Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin

[Solauren]

Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.

A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.

The Shroud of Turin shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair, his arms crossed on his chest, while the entire cloth is marked by what appears to be rivulets of blood from wounds in the wrists, feet and side.

Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.

But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.

Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.

They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.

They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith, but says it should be a powerful reminder of Christ's passion.

One of Christianity's most disputed relics, it is locked away at Turin Cathedral in Italy and rarely exhibited. It was last on display in 2000 and is due to be shown again next year.

Garlaschelli expects people to contest his findings.

"If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me," he said.

The accuracy of the 1988 tests was challenged by some hard-core believers who said restorations of the Shroud in past centuries had contaminated the results.

The history of the Shroud is long and controversial.

After surfacing in the Middle East and France, it was brought by Italy's former royal family, the Savoys, to their seat in Turin in 1578. In 1983 ex-King Umberto II bequeathed it to the late Pope John Paul.

The Shroud narrowly escaped destruction in 1997 when a fire ravaged the Guarini Chapel of the Turin cathedral where it is held. The cloth was saved by a fireman who risked his life.

Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.

"Money has no odor," he said. "This was done scientifically. If the Church wants to fund me in the future, here I am."

I have to say, I'm impressed with the way Mr. (they never say he is a doctor) Garlaschelli is saying this. He says right out he doesn't expect idiots to believe him. (even if he's more polite).

[SCRawl]

I have to say, I'm impressed with the way Mr. (they never say he is a doctor) Garlaschelli is saying this. He says right out he doesn't expect idiots to believe him. (even if he's more polite).

I haven't seen Reuter's style book, but I know that the CP standard for non-MD doctors is to use "Mr." Given that he's labeled an organic chemistry professor in the article, he's almost certainly a PhD (or equivalent).

I wonder, though, if this really proves anything. All that it proves is that it was possible to replicate the results we see -- the real proof is in the carbon dating, about which the sheep will continue to bleat "but it was contaaaaaaminated..."

[Zixinus]

It is certainly possible that the Shroud was faked: they did it all the time in medieval times, where it was downright fashionable to have holy artefacts, and from the distance, any bone can be the bone of a saint. It's reasonable that some people took it a few steps further.

Interesting that someone found out how it was made.

[Vendetta]

I wonder, though, if this really proves anything. All that it proves is that it was possible to replicate the results we see -- the real proof is in the carbon dating, about which the sheep will continue to bleat "but it was contaaaaaaminated..."

That and the mass spectrogram, which shows that the original shroud was artificially "aged" through dye and gum.

[Duckie]

It is certainly possible that the Shroud was faked: they did it all the time in medieval times, where it was downright fashionable to have holy artefacts, and from the distance, any bone can be the bone of a saint. It's reasonable that some people took it a few steps further.

Interesting that someone found out how it was made.

It wasn't fashionable, it was actually required. Each church needed a relic to be consecrated, according to the Second Council of Nicaea, unless I'm misremembering.

[Darth Wong]

I'm afraid the good professor has neglected to consider one alternate method through which the Shroud could have been created: simply taking a convicted prisoner (or just some random Jew they dragged into a dungeon; it's not as if they treated Jews particularly well at the time) and crucifying him in an old rag. That would produce a very authentic-looking relic with little or no skill, because it would essentially be authentic: it would be a real burial shroud for a man who was crucified.

[Solauren]

Unforunately, I don't think there is a way to test for that Mike.

[Darth Wong]

Unforunately, I don't think there is a way to test for that Mike.

Agreed. I'm just pointing out that there was always an incredibly easy way for medieval people with little or no skill to create an authentic crucifixion burial shroud: simply crucify somebody. So the good professor has not proven that it was possible for them to create it: he has only proven that there is an alternate way they could have created it, apart from the most obvious one.

[Duckie]

The very fact that each church was required to have a venerated saints' item means that probably at least half of these things are fakes anyhow, let alone how much more likely it is that something is not from Jesus's time. How many martyrs' fingerbones are there? It certainly explains some of the fictional, legendary, or otherwise outright fabricated saints who spring up in the early christian church, or why there's a billion fragments of the nails of the cross which completely aren't just random iron tailings.

[Vendetta]

I'm afraid the good professor has neglected to consider one alternate method through which the Shroud could have been created: simply taking a convicted prisoner (or just some random Jew they dragged into a dungeon; it's not as if they treated Jews particularly well at the time) and crucifying him in an old rag. That would produce a very authentic-looking relic with little or no skill, because it would essentially be authentic: it would be a real burial shroud for a man who was crucified.

Most "relics" were created by small time craftsmen with limited resources. They were made locally, a town or villiage would "find" a relic (or steal one from another town that had it, but that might also include just making a new one, there are at least two heads of saint peter, for instance). Nailing some poor bugger up and wrapping him up when he was dead would be a lot more effort than several of the other potential methods for creating an image on the shroud. One potential is that the image was painted on a piece of glass, which was laid flat on a piece of linen and left out in the sun for a few days. That would create the distinctive photo-negative appearance by bleaching the linen, and would also account for the traces of pigment found on it.

(Note, also, that the head and hands are out of proportion to the body. Either Jesus was a bigger freak than you thought, or that's a painting)

[Zixinus]

It wasn't fashionable, it was actually required. Each church needed a relic to be consecrated, according to the Second Council of Nicaea, unless I'm misremembering.

I didn't mention churches (I was thinking of towns actually), although I wouldn't be surprised to know that what you written is true.

To me that gives me an amusing mental image of a bunch of priests arguing over an ideal monastic site, only to have this point brought up. Everyone can't argue against, so someone has a "holy vision" and finds a piece of rotten, human-looking bone that was Saint Whatever's pancreas, which will heal the innocent of runny noses and athlete's foot.

[Patrick Degan]

It wasn't fashionable, it was actually required. Each church needed a relic to be consecrated, according to the Second Council of Nicaea, unless I'm misremembering.

I didn't mention churches (I was thinking of towns actually), although I wouldn't be surprised to know that what you written is true.

To me that gives me an amusing mental image of a bunch of priests arguing over an ideal monastic site, only to have this point brought up. Everyone can't argue against, so someone has a "holy vision" and finds a piece of rotten, human-looking bone that was Saint Whatever's pancreas, which will heal the innocent of runny noses and athlete's foot.

Likewise, when a bunch of monks uncover two skulls —one a man's, one a child's— and flog them as the skulls of St. Expedite, with one being his skull when he was a child.

[Zixinus]

Likewise, when a bunch of monks uncover two skulls —one a man's, one a child's— and flog them as the skulls of St. Expedite, with one being his skull when he was a child.

Wait, what?

One of his skulls being when he was a child and the other when he was an adult, is that what you mean?

A wiki search shows nothing about him having different bodies, so... is this a case of just mere stupidity or what?

[Frank Hipper]

I'm afraid the good professor has neglected to consider one alternate method through which the Shroud could have been created: simply taking a convicted prisoner (or just some random Jew they dragged into a dungeon; it's not as if they treated Jews particularly well at the time) and crucifying him in an old rag. That would produce a very authentic-looking relic with little or no skill, because it would essentially be authentic: it would be a real burial shroud for a man who was crucified.

Sadly, and unlike the Shroud of Turin, that process would result in an anatomically correct image and actual blood.

Did you know the image on the Turin shroud shows incorrect proportions, and that the front and back images are of different dimensions?

Mmmm, magic linens.

[Patrick Degan]

Likewise, when a bunch of monks uncover two skulls —one a man's, one a child's— and flog them as the skulls of St. Expedite, with one being his skull when he was a child.

Wait, what?

One of his skulls being when he was a child and the other when he was an adult, is that what you mean?

A wiki search shows nothing about him having different bodies, so... is this a case of just mere stupidity or what?

A play on an old Dave Allen joke and one turning on this sort of relic-hucksterism which was commonplace in the Middle Ages.

[Thanas]

I'm afraid the good professor has neglected to consider one alternate method through which the Shroud could have been created: simply taking a convicted prisoner (or just some random Jew they dragged into a dungeon; it's not as if they treated Jews particularly well at the time) and crucifying him in an old rag. That would produce a very authentic-looking relic with little or no skill, because it would essentially be authentic: it would be a real burial shroud for a man who was crucified.

No, that most certainly would not have been done by a christian man for fear of eternal damnation. Faking a relic is one thing, crucifying is something else entirely.

[PeZook]

No, that most certainly would not have been done by a christian man for fear of eternal damnation. Faking a relic is one thing, crucifying is something else entirely.

Why not? Mike was talking about faking a relic using convicted prisoners. All it would take would be for the executioner to wrap the body (after it was horribly mangled during one of the creative executions of the period) in a shroud and sell the result on the side as an "authentic relic".

Of course, as Hipper pointed out, this would result in actual blood. All of this is moot, though: carbon dating proved without a shadow of a doubt the shroud is a fake (the question how it was made is really irrelevant), it's just that the church can't accept the results and keeps making lame excuses while carefully not allowing anyone to repeat the tests.

[Serafina]

Mostly because crucifing was not used during the middle ages - it being used on jesus and all that.
They used other methods instead.

[PeZook]

Mostly because crucifing was not used during the middle ages - it being used on jesus and all that.
They used other methods instead.

Yeah, many of them terribly bloody. That's all you really need to fake a shroud, especially if you're a town executioner and can do whatever with the body once it's been properly abused in public.

[loomer]

Also, why do people making Christian relics necessarily have to be Christians themselves? I could see some early atheists/deists doing so to make a buck, and why the hell would they be worried about hell?

[PeZook]

Also, why do people making Christian relics necessarily have to be Christians themselves? I could see some early atheists/deists doing so to make a buck, and why the hell would they be worried about hell?

You're watching the Middle Ages from your own perspective. It's doubtful a european medieval commoner would not be a Christian. He could have been a raging hypocrite, a psychotic sadist, fraud or criminal, but not really an "atheist" in the modern sense. In this way, an executioner drawing and quartering someone might be an acceptable, just punishment, while crucifixion would be an affront and mockery of God for obvious reasons.

[Zixinus]

And what if the forger is Muslim?

[PeZook]

And what if the forger is Muslim?

Then it obviously doesn't apply.

[Vendetta]

Mostly because crucifing was not used during the middle ages - it being used on jesus and all that.
They used other methods instead.

Yeah, many of them terribly bloody. That's all you really need to fake a shroud, especially if you're a town executioner and can do whatever with the body once it's been properly abused in public.

There's not actually that much blood on the shroud, as there shouldn't be after a crucifixion, where someone is nailed up and only brought down again after they're already dead and not prone to leaking as much any more, what with the whole no blood flow bit, and the way gravity causes the blood to pool in a body.

[Akhlut]

Of course, as Hipper pointed out, this would result in actual blood. All of this is moot, though: carbon dating proved without a shadow of a doubt the shroud is a fake (the question how it was made is really irrelevant), it's just that the church can't accept the results and keeps making lame excuses while carefully not allowing anyone to repeat the tests.

To be fair to the church, the church itself (not to say of any of its members) doesn't vouch for its authenticity either way and simply says that it is there to remind everyone of Jesus's death and resurrection and so on.

Kind of weak, I know, but the church is at least not actively saying it is (though, as mentioned, more then a few of its members might do otherwise).

Plus, the way the article mentions it would be a lot easier to do and would result in the whacky proportions and everything that the shroud exhibits.