I recently picked up a book(TURIN SHROUD), by Lynn Pickett and Clive Prince. It is an excellent review of current knowledge about the famous shroud. As well, the authors puzzled over the strange charcteristics of the image in the shroud (appears to be a negative image). Eventually, they decided that the image was produced through some kind of photographic process. They did some experiments, and using egg white and chromium salts (painted onto cloth), they were able to produce an image (of a bust) remarkably like that of the Turin shroud.
Now, I know that the shroud cannot be the burial cloth of Christ (it was radio-carbon dated to around AD 1300). Pickett and Prince came up with the bizarre theory that the shroud was made by leonardo DaVinchi, the famous Florentine artist.
Has anybody reviewed this idea? Does it hold water?
Well, except for the problem that Da Vinci lived from 1452-1519, and the shroud apparently dates to 1300. How do they explain that? Did he just happen to lay his hands on a 200-year-old unused shroud (where was it, all those years?) and use that to perpetrate his hoax ('cause that’s what it was)? If so, why? Why would he want to do something like that? How do they explain that?
Um, and, the Shroud was apparently first displayed in 1357, which was…um…about a hundred years before Da Vinci was born.
http://www.shroudstory.com/later.htm
So, how do they explain that?
Here’s Cecil’s excellent article on the Shroud of Turin - doesn’t really address your question, but it may provide some additional sources for you to explore.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html
There’s a bunch of other theories about the skewed (okay, “allegedly skewed”) C-14 dating.
The Shroud was exposed to fire when the chapel where it was stored burned. It was severely scorched along fold lines. The date of the fire itself could have caused contamination.
The nuns “mended” the scorched areas, so the mending cloth, PLUS the handling by the nuns have the potential to contaminate.
Finally, a scientist has proposed there is a minute organism, like a mold, found on the very surface of the threads of the Shroud. This also could skew the dating.
The researcher at the gov’t lab did a rather extensive study of the history of this “Mandylion” and found it disappeared shortly before the Shroud showed up. It was suggested the Mandylion was the Shroud, FOLDED, so only the face was displayed. The notoriety of crucifixion was still a source of shame in the time of Constantinople. It’s also been suggested that this Mandylion is the origin of the story about St Veronica wiping the face of Christ as He carried the Cross to Calvary, and leaving the imprint of His face on her cloth.
There are a whole bunch of tiny bits of information that alone, mean very little, but taken as a whole, lead many to believe this is indeed the burial cloth of Christ. The linen fibers, the style of weave, the pollen dust found in the folds of the cloth, all are typical of Palestine, during the time of Jesus.
FWIW, I believe it is genuine.
~VOW
There was also a mandylion, or a sudarium (I think it was the “sudarium” in Rome, and the “mandylion” had been in Constantinople (parallel traditions on the two-- they were both images of Christ’s features on cloth). If I’m right, the “sudarium” was in Rome until the Imperial landsknechts rolled into Rome (1527?)-- there are reports of the now-Protestant German soldiers passing the thing around in bars having a good old laugh about it. Then it fell out of sight. So I think. . yeah, it must have been the mandylion that disappeared earlier (Sack of Constantiople in 1204 sound right for the end of that tradition?)
Just adding to the historical scene here.
And it does seem that the sudarium/mandylion tradition was the source of the Veronica story, as the “vera icon” monicker for them suggests-- the verbal relationship is just too cute.
Hi Ralph. Not to nitpick, but it’s Lynn Picknett, not Pickett.
I’ve read the Picknett / Prince book and I don’t find it very well argued. It’s a theory, yes, but not one which is supported by much in the way of evidence.
For a good look at the Shroud, Dopers can go to http://www.shroud.com and see the photos taken by Barrie Schwortz, who’s taken more pix of it than anyone else.
The strongest version of the ‘It’s for real’ argument is probably to be found in ‘The Jesus Conspiracy’ by Kersten & Gruber. It’s most exhaustive, and is especially good at debunking the carbon-dating evidence. I don’t agree with the authors, and I don’t think they make their case, but I think they make it as well as it can be made.
One difficulty of the ‘It’s a photograph’ argument is explaining how knowledge of this rudimentary photographic process, which would have been the wonder of the age, was invented and used on this one occasion, for this one rather odd purpose of creating the Shroud artefact, and then lost again - not used, not documented, not mentioned - until the ‘invention’ of photography in the first half of the 19th century.
Ooh! I just read Cecil’s column on it and I must say I really like the “neutron flux due to resurrection” theory. That’s sweet.
Now, why do people focus on the photographic/ print theories? Why not something that fits the evidence, like “a chunk of linen that someone’s apprentice threw on top of a metal effigy sculpture of Christ/ other sepulchral portrait figure that had been recently cast and was still too warm and then bled on in the right spots to improve the effect that the result suggested”?
A have a friend who swears that when they were carbon-dating the shroud, the scientists were specifically told not to use a corner, which had been repaired in the 13th or 14th century. Of course, because scientists are mean and evil and not interested in the truth, they took that corner and dated it. Thus the shroud is real.
I think he’s full of crap, but I thought I’d share the story.
My own theory about the shroud is this: I believe that a medieval artis painted the shroud (as a positive image). The shroud was exhibited for hundreds of years (often in diect sunlight). This caused the positive image to fade, but the sizing on the cloth (which contained animal glues and proteins) gradually began to darken. Finally, when the shroud was exposed to the fire (which nearly burnt it), the animal glues darkened up, and the water used to extinguish the fire, washed out the remaining paint (of the old positive image). This theory explains:
-the 13th century origin of the cloth
-the fact that medieval writers talked about the clarity of the imahe
-and of course, the fact that we see a negative image today
According to what i read, the radiocarbon dating tests were done with the greatest care. hence the shroud must be a fake.
QED
SkepDic’s entry on the Shroud, including a long & good list of links.
A fake shroud created in modern times by Joe Nickell. That link also contains a refutation of the “contamination” theories.
That site doesn’t explain how Nickell did the fake, but I seem to recall he daubed dry paint on linen stretched over a relief sculpture. Pretty simple, and used a technique and materials available to artists in the middle ages. It naturally produces the “negative” image; no knowledge of photography is needed.
Does it prove the Shroud is a fake? No, but it provides a natural explanation instead of a supernatural one.
I was listening to NPR last week, and the shroud was mentioned. They said that minute examination of the shroud showed it to be a painting. Sorry, no cite; just what I heard on NPR as I was driving.
<< tiny quibble >>
The “rudimentary photographic process” was called the “camera obscura” and was well-known at the time, and certainly wasn’t “invented” just for the creation of the Shroud.
<tiny quibble addenda to your tiny quibble>
What you are describing, DDG, is only an image projection concept. It produces no permanent image by itself. Turn off the sun, and the camera obscura turns off, too.
As far as I know, no method of storing an image formed by light was known before the photographic plate was invented (WAG:1800s?).
[sup][sub]Actually, I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this…[/sub][/sup]
Yeah, no one holds that the “camera” concept was new in the 1820’s-- rather the method of recording the photo image (the photoGRAPH).
There WAS the Heliograph, and Fox Talbot’s experiments, but that wasn’t much earlier than Niepce and Daguerre.
But this is all tangential.
So is the shroud in Rome now or what? I had a little look-around for it when I was in Turin this summer but didn’t run into it.
I think I might have heard that report on NPR, too, now that you mention it.
I haven’t read the Turin Shroud book, but I have read “The Templar Revelation” book by the same authors.
Though they do have a much better writing style than most of their peers, in my opinion they still fall firmly into the tinfoil-hat kook end of the spectrum.
In “The Templar Revelation”, they make the case that there’s a powerful Christian cult from the 1st century that’s hiding the true identity of Christ, and all the proof that they have that this cult exists is that there isn’t any evidence that the cult exists, thus, it must exist in order to suppress all evidence that it exists. Really. Though they use about 400 pages to say that.
In this book they refer back to the shroud book as evidence that DaVinci was part of this cult. They use their own (apparently flawed) argument that DaVinci made the shroud as a datapoint in their argument for the existence this cult.
They’ve written a number of other books, and they appear to have some sort of agenda, though for the life of me I can’t bring myself to care enough to find out what it is. I’d take anything they say with a significant amount of salt.
Well, the idea of using the camera obscura was that you traced the outlines of whatever picture it was projecting, usually onto a wall, like for a fresco or something. Nobody’s claiming they had a way to preserve the image, like on glass plates, just that it was a proven way to project an image.
And so, the Shroud theory goes, whoever constructed the Shroud just projected an image of a person onto the piece of fabric hanging flat, like up against the wall, and traced enough of it so it looked like a human body, to fit whatever idea he had that Christ’s shroud ought to look, and then took it down off the wall and colored it in.
DDG
Aha, but the colored areas on the Shroud are SHADED. That is how the computer image was generated. The darker portions are where the Shroud touched the skin directly, and then the shading became lighter and lighter, the further the fabric was from the body.
With the computer imaging, you actually see a FACE, with details. And supposedly, you can make out the coins which were placed over the eyes of the body, and the coin markings are similar to the Roman coins used in Palestine during the time of Christ.
Another thing I found fascinating. All the wounds shown on the Shroud are identical to the wounds of Christ. There are puncture marks on the scalp from the Crown of Thorns, abrasions on the knees from falling, and scourging marks across the back and shoulders. The scourge in Roman times had little bits of metal or bone tied to the ends of the flail, to make a more painful wound. Those markings are there, as well.
The tracks of the bleeding on the arms are in two directions. Death by crucifixion was generally from suffocation: the condemned had to raise and lower himself while on the cross in order to breathe. That is why the Centurions were instructed to break the legs of the two thieves with Jesus.
Medical experts which have studied the torture of Christ, from His arrest to His death, have said that He probably would have had fluid collecting in His lungs, leading to His demise. That is why the sword wound to the side (also depicted on the Shroud) released both blood and “water.” The stain from this side wound on the Shroud apparently yielded both blood and serum.
Oh, and I LOVED the “vera icon” origin of Veronica!!!
~VOW
Oh, DDG, now I see what you were getting at with the camera obscura.
If a copy of an “original” image is needed, that kind of projection might make sense. But no such image of Christ exists, and even if such a projection were done, it would have to be corrected for transferrence from 2D to 3D. Kinda complicated if all you need is a model of an average dude.
It would be pretty easy for a medieval artist to sculpt a (clay?) model in the popular “artist’s conception” of Christ at the time, then use the sculpture as the body. This is what Joe Nickell did, draping, perhaps stretching, a piece of cloth over a head model, then daubing with a soft brush dipped in an opaque powder. Voilà!
Pretty big assumptions, my friend. You are assuming what is yet to be proven. If no real body was involved, no “skin” was either.
How about this theory: the darker portions are where the artist colored the fabric heavier?
And Percival Lowell saw canals on Mars, too, probably because he was trying very hard to do so. I have seen the images you refer to, and I do not see Roman coins. I do see rough, blotchy, circular areas, and I can imagine the man in the moon or a bear rampant on a lion without squinting too much. You must believe it first to see it.
And if you were preparing a fake shroud, wouldn’t you try to make it as authentic as possible? The artist had at his disposal the same info you do and possibly some pius motivation as well.
ibid. The image of supposed blood was drawn in two directions, fine. If the “bleeding” was in only one direction, I’ll bet you would have thought that was evidence of authenticity, too!
14th Century artists were pretty sophisticated dudes – these are not primitive cave paintings we’re talking about. They certainly understood the action of gravity on liquid and they might have even pricked a finger sometime and watched the blood flow. It’s not a supernatural event.
Neither of which have been detected by scientific tests. The color of the “blood” isn’t even right. But the IMAGE of such an action shows on the cloth, exactly as you would expect an artist to depict!
Artists since the first century have depicted the crucifixion much as you describe using oil paint and other media. If their painting closely matches your interpretation of the Bible, does that mean they were present at the time? Is there no other way they could be as accurate as you are?