Shroud Of Turin Research Articles

The Turin Shroud

The Turin Shroud is a fascinating relic that has long intrigued many people. It is old—but how old? It has an image of a man's body—but how and when did the image get there? This article examines the scientific aspects of the debate about the Shroud, focusing on the image itself and on the radiocarbon dating performed in 1988.

Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin

In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich determined the age of a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They reported that the date of the cloth's production lay between a.d. 1260 and 1390 with 95% confidence. This came as a surprise in view of the technology used to produce the cloth, its chemical composition, and the lack of vanillin in its lignin. The results prompted questions about the validity of the sample. Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud.

The book of skin

Book of Skin explores the amazingly elaborate and varied functions, roles and meanings of human skin within Western culture. Skin, Steven Connor argues, has never been more visible. He examines a wide range of sources, including literature, non-fiction and medical texts; art, photography and film; and, folklore, popular song and language. The book covers all aspects of skin's cultural history, including the chromatics of skin colour and pigmentation, blushing, suntanning, paleness, darkening, tattooing, scarification, the Turin shroud, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the destructive rage exercised against skin in all kinds of violent fantasies, and the intensities and attenuations of touch. Connor also explains why particular colours are ascribed to feelings and conditions, such as green for envy, purple for rage and yellow for cowardice. Moving from the human body itself to photography and the cinema screen, and from medieval leprosy, Renaissance flaying, and syphilis to cosmetics, plastic surgery and contemporary skin cancers, the author fully surveys our skin's obvious and yet unfamiliar terrain. Book of Skin shows that skin has never been at once so manifest and so in jeopardy as it is today, when, as Marshall MacLuhan puts it, each of us wears all of mankind as his skin.

The double superficiality of the frontal image of the Turin Shroud

Photographs of the back surface of the Turin Shroud were analysed to verify the existence of a double body image of a man. The body image is very faint and the background not uniform; i.e., the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than one. Therefore, image processing, developed ad hoc, was necessary to highlight body features. This was based on convolution with Gaussian filters, summation of images, and filtering in spatial frequency by direct and inverse bidimensional Fourier transformations. Body features were identified by template matching. The face and probably also the hands are visible on the back of the Turin Shroud, but not features related to the dorsal image.

A Selection of Some of Dr. McCrone's High and Low Profile Cases in the Forensic Analysis of Art

Throughout Dr. McCrone's active professional career of over 60 years, he worked on many cases involving the forensic analysis of art. This is an overview of a small portion of these cases. Included (exposed as fakes) are the Shroud of Turin, the Vinland Map, Mayan pottery illustrations and Larionov pastels. Also included, with strong support for authentication, are three paintings attributed to Manet, Giorgione, and Leonardo da Vinci.

Seizure

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessSeizureMark H. Backlund, M.D.Mark H. BacklundSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Dec 2003https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.54.12.1665-aAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail With the debate over stem cell research and latter-day abortion politics at its core, Robin Cook's newest medical thriller draws out a plausible—okay, possible—scenario to immediately demonstrate the many facets of this new frontier.At center stage are Daniel Lowell, M.D., Ph.D., stem cell researcher and would-be entrepreneur, and southern senator Ashley Butler, crafty right-leaning Democrat, adept at power politics but threatened by his newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease. Lowell's dream of wealth and celebrity are likewise threatened by Butler's efforts to ban his therapeutic cloning technology. The intersection of these two threats creates an opportunity for these two characters to meet their colossal needs, assuming their respective ethics and "traditional values" can become temporarily indisposed, each with ample justification.Ambivalently adjoined to the Faustian pact that emerges are two Cassandras: Lowell's scientific and personal partner, Stephanie D'Agostino, Ph.D., and Butler's political assistant, Carol Manning. D'Agostino's discomfort mounts along with the ethical compromises Lowell feels compelled to make, and the actions of these characters give readers the feeling of watching the lead actors in a horror movie deciding to "check out the basement." Sometimes all you can do is shake your head.Manning finds her concern for her long-time employer's health blunted by her own burgeoning political ambitions for Butler's senate seat. How hard should she try to save his life?This novel contains endless turns to twist the plot. "Investment" money is provided by D'Agostino's brother's mob connections, who don't like to lose and who apply the heat. There is the whimsical grandiosity of Butler's requirement that his defective substantia nigra be repaired with DNA purportedly from the staining of the all but unreachable Shroud of Turin with Christ's blood. And the dangerously crass Wingate Fertility Clinic, resurrected from another Cook novel, Shock, plays the pivotal role in Butler's therapeutic cloning procedure.Cook does a credible job of going a layer or two below the surface psychologically, although readers may find themselves wishing that D'Agostino would focus less on Lowell's sexist slips and more on the enormous hubris that drives his ambition and paralyzes her objections. Psychotherapists may cringe at the miscommunications, especially in the D'Agostino family, but it's hard not to relish Cook's exposé of power, greed, and narcissism.As usual, Cook gets the science just right. We comfortably learn about both the science and the politics of therapeutic versus reproductive cloning as well as more than you could ever imagine about the Shroud of Turin and about the Catholic bishops and priests who preserve it. As a medical thriller, Seizure has the successful elements of suspense and rapidly shifting twists of plot and turns of fortune. The "don't go through that door" plot tricks become almost predictable, but what's a thriller for if you can't occasionally see it coming? With mobsters and mitosis, egos and ethics, politics, polemics, and miracles, Master Cook has again stirred up a stew of a cautionary tale.Dr. Backlund lives in Anacortes, Washington.by Robin Cook; New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2003, 464 pages, $24.95 FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 54Issue 12 December 2003Pages 1665-a-1666 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 December 2003 Published in print 1 December 2003

Intelligent Design Tangles Science and Religion

Melott Replies: Science and religion can validly interact in some ways. Science can comment usefully on such issues as the age of the Shroud of Turin, the parting of the Red Sea, or genetic studies of alleged lost tribes of Israel. These are all related to religion. In turn, religious (or antireligious) interpretations of science may add meaning or provide the values needed to judge technological possibilities. Problems arise when either sphere, science or religion, pretends to constrain the other, because miracles and empiricism don’t mix well.Beware of using the presence of junk DNA to judge intelligent design. In fact, much so-called junk DNA has been found to have a biological function; ID proponents call this support for their position.© 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Comparison of Luminance Between Face of Turin Shroud Man and Experimental Results

This work compares the luminance level of photographs of the face on the Turin Shroud with other experiments. Luminance levels are analyzed in order to extract 3D information. Comparisons may aid in better understanding of how the image formed. Four significant photographs of faces are analyzed by a new technique to correlate the black-and-white luminance of various photographic images with the image on the Shroud. Three photographs of the facial image were used to verify the stability of the results, according to variations in the photographic characteristics of the same subject. After normalization of each digitized image, areas corresponding to various classes of gray were highlighted, in correlate them with 3D information on the distance between face and Shroud. All the photographs except that of the “Edessa Mandylion” show some 3D characteristics and the Shroud photographs, although disturbed by many defects, seem to correlate well with the sheet-face distance. Perhaps the best 3D results are those yielded by the carbon dust technique proposed by E. A. Craig, although it presents many open questions regarding formation mechanisms. With respect to the photographs of the Shroud, the experiments of V. Pesce Delfino and J. Nickell show a much higher percentage of saturated pixels correlated with areas of non-contact between face and Shroud. This fact is in contrast with the hypothesis that the body image of the Shroud formed according to the technique proposed by the above researchers.

Maximizing Indeterminacy

Essay| June 01 2000 Maximizing Indeterminacy: On Collage in Writing, Film, Video, Installation and Other Artistic Realms (as well as the Shroud of Turin) J. Ronald Green J. Ronald Green J. Ronald Green teaches film studies in the Department of History of Art at Ohio State University. His book on Oscar Micheaux, Straight Luck, is forth coming from Indiana University Press. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2000) 27 (6): 8–11. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2000.27.6.8 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation J. Ronald Green; Maximizing Indeterminacy: On Collage in Writing, Film, Video, Installation and Other Artistic Realms (as well as the Shroud of Turin). Afterimage 1 June 2000; 27 (6): 8–11. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2000.27.6.8 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2000 by The Regents of the University of California2000 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

A Protocol for Authentication of Paintings

Abstract Strictly speaking, it is impossible to authenticate any painting to the extent of naming the artist who produced that object. One can only increase the likelihood thereof. In one celebrated case I felt I had fully proved that Manets palette had indeed been used to paint a particular painting but a “scholar” on whose reaction the art world depends for final acceptance of authenticity only said “someone” could have borrowed Manets palette one fine day and painted that picture. In a second celebrated case I was able to prove, but not convince, the world that a particular painting (Shroud of Turin) was, in fact, a painting and not an artifact produced by some other mysterious means, e.g., some sort of photographic process or resurrection itself.

Flora of the Shroud of Turin

Flora of the Shroud of Turin

From Hiroshima to the Iceman: The Development and Applications of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Introduction Historical Development of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry-1977 Historical Development of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry-1978-80 The Development of Tandem Electrostatic Accelerators Instrumentation for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry The Legacy of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Initial Peopling of the Americas The American Indians, the Vikings, and Columbus Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, and Nuclear Waste Carbon Dating the Shroud of Turin The Iceman, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and More Index

The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny. Text, Context and Translation (review)

Reviews 213 Whatever her personal charms m a y have been, Lady Wiseman was forced to acknowledge that it was her money that made her a target of attention: 'you are look't upon as one of the good things n o w to be gott', wrote Roger North (p. 80). Her brothers advised her to be careful where she lived, and ensure that she was never alone, 'that is without weomen company' (p. 91), for she was at risk of gossip, which could affect her reputation and future prospects. Her widowed aunt had survived alone in town for twenty years but, as her supportive brothers bluntly told Elizabeth, their aunt 'was no booty to any, as you are' (p. 88). This will be an excellent book for teaching with. The introduction is exemplary, raising interesting issues for discussion, including the links between narratives and early prose fictions and h o w truth in evidence mightbe determined. Some of the historical issues are more complex than Chan acknowledges; historians would disagree with Blackstone's view thattheCourt ofHigh Commission was set up by Elizabeth in 1588, tracing i t s origins earlier in previous reigns. Nevertheless, her general comments give the reader invaluable insight into the historical context from which a story such as that ofClarissa Harlowe could develop. Chan's introduction and technical apparatus provide a scholarly frame of reference so that students can understand some of the nuances of the documents. There is a useful bibliography and index. Patricia Crawford Department of History University of Western Australia The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny. Text, Context and Translati (Middle Ages Series), ed. Richard W Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996; paper; pp. ix, 236; R.R.P. US$17.95. By all accounts Geoffroi de Charny was an exemplary medieval knight. Jean Froissart praised him as 'the most worthy and valiant of them all' while French chronicler Geoffrey le Baker believed he was 'a knight more skilled in military matters than any other Frenchman, so that his fame was widespread'. Inciting enthusiastic praise from chroniclers on both sides of the Channel, Geoffroi de Charny lived and died in 214 Reviews arms. H e experienced nearly two decades ofAnglo-French warfare and was captured and ransomed during the French attempt to reclaim the important port of Calais in the last days of 1349, a subterfuge in which he played a vital role. Charny was the bearer of the sacred banner (Oriflame) of the king of France, owner of the Shroud of Turin, and by his o w n testimony, one of the founding knights of the Company of the Star. A valiant and worthy knight himself, Geoffroi de Charny was also the author of a treatise, which deals with both the practical and theoretical dimensions of the medieval phenomenon of 'chivalry'. The Book of Chivalry is Geoffroi de Charny's longest and most thorough work. A considerable number of treatises on chivalry were written during the medieval period, but it was Charny's astute practicality and realistic understanding of the warrior mentality and duty that set his work apart from other treatises. Described as the most pragmatic of all surviving chivalric manuals Geoffroi de Charny's work is particularly interesting in that it makes an attempt to treat chivalry as a way of life in its o w n right and to offer instruction to that end. Charny gives advice on conduct towards friends and enemies, how to behave in the company of ladies, the worthiest pastimes for a knight to engage in, and the physical and spiritual demands of knighthood. Charny creates a solid impression of knighthood and chivalry as a demanding profession with a detailed and demanding code. His consistent emphasis of the difficulties and dangers, and the frustration and hardships of chivalric life clearly demonstrate his practical and efficient understanding of the realities of warfare and the knight's primary obligations as a warrior. While he pays homage to the romantic notions of chivalry, Charny is first and foremost a warrior, and it is to this end that he writes about chivalry. The span of Charny's public adult life, from his...

Simulating the Shroud of Turin: A Laboratory Experiment

The Shroud of Turin, a piece of linen cloth bearing an anatomically correct image of a crucified human being, which resembles Jesus of Nazareth, has been an enigma to scientists. While recent studies including radiocarbon dating suggest the cloth is a medieval relic, few if any proposals have been put forward that satisfactorily explain how the image was generated. In combination with a lecture on the scientific method and the problem of bias, a laboratory experiment has been developed that allows science students to attempt to simulate the image on the Shroud. The experiment involves an active-learning experience in which students discover which techniques do not work to generate the image and which begin to suggest how such an image could have been generated.

The tension between science and religion: are these mutually hostile disciplines?

First, I wish to thank the organizers of The 15th ICCE for the kind invitation to present a plenary lecture on such a delicate theme as I have chosen. At the 14th ICCE, in Brisbane, Australia, we heard Sister Mary Virginia Orna discuss the Shroud of Turin. This year I intend to go a little further and make some comments regarding the relation between the educational process of science and religion, especially Christianity. I hope to introduce you to three writers who have guided my thinking. The ®rst is Karen Armstrong [1], who evolved from a shy nun into an authoritative writer and communicator on religious issues. The second is a gifted physicist, Arie van den Beukel [2], who did much research into very thin metal ®lms, but never forgot that he was a Christian which brought him into opposition with fashionable atheists in the scienti®c camp. The third writer I want to introduce is Willem Drees, who after three PhD degrees in physics, theology, and philosophy has attempted to reconcile these diverse branches of his advanced studies. Being a Protestant Presbyterian Christian, I shall not try to discuss how other religions address the issues I raise here. I shall, however, have occasion to refer to Jewish or Muslim thought, but not with any authority.

Biomedical applications of accelerator mass spectrometry-isotope measurements at the level of the atom.

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a nuclear physics technique developed about twenty years ago, that uses the high energy (several MeV) of a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator to measure very small quantities of rare and long-lived isotopes. Elements that are of interest in biomedicine and environmental sciences can be measured, often to parts per quadrillion sensitivity, i.e. zeptomole to attomole levels (10(-21)-10(-18) mole) from milligram samples. This is several orders of magnitude lower than that achievable by conventional decay counting techniques, such as liquid scintillation counting (LSC). AMS was first applied to geochemical, climatological and archaeological areas, such as for radiocarbon dating (Shroud of Turin), but more recently this technology has been used for bioanalytical applications. In this sphere, most work has been conducted using aluminium, calcium and carbon isotopes. The latter is of special interest in drug metabolism studies, where a Phase 1 adsorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) study can be conducted using only 10 nanoCurie (37 Bq or ca. 0.9 microSv) amounts or less of 14C-labelled drugs. In the UK, these amounts of radioactivity are below those necessary to request specific regulatory approval from the Department of Health's Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee (ARSAC), thus saving on valuable development time and resources. In addition, the disposal of these amounts is much less an environmental issue than that associated with microCurie quantities, which are currently used. Also, AMS should bring an opportunity to conduct "first into man" studies without the need for widespread use of animals. Centre for Biomedical Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CBAMS) Ltd. is the first fully commercial company in the world to offer analytical services using AMS. With its high throughput and relatively low costs per sample analysis, AMS should be of great benefit to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as well as other life science areas.

The blood and the Shroud: new evidence that the world's most sacred relic is real

Shroud of Turin remains one of the enduring mysteries of our age. No convincing explanation has yet been given for the image of a crucified man transferred to a length of cloth and preserved in Turin for the last four centuries. Although radiocarbon dating of the fabric in 1988 indicated it to be medieval, synchronous with the Shroud's first recorded appearance in the 1350s, there is still no satisfactory explanation for the image itself. Was it painted? If so, by whom? How could the artist have understood perspective before this technique was discovered in the Renaissance? How could he have painted an image in negative with no means to see and check it? With so many questions about the Shroud as inexplicably unresolved as ever; with the radiocarbon dating findings only deepening the riddle, not solving it; and with the Shroud about to be shown again, in 1998 and 2000; an overview and an up-to-date consideration of the evidence is overdue. Here, Ian Wilson returns to the subject of his international bestseller, The Shroud of Turin, to reveal such startling findings as the discovery of human blood and DNA on the Shroud; the uncovering of historical evidence that something very like the Shroud existed at the time Jesus lived; the discovery of a bioplastic coating of living microorganisms which, if it had been carbondated in 1988, would have indicated that the Shroud was some one thousand years older than it was thought to be; and the new analysis of the photographic-negative-like image on the Shroud. Wilson's landmark book on this subject, The Shroud of Turin, was published in 1978. In the intervening twenty years, in addition to the radiocarbon dating, much additional research has been done on the Shroud, and the dating process itself scrutinized. Ian Wilson's pursuit of every discipline related to the Shroud, including art history, physiology, chemistry, microbiology, photography, and archaeology, has equipped him to give the most authoritative answer yet to the question: Did the Shroud wrap the body of Christ? His enthralling text, with its objective but persuasive answers, tells us as much as it is currently possible to know. It also makes it possible for us to believe.

The Shroud of Turin and the singlet oxygen fallacy

This paper is critical of certain of the claims made by Allan A. Mills in his 1995 paper in ISR (‘Image formation on the Shroud of Turin: the reactive oxygen intermediates hypothesis’). It also refutes the notion that the negative image which appears on the Shroud of Lirey–Chambéry–Turin was produced as a result of the actions of a species of reactive oxygen (specifically singlet oxygen) as described by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in their recent publication, ‘The second Messiah’.

Discovery of inscriptions on the shroud of Turin by digital image processing

Discovery of inscriptions on the shroud of Turin by digital image processing

Image formation mechanism on the Shroud of Turin: a solar reflex radiation model (the optical aspect)

Unprejudiced logical analysis of the main available data, in the first instance, those collected in 1978 by the American interdisciplinary team known as STURP, suggests that the image of the dead man on the Shroud of Turin resulted from (a) the reflection by the anointed body of transmitted solar rays and their projection onto the inner side of the cloth and (b) the chemical registration of this reflex image by the topmost fibers of the linen, probably with a water or oil solution of aloes and myrrh acting as a catalyzer. This reflex radiation model requires the following: (1) action at the shortest possible distance (i.e., a maximum clinging of the Shroud to the body except for a narrow intervening liquid film), which explains the high resolution and the absence of serious distortions, and (2) double exposure-of both the face and the back-of the enveloped corpse to the sun, which accounts for the presence and optical symmetry of both the frontal and the dorsal images. An attempt is also made to reinterpret the so-called three-dimensional information encoded in the image. Although some chemical issues are also mentioned and a historical reconstruction of the burial procedure is suggested, first and foremost the optical aspect of this mechanism is addressed here.