“Until someone replicates an artefact, with all of its characteristics,
then however ardently they may claim it to be by the hand of man,
their very incompetence demonstrates the likelihood that it is the work of God.”
Various attempts have been made to reproduce the method by which the Shroud image was made, in the face of a district lack of information about it (the 1978 investigations being so inconclusive), and have proved quite successful in reproducing the image’s distinctive characteristics. It’s indistinct, it’s superficial, and it appears that the colouring is continuous rather than particulate. That’s it really.
However, whenever a medieval source is suggested, two other, linked, criteria are invariably erected as barricades to possibility by authenticists; firstly that the image is far too complex for human hand to achieve, and secondly that unless the existing image is reproduced exactly, the attempt has been a “complete failure.”
But consider the following. I take a piece of aluminium cooking foil, crumple it into a ball, and then spread it out again. It would be almost impossible to reproduce exactly, even though the method I used could not be simpler. So too with the Shroud. I believe the craftsman mixed some paint, some water and some adhesive (such as egg-yolk), and dabbed it on a cloth. He need not have measured the precise quantities to the nearest millilitre, nor dabbed with a pressure-gauge attached to his pounce, he just did it. However, to reproduce his work, we might have to try endless permutations of paint, water, adhesive and pressure, as well as various other factors, to achieve the same effect.
“It hasn’t been done,” cry the authenticists, and more often than not, “it can’t be done,” there being a strong implication that the one justifies the other. That being so, the Shroud must be authentic, and, pacé the tiny few still looking for a naturalistic explanation, it must be miraculous.
But if this is true of the Shroud, is it not true of other artworks that have never been duplicated, however simple their apparent method? It hasn’t been done, it can’t be done, so it must be miraculous.
What about Tracey Emin’s bed? In 1999, a work called ‘My Bed,’ and consisting of “a bed with bedroom objects in a disheveled state,” was exhibited at the Tate Gallery, and shortlisted for the Turner Prize. Since then it has been exhibited all over the world and was sold at Christie’s in 2014 for 2.5 million pounds.
Or has it? As far as I can ascertain, this is what was exhibited at the Tate.
Since when, ‘My Bed’ has appeared in so many different forms it’s quite difficult to find two pictures of the same configuration.
In spite of its fame, and the detailed documentary photographs of it, and its accessibility to anybody wishing to study it more closely, nobody has managed to duplicate this artwork.
So nobody can.
So it must be a miracle!
The fact that consensus can change shows why unverified claims don’t qualify as science until they undergo the same rigorous process. Until that happens, it’s just wishful thinking.
… until that day in science when it no longer does – as happens in so many cases. JL
What I mean is that in science wide acceptance (although never definitive) reflects strong and confirmed evidence.
Hi Marco,
It seems that we each have something to learn about our respective native languages – me about your Italian, you about my English. Maybe others can learn too.
You write, “isn’t it the same in English?” Well, no, or at least not in my limited yet extensive experience with academic English, admittedly only of the American kind. Here in the U.S. we use the word “studious” only as an adjective, not a noun. The noun version is “student,” which, however, does not imply any studiousness, that is, any diligent or accomplished student, but merely a learner, any learner. “Scholar,” in my experience of academic English (two degrees in the U.S., nothing more), is generally used for the liberal arts fields, that is, the humanities (in which my own two degrees were earned). I’m not at all familiar with the use of such terms in the sciences in the U.K., which may be different, nor in Canada, Australia, etc. But for me as an American (U.S. citizen born and raised) to say vaguely that someone is a “scholar of science” sounds strange. In my (again, limited) experience, we generally specify the particular field of science in that case, e.g., “he/she is a physicist,” or, to elevate it for cases of real excellence, “an eminent physicist,” or a “highly respected astronomer,” or a “world-renowned geologist,” and so on and so on.
The term “scholar,” if I recall right, dates way back to the Middle Ages, when most higher learning was limited to the humanities and/or liberal arts – theology, Greek, Latin, etc. The very term “science,” again if I recall right, was not in common usage until around 1800. Before that, the field was referred to in English as “natural philosophy.” Anyway, enough of all that for now.
Marco, you seem to have an obsession with homeopathy which no one else on this thread or on other threads on Hugh Farey’s blog has, nor even in the entire field of Turin Shroud studies. You’ve referred to that subject several times and always disparagingly. Personally, I have never even once in my life written or spoken that term until these very sentences I’m writing now. I barely know what it means, and so am completely neutral about it. I have no interest in it. Enough said. Please drop it.
Also, Marco, if you think that something “widely accepted” is also “proven,” then yes, we must part ways from each other, at least for now, until you ponder that claim a bit longer and revise it in your mind.
Yours sincerely (and hoping you won’t find a gang of homeopaths hiding under your bed tonight),
John L.
John, as you know I am Italian. In Italian “scholar” means “studioso” and every scientist is a “studioso” (although not every “studioso” is a scientist). Therefore, in a context where people are talking about science, it is clear that “studioso” is used in the sense of scientist. Isn’t it the same in English?
In science, what isn’t widely accepted isn’t proven. I repeat: the studies that glorify homeopathy have been written by qualified people, yet homeopathy isn’t scientifically validated. We always say the same things. There’s no point in engaging in dialogue if we don’t share basic principles. And it’s clear that we don’t. That’s how things are.
Hi Marco,
Thanks for your comments once again. Please pardon my inadequate terminology. But you see, on September 2 you used the term “scholars” here, actually even twice in the same post on this thread. Later that same day of September 2, you again used the term “scholars,” now several times in the same post here. On September 4, you then used the term “scholars” four times. All eight or so of these instances came before my own first post in this thread on September 6.
When you mentioned “serious scientists” on September 6, were you perhaps thinking of Cicero Moraes, the Brazilian boy wonder who appears not to have read many of the papers about the Shroud cloth configuration to be found on shroud.com? And who made a (self-promotional) splash in the world media recently with his Shroud-skeptical 3D computer simulation?
Would several highly respected medical examiners, each with decades of experience conducting autopsies on thousands of corpses, not count in your estimation as “serious scientists”? They all wrote books or detailed articles supporting the authenticity of the Shroud.
But maybe this is enough on this thread. Let’s call it a day, hey? The whole “Tracey Emin’s Bed” topic, as this thread started out, was a major distraction, mis-timed by Hugh, coming immediately after three blogposts by him devoted to the 14th century questions of d’Arcy and of Oresme’s recently discovered Shroud-skeptical claim, which has generated lots of posts and is still being debated.
John L.
John, I am not “now” limiting the candidates; this page is entirely about science.
Of course, just because something is theoretically possible doesn’t mean it’s true. Even homeopaths use the prejudice argument: https://drpitcairn.blog/2017/07/02/the-prejudice-against-homeopathy/
The truth is that if a field of study gets more attention, it’s likely (or at least possible) that both pro- and con-studies will increase. This is why I regret that serious scientists aren’t, for the most part, studying the Shroud. My discussion ends here. Thank you.
Ciao Marco,
Maybe someone should do a statistical analysis of the numbers involved and publish it for all to see. You claimed that only “a few scholars … a handful of scholars” have ever believed the Turin Shroud was authentic. How many does that imply? Pochi. Pochissimi.
I claimed several hundred at present or in recent years (the past decade or two?), and “perhaps” up to a few / several thousand over the entire history of the Shroud field. Under “scholars” I include experts in many fields, not only the “scientists” whom you now limit the candidates to. Also, many earlier experts were not able to publish anything because of the difficulty of publication in their times. But they often worked as diligent and efficient assistants to others who did publish.
Which of us is closer to reality in that numbers question? Let someone do the count.
With regard to your other sentences, Marco, you seem to be playing word games. Many true things in life have obviously been neglected (“not verified,” or not even considered) for years, decades, even centuries because of prejudice of whatever kind among “the powers that be.” The whole history of science and business and health care is littered with dead beliefs about reality and the way things worked. Various prejudices long prevented advances in those fields. Maybe your word “would” should be changed to “could.” Ponder that. Thanks!
John L.
John, saying that several thousand of scientists (these are the scholars we are talking about here) have deemed the Shroud authentic is a statement that I can’t understand. Saying that an unproven thesis was not proven due to prejudice is the same as saying that, had the prejudice not existed, it (probably or maybe) would have been proved. That is a petion of principles (begging the question). Our dialogue is useless, John, I’m sorry.
In terms of the VP8 images, I feel like the elephant in the room is how utterly pathetic they are. it’s not hard to imagine images it could have produced that would be incredible – 3D effects on a par with Michelangelo – instead of the rather tragic collection of battered polygons that we see
Marco wrote:
“Individual scholars = a few scholars, isolated scholars, a handful of scholars….”
Actually, the true number is at least several hundred, working at present or in recent years, all around the world, and surely well over a thousand, perhaps into the several thousands, over the whole long history of Turin Shroud research.
And again: “The reason their theories haven’t been verified and counterverified doesn’t matter….”
But it does matter. And there are several reasons for it. Among them is the pervasive hostility toward religion, especially the Christian religion, in much of the Western academic world. Even those academics who are or might be sympathetic to the Shroud fear for their jobs if they were ever to express openness to the possibility of its being authentic.
Also in terms of religion, the Turin Shroud is a sacred object, indeed the most sacred within Christianity or at least Catholic Christianity, and has therefore been protected from potential abusers, so much so that little direct access has been given to it over the decades and centuries. The fact that the Shroud is a single, extremely vulnerable object, unlike the intellectual or astrophysical theories of Newton, Einstein, Planck, and the rest, also makes it a special case.
With regard to religion again, Christian supernaturalists comprise most of the supporters in the Shroud authenticity camp, and can therefore be suspected of bias in their research. But there have been at least several supporters who have not been supernaturalists and/or not even religious. They have also been very productive in the field – sometimes more productive, more engaged, more committed, more responsible than many of the supernaturalists. Believe me, I know.
But we’ve gotten far away from “Tracey Emin’s Bed” by now, so let’s put this subject itself to bed (to arise another day).
John L.
Individual scholars= a few scholars, isolated scholars, a handful of scholars… The reason their theories haven’t been verified and counterverified doesn’t matter: what matters is that they haven’t received solid validation. Studies on homeopathy are also in scientific journals, but homeopathy isn’t scientifically validated.
Marco: you can repeat “simple as that” as many times as you want, but that doesn’t make your argument stronger.
True, the Shroud hasn’t been subject to the same level of scrutiny as Newton’s law of gravitation (also because the former is a niche topic and the latter is a fundamental law of nature). But there’s still a lot of literature on it, and many articles have been published on respected academic journals. Claiming that all of that is “based on theses and assumptions accepted as true” is an unsubstantiated assertion.
And if by “individual scholars” you want to mean that they are people without scientific qualifications, that is patently false. Most members of STURP worked in academic institutions, and prominent Italian sindonologists (e.g., Baima Bollone, Fanti, Di Lazzaro) are/were university professors as well. Actually, the “individual scholar” label is better suited to skeptic sindonologists like Hugh Farey, Joe Nickell and Walter McCrone (who worked in a private laboratory).
I couldn’t disagree more with Gerardo’s attempted refutation of my argument. The discoveries of Newton, Einstein, and Planck are in academic textbooks because they have been subjected to verification and counter-verification. Scientific (as well as historical) sindonology is based on theses and assumptions accepted as true by some scholars (whether qualified or self-styled). Beliefs in homeopathy are also shared by various scholars (whether qualified or self-styled), but this doesn’t change the fact that homeopathy is and remains a practice whose validity is accepted only by individual scholars. The question isn’t whether a theory comes from individual scholars; the question is whether a theory has been verified and counter-verified. Simple as that…
You would win your bet.
And of course your assessment is entirely sensible and if only there were more people like you; in fact most people make it quite clear that only an exact duplication will do. I couldn’t agree more that a successful attempt to find a method by which the image was created depends on it having the same characteristics of the Shroud image, which is why I use bas reliefs of a dragon and a bunch of grapes (as well as because they are the only ones I’ve got!). However, the lists – and there are many lists, all claimed to be definitive – of required characteristics vary from one authenticist to another and are often vague, irrelevant, factually wrong, unsubstantiated and internally contradictory. They are also repetitious, and usually specifically constructed to support the list-maker’s own pet hypothesis.
The honest authenticist, like the honest medievalist, will grant that very few characteristics of the Shroud can be definitively expressed, and therefore that no reproduction is likely to be “correct” except by chance.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Marco’s argument is obviously bogus. All knowledge is the accumulation of the work of “individual scholars”. When Newton published the laws of mechanics, he had worked them out all by himself. Same with Einstein and relativity, with Planck and the quantum of action, etc.
That an argument is presented by an “individual scholar” is a problem only when nobody else agrees with that scholar. That is clearly not the case with sindonology.
This “miraculous bed” example shows an obvious misunderstanding, or clever subversion, of the authenticists’ argument (I’d bet on the latter).
Of course one can’t demand that an IDENTICAL duplicate of the original is created — and to my knowledge, no authenticist actually demands that. The demand is that one demonstrates a METHOD by which the original could be created. The demonstration can be made by creating a duplicate that has all of the CHARACTERISTICS of the original. If the method can’t reproduce all the characteristics then it can’t be how the original was made.
E.g., if an aluminum foil has creases, the duplicate must have creases. They need not be in the exact same places. But there must BE creases. If the duplicate doesn’t have any, then clearly it fails the test.
The copies of the Tracey Emin bed aren’t identical to the original, but they have all the same characteristics: crumpled sheets, two cushions, various objects scattered on the carpet, etc. Thus it is quite obvious that the original could have been, and very likely was, made with the same method. Can you point to any characteristics that the original has and that whoever made the copies wouldn’t be able to reproduce?
Same for the Shroud: the requirement for anyone who wants to claim to have “demonstrated how it was made” is that the duplicate must reproduce it “with all of its characteristics”: superficiality, three-dimensionality, chemical properties, etc.
As Carl Sagan used to say, “exceptional claims require exceptional evidence”. Exceptional evidence can never come from the assertions of individual scholars . Sindonology is based on the assertions of individual scholars (whether qualified or self-styled). Simple as that.
Hi, Tom,
You mention: “In raising Jesus from the dead, why would there have to be an explosion of radiation? Do all miracles involve such radiation? ”
Maybe the energy is radiation, maybe not. Personally, I am of the opinion that (what I call “Resurrection energy—a.k.a. “life-giving energy”—is supernatural (meaning that mere Man cannot harness it in any way, shape or form. It just seems like God would have something so powerful and special be outside of the natural realm. But, it’s possible, nonetheless, that God used a natural form of energy in a supernatural way.
And, of course, there didn’t need to be an explosion of anything—much less of radiation. God is all-powerful. He can make things happen however He wants to. So, why use a burst of energy to bring Jesus back to life (when there were no reports of bursts of energy to bring Lazarus and the others back to life? Well, gee whiz, that’s rather simple to answer: to create Jesus’ image on His burial cloth and to make it rather obvious (at least to many) that this was life-giving energy that accomplished this. God gives us a concept that we can understand: when someone dies on earth, the energy that causes Life leaves their body. To bring Life back to the body, Energy must be put back into the body. It’s rather simple and straight-forward if one doesn’t try to fight the obvious.
Best regards,
Teddi
THE SHROUD SKEPTICS: A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS
HUGH FAREY: THE EGG DISASTER
Meet Hugh Farey, who discovered the “lost medieval art” of creating miracles by doing everything wrong!
His method: Mix egg yolk and paint, apply it carefully… then IMMEDIATELY WASH IT ALL OFF! 🚿
“Surely if I destroy my work completely, it’ll fool scientists for 700 years!”
This is like writing a novel and feeding it to your dog, expecting the resulting burp to be hailed as literature! 🐕
His results: Visible pigment particles, stuck fibers, bleed-through to the back.
The Shroud: No pigment, free fibers, one-sided image only.
SCORE: 3/22 Mad: (Lower than random chance!)
CICERO MORAES: THE DIGITAL DODGE
Enter Cicero Moraes, who solved the Shroud mystery with stunning computer graphics!
His groundbreaking discovery: Virtual cloth… touches virtual objects! 🤯
To achieve this breakthrough, he boldly ignored all:
• Physical aspects ✋
• Chemical analyses 🔬
• Material properties 🧪
It’s like explaining the Mona Lisa by proving paint sticks to canvas, while ignoring who painted it, when, and how! 🎨
Translation: “I solved the mystery by pretending it doesn’t exist!”
JAMES TABOR: THE PHANTOM PHOTOGRAPHER
Professor Tabor’s theory: A medieval ninja-photographer invented precision optics 400 years early, built a room-sized camera, photographed a corpse, then vanished without a trace! 👻
Medieval MacGyver’s to-do list:
1. Invent advanced optics ⏰
2. Build giant camera (blueprints lost) 🏠
3. Grind perfect lens with sheer willpower 🔍
4. Coat 14 feet of linen with silver nitrate ✨
5. Photograph dead body 💀
6. Disappear from history 👤
When shown scientific evidence against this?
“PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC GOBBLEDYGOOK!”
Yes! Chemistry is apparently just elaborate pranks by worldwide laboratories! 🧪
:performing_arts: THE GRAND FINALE :milky_way:
Our three heroes march on, convinced they’ve solved everything:
• Farey – magical disappearing paint 🎩
• Moraes – proof that cloth touches things 💻
• Tabor – invisible medieval photographer 📷
Meanwhile, the universe itself is having a good chuckle… 🤣
The Shroud remains:
• A negative image before photography existed 📸
• Perfect 3D encoding before holography 🗺️
• A 14-foot middle finger to skeptics 🖕
THE FINAL SCORE
• Medieval egg-painter: 3/22 Mad:
• Digital cloth-toucher: 0/22 Mad:
• Phantom photographer: -5/22 Mad:
• The Shroud: Still impossible, still mysterious ✅
They’ve proven that explaining away the Shroud requires theories MORE IMPOSSIBLE than the Shroud itself! 🎭✨
~ FIN ~
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Hugh. A quick plea for symmetry in how we weigh claims:
1) “Failure to replicate” isn’t positive evidence. Some authenticists argue that because skeptics haven’t reproduced the Shroud image under controlled conditions, the cloth must be authentic—often with a miraculous undertone. But by the same logic, because authenticists haven’t shown why the radiocarbon dating is decisively wrong, we should assume the dating stands. You can’t have it both ways.
2) Unknown mechanism ≠ miracle by default. When the image-formation discussion falls back on somehow–someway radiation or “mechanically transparent” bodies, that’s not an explanation; it’s an admission of not knowing. If God wanted an image on a cloth, God could do so—but that theological possibility doesn’t tell us this image is that, nor does it excuse the lack of a testable mechanism.
3) Keep the live hypotheses wide. Everything at least plausible should stay on the table: natural processes and artistic/technical ones alike—Rogers’ chemistry, Colin Berry’s thermal/contact hypotheses, Walter McCrone’s pigment claims, your suggestion in this post, and others we may not have considered yet. The standard is reproducible, documented methods with clear predictions and controls—not rhetoric.
My bar, stated plainly:
Give me a serious, testable, and independently replicable account of how the image could form—parameters, materials, steps, and controls.
Give me a serious, documented, and independently replicable account of why the C-14 is wrong—identified mechanism, magnitude, and evidence, not just possibilities.
Meet those standards, and I’m all ears. Until then, “we can’t do it yet, therefore miracle” is foolish talk. We should all admit that we have no solid ideas and let it go at that until we do.
There is a well-known saying about comparing apples and oranges with the gist of the meaning that some comparisons shouldn’t even be made. Your so-called comparison is definitely not one that should be made. Exactly how many hours have been spent studying and/or trying to duplicate it compared to the shroud? This is not a feeble comparison – –You’re so-called comparison is definitely not one that should be made. Exactly how many hours have been spent studying and/or trying to duplicate it compared to the shroud? This is not a feeble comparison – – it’s no comparison at all.
And may I add, Teddi, remember, this was the era of the dial telephone. If I had called you in 1976, the only way the exchange knew it was you was because I put my finger into the dial and let the phone count the clicks. The VP-8 worked the same way: a clever analog counting and mapping process, not a miracle machine. Forty-plus years later, to insist that its results prove something unique without full documentation of settings, lighting, optics, and calibration is like claiming the clicks from a rotary phone are more “authentic” than today’s digital signal. Both carry information—but neither is magic.
Thank you, Teddi, for raising the point about the VP-8. It’s important to be clear about what was and wasn’t established.
Yes, the VP-8 was an analog device built in the 1970s. It mapped brightness values from a video signal into vertical relief on a CRT display. That meant its output depended not only on the Shroud photograph itself, but on a whole chain of variables, often overlooked.
Illumination spectrum (color temperature): Film and vidicon tubes are wavelength-sensitive, so 3200K tungsten vs. 5500K daylight produces different brightness balances.
Film and print response (H-D curve): Photographic prints are not linear in brightness; they compress shadows and highlights.
Video gamma and CRT characteristics: The camera and monitor applied their own nonlinearities before the VP-8 ever saw the signal.
Operator settings: Gain, span, polarity, and the choice to blur or defocus the image were critical.
Because of these factors, the VP-8 does not provide an objective “3-D scan.” It provides an apparent relief based on a highly non-linear, user-controlled process. That’s why documentation matters. What were the lens focal length and aperture? What was the lighting angle and intensity? What values were the dials set to? Without those, reproducibility is impossible.
There is such a lack of documentation and control images that it is hard to think of the VP-8 work in the 1970s as being scientific at all.
As for control images: we do have anecdotal reports that ordinary photographs produced grotesque distortions, while the Shroud produced a more “natural” relief. But no full catalog of control images—with published prints, lighting, film stock, and VP-8 settings—was ever made available. This lack of documentation makes it impossible to test whether the Shroud’s output was truly unique. Modern replications using ImageJ have shown that many ordinary images can produce surprisingly natural reliefs once blur and gamma are adjusted.
And to say that “the ImageJ software can (as I long-suspected) fill in or modify an image by combining or modifying pixel values” is absolutely correct. I would add that the VP-8 does exactly the same thing. If it didn’t alter voltage/pixel values, it wouldn’t produce any relief at all. Both systems transform brightness values into height representations—one with variable resistors and analog dials, the other with digital code.
So while the VP-8 was an intriguing demonstration in 1976, it was never widely accepted as scientific evidence. Without published settings, calibration, and control data, its results are best treated as an artifact of a particular analog visualization—not as proof of 3-D information uniquely embedded in the Shroud.
Yes, this is always the standard of the sindonolaters. But similar standards never apply to their assertions. In raising Jesus from the dead, why would there have to be an explosion of radiation? Do all miracles involve such radiation? Were the loaves and fishes radioactive? None of these cloth-worshipping assumptions make any sense. But you are not allowed to question them, lest you declare yourself a bad Christian.
Where I wrote the following: “which renders a 3-D effect that does not show the type of distortions that regular photos of people or regular statues exhibit” I forgot to mention that the lack of distortions would need to be observed under a VP-8 Image Analyzer. I am not convinced that Image J software (which is digital) is precisely the same as a VP-8 Image Analyzer (which is analog.) From what I read from just a quick look on the internet, the Image J software can (as I long-suspected) fill in or modify an image by combining or modifying pixel values. So, for future experiments, I would suggest sending samples to Peter Schumacher so that he can examine them under the VP-8.
Hi, Hugh,
Thanks for (unintentionally) reminding us of the dangerous desperation that pervades the post-modernistic mindset–where attempts are made to strip meaning from those things which do, indeed, have meaning. Because, while we are not always capable of seeing and/or understanding that which is True, those things which are True, nonetheless, still exist.
That anyone would show this piece of installation “art” in a gallery and short-list this joke masquarading as “art” for a prize is nothing short of ridiculous. This is nothing more than a scene which can be found in the bedroom of any messy slob. Wow. Let’s all just sip on our Chardonnay while munching on some cheese and crackers and pull “the meaning of Life” from such a profound piece of junk that is masquerading as “art.” The only real meaning of such “art” is not the “fake art” itself but that someone decided to put it on display in order to send a message that fake art can take up the same space as real art and that nothing can have real meaning.
And, perhaps, here is where there can be some meaning gleaned from this example that you present to us. Those who attack the Holy Shroud’s authenticity are desperate to turn the Holy (and the Holy Evidence and Message which follows from It) into the mundane (which relegates it to non-evidence for Jesus of Nazareth’s divinity.) You attempt to provide support for this message of yours with arguments, but these arguments are not actually “clever”–because truly clever arguments are valid arguments.
The challenge in replicating the body images on the Shroud of Turin is not the same as telling an artist to perfectly, 100% replicate da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” brushstroke by brushstroke (as you imply with your ball of aluminum foil example.) You know very well that this is not what we are talking about, but you mischaracterize things in order to have your “straw man” that you can easily demolish. No, Hugh, you know very well that what the challenge is concerns creating images with all of the chemical and technical and a physical complexities that the body images have. For example, with the physical and technical complexities, one must create frontal and dorsal body images of a full-sized human that correspond with each other, and which has IMPERFECT photo-negative qualities and which renders a 3-D effect that does not show the type of distortions that regular photos of people or regular statues exhibit, and which is from a frame-of-reference that an artist’s model would need to be in a bizarre position for a long period of time and the artist would need to be on about a 15-foot ladder looking down (per what Isabel Piczek stated when she performed this experiment with a live artist’s model.) Then, of course, comes the clencher–matching the chemical characteristics of the Shroud–with all that is present and is NOT present on the cloth. You certainly did not accomplish this with your latest experiment–and you have the benefit of a tremendous amount of knowledge about the Shroud’s characteristics in order to give it your best shot by attempting to reverse-engineer everything. Yet, even with that massive advantage, you were unable to accomplish your goal. And, your method involved doing something that, while technically a clever hypothesis, is something that strains credulity that someone would have actually done in order to create a forgery of Jesus’ burial cloth during medieval times.
So, once again, this is all “much ado about nothing.”
Best regards,
Teddi
Thanks for this article Hugh. Furthermore we must not forget that this old piece of textile is several hundreds of years old , inevitably very degraded , very superficial, a far cry from the original, vivid image.
All the best
Patrick
P.S
The below is a quotation from medium.com website which I agree with completely.
“We have numerous paintings of it created not long after it first surfaced. And these paintings invariably show a bright, vivid image. The current faded condition happened after this time. So the pro-authenticity crowd has to explain how the image remained vivid for around 1500 years, then rapidly faded shortly thereafter. This makes no sense, but it does make sense for a 14th century fake, with the pigment being lost with handling. And the image being formed mainly (outside the ‘blood’ stains) by loss of pigment explains why while modern attempts to duplicate the image are close to the original, they are not exact. It is difficult to simulate centuries of aging of the linen in respect to the pigment applied.”