In a recent article in the Newsletter of the British Society for the Turin Shroud,1 Teddi Pappas reviews a lot of research into rigor mortis in unusual conditions, and investigates the much rarer phenomenon of cadaveric spasm, in which parts of the body become instantaneously rigid at the moments of death. This is controversial, poorly documented, and almost invariably involves people clutching things in their hands, although a case report from South Yemen shows a gunshot victim with his teeth biting his lower lip. It has, hardly surprisingly, never been observed happening, so the exact timing of the phenomenon is wholly unknown. Pappas puts some store on three accounts which she claims to be associated with asphyxiation (a suffocated baby, a young man who appeared to have died from seizure and a drowning), but her sources mention gunshot just as frequently.
It is Pappas’ contention that the relatively high position of the pectoral muscles on the Shroud suggest an instantaneous ‘freeze’ during the last breath, after the voluntary process of inhalation, but before the involuntary final exhalation that typically occurs. I don’t know that this is a necessary explanation; some pathologists have speculated that the mere process of hanging suspended for some hours may have cramped the respiratory muscles until they literally couldn’t relax, even if there was a general slackening after death until rigor mortis set in.
The main purpose of the paper, though, is to determine whether the posture of the image can only be explained by it having being created by a dead man in rigor mortis, and not, for example, by a living man, a dead man not in rigor mortis, or a statue. Relevant observations include:
– the left foot appears turned inwards over the right.
– the legs appear bent.
– the chest appears raised.
– the head appears bent forward onto the chest, making the back of the neck much more prominent than the front.
– the arms have been forced out of rigor.
– the back of the body and legs appear curved, not flattened as if secondary flaccidity had set in.
The first is undoubtedly true: the left foot does appear to be on top of the right, although we ought to note that Victor Caja and Marcia Boi have written, “The overlapping of the feet, with the left foot on top of the right one in the dorsal image, creates a visible mismatch and dissimilarities with the frontal TS images because, in the latter, the feet seem to be almost parallel.”2 This tends to support an artificial creation hypothesis, where the two sides of the image might not be expected to match precisely. However, if the image were made by a body, and it was either alive or not in rigor mortis, it would be much more likely that the feet would be laid side by side.
Whether there is evidence that the legs are bent or not depends on so many indeterminate factors that it does not seem to me to be possible to be dogmatic about it. A BBC documentary from 2008 3 shows John Jackson folding a very detailed, actual-sized, diagram of the Shroud over a model body with completely flat legs, and shows that it ‘fits’ perfectly. On the other hand Giulio Fanti et al. find that their Computerized Anthropomorphous Manikin, created to fit the Shroud image as accurately as possible, has distinctly bent legs.4 Fred Zugibe thought that the rigor in the legs had been broken to flatten them out.5 The first two think that the Shroud was wrapped closely around the body, Zugibe thought it was “simply laid on the outstretched body”, and Isabel Piczek and others think that image shows that the cloth was spread horizontally above the body, and that the image of the legs shows ‘foreshortening,’ so that, according to her, they appear shorter than they really were. She writes: “The arms would be too long if the Shroud Man would be flatly reclining. The arms, however are entirely parallel with the surface of the Shroud and we see them in linear full length. The torso, the thighs, the lower legs on the other hand we see shortened by geometric perspective and not in full length. They stand at an angle to the surface.”6 This, Pappas notices, explains why the arms are able to cover the genitals. However, if we actually look at Piczek’s drawings, we can see how completely subjective these comments are.
Drawing by Isabel Piczek showing the correct (left) and wrong (right) position of the body.
There is absolutely no foreshortening at all.
Fortunately, we do not need dubious measurements to show us that either the torso of the image is “too short” or the arms are “too long,” in order that the hands can cover the genitals. We simply have to lie down and try it. But which of the two alternatives is correct simply cannot be determined objectively. For a while, although he seems later to have changed his mind, Fred Zugibe speculated that the arms were unnaturally long because of a genetic condition called Marfan’s syndrome.
Regarding the head, we must remember that it has become an article of dogma that the image was created by means of some kind of vertically collimated information transfer. However, dipping the head onto the chest would do more than just drop it vertically, it would render a great deal more of the top of the head liable to leave an image, and it would foreshorten the face. I do not see either of these on the Shroud.
Positions of vertically collimated information transfer, with the head flat or raised.
Diagrams adapted from Fanti et al.
When Jesus died on the cross, he remained, hanging from the nails in his hands, for some time – adequate for rigor to become established – before being taken down. Until rigor was broken, his arms were completely straight, and raised somewhat above his shoulders. If, as he was lowered, the arms had been forcibly bent at the shoulders down and across the body, and maybe tied in position where they crossed, they would have covered his groin very easily. It is difficult to understand why, therefore, the arms were also bent at the elbows, at such an angle that they didn’t easily cover the groin. On a related note, if Marc Guscin’s reconstruction of the way the Sudarium was folded is correct,7 the head of the dead man was jammed tightly to one side. This is not what we see on the Shroud, so we must suppose that rigor was broken at the neck too, to return the head to its natural position.
Finally, it has been observed that the buttocks and legs do not appear flattened against the cloth, even where direct pressure on it is expected. However the fatty tissue of the buttocks is not affected by rigor mortis, so if a real man, dead or alive, in rigor or not, was placed on the cloth, some evidence from 3D image software should show this contact flattening, but there is none. This observation tends to support some kind of rigid statue being the source of the image.
Finally, we must ask ourselves if all this isn’t really wholly hypothetical, as without an actual crucifixion we can’t really guess what ‘rigor mortis’ would look like. Artists over the ages have speculated, but it is not obvious that they really knew what they were depicting. Generally speaking they have found themselves faced with a dilemma. If the feet are flat against the upright of the cross, then the legs are grotesquely bent. Here is Giulio Fanti’s reconstruction of the Shroud man, compared to a real man actually on a cross, and we note that in order to make the legs less bent, the real man has to stand on a sloping platform. Even the mannequin does not have his feet flat, even though they are a pointed as a ballet dancer’s; his knees would be far more bent if they were.
From ‘Rigor Mortis and News obtained by the Body’s Scientific Reconstruction
of the Turin Shroud Man,’ Giulio Fanti, Forensic Science Today, 2018.
To get round the ugliness of legs bent double, most sculptors (and all re-enactors) give Jesus at least a sloping platform to stand on, if not a proper step, like most Byzantine crucifixes.
But this still doesn’t represent the real thing. For that, we must go back to Fred Zugibe and his experiments with students. Here, based on actual people with their feet flat against an upright, is what a crucifixion really looks like:
To me, the Shroud of Turin looks as if it is based on a traditional Western European concept of what a crucifixion might look like, rather than any experience or knowledge of the real thing. If the body above were taken down in rigor mortis, and wrapped in a cloth where it left a mysterious imprint, it wouldn’t look much like the Shroud of Turin.
1 ‘Indicia of Reliability: Evidence of Rigor Mortis and Cadaveric Spasm from the Body Image on the Shroud of Turin,’ Theodora A Pappas, Newsletter of the British Society for the Turin Shroud, Issue 99, 2024.
2 ‘The Evidence of Crucifixion on the Shroud of Turin Through the Anatomical Traits of the Lower Limbs and Feet’, Victor Cara & Marcia Boi, Archaeometry, 2018
3 ‘Shroud of Turin,’ presented by Rageh Omaar, produced and directed by David Rolfe, 2008
4 ‘Turin Shroud: Compatibility Between a Digitized Body Image and a Computerized Anthropomorphous Manikin,’ G. Fanti, R. Basso and G. Bianchini, Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, 2010.
5 The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry, Frederick Zugibe, 2005
6 ‘Is the Shroud of Turin a Painting?’ Dame Isabel Piczek, shroud.com, 1995
7 ‘The Sudarium of Oviedo: Its History and Relationship to the Shroud of Turin,’ Mark Guscin, shroud.com, 1997
Hi Teddi,
You write, “I prefer citations in footnotes, and with page numbers, but that is not how it is done with the BSTS [British Society for the Turin Shroud] Newsletter.”
Not true. Please check the recent issues of the BSTS Newsletter. Page numbers are indeed cited in the notes or references to many or most of their articles.
You also write, “Many of the papers that I cite are freely available on the internet … so, my work can easily be independently verified by anyone….”
Not true. Even if you (or Hugh) cite an article or a book that is accessible on the Internet, that still does not much help readers who wish to check your information or claims quickly and do not have an hour or two free during their very busy days and lives to search every cited text for the passage in question without any page number to look for. There is nothing “easy” about that task at all. And why should anyone believe that you or anyone “can defend” your claims when you include no page number references, thereby making verification difficult?
With regard to Dr. Bucklin and the question of chest expansion on the Turin Shroud Man, you may not understand the situation. Many or most men will understand it much better. If a man goes to a gym or otherwise works out physically very strenuously for an hour or two or even more, his (male) muscles get seriously “pumped up.” If he then keels over dead of a heart attack, his muscles, while going relatively flaccid or limp, may well remain enlarged or pumped up for an hour or two or even more. His chest, for example, may remain expanded. There is no “gravity” factor involved here. I do not know if this scenario is true in the case of a sudden death, but I have not read anything against its being true. Since you are female, you may not be aware of such male body experiences. Female bodies generally do not get nearly as pumped up from exercise, nor for nearly as long, as male bodies do. Also, females generally do not exercise nearly as much as males do, nor for as long. This is partly speculation, but seems reasonable at the moment and may deserve more consideration than your too-quick comment gave it.
Best regards in any case,
JL
Hi, John,
Thanks for your comments. Regarding page numbers, if there are any particular matters that you would like to see for yourself, please let me know –I can look at my raw data where I, often, include the page number for information that I cite to. However, with certain publications, the editors have the author do citations in a certain way. For example, I prefer citations in footnotes and with page numbers, but that is not how it is done with the BSTS Newsletter. If my memory is correct (and Michael Kowalski can correct me here if I am misremembering), but I seem to recall being asked to LEAVE OUT the page numbers in my citations, because that’s just not the style of the BSTS Newsletter. Many of the papers that I cite to are freely available on the internet, and many of the books that I cite to have blurbs from the book on the internet –so, my work can easily be independently verified by anyone who doubts the legitimacy of my quotes and citations. I write with the presumption that Hugh (and others, but particularly Hugh) will double-check every citation, every claim every translation, etc. –so, I engage in heavy-duty “Charlie-Yankee-Alpha”)😆 with my work. When there are talked about contrary opinions (such as with cadaveric spasms), I mention them –I don’t dodge them. I don’t hold positions that I cannot defend, so if I proceed with a particular stance on something, you can better believe that I can defend it!
Regarding Bucklin’s observation with the chest, one must remember: It is NOT just about what could cause that feature that his expert eyes observed. It’s what could RETAIN that feature in a dead body which would –immediately upon death– experience PRIMARY MUSCULAR FLACCIDITY. The only way that the muscles could avoid become immediately flaccid upon death is via a cadaveric spasm. The literature that I read concerning this does not offer any other medically known means of muscles being frozen in a way that defies gravity (unless the body is subsequently moved post-mortem.) What is meant by this is let’s say that someone dies while sitting in a chair at their desk. The muscles will relax, and then the body will freeze in that position during the period of rigor mortis. However, let’s say that someone then moves the body and puts it on the ground in the supine (face-up) position –the arms might appear to be defying gravity, but they really “froze” in that position while not defying gravity –and, as such, this one way to know that the body has been moved.
The importance about a cadaveric spasm is that it is, by definition, something that only happens in a dead body, and it is a very rare occurrence that occurs under high-stress situations.
All the best,
Teddi
What follows are some comments and questions about Hugh Farey’s “Rigor Mortis” blog post of August 1 and Teddi Pappas’s Aug. 2 comment on it.
But first a formal tip: It would have been more reader-friendly if Teddi’s original BSTS Newsletter article about Rigor, and Hugh’s blog post about that article, had contained page numbers for the numerous references they each cite. Many readers might have liked to check their sources, but very few will probably ever do so because it would mean plowing through dozens of pages, especially in a book, looking for the one sentence in question. Even tables of contents or indexes (if the book has an index) often do not help with word searches. I realize that the two lists of “References” here are basically given as bibliographies and that bibliographies do not normally contain page numbers, but in the absence of any Notes section, page numbers might best have been tacked on the end of each entry for more credibility. Other authors have often done so. As these two writings currently stand, therefore, neither is very reassuring.
As another preliminary, I must reply here briefly to Hugh’s comment of Aug. 9 after (or within) his July 27 post “Absence of Evidence 3.” He responded there skeptically to my use of the phrase “consistent with” regarding a possible Turin Shroud presence in ancient Anatolia. He thought the phrase did not imply actual evidence. But I wonder if he instead meant “not proof.” The historical details that Jack Markwardt had offered seem to me to comprise a form or degree of “evidence” in the case, even if some or many of them were weak. But Hugh may not consider any such information even evidence unless it is actually proof. Hugh then also cleverly stated that the moon’s mottled appearance is also “consistent with” it being “made of green cheese.” That is a wonderful quip, and I cannot match its humor. Bravo. But I will offer a bland reply — that nobody except a lunatic would think the moon is made of cheese. It’s utterly impossible. The burial shroud of Jesus, on the other hand, was very definitely present in Jerusalem, within ancient Palestine, during at least part of the first century, and could easily, merely in terms of distance and time-frame, have found its way to northern Syria or Anatolia within several decades or a few centuries. Both locations were in the vicinity of Palestine as compared with any other location on the entire rest of this planet, which is some 24,000 miles in total circumference.
Now to the claims and the human anatomy involved in Hugh’s “Rigor Mortis” post, at least as I interpret them. Briefly:
1. Feet. Early on, Hugh writes of Caja and Boi’s finding of a dissimilarity, a discrepancy, between the frontal and dorsal images of the feet. Their paper was apparently published in 2018, so it is now six years old. Has anyone else in the field, or those authors themselves, addressed this discrepancy further by now? Could it simply be due to the different angles of the cloth, the dorsal half of the cloth presumably lying relatively flat while the frontal half of the cloth was presumably tilted by the one raised foot and its toes? Any “latest news” on this subject? Is Hugh’s description of it, suggesting an artist’s mistake instead of a real dead body with its dead feet, fair? (I have not read the article myself, which is behind a paywall, and do not plan to.) Besides, looking at various photos of the Shroud, I cannot discern much of the feet on the frontal image. They are half “cut off” because they extend beyond the edge of the cloth, and the remaining half image of them is rather obscure. How did Caja and Boi deal with those visual problems? Anyone know?
2. Legs/Knees. Hugh then mentions a 2008 BBC documentary done with (Dr. and great Shroud expert) John Jackson and showing a diagram of the body “with completely flat legs.” Is that a description by Jackson himself, or by someone else in the doc? Or is it Hugh’s own description of the diagram of the Shroud? If the latter, was the diagram done to Jackson’s specifications, or done by some BBC studio artist who did not know all the details and perhaps did not much care? Is the word “fits” which Hugh even puts into quotation marks an actual spoken statement from that documentary? In any case, much of the apparent discrepancy and disagreement among the Shroud experts surely resulted from the different years and different circumstances of their research, as well as any idiosyncrasies of personality or belief. They have also been far too few in number. It is now high time to convene a group of researchers to seriously study such matters, i.e., together, not isolated each in his or her individual laboratory.
3. Arms. The arms are not abnormally long, despite what Hugh (and other skeptics before him) suggests. They fall well within the range of normal-length arms. Add to that the fact that Jesus was Jewish, ethnically a Semite, probably with a Semitic body type involving slightly elongated limbs, and you get plenty of reason to conclude that the arms are those of a real ancient Jewish man, not the mistaken proportions of a medieval European statue or even painting as some people have skeptically claimed. The lack of visible thumb images, due to the actual thumbs being lower than the imaging phenomenon could reach, or to their even being hidden under the wrist of one hand and the forefinger of the other hand, also adds to the optical illusion that the arms are longer than normal: those streamlined hands themselves thereby seem elongated, though they are not. Hugh oddly mentions here Dr. Zugibe’s old and one-off speculation about Marfan’s syndrome causing the “unnaturally long” arm length, a suggestion which really belongs in a mere footnote or endnote now, if at all, in the year 2024, not in anyone’s main text. It serves no purpose and only creates confusion. (Or was confusion its actual purpose in being mentioned now?)
4. Head. I don’t quite understand Hugh’s statement that “dipping the head onto the chest would … foreshorten the face.” If the portion of the cloth that lay over the face was also very slightly inclined (propped up by sacks of spices set on either side of the body?) and at the same angle as the face, wouldn’t their two planes match, without creating any odd foreshortening of the facial image? But this subject admittedly needs more investigation.
5. Elbows. Hugh next writes that, “it is difficult to understand why, therefore, the arms were also bent at the elbows….” But really, if the arms had been left completely straight at the elbows, but pulled down from the shoulders so that the hands then covered the groin area, the resulting posture of the body would look rather cramped, uncomfortable, and undignified. So, the burial servants, having already “broken” the rigor in the shoulders in order to bring the arms downward, must presumably also have felt it best to break the rigor in the elbows slightly for still more decorum. They had doubtless often performed this additional act before, or learned of it from others who had. (Teddi made this point too, writing in her article of a “graceful position.” I would gladly say that I agree with her, but actually we agree with each other, because I deduced that motive before having read her comment, indeed many years ago. Many other Turin Shroud researchers had presumably done so even before that. Hugh could have too if he had tried a bit harder.) Hugh also wrote that, with the elbows bent, the hands “didn’t easily cover the groin.” Look again, please.
6. Neck. Hugh’s point about the blood stains and wrapping configuration of the Sudarium of Oviedo, if it was that of Jesus, indicating that his head in death on the cross lay heavily “to one side,” and Hugh’s statement that the neck must therefore also have had its rigor broken by the burial servants to achieve the frontal direction of the face seen on the Shroud image, seems to me an odd one to make if it is supposed to support Hugh’s skepticism. Yes, of course, the burial servants would naturally have done so, once again for decorum. Why bury someone with great care and yet leave his head twisted to one side, evoking his agony and horrible death on a cross? Give him some peace and comfort in the grave, please. That is probably the first principle of every mortician and funeral director in the world.
7. Buttocks. The question of the buttocks and any flattening of them has long been debated but also rather neglected in the Shroud field. It really deserves much more experimentation — and not by any single researcher, but by a team for more reliability of the results. I recall our recently departed (and greatly missed) Shroud colleague Barrie Schwortz once mentioning that some small amount of flattening (of that “fatty tissue” Hugh mentions?) was indeed evident in the photographs taken by his close STURP colleague Vern Miller. Is that correct, or is Hugh’s statement correct that, “some evidence from 3D image software should show this contact flattening, but there is none.” What is the truth here? Hugh’s alternative scenario, involving a rigid, wooden, medieval statue used to create the image, presents its own discrepancies and multiple conundrums. Pappas also writes in her BSTS article that Dr. Zugibe detected (and reported in 2005) some asymmetry between the two buttocks images, right and left (a feature I’d never read of before, or had forgotten), suggesting a real body more so than a man-made statue. Hugh does not mention this point. Is it true or not? Ever measured? Where are the photographs? It would seem a fairly simple matter to get a long sheet of glass or plexiglass and request a big city coroner, in the name of science, to take photographs from below of several dead bodies of fit young men still in rigor mortis lying on it. Of course, if there were any sort of soft (sand?) bedding under the Shroud in the tomb, that might have affected the forms imaged.
8. Feet and Knees. Hugh’s final point about a contradiction between the feet being positioned flat and the knees not being raised seems less of a problem to me than to him. The legs or knees did not need to be “grotesquely bent,” as he describes them, but only slightly bent, if the feet were flat against the upright beam of the cross. Besides, what we see on the Shroud is not the precise vertical body position on the cross, but the body position in the tomb, lying down, horizontally, and possibly with softer materials as padding (“bedding”?) under it as well, perhaps providing the body with some symbolic comfort. Hugh also seems to think that many artists’ depiction of a foot-rest feature on the cross have been pure speculation and invention by them. But weren’t such foot-rests for the victims indeed sometimes used in ancient crucifixions? Is there any good reason to suppose that one was not used in the case of the Turin Shroud Man, if he was truly a real crucified man, Jesus?
9. Cadaveric Spasm. While cadaveric spasms seem to have occurred very rarely in recent decades, according to the statistical evidence that Pappas related in her BSTS article (an article which will become freely and publicly accessible to anyone about one year from now, in 2025), one has to wonder if it was more common, perhaps even much more common, in ancient times especially in connection with the horrific punishment of crucifixion then, in which the body’s muscles and nerves were incredibly tensed and strained for hours on end. Given that possibility and scenario, the claim that cadaveric spasm is and always has been “extremely rare” might not be correct. On the other hand, I also incline to agree with Hugh that another explanation may be possible for the expanded chest of the Turin Shroud Man besides that of cadaveric spasm (or muscle freezing instantly upon death): perhaps enlarged chest muscles (“muscle pump”) from all of the earlier excruciating exertion on the cross for hours that day, which could have remained enlarged even when the body stopped breathing. Anyway, that chest expansion seems a minor point, and knowing so little about this cadaveric spasm question, I’ll say no more.
JL
Hello Teddi,
Thanks for all the details you addressed here. I agree with you and numerous other scientists like Dr Robert Bucklin, who stated that the body was in rigor mortis at the moment of image formation. One other detail often overlooked is that once a strip is wrapped around the body – in the region of the elbows, this draws the arms closer together and they naturally drop lower into the pelvis. Skeptics often claim that his hands would not have covered his genital area. But when a wrapping draws the elbows more closely to the body, they line up with the hand position we see in the Shroud.
Hi, Hugh,
Thanks for taking the time to read and review my rigor mortis paper. Below, I would like to respond to and clarify some things that you bring up.
You mention that the main purpose of my paper is to determine whether the posture of the image can only be explained by it having being created by a dead man in rigor mortis, and not, for example, by a living man, a dead man not in rigor mortis, or a statue. I try my best to be very careful about the words that I write and to defend the claims that I make. Specifically, the main purpose of my paper is to answer these questions (as quoted from my paper):
“(1) Does the body image on the Shroud exhibit evidence of a man who had a cadaveric spasm and then went into rigor mortis while still suspended from a cross? (2) Can rigor mortis be noticeably sustained in a cadaver for 39 hours post-mortem —the approximate maximum amount of time that Jesus was dead?”
But, as the title of my paper suggests —“Indicia of Reliability: Evidence of Rigor Mortis and Cadaveric Spasm from the Body Image on the Shroud of Turin” —I do make the case that I am not just presenting evidence —but, that I am presenting evidence that is so subtle that one could feel confident to bet one’s own life that an artist would have never even dreamed of putting in such details.
Regarding cadaveric spasms, I take issue with the claim that they are “poorly documented.” I present credible documentation of them in my paper from forensic medical examiners. However, because cadaveric spasms are very rare, the opportunity to have many documented cases to parade are not available. Yet, I think that you will agree that if one has even just one piece of excellent evidence proving a point, that is enough. Corroborating evidence just gilds the lily.
I was very cautious in approaching the issue of cadaveric spasm as I knew (prior to my more in-depth research on the topic) that it was a very controversial topic —with even a very interesting paper regarding it saying that it is a myth. So, as is the frequent case with Shroud matters, I came across what seemed like horrible evidence that should cause me to abandon an important piece of evidence. Yet, I kept digging around —because, life experience has taught me that the debunkers often need to be debunked. So, in further researching the matter, I found examples that could not have an alternative explanation. I agree that some of the examples given in that paper declaring cadaveric spasms to be a myth do, indeed, have alternative explanations that do not require a cadaveric spasm as the best or only explanation. As such, I did not include questionable examples —or ones based on hearsay evidence (such as the example that Dr. Fred Zugibe mentions in his book about how he had learned from the news that someone was fleeing on foot from the police and was shot while running, and that the police saw him immediately freeze in place mid-run. So, it has been witnessed happening in real-time. But, because I could not find the actual article to reference, I did not mention that —although I personally think that Zugibe is telling the truth about remembering reading about such a case in the news.
But, with the example that I gave of the woman who shot her husband in self-defense as he was chasing her with a straight-razor, this woman witnessed the cadaveric spasm occur when her husband froze in place when shot while in a position that defied gravity. So, I would disagree with your claim that cadaveric spasms have never been observed from their onset.
Also, it was not I who claimed that some examples of cadaveric spasm were associated with asphyxiation —I just wrote what chief medical examiner Dr. Marcella F. Fierro wrote about the three instances of cadaveric spasm that she has seen in her over 30 years of practice as a medical examiner. Anyhow, I think that the examples that I presented of cadaveric spasm are solid and have no plausible alternative explanation —so, I think that’s as good as it gets (which is pretty good!)
Regarding what his expert eyes were observing in the chest area of the body image on the Shroud, I mentioned in my paper that STURP team member and chief medical examiner Dr. Robert Bucklin noted that the appearance of “[a]n increase in the anteroposterior diameter of the chest due to bilateral expansion.”
Since I did not know what that was indicative of, I set about trying to find out by way of researching it. Well, in short, this is the position of the chest when taking in a breath! You posit an alternative explanation for this (that the respiratory muscles were cramped due to the crucarius’ body being suspended for hours) is not viable in light of the other aspects of rigor mortis. Why? Because, unless there is a cadaveric spasm, IMMEDIATELY upon death, there is TOTAL muscular relaxation during the phase of primary muscular flaccidity. As such, no amount of cramping of muscles in life can be present even a moment after death —but for a cadaveric spasm.
While I am not a medical doctor, I do think that my putting “2 + 2” together is giving me “4.” If not, what else could it be (in concert with the other evidence of rigor mortis?) One must remember, unless what Bucklin saw was a result of a cadaveric spasm, the immediate relaxation of the muscles with primary muscular flaccidity would have immediately caused the chest to be in the position of EXHALATION.’
Regarding Victor Cain and Marcia Boi and their statement that the feet seem almost parallel in the frontal image (as opposed to how they appear in the dorsal image), I would say that in the frontal image, we do not see the details of the feet —because that portion of the body image is not there on the cloth —the cloth was, apparently, not long enough to capture them during the image-making process. And, from what is available for amateur eyes to see of the legs in the frontal image, I can see how someone could think that the legs look someone parallel —but parallel with foreshortening going on (Their saying that this supports an artificial creation hypothesis is rather daring given a lack of reliable evidence to support that.
Regarding the bent legs, there is some foreshortening going on in the frontal image. This leads the legs to look slightly disproportionate to the arms and is why some have said that the arms appear too long. But, the arms are not too long —it is just that the knees are bent which shortens the appearance of the legs and, therefore, makes them look slightly disproportionate with the arms. Also, Dr. Zugibe stated that the left foot is shorter than the right one by about 7 cm —given the positioning of the legs (particularly in the dorsal image) this is just, yet another, piece of evidence pointing to the body’s being in rigor mortis while still suspended from the cross.
When examining the legs in the dorsal image, the position of the lower legs and the rounded appearance of the calves speaks volumes with regard to the knees being bent. If the legs were flat, there would be visible flattening of the calves —but the contrary is seen. And, of course, the imprint of the sole of the right foot on the dorsal image cinches the deal that the legs were frozen in the position of how the feet were nailed to the stipes of a cross as the body was vertically suspended.
I would like to correct the record in that I was not the one who first noticed the situation about the hand positioning when the knees are bent vs. flat —that was Isabel Piczek who discovered this with her rather inspired experiment with a live artist’s model.
I will agree with you, Hugh, that drawings don’t count due to potential inaccuracies (intended or not) by the artist. And, while Dame Piczek was a phenomenal artist, I agree with you that as far as the legs go, she did not capture what she intended. Instead, she did, however, give an accurate representation of the position of the hands and where they are in relationship to the genitals with both drawings —with the one on the left in the position of the knees being bent, and the one of the right with the legs laying flat. I think the error came about because she was more focused on showing the position of the folded hands and their positioning in relationship to whether they could cover the genitals (or not.) And, with that, she captured that spot on. Readers should try this out, and they will see for themselves the difference between knees being bent and not being bent.
It should also be noted that I did not include Piczek’s drawing in my paper.
Regarding the positioning of the head, take a look at the famous photo of the corpse that Dr. Pierre Barbet nailed to a cross for his crucifixion experiment. What you can see is that the neck is not showing and the face is forward —facing the camera— and there does not appear to be any or enough of a noticeable dipping of the head into the chest to reveal more of the top of the corpse’s head.
Regarding your question about why were the arms bent at the elbows, I am just surmising here, but it might be that breaking the rigor on the shoulders was not enough in order to get the arms positioned so that the hands could cover the groin area as much as possible. If the shoulders are dislocated and rigor in them is broken, I’m not so sure that they could be moved over an expanded, arching chest so as to, then, cover the groin area. I think that positioning would, likely, have been quite awkward and not the graceful positioning that we see on the Shroud’s body image.
Regarding recreations of how the Sudarium of Oviedo was folded over the crucarius’ head, these are very interesting, but, ultimately, they are speculative. I’m not sure that this head to the side position fits in with the position of crucifixion where the head is “locked” in place by being “trapped” between the shoulders. But, perhaps. But, that is not something that I’m willing to stick my neck out for. So, I prefer to focus on what is seen on the Shroud and what we know from some crucifixion experiments in regard to the position of the head and shoulders.
And, regarding the buttocks —this is a very interesting situation. As you, no doubt, noticed, I did not include the common claim in my paper that the buttocks do not exhibit any flattening due to rigor mortis. It might still be quite possible, but I don’t have a high degree of confidence in it as I used to. Unfortunately, Dr. Gil Lavoie’s experiment with putting a man on a glass table —to observe how the buttocks look when flattened, has only an artist’s rendition of what the man’s body looked like. For many years, I thought this was a black and white photo (because it was such a good drawing), but it turns out that he (as with Isabel Piczek), out of, presumably, a sense of modesty, did not want to publish a photo of a man’s unclothed buttocks. Because this was not a photo and could be criticized as being inexact and subject to artistic interpretation, etc. I did not think that it rose to the standard of proof that I wanted to present in my paper, so I left it out.
Moreover, when looking at the buttocks on the Shroud’s body image, it is too difficult for me to assess what is going on with this. Also, in examining the statue that Professor Giulio Fanti was involved in creating which was based upon what is seen on the Shroud’s body image, it seems like a portion of the buttocks are flattened and a portion are not. This, however, accounts for what I did mention in my paper —that Dr. Zugibe noticed ASYMMETRY with the buttocks in the Shroud’s body image —and that this corresponds with the asymmetrical positioning of the legs (with them being bent and then one crossed over the other.
In terms of your rhetorical question of “if all this isn’t really wholly hypothetical, as without an actual crucifixion we can’t really guess what ‘rigor mortis’ would look like,” I would say that Barbet’s experiment crucifying a corpse to a cross gives us a great idea of what that looks like —and this corresponds with many of Zugibe’s and Bucklin’s findings. So, I do not think that it is “wholly hypothetical” at all.
Anyhow, there are more things mentioned in my paper about rigor mortis. The full paper (in the Summer 2024 edition) is available to members of the British Society for the Turin Shroud here: https://www.bstsnewsletter.com/ To get membership to the online newsletter (which has the extended version of my paper), I think the yearly cost is less than $14.00. There are many other great papers to be found there, as well!
All the best,
Teddi