A recent paper published in World Scientific News 1 observes that Shroud blood contains significantly less nitrogen than ordinary blood, and that a possible explanation for this is that neutron radiation created during the Resurrection of Christ converted the nitrogen into carbon-14, thereby coincidentally distorting the medieval date discovered in 1988.
To find out whether any of this is true we need a good elemental comparison of Shroud blood to ordinary blood, and the paper prints four electron dispersive X-ray spectra, one from “common blood” and three from different stains on the Shroud. Here they are, slightly resized to be at the same scale:
Thirteen elements are clearly marked, plus one huge anomaly in the Shroud Face spectrum, which the author identifies as gold, but does not mention it further, although he does explain that the presence of aluminium can be explained by explained as being from the ‘support,’ and so can the presence of silicon, in the Shroud Foot spectrum, which apparently had a glass, rather than an aluminium support.
Next to each spectrum is a quantitative analysis, here redrawn for comparison:
This is poor science. The aluminium clearly present in the Common Blood spectrum is removed completely in the table, and perhaps the other percentages have been adjusted accordingly, but the contaminant gold in the Shroud Face spectrum, and the contaminant silicon in the Shroud Foot spectrum has been left in, so that the percentages of the other elements appear considerably less than the values they would have if assessing the blood alone. Although a calcium component is present in the Common Blood spectrum, it does not appear in the table, possibly because it is attributed to limestone contamination.
How the tables from which this was derived were drawn up is not recorded, but there are clearly serious discrepancies in the relationships between the heights of the elemental peaks on the spectra and the percentages of the elements in the table.
In an attempt to make the table more meaningful, it will be supposed that the aluminium, copper and gold in the Shroud samples is adventitious, and that the silicon and calcium are representative of equally adventitious glass (SiO) and limestone (CaCO3). Those elements, and the equivalent proportions of carbon and oxygen involved, are removed in the table below, and the proportions of the remaining elements recalculated.
There appears to be some evidence here of a reduction in nitrogen between “Common Blood” and “Shroud Blood,” but certainly not of any neutron enrichment. Depending on the sample, this analysis seems to suggest that Shroud Blood contains substantially more sodium, chlorine and/or iron than Common Blood, but, seeing that the Foot appears to contain half as much carbon but twice as much oxygen as wrist blood, and that the substrates were so substantially included in the original spectra, we must query whether any of these proportions are meaningful in any way.
Fortunately, there is another set of EDX spectra with which we can compare the tables above. In his paper, ‘Red Blood Cells on the Turin Shroud,’ Gerard Lucotte identifies 25 haematids (which he calls ‘hematies’) on a tiny triangle of sticky tape from the blood above the left eye, photographs them with a scanning electron microscope, and produces numerous spectra, often from different places on the same haematid, as well as reference spectra from his own blood, as there do not seem to be any other published spectra to refer to.
Here is Lucotte’s blood spectrum, under the “Common Blood” referred to above.
There are several differences, apart from the lack of aluminium and silicon in Lucott’s spectrum. His nitrogen is much smaller, and the relative proportions, from greatest to least, of phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine are S, P, Cl in the upper spectrum, and Cl, S, P in the lower. Apart from a crude qualitative similarity, these two spectra are so quantitively different that it is impossible to derive any information about the proportions of the elements represented.
With that in mind, we have to wonder how the tables listed beside the spectra illustrated above were derived, and deplore the fact that of the thirty-nine references listed, only one does not refer to the Shroud of Turin. There is nothing objective regarding blood spectra. The single reference that does not mention the Shroud suggests that C14 can be produced by lightning, contributing to the hypothesis that the Shroud’s C14 could have been enhanced by the event of the Resurrection.
Pure Fantisy.
1). “Could an anomaly in Turin Shroud blood reopen the 1988-radiocarbon-dating result?” Giulio Fanti, World Scientific News, 2021