is why they were there in the first place.)
What I find interesting is that a statistacal analysis using measurements
from nearly a hundred volunteers by Jackson to establish a base shows that the
middle part of the man of the Shroud (his thighs, arms and fingers) does indeed
seem to be deformed in such a way as to indicate distortion due to slight cloth
drape, whereas the face does not. (The dorsal image is not affected since,
again, it's lying flat on the ground.) Counter to that, up around the top of
the head on the frontal image one sees blood stains which are not in
stereo-register with the overlying face image. Here, the blood stains look as
if they have been "pulled" up and away from the face image just as one might
expect from a cloth which had previously soaked up blood from the head and
scalp and them been pulled at each end in an attempt to flatten it. This is
why we see blood that appears to be in the man's hair.
To me, it makes sense that the cloth would assume this saddle shape
because the middle part of the cloth would have likely sagged a little as well
as curved around the body. (This assumes that the two "guys" were not pulling
on the cloth excessively hard.)
I realize this scenario is highly speculative but to me it's no more
"crazy" than the Shroud itself. One thing I found somewhat ironic is that I
had in fact speculated on the existence of the two extra individuals in the
tomb before I found out they were there!
Chris Cunningham
Thanks for the update, I hadn't seen it. This is about what he
said in his first book(still haven't gotten it, it's on my Christmas
list). I don't know why people think an early artist necessarily meant
to create an image that would require another photograph to
"appreciate".
When I first saw the shroud, I knew what I seemed to be looking at even
before I was told it was a negative image. The shroud in it's negative
form would not only have been quite appreciable by the masses, but the
unique nature of the image for the time would have added mystery to it.
I don't believe that can be used as reason to question the formation.
As to the directionality and focus, that's very easily explained.
The image was made by placing the model in direct sunlight for several
days (Dr. Allen calculates a minimum of 2 days). The sun will,
obviously,
move over the course of the day. How much light and from what direction
the model recieves it depends upon the time of year, the latitude, and
most importantly the direction it faced. Turin is around 44 degrees
north
latitude, while the Tropic of Cancer is at 23 degrees 10 minutes.
Assuming
the artist made the shroud in the summer, the sun would still be to the
south. The later in the year he did it, the farther south and hence
more
obliquely the sun shines. If the figure faced south, there would be
very
little or no shadowing over the course of a day. If Dr. Allen had his
model facing a different direction, the shadowing would be much more
pronounced. I would think the focus issue is simply a function of the
clarity of the crystal. No doubt Dr. Allen had access to much better
quality
lens crystal than did a medieval artist.
I would hypothesize that the bloodstains, whether blood or paint,
were created by draping the shroud on the model (be it corpse or statue)
and painted on by an artist who was perceptive and intelligent enough to
be able to recognize how blood would flow. Remember, knowledge of
anatomy
would have been a significant requirement in the tools of an artist that
did portraiture. That could easily equate to knowledge of the
topography
of musculature and an accurate visualization of where the blood would
flow
in a given postion.
I'm still awaiting Dr. Allen's responses to my questions about the
3-D information encoding, though I'm wondering if it may not have
something
to do with the above mentioned factors. I'm as lost about the specifics
of the process as everyone else here seems to be, but from the bit John
posted about how it works, it sounds likely that the directional
lighting
Wilson mentions could be responsible for the seeming lack of encoding.
--
Bobbycindi
created, and indeed the Shroud image itself, are at once blotchy, two
dimensional looking and poorly defined. Certainly one can see that they are
both images of a man, but a conventional artistic rendering looks far better.
It seems therefore unlikely, to me anyway, that someone would go to all the
trouble to make such an image in the first place.
As for the subject of optical focus, it seems to me that if the lens our
"early photographer" used wasn't good enough to form a distinct outline, it
wouldn't have been good enough to give rise to the high-resolution clarity of
the image seen on the Shroud. (I'm talking now about the magnificent image
that is seen when viewing a photo-negative of the Shroud.) And as for the 3D
effect, I know of no reflected light image, aside from possibly space photos,
that give rise to meaningful relief information. This is something a normal
photograph simply cannot do. Allen's image is certainly no exception.
Concerning shadows, it seems to me that lowering the sun angle only
shifts the problem from one of having a shadow under the nose, to one of having
two shadows on each side of the nose. This problem is not solved simply by
saying that each area receives sunlight. The fact is, each side of the nose
would receive only half as much sunlight as other areas, the effect of which
would show up in the finished product. This being the case, these areas would
also either protrude further than the nose itself or appear as sunken areas
under VP-8 analysis depending on how the VP-8 was set.
As for your idea that the blood stains could be daubed on, I would point
out that no where in the history of art has any artist even come close to the
forensic exactness seen on the Shroud. Nor has anyone ever been known to paint
with real blood. Name one artistic rendering rivaling the Shroud in this
regard and I'll eat my old Air Force issue combat boots! To say that the one
and only midieval photograph ever made just happens to be the exception is is a
bit much, especially considering it exhibits, in addition, a mountain of other
evidence that says this was the actual burial cloth of a man crucified by the
Romans.
Chris Cunningham
Bobbycindi wrote:
>
> Chris, the point I was trying to make is this. The image Dr. Allen
> created, and indeed the Shroud image itself, are at once blotchy, two
> dimensional looking and poorly defined. Certainly one can see that they are
> both images of a man, but a conventional artistic rendering looks far better.
> It seems therefore unlikely, to me anyway, that someone would go to all the
> trouble to make such an image in the first place.
>
> As for the subject of optical focus, it seems to me that if the lens our
> "early photographer" used wasn't good enough to form a distinct outline, it
> wouldn't have been good enough to give rise to the high-resolution clarity of
> the image seen on the Shroud. (I'm talking now about the magnificent image
> that is seen when viewing a photo-negative of the Shroud.) And as for the 3D
> effect, I know of no reflected light image, aside from possibly space photos,
> that give rise to meaningful relief information. This is something a normal
> photograph simply cannot do. Allen's image is certainly no exception.
>
I'm not positive if I'm reading you correctly. Are you saying
that the outer edges of the image only are diffused and the interior
details
are accurate? I presume we're not talking about Adler's "discoveries",
which
you know I don't accept as being unconfirmed and unlikely, so I won't
touch
on that. I presume you mean the images of the eyes, mouth, fingers, et.
al.?
That seems very simple to me. The sunlight is going to be on the
interior areas of the model much longer than on the outer edges.
Furthermore,
the light would be more directly reflected from the areas directly
facing
the shroud than from the oblique edges of the model, which being rounded
would
cause much less light to be reflected back. With more light on the
interior,
and a more direct reflection of the light, the interior images would
naturally
be sharper.
I'm believe you're trying to have it both ways with your 3-D imaging,
too. How exactly is your favored hypothesis (i.e. the radiant burst)
different
from the reflected light? Whatever the source, they are both forms of
radiation
(unless you can hypothesize some new form of radiant energy?). Either
you
must discard your radiant burst as not being able to encode 3-D imaging,
you must accept that reflected light can encode it, or you must form an
entirely new physics to account for the difference between the two types
of
radiation. All radiation known to science is a continuum, after all, so
only if there is some evidence that one wavelength or amplitude of
energy will
encode 3-d information and another won't can you accept one theory and
not the
other. And from the description of how the VP-8 works, it seems to me
that
it is reliant on shading (i.e. light) to do its magic.
In fact, the diffuse outer areas is more in line with the reflected
light than your miraculous (literally!) vertical burst of radiant
energy.
If such a thing happened, the outer edges would be crisp and obvious.
> Concerning shadows, it seems to me that lowering the sun angle only
> shifts the problem from one of having a shadow under the nose, to one of having
> two shadows on each side of the nose. This problem is not solved simply by
> saying that each area receives sunlight. The fact is, each side of the nose
> would receive only half as much sunlight as other areas, the effect of which
> would show up in the finished product. This being the case, these areas would
> also either protrude further than the nose itself or appear as sunken areas
> under VP-8 analysis depending on how the VP-8 was set.
Only if we're at Jericho while the sun is standing still, Bob! ;)
In most places the sun moves from one horizon to the other, and if the
image
was properly situated, the two sides of the nose would see similar
(though
admittedly not exactly the same) amount of light as the rest of the
image.
Not knowing how the VP-8 works exactly, or what "tweaking" was involved
with the shroud image, I can't completely answer that. Remember, I'm
still waiting for Dr. Allen to give me his own answers, since he's the
expert here. However, I think it possible that the difference in light
recieved may be negligible. BTW, it's more than half the amount, since
the nose _is_ sloped. I'd guesstimate it would recieve maybe an hour
or two less sunlight. And who knows, maybe the area the shroud was
created
in was foggy in the mornings and evenings, so the only time it saw light
was after the sun had climbed farther into the sky?
>
> As for your idea that the blood stains could be daubed on, I would point
> out that no where in the history of art has any artist even come close to the
> forensic exactness seen on the Shroud. Nor has anyone ever been known to paint
> with real blood. Name one artistic rendering rivaling the Shroud in this
> regard and I'll eat my old Air Force issue combat boots! To say that the one
> and only midieval photograph ever made just happens to be the exception is is a
> bit much, especially considering it exhibits, in addition, a mountain of other
> evidence that says this was the actual burial cloth of a man crucified by the
> Romans.
And how many artistic renderings of any sort have been kept with the
reverence and care of the Shroud? I think it quite possible, even
likely,
that blood was used (assuming again that it is blood and not organically
contaminated paint, which I'm still not convinced of) but that the works
were not overly popular and disintegrated. The use of blood may have in
and of itself been reason for someone to dispose of contemporary works.
Bobbycindi
the face of the man of the Shroud. What you will notice, (at least what I
notice) is that the Shroud face is highly resolved and beautiful, whereas the
image Allen made appears shadowy, washed out and grotesque. The body of the
man of the Shroud is also high-resolution and yet is paradoxically diffuse in
outline. This is a striking difference that cannot be dismissed or explained
by invoking photography.
As for the 3D effect, the reason you haven't heard anything from Dr. Allen
is that he knows his image is not encoded three dimensionally. Again, a normal
photograph simply cannot give rise to meaningful relief information. It is
impossible. In fact, before the Shroud came along and proved otherwise, there
were even image specialists who didn't think a two dimensional surface COULD be
encoded that way. And concerning the shadows on each side of the nose (for an
image made in the manner of Dr. Allen's but at a more southerly location) you
said it yourself. These areas do not receive as much sunlight as other areas
and would therefore show up darker. This is one of the reasons any VP-8
analysis of such an image is rendered meaningless.
You made the statement that I must either discard my "radiant burst"
theory as not being able to encode three dimensional information or accept that
reflected light can since they are both forms of radiant energy. This is not
true. Dr. August Accetta from Hungtington Beach injected himself with a mild
radioactive solution and then subjected himself to nuclear imaging techniques.
What he came up with was a full-sized photo-negative image of his body that was
diffuse in outline, encoded with meaningful three-dimensional information and
even showed faint bone structure- just like that seen on the Shroud.
As for the reverence the Shroud has been shown, its been folded and
unfolded countless times for every kind of ceremony one can think of. Its been
burned, had water thrown on it, washed and possibly even boiled on oil. It's
not had it too easy believe me!
One more thing. I noticed you said that Joe Nickell has made an image
just like the one on the Shroud. I thought you were in agreement that the
image on the Shroud was photographic in nature. The way I see it, there is
absolutely nothing photographic about Nickell's "shroud" (actually just a
face). I will say this. I give him credit for trying and for also, unlike
McCrone, having the courage to show a picture of the real thing in his book.
(The Shroud in photo-negative) But without fail I laugh every time I look at
it.
Chris Cunningham
Bobbycindi wrote:
>
> Chris, what I am saying is this. Look carefully at the photo-negative of
> the face of the man of the Shroud. What you will notice, (at least what I
> notice) is that the Shroud face is highly resolved and beautiful, whereas the
> image Allen made appears shadowy, washed out and grotesque. The body of the
> man of the Shroud is also high-resolution and yet is paradoxically diffuse in
> outline. This is a striking difference that cannot be dismissed or explained
> by invoking photography.
>
Well, here I must disagree on what are no doubt purely subjective
grounds. I see in Dr. Allen's image a vivid re-creation of a crude and
rather grotesque model, whereas I see an almost identical quality image
of a much more detailed model in the shroud face. I agree that the
outer
edges of the image are fuzzy in the shroud, but I still think my
previous
comment about the light diffusing around the edges of a rounded figure
are correct. Notice the sharp, angular edges to the model Dr. Allen
uses.
It seems to me that the image in the shroud had either real hair (if a
real corpse was used, which I doubt) or a wig of some sort. Perhaps if
Dr. Allen had a similar model to work from, had we known what that model
was, it would be similarly diffuse.
> As for the 3D effect, the reason you haven't heard anything from Dr. Allen
> is that he knows his image is not encoded three dimensionally. Again, a normal
> photograph simply cannot give rise to meaningful relief information. It is
> impossible. In fact, before the Shroud came along and proved otherwise, there
> were even image specialists who didn't think a two dimensional surface COULD be
> encoded that way. And concerning the shadows on each side of the nose (for an
> image made in the manner of Dr. Allen's but at a more southerly location) you
> said it yourself. These areas do not receive as much sunlight as other areas
> and would therefore show up darker. This is one of the reasons any VP-8
> analysis of such an image is rendered meaningless.
>
I've forgotten, has Dr. Allen submitted his work for VP-8 analysis,
or is this all a priori assumption? How many photographs have been
submitted
for VP-8 analysis that have been exposed to light for many hours at a
time,
and from differing angles? There's nothing on his site mentioning it at
all. And if a 2-D image couldn't be encoded with 3-D information, then
WHAT exactly was the VP-8 designed to do? Are you saying it's being
used
for something that it wasn't intended for?
> You made the statement that I must either discard my "radiant burst"
> theory as not being able to encode three dimensional information or accept that
> reflected light can since they are both forms of radiant energy. This is not
> true. Dr. August Accetta from Hungtington Beach injected himself with a mild
> radioactive solution and then subjected himself to nuclear imaging techniques.
> What he came up with was a full-sized photo-negative image of his body that was
> diffuse in outline, encoded with meaningful three-dimensional information and
> even showed faint bone structure- just like that seen on the Shroud.
>
Hmmm...interesting. But how is the nuclear imaging technique different
in the way it catches images? What did Dr. Accetta use? I'm guessing
it
was something with beta radiation, since gamma is nasty stuff, and alpha
wouldn't get through the skin. That's particles, so your radiant burst
would
have to have been something similar. Makes sense, in a way, since gamma
radiation fits with my last posting...it's only energy in a different
wavelength
than visible light. But particles would imply to me a dissolution of
the
body (that big boom you said that physicist Kitty something had a reason
didn't happen). I think this is going to be another research project
for
me, figuring out exactly how images are "encoded".
> As for the reverence the Shroud has been shown, its been folded and
> unfolded countless times for every kind of ceremony one can think of. Its been
> burned, had water thrown on it, washed and possibly even boiled on oil. It's
> not had it too easy believe me!
>
> One more thing. I noticed you said that Joe Nickell has made an image
> just like the one on the Shroud. I thought you were in agreement that the
> image on the Shroud was photographic in nature. The way I see it, there is
> absolutely nothing photographic about Nickell's "shroud" (actually just a
> face). I will say this. I give him credit for trying and for also, unlike
> McCrone, having the courage to show a picture of the real thing in his book.
> (The Shroud in photo-negative) But without fail I laugh every time I look at
> it.
I must plead ignorance here...I've forgotten what I said :) Hey,
it's been a long and boring day! This is the only mental stimulation
I've
gotten. I'll check my old messages later on and figure out what the
heck I
was talking about.
Ok, I've got too many chats going on at once. I better get off here
before I lose what's left of my mind.
Bobbycindi
with. And now that we no longer hear from Dr. Towe, you're about all I have.
And whatever you do, please don't start agreeing with me. That would ruin
everything! But back to the "object of our obsession". I don't know if Dr.
Allen's image has been analyzed with the VP-8 or not. But Willson's and
Schwortz's new book flat states that it contains no meaningful 3D information
so I assume they know what they're talking about. I think it unlikely they
don't. As for why the VP-8 was invented in the first place, all I can say is I
think it was invented as an aid in interpreting space probe photos of planets
but not necessarily to quantify relief data. (Although early on it was
recognized that in the case of the Shroud, it might be able to do so.)
As for how Accetta's image was captured, it was with film. In addition,
the necessary collimation was provided by the imaging equipment. (I assume with
magnetic fields.) Accetta himself is quick to point out that he has not
"solved" the mystery of the Shroud or replicated every thing seen on the
Shroud. But what he's done is to have demonstrated that a radiating body can
be made to produce many of the most important characteristics seen on the
Shroud. And I believe you're right, we are looking at particles that travel
mere centimeters to carry information from the "sending surface" to the
"recieving surface". This is exactly what Dr. Kitty Little has said in her
paper which can be found in the British new letter section of Barrie's website.
She explains too about the binding energies released (when and if) the
elements the body is made of are made to undergo fission. (No it won't blow a
hole in the ground the size of New York City- we are not made out of uranium.)
It's my position that if you mentally combine the techniques that
Accetta's used along with the experimental results Dr. Little has shown by
irradiating pieces of linen in a reactor, one can perhaps gleen insights into
what might have taken place in the case of the Shroud. However, to be honest,
I truly believe were looking here at the physics of what can only be described
as a miracle.
But before you throw your arms up in the air and point out that if we're
to invoke devine intervention we might as well not even take a scientific look
at the Shroud, I would point out that we're still stuck with it and pretty much
have to. To me it's as if whoever made the Shroud were saying, among other
things, OK scientists analyze this! (Translation; don't get too attached to
the idea of a purposeless universe Buckwheat.)
david ford
B Chris, the point I was trying to make is this. The image
B Dr. Allen created, and indeed the Shroud image itself, are at
B once blotchy, two dimensional looking and poorly defined.
B Certainly one can see that they are both images of a man, but a
B conventional artistic rendering looks far better. It seems
B therefore unlikely, to me anyway, that someone would go to all
B the trouble to make such an image in the first place.
===============begin inserted text===============
Summary: Mueller rejected McCrone's painting hypothesis and said
Nickell's bas-relief method had the best chance of success. McCrone
rejected Nickell's proposal, yet McCrone's basis for doing so can be
applied with devastating force to the painting hypothesis.
Writing in "The Shroud of Turin: A Critical Appraisal" _The Skeptical
Inquirer_ (spring 1982), 15-34, physicist Marvin M. Mueller rejected
McCrone's painting claim:
That the shroud image was not painted in any ordinary sense of the
term is by now beyond dispute.[mm82, 27]
And again:
To limit the image coloration to a superficial depth, the medium
would have to be applied in the form of a dry powder or a
semi-solid cake.[mm82, 28]
"A dry powder or a semi-solid cake" is, of course, quite distinct from
McCrone's claim that a liquid paint medium was used.
Mueller settles upon Nickell's bas-relief method:
The only technique of medium application that appears probable at
this time is the rubbing technique of Joe Nickell, discussed
earlier.[mm82, 28]
Contrast that with this perspicacious rhetorical question posed by
McCrone:
Some [e.g. Nickell] say it [the Shroud] was draped wet over a
bas-relief to which it was shaped then dabbed with powder or a
paint. .... Why go to all the work of preparing a statue or
bas-relief....? A direct approach... is a common sense assumption;
Occam's Razor applies here....[m96, 122]
McCrone calls "unnecessarily complicated" the bas-relief suggestion,
noting that
If an artist (read sculptor) has to first prepare a statue or
bas-relief then decorate it he will have to be more skilled, go to
more trouble and stand in greater risk of distorting the final
image than if he decided
to make a painting.[m96, 122-3] McCrone's approach certainly sounds
reasonable. Problem is, the Shroud isn't a painting. To quote Mueller
again,
That the shroud image was not painted in any ordinary sense of the
term is by now beyond dispute.[mm82, 27]
Furthermore, the very same line of reasoning McCrone uses to argue
against even more convoluted artistry scenarios than his can be used
against his own hypothesis: [WC]"Why go to all the work of preparing a
statue or bas-relief....? A direct approach... is a common sense
assumption; Occam's Razor applies here...."[m96, 122] In the same vein:
Why go to all the trouble of depicting a washed (instead of an unwashed)
body? Especially since in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in
Jerusalem, there's a reddish stone called the "Stone of Unction" on
which it's been claimed since Byzantine times that Jesus was laid
and washed.[iw78, 40]
Why go to all the trouble of using real blood (instead of paint) to
depict 'blood' regions?
Why go to all the trouble of using primate blood [h83, 188] (instead of
blood from a chicken, cow, etc.)?
Why go to all the trouble of having the final body image be a negative,
even as the blood images are in positive?
Why go to all the trouble of having the final body image encode
3-dimensional information?
Why go to all the trouble of making the body image so it consisted of
linen microfibrils that underwent premature degradation? (If my
arm is the cloth, my arm's hairs are the cloth's microfibrils.)
Why go to all the trouble of having blood images at one foot on one end
of the cloth correspond to blood images at the corresponding foot
image on the other end of the cloth? Just as if an actual body
with bloody feet was enclosed in a cloth.[ref]
Why go to all the trouble of placing a blood spot & blood trail to the
side of 1 elbow? Just as if an actual crucified body having a pool
of blood that had accumulated at the elbow was enclosed in a
cloth.[lav, jun83]
Why go to all the trouble of putting 'blood' marks far to the sides of
the face? Just as if the blood marks were formed as a contact
print with a bloody face, a contact print that, when stretched out,
had blood marks to the sides of the face.[lav, sep86]
Why go to all the trouble of depicting blood flows from the wrist wounds
traveling in 2 different directions, i.e., the directions
corresponding to the 2 positions assumed during some
crucifixions?[ref]
Why go to all the trouble of depicting front and back (instead of just
an entire front side, or just face and chest, or just face)?
Why go to all the trouble of depicting Jesus nude (instead of putting in
some clothes around the midsection)?
Why go to all the trouble of placing some dirt on the heel that isn't
visible except with a microscope?[p&e, 41. See also h83, 112]
Just as if a body with dirty feet was placed in a cloth.
Heller, John H. _Report on the Shroud of Turin_ (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1983), 225pp.
Lavoie, Gilbert R., Bonnie B. Lavoie, Rev. Vincent J. Donovan, John S.
Ballas. "Blood on the Shroud of Turin: Part I" _Shroud Spectrum
International_ (June 1983), 15-19.
Lavoie, Gilbert R., Bonnie B. Lavoie and Alan D. Adler. "Blood on the
Shroud of Turin: Part III" _Shroud Spectrum International_ (Sept
1986), 3-6.
McCrone, Walter C. _Judgment Day for the Turin Shroud_ (Chicago:
Microscope Publications, 1996), 341pp.
Mueller, Marvin M. "The Shroud of Turin: A Critical Appraisal" _The
Skeptical Inquirer_ (spring 1982), 15-34.
Pellicori, S. and M.S. Evans. "The Shroud of Turin Through the
Microscope" _Archaeology_ (Jan/Feb 1981), 34-43.
Wilson, Ian. _The Shroud Of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?_
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1978), 272pp.
===============end inserted text===============
B As for the subject of optical focus, it seems to me that if
B the lens our "early photographer" used wasn't good enough to form
B a distinct outline, it wouldn't have been good enough to give
B rise to the high-resolution clarity of the image seen on the
B Shroud. (I'm talking now about the magnificent image that is
B seen when viewing a photo-negative of the Shroud.) And as for
B the 3D effect, I know of no reflected light image, aside from
B possibly space photos, that give rise to meaningful relief
B information. This is something a normal photograph simply cannot
B do. Allen's image is certainly no exception.
B
B Concerning shadows, it seems to me that lowering the sun
B angle only shifts the problem from one of having a shadow under
B the nose, to one of having two shadows on each side of the nose.
B This problem is not solved simply by saying that each area
B receives sunlight. The fact is, each side of the nose would
B receive only half as much sunlight as other areas, the effect of
B which would show up in the finished product. This being the
B case, these areas would also either protrude further than the
B nose itself or appear as sunken areas under VP-8 analysis
B depending on how the VP-8 was set.
B
B As for your idea that the blood stains could be daubed on, I
B would point out that no where in the history of art has any
B artist even come close to the forensic exactness seen on the
B Shroud.
Heller, John H. 1983. _Report on the Shroud of Turin_ (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company), 225pp. On 27:
Some had agreed to read [Peirre] Barbet['s _A Doctor at
Cavalry: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Described
by a Surgeon_ (1950)] and check his conclusions against
their own knowledge. Barbet had been a battlefield surgeon
in World War I. As such, he had probably seen more wounds,
and the imprints they make on bandages, than most physicians
see in a lifetime. Barbet claimed that in all the European
art he had ever seen, ranging from that of the Renaissance
to paintings from the modern era, he had never seen an
accurate rendering of either wounds or the appearance of
blood on cloth dressings. In contrast, he claimed, the
Shroud was accurate in every particular. The forensic
pathologists whose work on the Shroud has been published
agree with Barbet on this point.
IIRC, a statement similar to [B]"no where in the history of art
has any artist even come close to the forensic exactness seen on
the Shroud" is in Gilbert Lavoie's _Unlocking the Secrets of the
Shroud_ (1998).
B Nor has anyone ever been known to paint with real blood.
Heller, 167:
Also, we [Heller & Adler] had found blood. Jackson had
asked me if I thought it possible that a fourteenth-century
artist might have used actual blood to paint a bloody image.
When I made inquiries of several professors of art history
in regard to medieval and Renaissance pigments, I had been
told that artists of those times were always searching for
paints and pigments that would endure. As a result, they
were partial to metal salts, such as orpiment (arsenic
sulfide) or litharge (lead oxide). Blood would change color
and denature; on a fabric, if laid on as thickly as in the
Shroud, it would abrade and flake-- as, in fact, it had
done. It seemed to me unlikely that anyone would have used
real blood as paint. But if someone was forging a shroud,
he just might have.
B Name one artistic rendering rivaling the Shroud in this regard
B and I'll eat my old Air Force issue combat boots!
Sounds tasty.
B To say that
B the one and only medieval photograph ever made just happens to be
B the exception is a bit much, especially considering it
B exhibits, in addition, a mountain of other evidence that says
B this was the actual burial cloth of a man crucified by the
B Romans.
Well said.
Bob <bobby...@aol.com> on 17 Dec 2000:
B Chris, please don't lose your mind! I need to have someone to
B "shroud" with. And now that we no longer hear from Dr. Towe,
B you're about all I have. And whatever you do, please don't start
B agreeing with me. That would ruin everything! But back to the
B "object of our obsession". I don't know if Dr. Allen's image
B has been analyzed with the VP-8 or not. But Wilson's and
B Schwortz's new book flat states that it contains no meaningful 3D
B information so I assume they know what they're talking about. I
B think it unlikely they don't. As for why the VP-8 was invented
B in the first place, all I can say is I think it was invented as
B an aid in interpreting space probe photos of planets but not
B necessarily to quantify relief data.
Heller, 38-9:
The VP-8 image analyzer has at its heart a computer. It was
designed for the space program. Everyone has seen the
magnificent pictures of the planets obtained by NASA. The
space probes do not carry cameras in the common sense of the
word. They have a device that picks up light signals
electronically and transmits them to earth. Recall a
picture of Saturn with its rings. The portions of the rings
closest to the probe are brighter. Those parts of the rings
which go behind the planet show less light; they are darker.
The VP-8 is so programmed that it interprets "darker" as
farther away. It can take the signals coming in from
Saturn, for example, and show them on its television screen
as a 3-D picture of a planet. In contrast, let us take a
picture of a man whose face is illuminated from a light to
the right of him. The left part of his face is in some
shadow. Put this photograph in the VP-8, and you will see a
grossly distorted face, with the darker part of the
countenance farther away and the bright part in the
forefront. Indeed, any photograph of a man or a statue or a
landscape-- which are, after all, flat or 2-D -- results in
a badly contorted image on the VP-8 screen. It is only when
_actual_ depth or remoteness is shown by less light that the
VP-8 can produce a 3-D picture.
B (Although early on it was recognized that in the case
B of the Shroud, it might be able to do so.)
B
B As for how Accetta's image was captured, it was with film.
B In addition, the necessary collimation was provided by the
B imaging equipment. (I assume with magnetic fields.) Accetta
B himself is quick to point out that he has not "solved" the
B mystery of the Shroud or replicated every thing seen on the
B Shroud. But what he's done is to have demonstrated that a
B radiating body can be made to produce many of the most important
B characteristics seen on the Shroud. And I believe you're right,
B we are looking at particles that travel mere centimeters to carry
B information from the "sending surface" to the "receiving
B surface". This is exactly what Dr. Kitty Little has said in her
B paper which can be found in the British new letter section of
B Barrie's website. She explains too about the binding energies
B released (when and if) the elements the body is made of are made
B to undergo fission. (No it won't blow a hole in the ground the
B size of New York City- we are not made out of uranium.)
B
B It's my position that if you mentally combine the techniques
B that Accetta's used along with the experimental results Dr.
B Little has shown by irradiating pieces of linen in a reactor, one
B can perhaps gleen insights into what might have taken place in
B the case of the Shroud. However, to be honest, I truly believe
B were looking here at the physics of what can only be described as
B a miracle.
Culliton, Barbara J. 1978. News and comment "The Mystery of the
Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-century Science" _Science_
201:235-9. A paragraph on 236:
Many of the American scientists who for the past few years
have made a professional hobby out of unraveling the mystery
of the Shroud say they were "hooked" once it became apparent
that the process of image formation defied the ready
presumption that modern science could come up with an
explanation in no time at all. They range in age and
religious affiliation but have in common complementary
scientific disciplines-- physics, aerodynamics, chemistry,
computer enhanced image analysis-- and come from like
institutions-- the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Sandia
Laboratory, and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, all in
New Mexico, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
California. While waiting hopefully for word from Italy,
they have been busy conducting preliminary analyses of the
image-- largely working from existing photographs-- and
thinking about what they would do if they ever got to see
the Shroud in the original, which none of them ever has.
They have been working on their own time, with their own
money-- there are no NASA or NSF grants for Shroud studies--
though in some cases they have been granted permission to
use their institutions' equipment on a time-available basis.
Altogether they number two dozen or so and hope that their
collective scientific talents, when put to the test, will
reveal (i) the ingenuity of an extraordinarily clever
14th-century forger, (ii) a rare but explicable natural
phenomenon, or (iii) the physics of miracles.
B But before you throw your arms up in the air and point out
B that if we're to invoke divine intervention we might as well not
B even take a scientific look at the Shroud, I would point out that
B we're still stuck with it and pretty much have to. To me it's as
B if whoever made the Shroud were saying, among other things, OK
B scientists analyze this! (Translation; don't get too attached
B to the idea of a purposeless universe Buckwheat.)