Secret History
Now, a study claims neutron emissions from an ancient earthquake that rocked Jerusalem could have created the iconic image, as well as messed up the radiocarbon levels that later suggested the shroud was a medieval forgery. But other scientists say this newly proposed premise leaves some major questions unanswered.
The Shroud of Turin, which bears a faint image of a man's face and torso, is said to be the fabric that covered Jesus' body after his crucifixion in A.D. 33. Though the Catholic Church doesn't have an official position on the cloth, the relic is visited by tens of thousands of worshippers at the Turin Cathedral in Italy each year.
Carbon and quakes
Radiocarbon dating tests conducted at three different labs in the 1980s indicated the cloth was less than 800 years old, produced in the Middle Ages, between approximately A.D. 1260 and 1390. The first records of the shroud begin to appear in medieval sources around the same time, which skeptics don't think is a coincidence. Those results were published in the journal Nature in 1989. But critics in favor of a much older date for the cloth have alleged that those researchers took a sample of fabric that was used to patch up the burial shroud in the medieval period, or that the fabric had been subjected to fires, contamination and other damaged that skewed the results.
The new theory hinges on neutrons released by a devastating earthquake that hit Old Jerusalem around the same time that Jesus is believed to have died.
All living things have the same ratio of stable carbon to radioactive carbon-14, but after death, the radioactive carbon decays in a predictable pattern over time. That's why scientists can look at the carbon-14 concentration in organic archaeological materials like fabrics, bones and wood to estimate age. Carbon-14 is typically created when neutrons from cosmic rays collide with nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere (though it can be unleashed by manmade nuclear reactions, too).
The group of scientists, led by Alberto Carpinteri of the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, suspect high-frequency pressure waves generated in the Earth's crust during this earthquake could have produced significant neutron emissions. (They simulated this by crushing very brittle rock specimens under a press machine.)
These neutron emissions could have interacted directly with nitrogen atoms in the linen fibers, inducing chemical reactions that created the distinctive face image on the shroud, the scientists say. The reactions also could have led to "a wrong radiocarbon dating," which would explain the results of the 1989 experiments, Carpinteri said in a statement.
Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical engineering at Padua University, published a book last year "Il Mistero della Sindone," translated as "The Mystery of the Shroud," (Rizzoli, 2013), arguing that his own analysis proves the shroud dates to Jesus' lifetime. In an email, Fanti said he is not sure if a neutron emission is the only possible source responsible for creating the body image. (His own theories include a corona discharge.) However, he wrote that he is "confident" the 1980s radiocarbon dating "furnished wrong results probably due to a neutron emission."
Shaky science?
Even if it is theoretically possible for earthquake-generated neutrons to have caused this kind of reaction, the study doesn't address why this effect hasn't been seen elsewhere in the archaeological record, Gordon Cook, a professor of environmental geochemistry at the University of Glasgow, explained.
"It would have to be a really local effect not to be measurable elsewhere," Cook told Live Science. "People have been measuring materials of that age for decades now and nobody has ever encountered this."
Christopher Ramsey, director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, had a similar issue with the findings.
"One question that would need to be addressed is why the material here is affected, but other archaeological and geological material in the ground is not," Ramsey wrote in an email. "There are huge numbers of radiocarbon dates from the region for much older archaeological material, which certainly don't show this type of intense in-situ radiocarbon production (and they would be much more sensitive to any such effects)."
Ramsey added that using radiocarbon dating to study objects from seismically active regions, such as regions like Japan, generally has not been problematic.
It seems unlikely that the new study, published in the journal Meccanica, will settle any of the long-standing disputes about how and when the cloth was made, which depend largely on faith.
"If you want to believe in the Shroud of Turin, you believe in it," Cook said.
Reader Comments
".."It would have to be a really local effect not to be measurable elsewhere,"..."
Yeah....it never happened before in history and we have no previous or current examples of such an effect, but we're reasonably certain this new explanation will dispel doubts over this money maker.
Whatever cause the image, the cloth tells us ONE THING! The person it wrapped was ALIVE. The cloth exhibits over 22 wounds that CONTINUED TO BLEED after the body was wrapped. Corpses don't bleed. It's simple anatomy. The image is not nearly as important as what it tells us.
It tells us the 'story' is a hoax.
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. - P.B. Medawar
..Wonder what you think of a utter reality that you are looking at the last physical need of a piece of cloth by the messiah.
Let the work do the talking. This is what is missing from the details:
The blood is real.
The image is of a man who was crucified.
The wounds are identical to those inflicted upon Jesus.
The scourge marks are historically consistent.
99 percent of scientists world wide who has studied the cloth up close, have found that is not a painting.
The process causing the yellowness of the top most fibers of the threads responsible for the image is
unknown.
The shading quality of the image is more like the results of modern printing technology.
The shroud micrographs showed no residue of paint or powder.
If the image was created by contact, it would be grotesque and distorted, with the blood marks out of
alignment.
The image is not produced by a contact process.
The image is complex, with photographic, three-dimensional and x-ray-like qualities.
The information indicates that this was a Jewish burial.
The faint flower images seen on the cloth are all flowers that grow in the Holy Land. These flowers bloom in
spring at Passover time.
There are what appear to be shadows on the body image.
The hair falls down to the shoulders and the soles of the feet are seen on the shroud.
It appears that this dead man has been lifted from the position of burial and is now upright as if suspended
in midair.
[Link]
That pesky green slime:
Dr. Leoncio Garza-Valdes (microbiologist) discovered a bioplastic coating of bacteria and fungus on the linen fibers (60% by weight) caused by living microbes that absorb and add C-14 to the Cloth and thereby skew the date by at least 1300 years. These microbes were not known at the time of the test and were not removed by the C-14 cleaning protocol.
In the Budapest National Library is the Pray Manuscript, the oldest surviving text of the Hungarian language. It was written between 1192 and 1195 AD (65 years before the earliest Carbon-14 date in the 1988 tests). One of its illustrations shows preparations for the burial of Christ. The picture includes a burial cloth with the same herringbone weave as the Shroud, plus 4 holes near one of the edges. The holes form an "L" shape. This odd pattern of holes is found on the Shroud of Turin. They are burn holes, perhaps from a hot poker or incense embers.
3-D imagery of NASA's VP-8 Image Analyzer (Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Eric Jumper and Rev. Kenneth Stevenson in 1978) shows "dense, button-like objects over the eyes" about the size of a U.S. dime. Macrophotography (by the late Fr. Francis Filas, S.J. of Loyola U. in Chicago), and digitalization of the eye area (Dr. Robert Haralick , U. of Virginia Spatial Data Analysis Lab) suggest coin-lettering consistent with the Lepton (Widow's Mite) minted by Pontius Pilate between 29 - 32 AD. Specifically, Filas makes a case for the letters "UCAI", which are on the lepton, and Haralick's digitalization appears to confirm these four raised letters. They are consistent with the "U" of Tiberious and "CAI" of Caisaros (Tiberiou Caisaros) printed on the coins. Normally, coins would be minted with Greek lettering and we would have anticipated "UKAI". However, many leptons were misspelled with Latin "UCAI".
When you look closely at this coin it is unmistakable.
The material above was reproduced from this [Link]
more historical documentation. [Link]
@Matthew 28
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
@John 20
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.