Stephen E. Jones

Shroud of Turin quotes: Unclassified quotes: June 2007

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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in June 2007. See copyright conditions at end.

[May, Jul, Aug (1), Aug (2), Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec]

1/06/2007
"The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth of herringbone weave. It is approximately 14 feet long and 3 feet wide; 
it bears the anatomically correct image of a crucified man. The Man of the Shroud was about 5 feet 7 inches 
tall; he had a beard and wore long hair gathered in a pigtail at the neck. He must have been laid on one end 
of the cloth with the remainder drawn up over his head and across his body to his feet because the Shroud 
bears his image as seen from the front and from the back (see the painting by Clovio). A pattern of 
dumbbell-shaped marks on his back suggest he was scourged with an instrument that could have been a 
Roman flagra. What appear to be blood spots ring his forehead: a wound on his right side is a sign he 
was pierced by a lance. The Man of the Shroud lies posed in an attitude of death, his hands crossed on his 
pelvis. Nail holes penetrate the wrists; the mark of a single nail penetrates his feet which lie left on top of 
tight in what has come to be the familiar artistic representation of Christ on the Cross." (Culliton, B.J., "The 
Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, 
pp.235-239, p.235)

1/06/2007
"An enigma embodied in a piece of good linen, the Shroud of Turin has for centuries both been venerated 
as the manifestation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and denounced as a cruel fraud. It is known to be at 
least 600 years old, as there are good records of its first appearance in France in the 1350's, but even then 
the family that owned it refused to say much about its origins and Church bishops decried it as a forgery. 
Nevertheless, the Shroud is a remarkable relic of historic, archeologic, and scientific interest. Two central 
mysteries surround the Shroud. The lesser is the question of its true age; the greater is the mystery of the 
image-no one can explain how it was formed. The Shroud, only rarely on public view, has been made 
available for scientific study even less frequently, and what studies have been conducted have produced 
only limited data. Nevertheless, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, it is possible to all but rule out some 
of the more obvious mechanisms of image formation (painting, for example) and to at least speculate that the 
Shroud was once in Palestine." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century 
Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.235)

1/06/2007
"A Belgian scientist has reported that bits of cotton that are woven in with the linen fibers are characteristic 
of cotton used in the Middle East two millennia ago. And the former head of the Zurich Police Scientific 
Laboratory has found that various particles of pollen on the Shroud are characteristic of pollen from plants 
that grow only around Palestine." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-
Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.235)

2/06/2007
"Many of the American scientists who for the past few years have made a professional hobby out of 
unraveling the mystery of the Shroud say they were `hooked' once it became apparent that the process of 
image formation defied the ready presumption that modern science could come up with an explanation in no 
time at all. They range in age and religious affiliation but have in common complementary scientific 
disciplines-physics, aerodynamics, chemistry, computer enhanced image analysis-and come from like 
institutions-the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Sandia Laboratory, and the Los Alamos Scientific 
Laboratory, all in New Mexico, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California." (Culliton, B.J., "The 
Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, 
pp.235-239, p.236)

2/06/2007
"Altogether they number two dozen or so and hope that their collective scientific talents, when put to the 
test, will reveal (i) the ingenuity of an extraordinarily clever 14th-century forger, (ii) a rare but explicable 
natural phenomenon, or (iii) the physics of miracles." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin 
Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.236)

2/06/2007
"The Image as Photographic Negative Those who have seen the Shroud in the original report that the 
image, which is a sepia tone with a slightly darker color forming the `blood' spots, is extremely subtle-almost 
indistinguishable to the unaided eye. British Shroud historian and journalist Ian Wilson writes, `... the closer 
one tries to examine it, the more it melts away like mist.' But in photographic negative, the image is 
unmistakable; subtlety sharpens into clarity and the face of the Man of the Shroud is revealed, his features 
strikingly like those that artists since at least the 6th century have given Christ. The first photographs of the 
Shroud were taken in 1898 by a man named Secondo Pia. What astonished Pia, and continues to astonish 
Shroud scholars, is that the image that appeared on his photographic plate was not a characteristic negative 
in which light areas are dark, dark light, and left and right reversed. Instead, Pia's negative showed all the 
qualities of a positive print. The image of the Man of the Shroud showed gradations of tone that gave the 
body depth and contour. The face had the qualities of a photographic likeness, not the flatness of a 
negative. Thus, it seems that the Shroud itself must be, or possess some of the properties of, a photographic 
negative. It is as if the cloth were a piece of film." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin 
Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.236. Emphasis original)

2/06/2007
"In 1532 the Shroud was in a fire. It lay folded in a silver casket when the church of Sainte Chapelle in the 
French town of Chambery burned. The Shroud was saved,. but not before it was scorched by drops of 
molten silver that left triangular shaped marks along the edges of the cloth. On the basis of the known 
melting point of silver mixed, as it would have been at the time with some base metal, Rogers estimates that 
the temperature within the casket reached 200° to 300°C before the Shroud was doused with water. Thus, a 
calculable thermal gradient existed and serves as the foundation for certain judgments about the nature of 
the image. If the image were composed of organic pigment or an inorganic pigment in organic vehicle 
(Rogers has considered more than two dozen pigments and stains known to have been used by 14th 
century artists), it would have been affected by the intense heat. But there are no indications that any of the 
color has `run' or that its intensity has changed in proportion to the severity of the heat it received. Similarly, 
if the image were the result of some natural biologic process related to the decomposition of the human 
body or to the aloes (oils) and spices with which it was anointed, those products too can be expected to be 
affected by the heat. Says Rogers, `if large, complicated, natural-product organic molecules were responsible 
for the image, they should have decomposed, changed color, or volatilized at different rates depending on 
their distance from the high-temperature zone during the fire. There is so evidence for any variation at all.' 
An additional strike against the hypothesis that the image is a painting or stain is the observation that the 
color appears only on the surface of the linen without any penetration of the fibers. But this observation, 
first reported by individuals who examined the- Shroud in 1973, needs to be confirmed. Rogers says that if 
the image was painted, `a stable, particulate, inorganic pigment in a water base had to have been used.' 
Detection of appropriate pigment metals would not prove that the Shroud was painted; however, the 
painting hypothesis could be conclusively disproved by demonstration of the absence of any inorganic 
pigment. Rogers says that the best nondestructive test for its presence or absence is x-ray fluorescence. 
Joseph S. Acetta of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory is the team's fluorescence expert. Because all 
elements have characteristic emission spectra when excited by x-rays, fluorescence data should yield 
information about the chemical composition of the image and of the so-called blood spots. Preliminary 
fluorescence work shows that the image itself, the burn marks, and the blood spots all fluoresce-a finding 
that has led to some skepticism about the blood because blood does not fluoresce. If the scientists are 
allowed to conduct x-ray fluorescence studies of the Shroud, one thing they will look for in particular is any 
evidence of trace elements of blood the appropriate regions of the cloth." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the 
Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, pp.236-
237)

2/06/2007
"Donald J. Lynn and Jean J. Lorre at JPL were introduced to the problem of the Shroud in the spring of 1975, 
when deeply involved in computer 'enhancement of photographs being sent back to earth from the Viking 
Mission to mars, Nevertheless they agreed to do some enhancement studies of the Shroud during what they 
euphemistically called their `spare time.' ... Working with negatives and slides provided by Jackson, Lynn 
and Lorre proceeded with two objectives: (i) `to enhance various characteristics of the image in order to 
present to the eye as much detailed structure ... as possible,' and (ii) `to reveal any information about the 
intrinsic structure of the image which might indicate the way in which it was formed.' Using a 
microdensitometer that registers variations in density, the film was scanned and converted into an array of 
numbers ... that could be read and manipulated by a digital computer. Next, they processed the digital image, 
which was recorded on magnetic tape, on the IBM 360/65 computer that was developed by JPL's Image 
Processing Laboratory to support NASA's planetary exploration program. Finally, the digital image was 
recorded on film. From there, the two image enhancement specialists manipulated their computer images to 
see what the computer could see that they could not. They got some interesting though tentative results. 
(Image enhancement, it should be noted, is not an infallible technique.) For instance, they found that `The 
water marks and the numerous small intense features on the body have abrupt edges, whereas the large 
burn marks have smoothly decaying edges. This suggests a different mechanism of formation for the two 
types of features.' In addition, analysis of the facial region revealed that the image is `composed of a wide 
range of spatial frequencies which are oriented in a random fashion. This indicates that the feature-
generating mechanism was probably directionless (a characteristic which would not be consistent with hand 
application)." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," 
Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, pp.236-237)

2/06/2007
"While Lynn and Lorre were conducting image analysis experiments, Jackson, his Air Force Academy 
colleague Eric J. Jumper, and Sandia image analyst William Mottern were exploring the Shroud in 3-D. Early 
on, a French biologist named Paul Vignon had noted that the intensity of the image appeared to vary 
inversely with what one would assume to be the distance between the body and the cloth, the nose, for 
example, being more intense than the hair. Jackson decided to test that hypothesis mathematically with the 
aid of highly sensitive image recording equipment. To begin with, they created a full-scale model of the 
Shroud by tracing the image from a photographic projection onto a piece of cloth. Then, using an Air Force 
volunteer who matched the height and general build of the Man of the Shroud as a model, they draped their 
shroud over him and, from a set of photographs, measured the cloth-body distance from the ridge line of the 
cloth model. (The ridge line indicates the body's highest points of contact with the Shroud.) Scanning the 
image with a microdensitometer to record variations in intensity, they proceeded to measure image intensity 
along the ridge line and correlate that with cloth-body distance. `It is apparent that a definite correlation 
exists,' Jackson says, explaining that this means that the image on the Shroud contains three-dimensional 
information about the body it covered. Evidence to support the 3-D hypothesis came when Mottern, using 
Interpretation System's VP-8 Image Analyzer, which converts shades of light and dark to vertical relief, 
produced a three-dimensional recreation of the Shroud image. The researchers pointed out the significance 
of this finding in their 1977 paper for the Albuquerque conference. ` ... [O]rdinary photographic images 
cannot usually be converted to true three-dimensional reliefs,' they said. `The photographic process does 
not cause the objects filmed to become exposed in inverse relationship to distance from, the camera; hence, 
three-dimensional information is not usually recorded onto film. Only when the degree of illumination 
received from an object depends, in some way, upon its distance (for example, in a stellar photograph), 
would three-dimensional analysis and reconstruction be possible (by the VP-8 Image Analyzer).' To 
illustrate their point, they produced a three-dimensional relief of a photograph of Pope Pius XI; the nose 
appears distorted and looks pushed into the face, the arms seem to be pushed into the chest, and the `entire 
relief appeared flat and unnatural.' By contrast, in a three-dimensional relief of the face of the Shroud, 
features appear correctly defined." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-
Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, pp.237-238)

2/06/2007
"Jackson and his colleagues believe that the three-dimensional quality image on the Shroud suggests 
strongly that the image-forming process did not depend on direct contact with the body and that, whatever 
it was, it acted uniformly on both sides of the body. This too, mitigates against any hypothesis that the 
image was painted, as, Jackson believes, does another feature of the image that was first revealed by his 
experiments. There appear to be button-like objects placed over the eyes of the Man of the Shroud which, 
on preliminary analysis, seem to be coins. (Ancient burial customs include the placing of coins or potsherds 
over the eyes of the deceased.) To Jackson's mind, the coins cover the eyes, if that's what they turn out to 
be, could contribute to evidence of the authenticity of the Shroud, especially if it is possible, with new 
photographs of the eye region, to identify markings on the objects." (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the 
Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.238)

2/06/2007
"Jackson and his colleagues conclude: `if the identification of these images as solid objects over the eyes is 
correct, then another significant aspect of the image forming process comes to light: whatever process 
formed the image had to have acted the same way not only over the body and hair, but also over 
presumably organically inert fragments sited atop the eyes. This conclusion, we believe, is of significance, 
for it places great restrictions on the possible image formation process. In short, three-dimensionality implies 
that the image forming process acted uniformly through space over the body, front and back, and even 
seemed to act independently of the type of surface, organic and inorganic, from which the image was 
generated.' [Jackson, J.P., et. al., "The Three Dimensional Image On Jesus' Burial Cloth," in Stevenson, K.E., 
ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud 
Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, p.91]'" (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century 
Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.238)

2/06/2007
"The Anatomy of Crucifixion Since the early 1900's, the Shroud has attracted the attention of biologists 
interested in the anatomy of crucifixion. Among the first to approach the problem were Paul Vignon, a 
French biologist, and Yves Delage, an anatomy professor at the Sorbonne. In 1902, Delage gave a lecture to 
the Paris Academy of Sciences in which he reported that the image appeared to be in every respect 
anatomically correct. Although The Lancet critiqued his paper as being sound, Delage's peers at the 
Academy did not think much of it and refused publication. Subsequently, Delage wrote: `If, instead of 
Christ, there were a question of some person like a Sargon, an Achilles or one of the Pharaohs, no one 
would have thought of making any objection... . I recognize Christ as a historical personage and I see no 
reason why anyone should be scandalized that there still exist material traces of his earthly life.' [Walsh, J.E., 
"The Shroud," W.H. Allen: London, 1963, p.107]. Physicians and anatomists in England, Italy, Germany, and 
the United States who have examined the image all come to the same conclusion-anatomically, it fits. Of 
particular interest is the observation that the nail marks penetrate the wrists rather than the palms, as is 
characteristic of most artistic portrayals of the crucifixion. The weight of a human body could not be 
supported by nails through the palms, whereas it could be held by nails through the muscles of the wrists. 
Those gathering evidence in support of the authenticity of the Shroud claim that a forger would have to 
know a lot about crucifixion to be clever enough to produce such an anatomically accurate representation." 
(Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 
21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.238. Emphasis original) 

2/06/2007
"Speculation How, then, might the image have been formed? There is no uniform view among the 
scientific team; indeed, many are unwilling to even speculate. But Jackson, Jumper, and Rogers say the best 
guess is that the image was caused by a scorch which would account for several properties of the Shroud. 
For example, scorch marks fluoresce; so does the shroud. They would not be affected by heat as in the fire 
of 1532. They make sense with respect to the sepia color of the image. However, as Jackson notes, one 
problem with the scorch hypothesis is the clarity of the image of the Man Shroud-the incredible detail. 
Various attempts have been made to produce the image by scorching cloth with a variety of instruments 
from a mercury lamp to a laser beam (Rogers recently spent days searching the Los Alamos-Albuquerque 
area for yards of pure linen for some experiments) but so far no one has managed to create a clear image, 
though they can reproduce the general color of the image on the Shroud. In any event, the real drawback of 
the scorch hypothesis lies in postulating the source of the heat which would have had to have acted 
uniformly on both sides of the body to account for the fact that the front and back images seem to be 
equally intense. Jumper wrote that radiation occurring in a `very short molecular -burst' ` of `around 3 sec' 
could be the mechanism of image formation. Rogers talks of `flash photolysis,' a short, intense burst of light. 
But neither has any plausible notion of what the source of the radiant energy might have been." (Culliton, 
B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 
1978, pp.235-239, pp.238-239. Emphasis original)

2/06/2007
"Still, Rogers, in a philosophical frame of mind muses, `What better way, if you were a deity, of regenerating 
faith in a skeptical age, than to leave evidence 2000 years ago that could be defined only by the technology 
available in that technical age?'" (Culliton, B.J., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-
Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July 1978, pp.235-239, p.239)

2/06/2007
"If our conjecture is true that these images are of coins, then we may have a truly unique method of dating 
the image. Computer enhancement of high quality closeup photographs of the eye region followed by a 
statistical correlation with known coinage of a given era and locality may be able to: (1) identify the objects 
as coins and (2) date and locate the probable time and place the image and not just the cloth was formed. 
Indeed, we have some computer enhancements which, though lacking sufficient resolution for positive 
identification, indicate a possible structure on the surface of the objects. In addition, Ian Wilson has 
suggested several Judean Bronze Lepton coins which are about the correct size as the buttonlike images. In 
particular, a Lepton of Pontius Pilate coined in A.D. 30-31 seems to agree especially well. On the other hand, 
a silver Denarius of Tiberius, coined in A.D. 14-37 was entirely too large. According to Wilson, a Lepton 
would probably be a likely candidate for Joseph of Arimathaea, an orthodox Jew, to use since it was 
acceptable as a Temple offering. It should be noted in passing that the fact that objects are found on the 
eyes indicates that the head of Jesus must have been in a nearly horizontal position, for otherwise they 
would have fallen off the eyelids. It is interesting to note further that these objects might have been 
mistaken for open eyes at one time; for example, Ian Wilson points out that the image on the Mandylion 
cloth (possibly the Shroud) was thought to be a face with the eyes open. If the identification of these 
images as solid objects over the eyes is correct, then another significant aspect of the image forming 
process comes to light: whatever process formed the image had to have acted the same way not only over 
the body and hair, but also over presumably organically inert fragments situated atop the eyes. This 
conclusion, we believe, is of significance, for it places great restrictions on the possible image formation 
processes. In short, three dimensionality implies that the image forming process, acted uniformly through 
space over the body, front and back, and even seemed to act independently of the type of surface, organic 
and inorganic, from which the image was generated. In addition, this identification of the `objects' seems to 
strengthen the authenticity of the Shroud. For what artist or forger in the Fourteenth Century would have 
thought to place objects on the eyes of Jesus?" (Jackson, J.P., Jumper, E.J. Mottern, B. & Stevenson, K.E., 
ed., "The Three Dimensional Image On Jesus' Burial Cloth," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 
1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, 
pp.90-91) 

2/06/2007
"The work of one other person in still another country was very important in our early research in the story 
of the flowers. Dr. Max Frei, a Swiss criminalist and botanist, founded the scientific department of the Zurich 
Criminal Police and was its director for twenty-five years. In this work, he developed the technique of using 
sticky tape to pick up materials such as pollens and threads and of securing these tapes to microscopic 
slides for microscopic examination. In 1973 and 1978, Dr. Frei used this technique to obtain materials from 
the Shroud. From the debris on those tapes, he was able to identify fifty-eight kinds of pollen. [Frei-Sulzer, 
M., "Nine Years of Palynological Studies on the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 1, No. 3, 
June 1982, pp.3-7] Some of these were known to him, but many were unknown because they do not grow in 
Europe. So over the next four years he made seven trips to Israel and the Middle East gathering plant 
specimens to enable him to identify the species from which the pollens on the Shroud sticky tapes came. 
Most of Frei's work is still unpublished, as he died in 1983 before he had completed the manuscript for a 
book. However, we have his uncompleted manuscript and the list of the fifty-eight plants." (Whanger, M. 
& Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: 
Franklin TN, 1998, pp.76-77)

2/06/2007
"While there are images of hundreds of flowers on the Shroud, many are vague or incomplete. We feel Alan 
has identified, tentatively but with reasonable certainty, twenty-eight plants whose images are sufficiently 
clear and complete to make a good comparison with the drawings in Flora Palaestina. Of these twenty-
eight plants, twenty-three are flowers, three are small bushes, and two are thorns. All twenty-eight grow in 
Israel. Twenty grow in Jerusalem itself, and the other eight grow potentially within the close vicinity of 
Jerusalem, either in the Judean Desert or in the Dead Sea area or in both. All twenty-eight would have been 
available in Jerusalem markets in a fresh state. Many would have been growing along the roadside or in 
nearby fields, available for the picking. A rather unique situation exists in that within Jerusalem and the 
surrounding twelve miles, four geographic areas exist with their differing specific climates and flora. 
Nowhere else are so many different types of species found so close together. Of these twenty-eight plants, 
Frei, working from the sticky tape slides, had previously identified the pollens of twenty-five of the same or 
similar plants. Twenty-seven of these twenty-eight bloom in March and April, which corresponds to the 
time of Passover and the Crucifixion. There are at least seven small bouquets in addition to the various 
bunched flowers." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," 
Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, p.78)

2/06/2007
"Some species of plants have wide geographic distribution. Using botanical references, Alan determined the 
ranges of the twenty-eight plants, noting whether they are found in central Europe, including France 
(botanical Zone I) or in the Mediterranean, including Italy (botanical Zone IV). Only three are found in 
central Europe. Nine are definitely found in Italy. Five more are found mostly in the eastern Mediterranean, 
which includes Israel, but might extend into Italy. Half are found only in the Middle East or other similar 
areas and never in Europe. Some skeptics have suggested that maybe the pollens were blown across the 
Mediterranean and deposited on the Shroud while it was on display in France or Italy. That is hardly likely, 
as many of these pollens are heavy pollens with prickly surfaces designed to be carried by insects, not by 
wind." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence 
House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.78-79)

2/06/2007
"Carefully examining one of the Frei slides, researcher Paul Maloney discovered a cluster of many pollens 
from the same plant. These pollens were identified by palynologist Dr. A. Orville Dahl as Cistus creticus. 
(Palynologists study live and fossil pollens, spores, and similar plant structures.) Years earlier, Frei had 
identified pollens from this same plant on his sticky tape slides. At the time he took the sticky tape samples, 
he was unaware of the images of flowers on the Shroud, but it so happened that the tape Maloney was 
observing had been taken over the center of the same Cistus creticus flower that Alan had already 
identified. Thus Frei, Maloney with Dahl, and Alan, all working separately and at different times and using 
different methods, found the presence of Cistus creticus on the Shroud. Since Alan used Frei's pollen 
identification list to search for flowers bearing those pollens, most of the flowers that we identified do have 
pollens that were present on the Shroud." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An 
Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, p.78)

2/06/2007
"In 1995, we went on a study tour in Israel with the Spanish Shroud research group Centro Espanol de 
Sindonologia. Before leaving for Israel, Alan called Avinoam Danin, Professor of Botany at The Hebrew 
University in Jerusalem and the world authority on the plants of Israel, to ask if we might be able to see him. 
We had known about him for a number of years. He very kindly invited us to his home, where we showed 
him a number of our photographs of the flower images. After about twenty seconds of looking at them, he 
exclaimed, "Those are the flowers of Jerusalem!" Imagine how pleased and excited we were to hear him say 
that! That's what we thought, but we are not trained in botany, and it was wonderful to hear an affirmation 
from such a highly respected professional botanist. Danin said that we needed plant specimens and pollens 
from species related to those tentatively identified in order to do comparison studies, and he began this 
collection in 1996." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," 
Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.79-80)

2/06/2007
"In 1997 during a visit to our home, Danin made a careful and detailed examination of our photographs and 
of the images on the Shroud. He stated that he agrees with confidence with twenty-two of the twenty-eight 
plant identifications that we had made. Of the remaining six identifications, he said that three are probably 
correct and the other three are possibly correct, but he could not identify them with certainty because the 
images are too fragmentary. In no case did he totally disagree with our original tentative identification or fail 
to see some imaging. Moreover, he discovered a large number of additional flower images that we had not 
found. Having previously plotted the locations of multiple thousands of plant species in Israel, Danin was 
able to state that twenty-seven of the twenty-eight plants whose images are on the Shroud grow within five 
areas measuring five by five kilometers (three by three miles) immediately around Jerusalem and between 
Jerusalem and Jericho. The twenty-eighth plant is found at the south end of the Dead Sea. One of the plants, 
Zygophyllum dumosum, grows only in Israel, Jordan, and Sinai, with its northernmost boundary in the 
world being at the sea level sign on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho. The image of this plant on 
the Shroud, according to Danin, shows both a winter leaf and the remnants of the stalk from the preceding 
year, proof that the plant was plucked in the spring. For Danin as a botanist, the presence of the image of 
this one plant is sufficient to establish Jerusalem as the place of origin of the Shroud of Turin." (Whanger, 
M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: 
Franklin TN, 1998, p.80)

2/06/2007
"The length of time between the picking of the flowers and the forming of the images can be reasonably 
determined by the degree of wilting and the corona discharge appearance of the images. The more fragile 
flowers show rather marked wilting within the first twenty-four hours. The more durable ones undergo 
considerable shrinking within a few days after picking. Both the general gross appearance of the wilted 
flowers and the appearance of the corona discharge images strongly suggest that most of the flowers whose 
images are on the Shroud would be between twenty-four and thirty-six hours old after picking. This finding 
corresponds well with the accepted physiologic and anatomic data from the Shroud which is that the images 
of the body were made between twenty-four and forty hours after death. Twenty-four hours is the time 
required for the observed blood clot separation. Forty hours is the time decomposition, which is not seen, 
would have begun to be grossly apparent." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An 
Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.80-81)

2/06/2007
"Flower images (and other images) on the Shroud are so very faint now. Were they likely more apparent 
early on? We feel the answer is definitely yes. The images on the Shroud have the appearance of a light 
scorch. The Shroud is linen, and linen yellows as it ages, but it does not continue to darken indefinitely. The 
yellowing darkens only so far and no further. Therefore as the Shroud ages, the background darkens but the 
images do not, and as the background darkens it becomes more nearly the same color as the images, in 
effect swallowing them up. It is not clear when the images of the flowers became so indistinct as to be 
essentially unperceived or ignored by onlookers. We speculate that this process of the darkening of the 
Shroud was greatly accelerated during the 1532 fire when the Shroud was subjected to intense heat. It is 
certain that modern industrial pollution is causing the Shroud to darken increasingly faster. One expert has 
warned that in a very few years the images will be indistinguishable from the background unless a way is 
found to better protect the Shroud." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure 
of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, p.81)

2/06/2007
"In any event, flowers congruent with those whose images are on the Shroud were portrayed in numerous 
works of art from the third through the tenth centuries having high PC [points of congruence] with the 
Shroud face image. Alan made a drawing of the flower images within the circular opening of the cloth 
covering of the Mandylion to use as reference. The congruence of the flowers is based more on their being 
in the right places than on close resemblance to the varieties identified on the Shroud. In many of the 
depictions, the flowers are stylized, and on the coins they are too small to have the shapes of different 
varieties. One of the earliest portraits of Christ from the third century in the Roman catacombs shows small 
flowers around the head patterned very much like the flower-banked face image in the Mandylion/Shroud. 
The same is true of a catacomb portrait of Christ from the fourth century which shows a number of flowers in 
the nimbus or halo. In the halo of the Pantocrator icon of 550 at Saint Catherine's Monastery there are many 
dozens of images of flowers which are highly congruent in placement with those on the Shroud. Even more 
striking is the very accurate placement of the flower images on the 692-695 gold solidus coins of Justinian II. 
These flower images on the coins are so tiny they would easily fit on the head of a pin. Flowers were 
accurately portrayed on the gold coins of Constantine VII in 945 after the Mandylion had been brought in 
great ceremony to the Chapel of the Emperor in Constantinople. And there are many other portraits of Jesus 
which contain highly accurately placed depictions of flowers." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The 
Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.81-82)

2/06/2007
"Some have wondered if perhaps the flowers may have been placed on the Shroud during its exhibitions for 
the public, and maybe that's where flower images and pollen came from. Indeed, flowers likely would have 
been placed there during showings or liturgical use. If so, certainly some of the pollen did come from those 
flowers. On his sticky tape samples from the Shroud, Frei found pollens which are characteristic of the areas 
around Edessa and Constantinople, places where the Shroud was located for hundreds of years. 4 But this 
could not account for the presence of flowers in the hundreds of artistic productions dating from as early as 
the third century. And it is not possible that large numbers of plants from Israel and other Middle East areas 
were brought to France and Italy in a fresh state for exhibitions there. Nor does it account for the presence 
of the corona discharge type images on the Shroud. It seems clear that flowers were indeed in the Shroud 
around the body, and that their images were imprinted on the cloth at the same time and in the same manner 
as the other images." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," 
Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, pp.82-83)

2/06/2007
"Why were these flowers banked around the body at the time of burial? Was this a custom of the Jews at 
that time? Probably not, although it is difficult to know for certain. We generally think of burial spices as 
being in the form of ointments or unguents, something crushed or distilled from plants. But some of these 
plants, that is, intact whole plants, may have been used as burial spices. So some of them were likely there 
for that purpose, and probably also as deodorants or as a mask for odors which would have been present by 
the time friends came back to complete what had been a hasty burial. Jesus had been greatly revered and 
deeply loved, and his friends and followers were shattered by his death. It seems not unreasonable that they 
would have picked flowers and placed them in the tomb for the same reasons we use flowers today at the 
time of death-as an expression of love and for whatever solace their beauty can give." (Whanger, M. & 
Whanger, A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin 
TN, 1998, pp.83-84)

2/06/2007
"There are images of plants and flowers on the Shroud that were placed with the body for quite another 
reason, and which bear witness to the identity of the Man of the Shroud. These are the plants that were 
used in the mocking prior to the Crucifixion, the ones that make up the crown of thorns. They would have 
been bloody and in touch with the body at the time of death. On the anatomic right shoulder image there is 
the image of one end of a structure that goes up, around, down, and back again. Making up this structure 
are at least six stems with thorn and flower clusters of a very thorny plant called Gundelia tournefortii. 
This plant has a very limited geographic distribution, but is found in Jerusalem and the Dead Sea area. There 
is also a round flower and thorn cluster of another thorn species in the center of the structure, and there may 
be the image of yet a third kind of thorn. Alan duplicated the drawings of the thorns in Flora Palaestina, 
taped them together to form the structure whose images we see on the Shroud, then glued the resulting 
structure to a sheet of clear rigid plastic. We then placed this model of the crown of thorns on a lifesize 
photograph of the Shroud which shows the front, top, and back of the head to see how well the size of the 
crown and the position of the thorns would match the blood stains on the Shroud. The match is quite good. 
History records only one person who wore a crown of thorns-Jesus of Nazareth." (Whanger, M. & Whanger, 
A.D., "The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery," Providence House Publishers: Franklin TN, 1998, 
pp.84-85)

4/06/2007
"Eugenia Nitowski, an archaeologist and former nun, bases her conclusion as much on science as on faith: The 
shroud's existence has forced science to seriously debate the Resurrection of Jesus. In 1986, Nitowski conducted 
one of many experiments now referenced by shroud scholars in trying to determine whether the cloth - a linen 
containing the image of a man who had been brutally scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified with spikes 
through his wrists and feet, and speared in the side before death - was Christ's burial shroud. ... Nitowski's efforts 
to re-create the conditions that would have existed inside an excavated Middle Eastern stone burial chamber 
have since been cited as another piece of evidence that places the shroud in first-century Jerusalem. `We rented 
a tomb there for two weeks,' on the grounds of the French School of Architecture in Jerusalem, said Nitowski, 
who has a bachelor's degree in biblical languages and history, master's degrees in biblical archaeology and 
medieval history and a doctorate from Notre Dame in medieval history. As a Middle Eastern archaeologist, 
Nitowski told the Deseret Morning News, she had previously excavated 17 tombs and knew `pretty well what the 
environment was like,' including the first one she'd ever worked on - a `rolling stone tomb dated to the time of 
Christ.' While she was working inside, a fellow worker rolled the stone closed, encasing her in stony darkness 
and silence, she said. She found a bench that lined the walls of the tomb's central chamber and lay down on it, 
enjoying the cool stone wall's feel against her face. As she did so, she thought about the temperature inside and 
later began digging into literature on the Shroud of Turin and whether anyone had tried to determine the 
temperature inside Christ's tomb. A resulting article, "New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin," 
published in Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1986, was co-written with a researcher named Joseph 
Kohlbeck. ... It was reported that Kohlbeck, with assistance from Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute 
at the University of Chicago, compared dirt from the shroud to travertine aragonite limestone found in ancient 
Jewish tombs in Israel. Kohlbeck's dust particles were taken from sticky tape samples that researcher Ray Rogers, 
from the 1978 shroud investigation team, had taken from the Shroud of Turin and compared with Nitowski's 
samples. According to several scholarly papers and a book by author Ian Wilson called `The Blood and the 
Shroud,' the particles of dirt on the Shroud of Turin provided a close chemical match to the samples Nitowski 
took from the tombs. At the time, Kohlbeck acknowledged that his work was not proof that the shroud was in 
Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world where aragonite has the identical chemical 
composition." (Moore, C.A., "Shroud of Turin - Local scientist says the cloth covered," Deseret Morning News, 
November 5, 2005) 

5/06/2007
"The carbon-dating tests set the age of the shroud in the 13th century, which would make the Shroud of Turin a 
pious icon at best, a clever fraud at worst. However, the scientific community is divided over the shroud dates 
because -- with the exception of the carbon dating tests -- medical, artistic, forensic and botanical evidence 
favors the authenticity of the shroud of Turin as the burial cloth of Jesus. One example of microscopic testing 
that supports the Shroud as authentic is the 1978 sample of dirt taken from the foot region of the burial linen. The 
dirt was analyzed at the Hercules Aerospace Laboratory in Salt Lake, Utah, where experts identified crystals of 
travertine argonite, a relatively rare form of calcite found near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. It is a stretch, say 
researchers, that a 13th century forger would have known to take the trouble to impregnate the linen with marble 
dust found near Golgotha in order to fool scientists 600 years later." (Anderson, M.J., "Scientists: Relic 
authenticates Shroud of Turin: Exhaustive tests show sacred cloth much older than carbon-14 date," 
WorldNetDaily, October 4, 2000)

5/06/2007
"And there is one further supportive finding which has come to light, which still concerns the pollen, but 
which also takes us into yet another variety of extraneous material on the Shroud's surface: mineral deposits. 
The now familiar Turin microanalyst Giovanni Riggi, during his analysis of the materials that he had 
vacuumed from the Shroud's underside, reported coming across pollens ... among which he noticed an 
approximately fifty per cent proportion that ... bore a thick, calcium-rich mineral covering, coating all their 
otherwise distinctive features. ... Since ... Riggi had vacuumed his pollens from its underside, i.e. the side 
which had theoretically lain in contact with the tomb, then the strong implication had to be that the Shroud's 
underside had been affected by once having lain on some calcium-coated surface in a way that the body-
image side had not, raising the question, could this mineral coating have been from the rock of a tomb in 
Jerusalem? In this regard it so happens that back in 1982 STURP's Ray Rogers took some of the Shroud 
sticky-tape samples to his old friend optical crystallographer Dr Joseph Kohlbeck, Resident Scientist at 
Hercules Aerospace in Utah. All that Rogers wanted from Kohlbeck was for him to make photomicrographs 
of the sticky tapes taken in 1978, since he knew Kohlbeck to have optical equipment that was superior to 
anything available at his own Los Alamos laboratory. However, Kohlbeck began to take a lively interest in 
some of the particles of calcium carbonate (or limestone) that he immediately spotted among all the other 
debris on the tapes. ... these raised in his mind the interesting question of whether the chemical `signature' 
of these might in any way match that of the stone of the tomb in which Jesus was laid in Jerusalem. As ... the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the central shrine of which has a surprisingly good claim to being where 
Jesus was once buried. ... has been so badly hacked about in the course of its history, and is at present so 
well protected against any further hacking about, that Kohlbeck rightly adjudged the chances of obtaining 
any samples very slim. But he reasoned that limestone rock inside other tombs in the Jerusalem vicinity 
ought to have roughly the same characteristics. He found a most useful and knowledgeable local research 
colleague in the person of archaeologist Dr Eugenia Nitowski who, for her doctorate, had made a specialist 
study of ancient Jewish tombs in Israel. She had excavated the first rolling-stone-type tomb east of the 
Jordan and, as a result of the contacts she had made, was able to obtain for Kohlbeck the Jerusalem tomb 
limestone samples that he needed. He subjected them to microscopic analysis, quickly finding them to have 
precisely the sort of distinctive characteristics that he had hoped for. As he has explained: `This particular 
limestone was primarily travertine aragonite deposited from springs, rather than the more common calcite. 
Calcite and aragonite differ in their crystalline structure - calcite being rhombohedral [i.e. triangular] and 
aragonite orthorhombic [i.e. with three unequal axes at right angles to each other]. Aragonite is less common 
than calcite. Aragonite is formed under a much narrower range of conditions than calcite. In addition to the 
aragonite, our Jerusalem samples also contained small quantities of iron and strontium, but no lead.' 
[Kohlbeck, J.A. & Nitowski, E.L., "New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin," Biblical 
Archaeology Review, July-August 1986, p.23] With Nitowski now highly intrigued at what he might find 
next, Kohlbeck proceeded to examine a sample of calcium taken from the Shroud in the very same foot area 
in which Roger and Mary Gilbert had come across the now famous `dirt'. This was chosen because it 
showed a larger and therefore potentially more significant concentration of calcium carbonate than other 
areas. To Kohlbeck's considerable satisfaction, the sample turned out to be of the rarer aragonite variety, 
exactly as in the case of the samples taken from the Jerusalem tombs. Not only this, but it also exhibited 
small amounts of strontium and iron, again suggesting a close match. But even these parallels were not 
enough to `prove' the needed signature, as a result of which Kohlbeck took both the Shroud samples and 
the Jerusalem tomb samples to Dr Ricardo Levi-Setti of the famous Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of 
Chicago. Here, Levi-Setti put both sets of samples through his high-resolution scanning ion microprobe, 
and as he and Kohlbeck studied the pattern of spectra produced by each ... it became quite obvious that 
they were indeed an unusually close match, the only disparity being a slight organic variation readily 
explicable as due to minute pieces of flax that could not be separated from the Shroud's calcium. As 
Kohlbeck readily acknowledged, this cannot of course be taken as proof that the Shroud aragonite can only 
have come from a Jerusalem limestone tomb. It may well be possible to find another area of the world in 
which the aragonite might prove similar to that on the Shroud and only future research more refined than 
anything so far conducted might one day be able to make a match that could be considered absolutely 
conclusive." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is 
Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.104-106) 

6/06/2007
"Frequently called for is the radiocarbon method of dating organic objects. This test, supposedly, would 
settle the age of the cloth, but it can stand as a good example of the difficulties facing those who must make 
the decision to test, and those who must do the actual work. Radiocarbon dating is a comparatively recent 
development, in practical use for little more than a decade, but it has already been hailed by archaeologists 
as an indispensable tool. Perfected by Dr. Willard Libby of the University of Chicago, it received wide public 
attention early in its career by helping to authenticate the Dead Sea Scrolls. (A portion of the linen found 
with the scrolls was tested by Libby and successfully dated between 167 B.C. and A.D. 233.) But there are a 
number of drawbacks to this method, not the least of which is the destruction of the material to be dated. 
The procedure consists of burning the sample (in the case of the Shroud this would be almost the size of a 
handkerchief, more if confirmation tests were run), and reducing it to pure carbon. A gas counter then 
measures it in the form of carbon dioxide, methane or acetylene to determine its Carbon-14 content. The 
answer is given with a plus-or-minus factor, and with the shroud, this could vary anywhere from 100 to 400 
years." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.169-170)

6/06/2007
"The real problem, however, is not the destruction of the material, but the fact that the shroud may not be 
suitable for radiocarbon dating. Contamination over the centuries could drastically alter and falsify the 
results. A number of experts recently pointed out that the Shroud-which has not enjoyed the undisturbed, 
airless existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls-may have undergone an exchange of Carbon-14 between its own 
molecules and atmospheric dioxide. And, they say, there is also the possibility of contamination through 
microbiological action such as might arise in damp conditions. But research is still being done on the 
problem of sample reliability in radiocarbon dating and a usable technique may someday be evolved." 
(Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.170-171) 

6/06/2007
"The participants at the [1977] New Mexico Symposium suggested, among other things, a thorough review 
of the Carbon-14 test as it may be applied to the Shroud for dating purposes. This is in the light of recent 
discoveries which makes it possible for this test not only to use much smaller samples, but also to extend 
the age of a given object under evaluation. They likewise suggested infrared photography, conventional 
and spectural imaging and spectral emissivity, and stressed, too, the importance of X-ray fluorescence and 
X-ray radiographic examination." (Rinaldi, P.M., "The Man in the Shroud," [1972], Futura: London, Revised, 
1978, p.118)

6/06/2007
"The Shroud has not been dated by means of the carbon-14 dating procedure, a process which estimates 
the age of organic material by estimating the rate of deterioration of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope. All 
living things contain a small amount of carbon-14. It begins to deteriorate at a known rate when the living 
thing dies. The Shroud is linen, a fabric made from flax. The carbon-14 in the flax began to decay when the 
flax was cut. The carbon-14 test will probably be performed on the Shroud eventually. Improvements in the 
technique have made it possible to date small samples of material. However, there are still obstacles to the 
carbon-14 test of the Shroud. Carbon-14 dating is a destructive test. The Shroud's owner and custodians are 
understandably reluctant to allow even a small amount of the Shroud to be destroyed. Some scientists 
question whether the small-sample technique is as accurate as older methods which required the destruction 
of large amounts of material. Questions have also been raised about the ability of scientists to purify a 
sample well enough to date it accurately. However, most experts believe these obstacles will eventually be 
overcome. Until an accurate carbon-14 test is performed, we must conclude that the Shroud probably has a 
first-century origin. This is the date suggested by the studies of the textile, the pollen, and the coins." 
(Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of 
Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, p.28)

6/06/2007
"At the [1977] Albuquerque conference McCrone spelled out in detail the sort of results he could achieve if 
only he could be allowed the most minute samples. Most dramatic, he explained, were the recent 
improvements in radiocarbon dating. A few years ago the Libby method, the only one understood by the 
Italians, would have required the destruction of 20 to 25 grams of sample, or about one tenth of the entire 
Shroud, an understandably unacceptable quantity. Since 1970 steady improvements in apparatus and 
techniques, particularly the introduction of highly specialized mass spectrometers, had reduced the amount 
of sample required to, at the time of the conference, some 60 milligrams or 1.6 by 1.6 cm. of material-less than 
the samples cut away for Professor Raes's purposes in 1973- Since that meeting further refinements have 
reduced the required sample size to less than 10 milligrams. No longer applicable were the old reservations 
about the fire of 1532 and the drenching with water invalidating any radiocarbon reading. The very samples 
taken for Professor Raes could be used, and would not even be totally destroyed. Given a three-month 
period for the counting of beta tracks, and with due allowance for the recalibration of carbon 14 that has 
followed cross-checking with dendrochronology, a dating accurate to plus or minus one hundred years was 
possible, enabling the settling once and for all, of the question of whether or not the Shroud is a fourteenth-
century forgery." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.203-204)

8/06/2007
"Not all the pollens present on the Shroud had been identified previously by Frei, because many were found 
to be coated in a calcium-rich mineral that made classification difficult. Considering that the underside of 
Christ's burial shroud had been in hard contact with the limestone burial platform of the cave-tomb, the 
intriguing question was whether the mineral coating on these pollens had come from rock in the same area. 
This question was taken up in 1986 by optical crystallographer Dr Joseph Kohlbeck, resident scientist at 
Hercules Aerospace, Colorado. He gained the support of archaeologist Dr Eugenia Nitowski, an expert in 
ancient Jewish tombs of Israel, who obtained for him some limestone samples from a first- century tomb in 
Jerusalem. Dr Kohlbeck closely analysed and compared his samples from the underside of the Shroud with 
Dr Nitowski's samples. In both instances he identified the calcium component to be of the aragonite variety, 
and in both he also uncovered traces of strontium and iron. In scientific terms, these points meant a close 
match. [Kohlbeck, J.A. & Nitowski, E.L., "New evidence may explain image on the Shroud of Turin," 
Biblical Archaeology Review, Jul/Aug 1986, p.23] There was still more that Dr Kohlbeck could do to 
test his evidence. He took his mineral-coated pollen samples and the limestone tomb samples to Dr Ricardo 
Levi-Setti at the Enrico Fermi Institute in the University of Chicago. The two scientists studied the patterns 
of spectra produced by the comparative samples through a high-resolution scanning ion microprobe. 
Although they were unable to prove beyond doubt that the Shroud aragonite had come from the Jerusalem 
area, the samples were found to be an unusually close match. This led Dr Kohlbeck to assess the strong 
probability that the Shroud limestone is of Jerusalem provenance." (Whiting, B., "The Shroud Story," 
Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, 2006, pp.129-130) 

8/06/2007
"Optical crystallographer Joseph Kohlbeck presented evidence in 1986 that the man of the Shroud had been 
placed in a rockhewn tomb. Obtaining samples of limestone from ancient tombs in and around Jerusalem, he 
subjected them to microscopic analysis and found `travertine aragonite deposited from springs, as well as 
small quantities of iron and strontium.' Then he examined a particle taken from the Shroud in the area of the 
foot. Here he found aragonite as well as strontium and iron, which proved to be `an unusually close match' 
to the samples from the Jerusalem cave tombs,' [Kohlbeck, J.A. & Nitowski, E.L., "New Evidence May 
Explain Image on Shroud," Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1986, p.24]" (Ruffin, C.B., "The 
Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial 
Relic," Our Sunday Visitor:  Huntington IN, 1999, pp.45-46)

8/06/2007
"Scientists found other interesting features connected with the Shroud. Joseph Kohlbeck, an optical 
crystallographer working for the Hercules Aerospace Divisions, which makes missiles, found particles of 
aragonite with small amounts of strontium and iron on the Shroud's fibers on the image of the foot. With the 
help of archaeologist Eugenia Nitowski, he obtained samples of limestone from inside ancient tombs in and 
near Jerusalem and subjected them also to microscopic analysis. He found the same substance. The 
aragonite on the Shroud and in the tombs was an uncommon variety, deposited from springs, typically 
found in limestone caves in Palestine, but not in Europe. The samples from the Shroud and the tombs 
provided `an usually close match,' suggesting to him and to Nitowski that the Shroud had once been in one 
of the `rolling-stone tombs' that were common in Palestine around the time of Christ and for several 
centuries before. Kohlbeck observed that those who believe that the Shroud is a forgery need to explain 
how the very rare aragonite found its way to the surface of the Shroud. [Kohlbeck, J.A. & Nitowski, E.L., 
"New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud," Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1986, pp.23-
24] (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the 
Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, p.103) 

8/06/2007
"I wrote to the Rev A Dreisbach of the AICCSST (Atlanta International Centre for Continuing Study and 
Exhibit of the Shroud of Turin) to see if he knew anything about the carbon dating of the sudarium in 
Arizona. Unfortunately, his answer was negative ... However, he did make some other very interesting 
points. In relation to the dust particles on the nasal area of the Shroud, he mentions an analysis carried out 
on particles from the foot area. He says: `microscopic dirt particles taken from the foot area during the 1978 
examination were eventually analysed by Joseph Kohlbek at the Hercules Aerospace Laboratory in Salt 
Lake City, Utah and found to be travertine aragonite - a rare form of calcite also found near the Damascus 
Gate (i.e. the one closest to Golgotha) in Jerusalem. That finding was later confirmed by Dr Levi Setti using 
an electron probe microscope at the Enrico Fermi Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.' This interesting information 
is further proof that the Shroud is that of Jesus, because no forger, either pious or impious, nobody who 
made a portrait of Christ, for whatever reason, would ever think of including such details, which would have 
been ignored anyway until this present age with its microscopic possibilities." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo 
Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.78-79)

9/06/2007
"Even so, while the origin of the Shroud's `body' image remains far from clear (and we will be returning to a 
fresh consideration of this towards the end of the book), it is important to have the strongest possible 
confirmation of the Heller-Adler claim that the Shroud `blood' really is blood. Thus although Alan Adler has 
carried out immunological tests which in his view establish beyond reasonable doubt that it is from a primate 
- and as Adler notes, the photographic evidence hardly favours the subject being a shaved orang-utan 
critics have argued that its colour is too red. However, as Dr Adler has explained, when someone is severely 
beaten, or otherwise suffers severe traumatic shock, the haemoglobin from the broken blood cells goes 
through the liver, which then converts it into bile pigments such as bilirubin. Since bilirubin is yellow-
orange, and when it is mixed with other blood products that have oxidized brown, the result is very credibly 
the red colour still visible on the Shroud." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated 
Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.77)

9/06/2007
"The Holy Shroud of Turin - revered by Catholics for centuries - is a piece of linen woven between AD1260 
and 1390. Therefore the image it bears cannot be the imprint of the bloodstained body of the crucified Jesus 
Christ. The news, confirming rumours and leaks which began circulating from the first weeks of radiocarbon 
dating tests on the shroud, was announced yesterday by Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, the Archbishop of 
Turin. He said that scientists at laboratories in Zurich, Arizona and Oxford had checked the ages of 
historically authenticated samples of cloth and cuttings from the shroud and were '95 per cent' certain of 
their findings. The shroud, 14ft 3in long and 3ft 7in wide, bears a faint yellowish negative image of the front 
and back of a man whipped, speared, nailed to a cross and crowned with thorns. Cardinal Ballestrero said 
that the church had never claimed that the shroud was a holy relic: its symbolic importance remained. 'The 
church believes in the image and not in the history because this image of Jesus Christ in fact is very 
interesting and the people believe deeply in Jesus,' the cardinal said. At a press conference in London, Dr 
Michael Tite, keeper of the British Museum research laboratories, who masterminded the three tests, and 
Professor Edward Hall and Dr Robert Hedges of Oxford, who conducted the British radiocarbon dating, all 
confirmed that there could be no serious doubt in the results. They also denied knowledge of any of the 
'leaks' which dogged the experiment. These, they said, were the result of informed guesses by the press. 
Their finding, they said, was consistent with the known historical evidence for the shroud, which was first 
recorded in about 1389 by the Bishop of Troyes. He described it as a cunning forgery and said his 
predecessor had met the forger. Professor Hall, who heads the Oxford research laboratory in archaeology 
and the history of art, said he was not disappointed in the result. 'I have to admit I am an agnostic and I 
don't want at my time of life to have to change my ideas.' But that is not likely to be the end of the story: 
there are still mysteries wrapped in the shroud. Pathologists, artists and scientists have been puzzled at how 
a 14th century forger could have simulated complex details such as gravity's effect on blood flows from 
wounds in the hands, feet and side. 'Essentially we have an incomprehensible, extraordinary object. We now 
know its age but not its origin,' Professor Luigi Gonnella, scientific adviser to Cardinal Ballestrero, said in 
Turin yesterday. 'It is not a painting, it has no pigments. We know the red stains are blood, but we do not 
know of any mechanism in the Middle Ages that could put blood on a cloth.' He said church officials are 
angered by claims that because the shroud has a medieval date it must be a fraud, a fake or a forgery. 'A 
forgery means it was made for the specific purpose of deceiving people. This is possible but there is no 
proof of that. It could be a medieval icon.'" (Radford, T., "Shroud dating leaves 'forgery' debate raging," 
The Guardian, October 14, 1988) 

9/06/2007
"As the laboratory representatives returned home with their canisters, the Turin authorities released the 
news of their mission to the world and during the succeeding months, first the Arizona laboratory 
personnel, then Zurich's, then Oxford's ran their particular samples through their equipment. Despite the fact 
that they had all been sworn not to disclose their findings until these could be collectively released, all sorts 
of rumours began circulating, almost all of them suggesting that the Shroud had been found to date to the 
Middle Ages. During the second week of October 1988 press personnel of the English-speaking world were 
notified that the results would be announced on Thursday, 13 October in the British Museum's Press Room, 
with a near-synchronous press conference to be held in Turin that same day. ... At one end of the room had 
been set a low platform which three men mounted ... They were the already mentioned Dr Michael Tite, with 
the Oxford radiocarbon-dating laboratory's Professor Edward Hall and Hall's chief technician, Dr Robert 
Hedges. Nor did they have any Shroud to display. Instead their only `prop' was a blackboard behind them 
on which someone had rather crudely scrawled: `1260-1390!' ... And this was my third, and this time most 
unpleasant, shock, nothing less than a real body blow. For as Dr Tite explained, these numbers represented 
radiocarbon dating's calculation, to a ninety-five per cent degree of probability, of the upper and lower dates 
of when the Shroud's flax had been harvested. Representing an average of the laboratories' findings, which 
had proved in excellent agreement with each other, they indicated that the Shroud's raw flax had most likely 
been made into linen on or about the year AD 1325, give or take sixty-five years either way. This statement 
rendered worthless all my historical researches on the Shroud, on which I had then been working for more 
than twenty years. It also negated much of the medical and other evidence which had equally impressed me. 
The Shroud simply could not possibly be any true shroud of the historical Jesus. For as those on the 
platform collectively insisted, the odds against this were now `astronomical'. The radiocarbon dates matched 
unerringly closely to the time in the 1350s when the Shroud had made its European debut in the 
suspiciously tiny French village of Lirey. They seemingly confirmed a memorandum that the French Bishop 
Pierre d'Arcis had written to his Pope in the year 1389 ... advising him that according to his (d'Arcis's) 
predecessor of the 1350s, Bishop Henri of Poitiers, the Shroud had been `... cunningly painted, the truth 
being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously 
wrought or bestowed.' [Thurston, H., transl., "The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History," The Month, 
1903, pp.17-29] The radiocarbon dating had therefore confirmed Bishop Henri's insights, all the more 
believable given the Middle Ages' notorious credulity towards religious relics. As this was expressed by the 
characteristically forceful Professor Hall: `There was a multi-million-pound business in making forgeries 
during the fourteenth century. Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up and flogged it. [Sheridan, M. & 
Reeves, P., "Turin Shroud shown to be a fake," Independent, 14 October 1988]" (Wilson, I., "The Blood 
and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York 
NY, 1998, pp.7-8)

9/06/2007
"Thus it was that on the morning of 14 October 1988 most of the world woke up to newspaper headlines - by 
no means always front-page news - that the Shroud had been `proven' to be a mediaeval fake. At his Turin 
press conference Cardinal Ballestrero, true to his earlier expressed insistence that the Church has nothing to 
fear from the truth, declared that he accepted the laboratories' findings even though, as he carefully added, 
`the problems about the origin of the image and its preservation still remain to a large extent unresolved'. 
England's Daily Telegraph newspaper duly translated this into the headline `Turin shroud is a forgery, says 
Catholic Church'. On the same day Independent newspaper journalists Michael Sheridan and Phil Reeves 
cheerfully linked the Shroud to other products of `mediaeval tricksters' such as 'a feather from the Archangel 
Gabriel ... the last breath of St Joseph, several heads of St John the Baptist' [Sheridan, M. & Reeves, P., 
"Turin Shroud shown to be a fake," Independent, 14 October 1988], rather as if the Shroud were in the 
same mould as these and that its fraudulence should all along have been obvious to everyone." (Wilson, I., 
"The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: 
New York NY, 1998, pp.7-8)

9/06/2007
"CARDINAL Anastasio Ballestrero of Turin yesterday confirmed what newspaper readers around the world 
have known for weeks: that tests on the Turin Shroud have shown it to be of medieval origin. The shroud, 
believed by many to carry the imprint of Christ's face and body when laid in the tomb, has attracted devout 
pilgrims to Turin for centuries. Leaks of the results of modern carbon-dating tests had infuriated the 
archdiocese of Turin and the shroud's Italian custodians who spoke darkly of foreign plots against Italy, 
anti-Catholic prejudice and the like. Yesterday it was at last official: the tests had established a 95 per cent 
likelihood that the 14-foot linen was made between 1260 and 1390 AD. There is no chance that it dates back 
to the time of Christ. Cardinal Ballestrero pointed out that the church had never claimed that the shroud 
represented Jesus but had honoured a tradition of piety rooted in centuries past. `Considering the results of 
the scientific tests, the church reiterates her respect and her veneration for the shroud,' he said. The tests 
were carried out in laboratories at Oxford University and in Arizona and Zurich. They were based on 
counting the number of radioactive carbon 14 atoms in a fragment of the shroud about the size of a postage 
stamp. However, they did not resolve the icon's origin, or the mystery which surrounds the blood-stained 
image on the shroud, resembling a photographic negative, of an apparently crucified man. Professor Edward 
Hall, the director of the Oxford research laboratory involved, gave his theory: `There was a multi-million 
pound business in making forgeries during the fourteenth century. Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it 
up, and flogged it.' Professor Hall, 64, who said he had a file full of mostly `cranky' letters from believers in 
the shroud's authenticity, added that same people would probably continue to regard it as genuine, `Just as 
there is a Flat Earth Society'. But he was utterly convinced his findings were right." (Sheridan, M. & Reeves, 
P., "Turin Shroud shown to be a fake," Independent, 14 October 1988, in Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The 
Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.94. Emphasis original)

9/06/2007
"Scientifically the coup de grâce came on 16 February 1989 with the scientific journal Nature's 
publication of the radiocarbon-dating laboratories' formal technical report. Authored by no less than twenty-
one of the scientists who had played some part in obtaining the final result, this claimed `conclusive 
evidence that the linen of the shroud of Turin is mediaeval'. [Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon dating of the 
shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February 1989, pp.611-615] As the Oxford laboratory's Professor 
Edward Hall repeatedly stressed in accompanying interviews and talks, no one of any scientific worth could 
any longer believe in the possibility of the Shroud being genuine. If they did, they might just as well join the 
Flat Earthers. Thus it seemed that anyone who had previously upheld any serious case for the Shroud's 
credibility, among whom I numbered myself, had been dealt a fatal stab to the heart. And sadly, the quality 
of argument on the part of those who refused to accept that they were `dead' quickly degenerated into the 
unworthy. For some Shroud supporters in continental Europe, for instance, the chief defence offered was 
that it was the radiocarbon dating, not the Shroud, that must be the fraud." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the 
Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, 
pp.8-9)

9/06/2007
"But if this was the best that those who still believed the Shroud to be first century could come up with, 
oddly, little greater light came even from those who fully accepted the radiocarbon dating's findings. All 
these needed to account for was how someone of the fourteenth century could have `faked the Shroud up' 
as Professor Hall would describe it. In other words how someone of an artistically relatively backward period 
managed to create on the Shroud an image that so convincingly looks to be a positive photograph when it is 
viewed in negative, despite the fact that no one of the Middle Ages could have seen it in this manner. And 
there has been no shortage of theorists in this regard. The Chicago microanalyst Dr Walter McCrone, for 
instance, had been vigorously maintaining from the early 1980s that a mediaeval artist created the Shroud by 
simply painting its image onto the cloth using iron-oxide pigments in a gelatin binding medium. According 
to him, this artist's so successful production of the negative was just a lucky chance deriving from his 
deliberately painting in reverse of positive tones. In the light of the radiocarbon-dating result McCrone 
triumphantly declared his argument one hundred per cent vindicated. Likewise Kentucky teacher, stage 
magician and die-hard sceptic Joe Nickell has argued for a mediaeval hoaxer having created much this same 
effect with the aid of a bas-relief of a body laid out in the manner of the man of the Shroud, thereupon 
splashing on the bloodstains for effect. University of Tennessee forensic pathologist Emily Craig and textile 
specialist Professor Randall Bresee have put forward the idea that a mediaeval forger first must have 
carefully painted the Shroud's image on a sheet of paper, then transferred this to the linen of the Shroud 
proper using a burnishing technique, the Shroud's image thereby being something between a brass rubbing 
and a xerox photocopy. British physician Dr Michael Straiton has explained the so convincing bloodstains 
by suggesting that the Shroud is simply that of a dead Crusader crucified by the Saracens in mockery of 
Jesus's crucifixion, although he has some difficulty explaining the negative. Popular writers Christopher 
Knight and Robert Lomas have gone one further, actually naming the Crusader as Jacques de Molay, the 
last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, according to them crucified by the Inquisition as a sardonic 
torture prior to his being burned at the stake in 1314. South African art professor Nicholas Allen has quite 
recently argued for the Shroud being a genuine photograph, the world's first, created by a mediaeval artificer 
using a natural lens and photographic salts known and understood in the Middle Ages. His theory readily 
accounts for the negative but he has trouble accounting for the bloodstains. Closely related to Allen's 
theory has been that of London journalist Lynn Picknett and partner Clive Prince that the Shroud was 
created, again photographically, by none other than Leonardo da Vinci. According to this duo Leonardo, 
undoubtedly well known for his pioneering anatomical dissections, used a specially crucified body, but his 
own face, for a fake that had been ordered by Pope Innocent VIII. Yet ingenious as so many of these ideas 
are, the plain fact is that they are extremely varied and from not one of them has come sufficient of a 
groundswell of support to suggest that it truly convincingly might hold the key to how the Shroud was 
forged - if indeed it was forged." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's 
Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.9-10)

9/06/2007
"For however heretical and unscientific it might sound even mildly to suggest that the radiocarbon dating 
might have been wrong in the case of the Shroud, what cannot be stressed strongly enough is that all that it 
has produced, and ever can produce, is an instrument reading that seems to indicate a serious finding, but in 
itself can explain nothing. By way of analogy we might cite the case of a jumbo-jet pilot who midway during 
a routine flight across the Atlantic suddenly finds that his fuel gauges - scientific instruments upon which 
he can normally rely - are telling him that his plane is out of fuel. What should he do? Should he blindly 
accept what his instruments are telling him, and proceed immediately to ditch his plane and its passengers 
into the ocean? Or should he make a few other checks first? In effect, this is precisely the situation that has 
pertained since 1988 with regard to the Shroud and its carbon dating. " (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the 
Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, 
pp.10-11)

9/06/2007
"Instead what we need to confront is that three reputable international radiocarbon-dating laboratories, 
using the very best of modern technology, radiocarbon dated the Shroud to some time around the early part 
of the fourteenth century, a date uncomfortably close to the time when a mediaeval French bishop said it 
had been forged, and equally uncomfortably far from the lifetime of Jesus. If the Shroud really is of the 
fourteenth century then we need to try to understand very clearly how on earth it was created, 
mendaciously or otherwise, by someone of that time. Conversely, if it really is of the time of Jesus, we need 
to try to understand equally clearly how three state-of-the-art radiocarbon-dating laboratories could have 
got their datings so seriously wrong. ... Like our hypothetical jumbo-jet pilot, all we can do, faced with an 
instrument reading that says that the flax of the Shroud's linen did not `die' until thirteen centuries after 
Jesus's lifetime, is to review the whole subject again. We must check anew every aspect, every assumption, 
every facet of the subject, including the radiocarbon dating, in order to determine just how much that may 
hitherto have been accepted as fact can or cannot any longer be trusted." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the 
Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, 
pp.12-13)

9/06/2007
"Cardinal Ballestrero was advised in May 1987 by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli ... that 
only the British Museum in the person of Dr. Michael Tite, was to be the sole supervising institute ... 
Cardinal Ballestrero was also advised that only three laboratories were to be kept in the project: those of 
Oxford, Zurich and Tucson in Arizona. This order was passed on to these laboratories by Cardinal 
Ballestrero on 10 October, 1987. ... Now that he was entirely freed from either supervision or `true believers', 
Dr. Tite could now begin his search for a 14th century cloth of a weave similar to that of the Shroud. Since 
no-one denies that the Shroud of Turin was being venerated at Lirey in France in about 1355, however, Dr. 
Tite could not afford a Shroud dating too long after 1355. One Jacques Evin of the Radiocarbon Laboratory 
at Villeurbanne in France heard of Dr. Tite's search and wrote offering to help. ... The Cluny Museum was 
contacted but refused to be involved. ... So he and one Gabriel Vial went along to the Basilica of Saint-
Maximin at Var and pulled some tufts out of the cope known to have been worn by St. Louis d'Anjou (d. 
1297). A postal strike intervened so Vial had to hurry to Turin himself and hand his `control sample' to Tite 
himself on the very day of the cutting of the sample from the Shroud: 21 April 1988. Meanwhile Dr. Tite had 
acquired from the Victoria and Albert Museum a 10 mm. by 70 mm. strip of 14th century cloth which he had 
cut into three equal pieces. These he placed in each `Sample 3' cylinder - to be switched later with each 
`Sample 1' cylinder containing the Shroud piece. (`Sample 3' was nominally from the mummy of an Egyptian 
child buried during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117 to 138 A.D.) " (McDonnell, D.J., "The Great Holy 
Shroud Dating Fraud of 1988," Eternal Word Television Network, 4 November 2003) 

9/06/2007
"On 21 April 1988 in the sacristy of Turin Cathedral `The shroud was separated from the backing cloth along 
its bottom left-hand edge and a strip (~10 mm by 70 mm) was cut...from a single site on the main body of the 
shroud away from any patches or charred areas.' (To quote from p. 2 of the 4 page report published in 
Nature magazine of 16 February 1989, the sole official report of this whole project.) Indeed at Turin on 21 
April Dr. Tite had ordered a strip of that size to be cut from the Shroud. But the cutter, Giovanni Riggi, had in 
fact cut a strip 16 mm by 81 mm which he then cut into two pieces which were weighed by Prof. Franco 
Testore at 158.5 and 144.8 mg. The smaller piece was kept as a `reserve' by Riggi while the larger was cut into 
4 pieces weighing 14.1, 39.6, 52.8 and 52.0 mg. (These details were provided by Prof. Testore at a Symposium 
held in Paris on 7 September 1989. Neither Testore nor Riggi were among the 21 official signatories of the 
official report published in Nature.) The two smallest pieces were placed together in the `Sample 1' 
cylinder for Tucson. A photograph of them next to their cylinder and with the Archbishop's official seal in 
the background was later supplied by the Tucson laboratory's representatives present at the cutting in 
Turin: Profs. P.E. Damon and D.J. Donahue. This photograph verifies Riggi's contradiction of the official 
Nature report. The Shroud pieces were wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in three small cylinders as 
`Sample 1' for the three laboratories. Each laboratory also received a small cylinder containing `Sample 2': a 
piece of Nubian tomb linen dated from the 11th century A.D.; and another small cylinder containing `Sample 
3' - supposedly a piece of linen supplied by the British Museum from the mummy of an eleven year old 
named Cleopatra who had been buried in Thebes in Egypt during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian - but 
which was in fact Dr. Tite's 14th century cloth. Confronted with the importunities of an excited Vial, the 
imperturbable Tite divided his offering into three parts which he placed not in cylinders but in envelopes for 
the three laboratories as an apparently unexpected but later very useful `Sample 4' - threads from the cope of 
St. Louis d'Anjou (d. 1297). " (McDonnell, D.J., "The Great Holy Shroud Dating Fraud of 1988," Eternal 
Word Television Network, 4 November 2003)

9/06/2007
"In the Turin Cathedral sacristy all was conducted ceremoniously and before photographers and video 
cameras, but later in each laboratory someone switched the `Sample 1' (the Shroud piece) with `Sample 3'. 
The Americans arrived back in Tucson on 23 April and officially opened their cylinders on 25 April. All the 
standard cleaning and burning procedures according to the AMS (Accelerated Mass Spectronomy) [sic] 
method were followed and dating measurements got under way on 6 May and continued until they were 
completed on 8 June. The results were then immediately forwarded to Dr. Tite. The doctor however was not 
impressed. His substitute cloth was turning out to be too young! Tucson's datings for the new `Sample 1' 
had `peaked' twice: between 1267 and 1313, then between 1350 and 1407! Since no-one denied that the 
Shroud was in existence at Lirey in the 1350's the latter dates were simply impossible! What to do? The 
Zurich laboratory's director, Dr. Woelfli, has refused to give the dates on which his laboratory's sample 
burning and tests were carried out. Anyway he was able to come up with more `believable' datings for 
`Sample 1', although these too had `peaked' twice: 1271 to 1301, and 1363 to 1374. At last Oxford could 
proceed, burning its samples on 13 July, and hurriedly conducting all its tests in only two days, 20 and 21 
July (!) Its dates for `Sample 1' were all safely in the 13th century, and in fact, and suspiciously, almost 
identical with those for `Sample 4', the threads from the Cope of St. Louis d'Anjou. Oxford dated `Sample 1' at 
1229 to 1280, and `Sample 4' at 1227 to 1279. Thus did Oxford locate safely in the 13th Century what Tucson 
had located in the 14th and 15th centuries! Never mind. None of the dates are anywhere near the dreaded 
First Century ... except those of `Cleopatra's mummy' (in fact the Shroud) which, as `Sample 3', was dated 
with good concordance of datings by the three laboratories, at 9 B.C. to 78 A.D. " (McDonnell, D.J., "The 
Great Holy Shroud Dating Fraud of 1988," Eternal Word Television Network, 4 November 2003)

9/06/2007
"On 13 October 1988 - in fact the tenth anniversary of the close of the five days of tests by STURP - 
Cardinal Ballestrero announced that the Shroud had been shown by radiocarbon dating to be Mediaeval, 
hence a forgery. ... On the following day Dr. Tite gave a press conference at the British Museum to 
make the same triumphal announcement, doing this in front of a blackboard on which he had written `1260 - 
1390!'. ... Meanwhile the `True Unbelievers' could get to work. The Shroud Unmasked by David Sox was 
published in 1988. Then came a life-size photograph of the Shroud as the centre-piece of an exhibition held 
at the British Museum entitled `Fake? The Art of Deception' from 9 March to 2 September 1990. Such 
Museum exhibitions take two years to prepare. Lest anyone miss the special point of this exhibition, on the 
back cover of the Museum's official Catalogue for the exhibition came the questions: `What is a fake, and 
why are they fabricated? Did the forgers of the Turin Shroud and of the Piltdown Man have the same 
motives?' The Church's authorities were dumb, but scientists' and Christian protests came thick and fast. 
Finally the editor of the Catalogue, Dr. Mark Jones (Dr. Tite's successor as Director of the British Museum 
Research Laboratory) apologised for having written this `blurb'. It disappeared from the Catalogue's second 
printing." (McDonnell, D.J., "The Great Holy Shroud Dating Fraud of 1988," Eternal Word Television 
Network, 4 November 2003)

9/06/2007
"Even Dr. Tite was `feeling the heat'. His letter expressing regret at having used the word `fake' in reference 
to the Holy Shroud of Turin appeared in the Catholic Herald of 12 January 1990. Dr. Tite's unrepentance 
however remained clear enough at a conference entitled `Fake' which he gave for the Museum Society of 
Haselmere, a small town in Surrey, on 10 March 1990. To quote from a report of this conference by a Mr. 
David Boyce: `In the course of his talk, he (Dr. Tite) admitted the mysterious nature of this image: the fact 
that not a trace of pigment is to be found on this cloth and that the image is coded to produce a three 
dimensional effect. He then completely disorientated us by projecting onto the screen the mathematical 
tables which figure in the Nature report, the value of which no one was able to judge, and launched into 
hair [sic] brained explanations for the origin of the image on the Holy Shroud, whilst those in the audience 
seemed to have suspended their critical faculties, bemused no doubt by this display of `higher mathematics'. 
He began by quoting the `evidence' of Pierre d'Arcis, bishop of Troyes, who claimed to have known the 
artist who painted the image on the cloth. Fortunately someone in the audience immediately remarked: "But 
you've already said there is no pigment on the cloth." He then put forward the grotesque hypothesis of a 
Crusader crucified by the Saracens in the 14th century, whose decomposing body vapours would have left 
an imprint on the cloth in which it was buried. Either he knows nothing of the work of the American STURP 
team, who have proved the inanity of this hypothesis, or he holds their work in contempt. At this point I 
intervened to say that the vapour theory is incompatible with the image we see, for a cloth wrapped round a 
body would inevitably distort any image produced; furthermore the light and dark shades of the Shroud are 
a function of the distance between cloth and body, which produces the three dimensional effect. He had to 
yield before both objections and ended by saying that there remained a lot of research to be done into the 
formation of the image, but that he would never accept the hypothesis whereby the surface of the cloth was 
scorched by the flash of the Resurrection." (McDonnell, D.J., "The Great Holy Shroud Dating Fraud of 
1988," Eternal Word Television Network, 4 November 2003)

9/06/2007
"According to Professor Harry Gove ..., prime inventor of the state-of-the-art accelerator mass spectrometry 
method that was used to carbon date the Shroud, the very same scientific criteria that provide a ninety-five 
per cent degree of probability in favour of the Shroud's manufacture between 1260 and 1390 also provide 
odds of 'about one in a thousand trillion' [Gove, H.E., "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin 
Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol & Philadelphia, 1996, p.303] against it dating back to the 
time of Jesus. Feeling refreshed? Now Professor Gove is an amiable and intelligent man whom I know and 
greatly respect. Numbers, even ones in trillions, hold real meaning for him and he doesn't claim such 
daunting odds lightly. Yet the Shroud aside, can we really believe that any scientific test can carry that 
degree of confidence in its accuracy? And particularly carbon dating, despite the air of supra-papal 
infallibility that those who understand it (and even those who don't), confidently impart to it." (Wilson, I., 
"The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: 
New York NY, 1998, p.179. Emphasis original)

9/06/2007
"In fact, quite independently of Drs Heller and Adler, other findings have served to confirm that what 
appears to be blood genuinely is blood. For instance the Italian pathologist Dr Pier Luigi Baima-Bollone, 
who has carried out thousands of autopsies, and who has had more Shroud `blood' sample than was 
accorded to Dr Adler, has not only confirmed it to be blood, but confidently identified it as of the AB group. 
[Baima-Bollone, P., Jorio, M. & Massaro, A.L., "Identification of the Group of the Traces of Human Blood on 
the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 6, March 1983, pp.3-6] Although this group is comparatively 
rare among Europeans and is found in only 3.2 per cent of the world's population as a whole, its incidence is 
18 per cent among Jewish populations of the present-day Near East. [Garza-Valdès, L., "The DNA of God?," 
Doubleday: New York , 1999] Caution is needed, however, since some researchers have noted a tendency 
among blood samples more than several centuries old always to test AB." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The 
Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.77)

9/06/2007
"Ancillary to the blood itself, during the 1980s the Utah-based archaeologist Dr Eugenia Nitowski, studying 
sticky tape number 3DB, taken from the small-of-the-back area of the Shroud `blood' stains, found what she 
has confidently identified as a microscopic muscle fragment that had arguably been dislodged by one of the 
scourge strokes. Also, as earlier mentioned, among the same blood from the back of the head have been 
found tubules of wood. Arguably these were transferred from the wood of the cross as the man of the 
Shroud desperately pressed his head against it in an attempt to relieve at least something of the horrifying 
pains in his hands and feet." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," 
Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.77)

9/06/2007
"But arguably of the greatest importance, even though they are as yet far from fully secure, are studies, both 
in Italy and the United States, which, completely independently of each other, have identified DNA in the 
Shroud `blood'. On the afternoon of 21 April 1988, just a few hours after having cut off the snippets of the 
Shroud used for radiocarbon dating, the Italian microscopist Dr Giovanni Riggi took a 1.5 mm `blood' sample 
from the back-of-the-head region. In June 1993 he provided some of this sample to a visiting American 
microbiology professor, Dr Leoncio Garza-Valdès, who took it back for analysis at the University of Texas' 
Center for Advanced DNA Technologies at San Antonio, Texas. There the laboratory director, Dr Victor 
Tryon, and his technician wife, Nancy Mitchell Tryon, quickly established that the sample was human blood 
of the AB group, just as Baima-Bollone had before them. They also determined that it had both X and Y 
chromosomes, indicating that the individual from whom it came was male. Three unmistakable gene 
segments were identified, beta globin from chromosome 11, amelogenin X from chromosome X and 
amelogenin Y from chromosome Y, a finding quite impossible if the Shroud `blood' were merely iron oxide as 
contended by Walter McCrone.." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," 
Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, pp.77-78)

9/06/2007
"Regrettably, because Riggi and Garza-Valdès did not at the time observe the right protocols with Turin's 
then archbishop, Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, this San Antonio DNA testing carries no official recognition. 
Furthermore, the Shroud's detractors can and do argue that contamination is such a serious problem in any 
DNA analysis that it could have come from anyone who merely coughed over the Shroud or had a cut finger 
at any time during the Shroud's history. (As Barrie has pointed out, members of the STURP team will 
undoubtedly have left some of their DNA on the Shroud.) The best material for the analysis of ancient cases 
is also said to be not nuclear DNA, as was used in this instance, but mitochondrial, that is, the kind found in 
parts of the cells used for generating energy. Unlike nuclear DNA, which carries genes from both mothers 
and fathers, mitochondrial DNA is inherited unchanged down the maternal line, and is also said to be rather 
more sensitive in the case of minute samples, though fewer laboratories are prepared to handle it, and much 
less data is potentially obtainable from it." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated 
Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.78)

10/06/2007
"Highly important, if we are even to begin to question radiocarbon dating's trustworthiness, is that we 
understand at least something of the principles upon which it is based. This is that all living things, in their 
taking-in of carbon dioxide, also take in, as a tiny proportion of this, the radioactive isotope carbon 14, 
which is continually being formed in the upper atmosphere. After carbon 14's filtering down into the air we 
breathe it becomes, via photosynthesis and the food chain, an integral part of all plant and animal life. 
Whatever living organism we may be, while we are alive its proportion to our stable, non-radioactive carbon 
will be maintained at about one part in a trillion. Then, when we die, our carbon 14, being radioactive, begins 
to decay, reducing its proportion to the stable carbon (carbon 12) in whatever may be left of us. And since 
the halfway stage of this process, better known as the half-life, is known to be around 5730 years, if 
centuries after we die someone measures the proportion of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in whatever remains of 
us (whether this be bone, wool, leather, wood, linen or grains of rice), it is theoretically possible for them to 
work out the year we died, rather like reading off the time from a conventional clock." (Wilson, I., "The 
Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New 
York NY, 1998, pp.179-180)

10/06/2007
"The first man to realise the usefulness of this for archaeology, the University of Chicago's Willard F. Libby, 
hit upon the idea during four years' development work on the first atomic bomb. After adapting the Geiger 
counter into an apparatus to `count' the rate of decay, he began running archaeological samples through it 
in the late 1940s, among the first of these linen wrappings from the then recently discovered Dead Sea 
Scrolls. As so-called `carbon dating' developed from these early beginnings it was gradually realised that 
Libby's original calculation of 5568 years for radiocarbon's half-life was wrong and that it should be 5730 
years. From comparative work with wood samples of known age (because of their tree-rings), it also became 
clear that, instead of the radioactive decay being a steady fall-off, as Libby had assumed, in practice 
variations in cosmic-ray activity had caused some fluctuations at different periods. Although this 
necessitated a recalibration that is now routine for every radiocarbon-dating test, in no way did such 
adjustments undermine Libby's fine achievement and in 1961 he was very deservedly awarded a Nobel Prize 
for the whole new branch of science that he had founded. Intriguingly (and this has only recently been 
learned from Italian sources), it was almost immediately following the award of this prize to Libby that he 
asked permission to radiocarbon date the Shroud. [Baima-Bollone, P., "Why Hasn't the Shroud Been Dated 
with the Carbon-14 Test?," Stampa Sera, Turin, 17 September 1979, in Sox, D., "The Shroud Unmasked," 
Lamp Press: Basingstoke, 1988, p.82] In the event, despite his impeccable credentials, his request was 
turned down, on the not unreasonable grounds that far too large a piece of the cloth - no less than 870 
square centimetres - would have needed to be destroyed for this purpose. The die was, however, cast, and as 
succeeding generations of scientists refined the original dating methods so that smaller samples became needed, 
it was inevitable that calls for the Shroud to be radiocarbon dated would increase.." (Wilson, I., "The 
Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New 
York NY, 1998, p.180)

10/06/2007
"By way of acknowledgement of the Shroud's new ownership, Gove invited the President of the Pontifical 
Academy of Sciences, Professor Carlos Chagas, to be the meeting's chairman. ... under his chairmanship, 
generally recognised to have been exemplary, a set of recommendations for the Shroud radiocarbon dating 
were drawn up, to become known as the 1986 Protocol. This Protocol recommended that the time was now 
right for the carbon dating, and that the seven radiocarbon-dating laboratories interested in being `in on the 
act' (to the former six had been added France's Gif-sur-Yvette), should all be allowed Shroud samples of the 
size sufficient for their purposes. The target date for the taking of samples was set for 10 May 1987 and for 
logistical reasons it was recommended that this be done `immediately before' further experiments that had 
already long been planned by several interested groups as a follow-up to the STURP work in 1978. As set 
out in the Protocol, the person chosen to perform the sample removal was the well-respected Swiss textile 
specialist Mme Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of the Abegg Foundation in Bern. She was given clearly to 
understand that she should select sites away from charred areas, also away from the image and from any 
other area of obvious information value. It was agreed that the British Museum, as represented by the head 
of its Research Laboratory, Dr Michael Tite, would act in a supervisory capacity. To make the test properly 
scientifically `blind', Dr Tite was to use his Museum connections to provide at least two suitably ancient 
`control' samples per laboratory, additional to the Shroud and of very similar weave, so that the laboratories 
should not know which of their samples came from the Shroud. This Protocol also stipulated that the 
laboratories would not charge for their work, and would submit their results for analysis by the Pontifical 
Academy, the Turin Institute of Metrology and the British Museum, who would only inform the media after 
the analysis had been carried out. This set of proposals having been agreed by all at the meeting, including 
Turin's Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, it was then formally submitted to the Pope. Five days after the 
meeting the Turin newspaper La Stampa announced, obviously with full authority, that the `Protocol' 
meeting had been held and that the Pope had given his approval to its recommendations that all seven 
laboratories date the Shroud. But what became evident during the succeeding weeks, as the May 1987 target 
date began to look less and less achievable, was that there was some intense politicking going on behind 
the scenes. Some of the radiocarbon-dating laboratories, now within a whisker of getting the go-ahead they 
had been waiting for, began to voice their disapproval of the idea of other scientific experiments being 
carried out on the Shroud at the same time as theirs, concerned that these might steal some of the thunder 
from their work. Another person also highly concerned about his thunder being stolen was Professor 
Gonella, who in interminable telephone calls to me and others spoke of Professor Chagas as if he were public 
enemy number one, rather than the Pope's most senior scientific adviser. As early as April 1987 there were 
indications of the direction his mind was taking when, in an interview with La Stampa, he imparted that 
only two or three laboratories would be involved in the testing. Then on 10 October the real bombshell 
struck with a letter from Cardinal Ballestrero to the seven `appointed' institutions, informing them that only 
the Oxford, Arizona and Zurich laboratories would take part in the testing. This decision he had apparently 
taken on Gonella's advice that these laboratories had greater `experience in the field of archaeological 
radiocarbon dating'. He had also decided that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (and thereby Professor 
Chagas), should have no further part in the project. Likewise thrown out was any participation by the textile 
expert Mme Flury-Lemberg. The British Museum's Dr Michael Tite was now to be the man to have sole 
overall responsibility for the project's international scientific credibility." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the 
Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, 
pp.183-184)

10/06/2007
"As a demonstration that real hands-on power over the Shroud rested not with Rome but with Turin; the 
Cardinal's letter and its scrapping of the 1986 Protocol stunned even the three chosen laboratories and in an 
initial joint response drawn up by Arizona's Professor Douglas Donahue they declared themselves `hesitant 
to proceed' and urged `further consideration' of the decision. But this hesitancy was as nothing compared 
with the outright ire of the rejected Professor Harry Gove, who had spent nearly ten years bringing the 
project into being and was now not even to have a look-in. Suspecting that part of Gonella's motivation had 
been a deliberate slight to him for bringing in Chagas, Gove ... on 15 January of 1988, in partnership with 
Garman Harbottle of the Brookhaven laboratory, issued a press release detailing the decision's many 
irrationalities. Contradicting, for instance, Gonella's argument that the three chosen laboratories had greater 
experience dealing with archaeological samples, Gove and Harbottle pointed out that `the Harwell 
laboratory, left out, has had more experience than the three chosen laboratories put together'. They also 
confided that during the preparatory inter-comparison exercise of 1985 it had been the chosen Zurich 
laboratory which had committed a serious error, causing a misdating of 1000 years. As they concluded: `The 
Archbishop's plan, disregarding the Protocol, does not seem capable of producing a result that will meet the 
test of scientific rigour' and `it is probably better to do nothing than to proceed with a scaled-down 
experiment'." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is 
Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.183-184)

10/06/2007
"Had the three chosen laboratories held their nerve and insisted that the original Protocol be maintained, 
history might have been very different. But as Gonella rightly anticipated `the prize was too great', 
particularly for the Oxford laboratory's Professor Hall, who was in a fight-to-the-death struggle with the 
Harwell laboratory (still using the old Libby method), for the controlling share of the UK's radiocarbon-
dating work. When Gonella merely hinted that if the three chosen laboratories declined to co-operate he 
might bring in Italy's Pisa and Udine laboratories, they duly capitulated. As early as 22 January - little more 
than one week after Gove's press conference - Arizona's Damon and Donahue, Oxford's Hall and Hedges, 
and Zurich's Wolfli all met up with Gonella in the British Museum's Board Room to work out the final details 
of how and when they would take the samples. Up to the day of this meeting STURP and other Shroud 
groups had been encouraged by Gonella to formulate what had become very elaborate plans for ancillary 
testing work on the Shroud, utilising the rare opportunity of it being out of its casket. For instance, the 
British Society for the Turin Shroud's intended programme included hands-on involvement by Scotland 
Yard forensic scientists and world-class experts in ancient textiles, and it had been envisaged that this work 
would be carried out immediately after the removal of the samples for the carbon-dating laboratories. 
Following the British Museum meeting, however, Gonella let it be understood that these plans all had to be 
scrapped. The radiocarbon-dating laboratories thereby had total exclusivity, ensuring that whatever result 
might be arrived at, the publicity would be theirs and theirs alone, with no other possibly conflicting 
findings to interfere with it." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most 
Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.184-185)

10/06/2007
"The rest, as they say, is history. As we learned in the very beginning of the book, the samples were taken 
on 21 April 1988 and during the ensuing months were processed by the three laboratories, all very closely in 
touch with each other because they used the same radiocarbon-dating method, amidst ever more insistent 
`leaks' that the result would date the Shroud to the Middle Ages. Then on 13 October 1988 came the official 
announcements that they had found the Shroud to date, with a ninety-five per cent degree of confidence, to 
some time between 1260 and 1390. Gove, who had known the result in advance (having been present as an 
invited guest the day Arizona processed their sample), somewhat forgot all his earlier warnings that the test 
as conducted by just the three laboratories would not meet `the test of scientific rigour'. In a private bet on 
the outcome he had won himself a pair of cowboy boots, and consoling himself that it was his accelerator 
mass spectrometer method that had been used by all three laboratories, he declared the result to be a 
'triumph" for this technique. From his enthusiasm, one might be forgiven for thinking that it had been his 
method that was being tried and tested, not the Shroud." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New 
Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.185)

10/06/2007
"On the other side of the Atlantic, Professor Hall was similarly upbeat. In a lecture provocatively entitled 
`The Turin Shroud: A Lesson in Self-Persuasion' he told a packed audience of the British Museum Society 
in London that radiocarbon dating had so conclusively proved the Shroud to be a fake that anyone who 
continued to believe it genuine had to be a `Flat Farther. And in the March of 1989 his efforts to drum up the 
maximum publicity reaped their rewards when he was able to announce (for publication on, of all days, Good 
Friday) that his laboratory's future was secure. Following his retirement from the Oxford laboratory, this was 
now to be awarded a permanent professorship, financed with a million pounds donated by forty-five rich 
businessmen. Who was the person chosen for this post? Dr Michael Tite." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the 
Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, 
pp.185-186) 

10/06/2007
"It is only fair to say that the seeming unchallengeability of the radiocarbon-dating verdict, so forcefully put 
over by Tite, Gove, Hall, and via them by the world's media, stunned almost everyone who had favoured the 
Shroud's authenticity, including myself. There was simply no immediately available explanation for how 
such a verdict could be wrong, if indeed it was wrong. The best response seemed to be quietly to bide time 
while someone worked out either, if the carbon dating was right, exactly how the Shroud was forged, or, if it 
was wrong, how three internationally respected laboratories could have committed such a huge error. 
Unfortunately some of the more hot-headed enthusiasts for the Shroud's authenticity in continental Europe 
did not have such patience, particularly in the light of their interpretations of Dr Michael Tite's elevation to 
the Oxford professorship. They launched into a succession of unedifying conspiracy theories, mostly 
emanating from the French priest, Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard who ... outrightly accused Dr Tite of 
having switched fourteenth-century cloth for the Shroud samples at the time that he packed these in their 
coded canisters out of sight of any videocameras. And as I stressed back then, and will continue to do now, 
this totally unworthy and unfounded type of allegation will form no part of my argument. Even so, it is 
important for us to understand at least some of the background `facts' that the conspiracy theorists have 
twisted, not least in order to eliminate them from the argument. For instance, it is an undeniable fact that on 
the very day of the taking of the samples Frenchman Gabriel Vial of the Textile Museum, Lyon, whom 
Gonella had invited as token textile specialist in place of Mme Flury-Lemberg, unexpectedly brought with 
him an extra `control' sample, in the form of a piece of a late-thirteenth-century cope that had once belonged 
to St Louis d'Anjou. Although some of the conspiracy theorists looked to this as being what Dr Tite 
`switched' for the true Shroud samples, the fact is that this was of plain-weave linen, quite different from the 
Shroud's herringbone. It also happened to have been supplied in the form of threads, not the whole 
fragments we know the laboratories to have received. Providing further fuel for the conspiracy theorists was 
the fact that the Turin microanalyst Giovanni Riggi, Gonella's friend and personal choice to perform the 
actual cutting of the Shroud samples in place of Mme Flury-Lemberg, seems to have had something of a 
hidden agenda. Instead of cutting off just the sample that was needed by the laboratories, he would cut off 
twice the amount, halve it, and divide only one of the halves into three for the laboratories, retaining the 
other. On his discovering that he had made the Arizona portion too small to meet the agreed weight, he 
snipped off a small portion from the retained piece. Arizona thus received its sample in two parts ... It is also 
little known that he kept the trimmed edges, trimmings that are no longer extant. There is some dispute in 
Turin concerning whether he did this with official approval, though photographs of the trimmings that I 
have seen certainly show Cardinal Ballestrero's seal. As for the rest of the retained portion, probably 
enough to do another carbon dating, whoever may have this and where it is by no means clear, though it is 
said to be personally held by Cardinal Saldarini. None of this was initially declared. It only emerged when 
Nature's report that the Shroud sample cut off measured 70 x 10 mm - a seemingly exact figure in a report 
dealing in seemingly exact measurements - was found to be irreconcilable with the amounts that the 
laboratories had actually received. Complicating matters further, although the scientists at each of the 
radiocarbon-dating laboratories photographed their Shroud samples when they opened them up on bringing 
them back - necessary, as the samples would be destroyed by the carbon-dating process - some 
photographed one side, some the other, and without including any scale. Such discrepancies were therefore 
all that were needed for two German conspiracy theorists, Holger Kersten and Elmar Gruber, to concoct a 
new and yet more elaborate scenario whereby, although the Shroud is genuinely of Jesus and dating from 
the first century, Dr Michael Tite and certain high officials at the Vatican plotted together to make sure it 
would be found to be otherwise." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's 
Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.186-187)

10/06/2007
"Let it be a hundred per cent clear, therefore, that I am in not the slightest doubt that the Shroud 
radiocarbon dating was conducted honestly, by scientists of the highest competence, on the Shroud itself 
and in accord with the best available scientific methods. Nor am I in much doubt that if the Shroud were 
radiocarbon dated again tomorrow, the same result would be arrived at. It is perhaps worth noting that 
Professor Douglas Donahue of the Arizona laboratory, the first man to know the result, is a practising 
Catholic and genuinely had high expectations that the Shroud would be found to be of the first century. 
Likewise, his close colleague Professor Damon is a practising Quaker. These men had every reason to 
uphold a first-century result, if that was the way their technology pointed. However, I most seriously 
question the near-infallibility that almost everyone, including scientists, journalists and lay people, has 
imparted to this same result. It is as if, because it had been produced by a nice, clean, high-tech method, and 
by highly professional, hard-nosed scientists claiming margins of error of little more than a hundred years, 
everyone must blind themselves to everything else that had been deduced regarding the Shroud and accept 
this single scientific test as the ultimate arbiter, overriding all else. But should we? Had the laboratories 
unanimously produced a first-century result in the way that they produced the fourteenth-century one, 
surely one thing that would have come under the most intense scrutiny would have been the abandonment 
of the 1986 Protocol. As we may recall, one of the stipulations of this, in line with any well-conducted 
scientific experiment, was that suitable `control' samples should be provided so that the receiving 
laboratories, of whatever number, should not know which of their samples was the true Shroud. As we have 
already learned, the Shroud's three-to-one twill weave is so unusual that despite strenuous efforts on Dr 
Tite's part - and he even approached me for help at one point - it proved impossible to obtain anything of 
identical weave to the Shroud, either of first- or fourteenth-century date, for use as controls. As a result, 
controls of different weave had to be used instead, meaning that the laboratory staff had no difficulty 
recognising which sample was the Shroud, the original idea of a proper `blind' test necessarily, therefore, 
having to be abandoned. This is accepted, just as it is also accepted that it was perfectly legitimate for the 
laboratory scientists to be allowed to view the Shroud prior to the radiocarbon dating, even though in 
normal archaeological circumstances they would simply have had the samples sent to them, rather than 
going to the actual site." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most 
Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.189-190)

10/06/2007
"Rather less acceptable, however, is that whereas the normal procedure in any proper `control' situation 
would have been for at least the age of the control samples to be withheld from the dating laboratories, in 
this particular instance, and for reasons that have never been made clear, Dr Tite actually informed the 
laboratories of the dates of their controls. There can be absolutely no doubt about this, for this was the 
wording of the certificate that Tite and Cardinal Ballestrero gave to each laboratory's head simultaneous 
with their handing over of each set of samples: `The containers labelled ... 1 ... 2 and ... 3 to be delivered to 
representatives of [named laboratory] contain one sample of cloth taken in our presence from the Shroud of 
Turin at 9.45 a.m., 21 April 1988 and two control samples from one or both of the following cloths supplied 
through the British Museum: first-century cloth; eleventh-century [cloth]. The identity of the samples put in 
the individual containers has been recorded in a special notebook that will be kept confidential until the 
measurements have been made. [signed] Anastasio Ballestrero Michael Tite [Sox, D., "The Shroud 
Unmasked," Lamp Press: Basingstoke, 1988, p.136]." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence 
that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.190) 

10/06/2007
"Nor is this the only cause for disquiet. The 1986 protocol laid stress on the care which Mme Flury-Lemberg 
should exercise when choosing the location from which the samples for the radiocarbon dating should be 
taken. Yet despite all the years of apparent planning for the taking of the carbon-dating samples it was not 
until the very moment itself that Gonella and Riggi chose this location - after a very public, heated and 
protracted argument witnessed and attested by the entire contingent of bemused radiocarbon-dating 
scientists. They could hardly have chosen anywhere much more unsuitable than they did (image areas 
excepted). For if we go back to the very first principles of radiocarbon dating, these include as fundamental 
that any sample should consist of purely the original organic matter (in the case of the Shroud, its once- 
living flax), in as unadulterated form as possible. As long ago as the 1960s Vera Barclay, then a doyenne of 
British Shroud research, was warned by two scientists of the Harwell radiocarbon-dating laboratory that the 
Shroud might be far from ideal from this point of view. As she was told by the laboratory's Dr J. P. Clarke: 
`There appears to be some doubt as to whether the carbon content of the material has remained constant 
over the years. It would be an assumption of any dating that no carbon exchange had taken place by 
perhaps the addition of something at a date later than that of the fabrication of the Shroud. ' [Barclay, V., 
Sindon, December 1961, p.36] Likewise Harwell's P. J. Anderson told her: The history of the Shroud does 
not encourage one to put a great deal of reliance upon the validity of any C14 dating. The whole principle of 
the method depends upon the specimen not undergoing any exchange of carbon between its molecules and 
atmospheric dioxide, etc. The cellulose of the linen itself would be good from this point of view, but the 
effect of the fires and subsequent drenching with water ... and the possibility of contamination during early 
times, would, I think, make the results doubtful. Any microbiological action upon the Shroud (fungi, moulds, 
etc., which might arise from damp conditions) might have important effects upon the C14 content. This 
possibility could not be ruled out. [Barclay, Ibid]." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence 
that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.190-191)

10/06/2007
"That such concerns have been far from eliminated by more modern methods is quite evident from a recent 
booklet by Dr Sheridan Bowman, Michael Tite's successor as Keeper of the British Museum's Research 
Laboratory, in which she lists the sorts of conservation and packing materials that archaeologists should 
avoid using when sending their samples for processing by a radiocarbon-dating laboratory: `Many materials 
used for preserving or conserving samples may be impossible to remove subsequently: do not use glues, 
biocides ... [etc.] Many ordinary packing materials such as paper, cardboard, cotton wool and string contain 
carbon and are potential contaminants. Cigarette ash is also taboo.' [Bowman, S., "Radiocarbon Dating," 
British Museum: London, 1990, p.56]. It is worth reminding ourselves here of the variety of already listed 
carbon-containing materials with which the Shroud maintains daily contact, e.g. a sixteenth-century holland 
cloth, a nineteenth- century silk cover quite aside from the innumerable candles that have been burnt before 
it, the water that was thrown over it at the time of the 1532 fire, and so on. And those are merely the events 
we know about." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic 
is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.191)

10/06/2007
"But now we come to the decision that Gonella and Riggi arrived at after their argument: to take the sample 
in the form of one single sliver from the frontal image bottom corner closest to the side-strip ... . This must be 
regarded as misguided in the extreme. For yet another major cause of possible contamination of a 
radiocarbon-dating sample arises from any excessive handling to which it may have been subjected at times 
distant from when it originated. And when we study the hundreds of depictions of the Shroud being held up 
before the crowds during past centuries, what do we see? In example after example ... a cleric's hand can be 
seen holding up the Shroud at, yes, the frontal image bottom corner closest to the side-strip. While it would 
be quite wrong to suggest that it was contamination from hundreds of sweaty hands at this corner which 
actually caused a 1300-year error in carbon dating it remains irrefutable that Gonella's and Riggi's choice of 
this location was ill considered. Also, while their wisest decision would have been to take several tiny 
samples from scattered areas, by opting for just this single site they ensured that any contamination error, 
however large or small, would be bound to be repeated by all three laboratories." (Wilson, I., "The Blood 
and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York 
NY, 1998, pp.191-192)

10/06/2007
"Equally ill considered, and the blame must be laid squarely at the door of Gonella, was that the three 
laboratories chosen should be ones using the same accelerator mass spectrometer method, rather than that 
at least one should use the stretched version of the Libby proportional counter method. Even Dr Walter 
McCrone, looking at the subject from the point of view of possible (to him) aberrant early dates being 
produced, remarked to me in a letter seven years before the radiocarbon dating, that `it would seem desirable 
if possible to obtain a date using these two different methods' [McCrone, W., Letter to Ian Wilson, 21 April 
1981] . Since the Oxford, Arizona and Zurich laboratories are essentially clones of each other, any result 
obtained by one of them would inevitably be obtained by them all." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: 
New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.192)

10/06/2007
"Although radiocarbon-dating laboratory scientists are notoriously chary of admitting it, carbon dating can 
produce results with errors considerably wider than their quoted margins, a fact well known to 
archaeologists. A prime example of this was Lindow Man, the well-preserved body of a sacrificial victim 
unearthed from a peatbog in Cheshire, England in 1984. Samples from this body were sent to three different 
British radiocarbon-dating laboratories: Harwell, which dated him to around the fifth century AD; Oxford, 
which dated him to around the first century AD, and the British Museum, which dated him to the third 
century BC. [Current Archaeology, August 1986.] Although each laboratory claimed its dating to be 
accurate to within a hundred years, in actuality their datings varied between each other by as much as 800 
years, the discrepancy remaining unresolved to this day, with each institution insisting that its estimate is 
the most accurate. Another example concerns ancient Egyptian Mummy No. 1770 in the collection of the 
Manchester Museum. When back in the late 1970s the noted Egyptologist Dr Rosalie David and colleagues 
scientifically unwrapped this mummy ... and sent samples of its body tissues and bandages off for carbon 
dating, the British Museum's carbon-dating laboratory produced the astonishing calculation that the 
bandages were 800 to 1000 years younger than the body they wrapped. [Baima-Bollone, P., "Why Hasn't the 
Shroud Been Dated with the Carbon-14 Test?," Stampa Sera, Turin, 17 September 1979, in Sox, D., "The 
Shroud Unmasked," Lamp Press: Basingstoke, 1988, p.82] While one possible explanation could be that the 
mummy was re-wrapped 1000 years after its first burial, Dr David does not think so." (Wilson, I., "The Blood 
and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York 
NY, 1998, pp.192-193)

10/06/2007
"Archaeologists, who routinely call upon radiocarbon-dating laboratories' services, tend to shy from openly 
criticising the results they receive, even if they do not necessarily agree with some of them, but one who 
certainly has had no such qualms is Greece's Spyros Iakovidis, speaking at an international conference in 
1989: `In relation to the reliability of radiocarbon dating I would like to mention something which happened 
to me during my excavation at Gla [in Boeotia, Greece]. I sent to two different laboratories in two different 
parts of the world a certain amount of the same burnt grain. I got two readings differing by 2000 years, the 
archaeological dates being right in the middle. I feel that this method is not exactly to be trusted.' 
[Iakovidis, S., "Thera and the Aegean World III.," Proceedings of the Third International Congress, 
Santorini, Greece, 3-9 September 1989 , Vol. 3, 1990, p.240] Nor are such examples isolated and anecdotal. In 
the same year of 1989 Britain's Science and Engineering Research Council commissioned a special inter-
comparison trial for radiocarbon-dating laboratories in which altogether thirty-eight different laboratories 
took part, collectively representing both the conventional Libby method and the accelerator mass 
spectrometer one. Each laboratory was given artefacts of dates known to the organisers, but unknown to 
them. The shock finding of this totally scientific trial was that the laboratories' actual margins of error were 
on average two or three times greater than those that they quoted. Of the thirty-eight who participated, only 
seven produced results that the organisers of the trial considered totally satisfactory, with the laboratories 
using the new accelerator mass spectrometer technique faring particularly badly. [Coghlan, A., "Unexpected 
errors affect dating techniques," New Scientist, 30 September 1989, p.26.] It is also a matter of record that 
the Oxford laboratory ..., inevitably the highest profile of any, actually declined to take part. Yet this is the 
method that we are supposed to believe `conclusively' proved the Shroud a mediaeval fake." (Wilson, I., 
"The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: 
New York NY, 1998, p.193. Emphasis original

10/06/2007
This is not to say that any of the possible sources of contamination that have been pointed out in this 
chapter were necessarily the reason why the Shroud radiocarbon dating erred by thirteen centuries, if 
indeed this was the case. As we will he learning later in this book, there is another possible source of error 
that even the science of 1988 would have been some way from anticipating. Rather, the point of major 
concern is that the radiocarbon laboratory scientists, in their eagerness to present a copybook example of 
the accelerator mass spectrometer method's prowess before the world, seriously neglected to take due 
account of any way in which their findings might be wrong in respect of the Shroud. In the Nature report 
they described their findings as `conclusive'. Professor Hall, in his post-dating lecture to the British 
Museum, most ebulliently derided any suggestion of how his laboratory's findings might be in some as yet 
undetermined way mistaken. And this even though neither he nor any of the other laboratory scientists 
could offer any properly thought-out explanation for how the Shroud image might have been made in the 
century they claimed it to be made. Accordingly, while I would unhesitatingly defend the laboratories 
against the sorts of charges of which they have been accused by Bonnet-Eymard, Kersten, and Gruber and 
their confreres, altogether less defensible is the sheer hubris with which they have represented their carbon 
dating as in effect infallibly providing an arbiter for the issue of the Shroud's authenticity, such that all other 
considerations may be dismissed as of no account. Anyone who is in the slightest doubt of this hubris 
needs only to read Professor Harry Gove's recently published book Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the 
Turin Shroud. As a highly detailed and accurate diary-type account of all the cut-and-thrust politicking 
leading up to the carbon dating and the announcement of its results, I cannot recommend it too highly. It is 
worthy of a Samuel Pepys. But it is also most illuminating regarding the radiocarbon scientists' 
overwhelming confidence that they alone possessed the key that would unlock the answer to the Shroud 
mystery. And of the Shroud itself, and the utterly valid question of how, if the carbon-dating method really 
is right, someone of the fourteenth century produced a fake that `good', one looks in vain for the slightest 
light on this in Gove's book. Professor Hall said likewise that this question was of absolutely no interest to 
him and he would be giving no thought to it. But the Shroud simply cannot be left in such limbo. The 
carbon-dating verdict was either right or it was wrong. And if it was right, just how could someone have 
produced something like it back in the fourteenth century?" (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New 
Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.193-194. 
Emphasis original)

10/06/2007
"So what are we to make of the Shroud mystery? Surely, despite all the arguments advanced earlier in this 
book, we are too rationalist to accept belief in miracles? Surely we ought to be able to cast the Shroud from 
our minds as too good to be true, as something that simply must have been forged? Surely the `safe', 
sensible, rational option must be to accept the verdict of the three radiocarbon-dating laboratories that some 
cunning forger simply faked the Shroud's image some time between 1260 and 1390? Mustn't it? After some 
thirty years of actively grappling with the subject I almost envy this position, and if we want a role model of 
one man who, ostensibly at least, has been totally comfortable with it, it is the American Episcopalian priest 
Revd David Sox. While he was working as a teacher at the American School in London in 1977, Sox helped 
found Britain's Society for the Turin Shroud. As a result of his energy and enthusiasm he became the 
Society's first General Secretary and his well-informed book on the Shroud, File on the Shroud, published 
in 1978, although well balanced, obviously favoured authenticity. Then, on his learning in 1980 of Dr 
McCrone's iron-oxide findings, Sox swiftly wrote The Image on the Shroud, clearly having made up his 
mind that the Shroud must be a fake. And when the radiocarbon-dating results were announced on 13 
October 1988, it was he who was quickest to bring out a slim volume, The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering 
the Greatest Forgery of All Time, its very title leaving no doubt about his opinions. So why does Sox 
believe the Shroud to be a forgery? In his Unmasked he has conveniently listed his main reasons, aside 
from McCrone and the radiocarbon dating: (1) `no record of the Shroud's existence until 1356' - This has 
hopefully been addressed reasonably thoroughly in our chapters 10 to 12. (2) `the bloodstains have 
remained red' -'Quite aside from Dr Alan Adler's argument, we have heard ancient blood specialist Dr 
Thomas Loy confirm that blood many thousands of years old can remain bright red in certain cases of 
traumatic death. (3) there are signs of artistic modesty - As we have already shown, the crossed-hands 
pose can be found among both ancient and mediaeval burials. This is no indication of the hand of an artist. 
(4) `does not conform to Jewish burial practice'- The Jewish academic Victor Tunkel has shown that the 
Shroud unexpectedly does conform to how a crucified Jew would have been buried in the time of Jesus. (5) 
twill linen ... not yet found in archaeological investigations in Palestine - As we have learned, the twill 
weave was known in Jesus's time, there simply being no known surviving examples in linen. Sox's objections 
to the Shroud's authenticity, therefore, can hardly be considered overwhelming, and we have answered them 
in the course of this book. As for the fundamental questions for anyone adopting the forgery hypothesis - 
for example: `Who forged such an extraordinary image?' 'How did he do so without betraying any obvious 
sign of his artifice?' 'How did he manage to get so much right medically, historically and culturally?' - if you 
ask yourself whether Sox, or any of the other current detractors, from McCrone and Hall to Picknett and 
Prince, has yet offered any genuinely satisfying answers, the response has to be no." (Wilson, I., "The 
Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New 
York NY, 1998, pp.234-235) 

10/06/2007
"Indeed, if anyone had come up with a convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was 
forged, they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter 
would rally. Yet so far this has not even begun to happen. Realistically, to date there has been only one 
genuinely satisfying, albeit still only partial, replication of the Shroud's image, that by Professor 
Nicholas Allen. And that demands so much ingenuity and advanced photographic knowledge on the 
part of someone of the Middle Ages that it may actually represent rather better evidence for the 
Shroud's authenticity than for its forgery." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that 
the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.235)

10/06/2007
"THE MARGIN of error with radiocarbon dating, an analytical method for finding out the age of ancient 
artefacts, may be two to three times as great as practitioners of the technique have claimed. The 
shortcomings of the method, revealed earlier this month at a workshop at East Kilbride near Glasgow in 
Scotland, mean that while some laboratories consistently date artefacts correctly almost to the year, others 
are up to 250 years out. The finding means that some artefacts whose age was determined by radiocarbon 
dating might actually be considerably older or younger than the results suggest. The research community is 
keen to improve standards in the light of the findings, and has agreed a plan of action to this end. Britain's 
Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) commissioned a trial that compared the accuracy with 
which 38 laboratories around the world dated artefacts of known age. Of the 38, only seven produced results 
that the organisers of the trial considered to be satisfactory. Murdoch Baxter, the director of the Scottish 
Universities Research and Reactor Centre at East Kilbride near Glasgow, and one of the organisers of the 
trial, said that the survey represented `a major turning point in the history of the method'. His laboratory was 
one of only three from Britain that participated. The others were the Department of Statistics at the 
University of Glasgow and the Natural Environment Research Council's Radiocarbon Laboratory in East 
Kilbride. All 38 participants had to date a set of samples made from wood, peat and carbonate. The 
laboratories involved were on average `two to three times less accurate than implied by the range of error 
they stated', said Baxter. The technique of carbon dating relies on the fact that living organic matter contains 
a fixed amount of the radioactive isotope, carbon-14, relative to the most abundant isotope, carbon-12. 
When a living organism dies, the ratio changes as carbon-14 within the tissue decays. The isotope decays 
at a constant rate so, by measuring how much an artefact contains, analysts can determine the age of the 
sample. Most of the errors quoted acknowledge uncertainties in the accuracy with which the pulses of 
radioactivity from the sample are counted. `It is now clear,' says Baxter, `that other unaccounted-for sources 
of error occur during the processing and analysis of samples.' He suspects that the most serious unforeseen 
errors arise in the chemical pre-treatment of samples. The two oldest of the three techniques available are 
gas proportional dating and liquid scintillation dating. In both, the analysts heat the sample, though each 
treats the residue differently. Liquid scintillation dating and a third, much newer technique, called accelerator 
mass spectrometry, involve most chemical pre-treatment. Baxter says that accelerator mass spectrometry, 
used last year by a laboratory at the University of Oxford to date the Turin shroud, allegedly the burial 
shroud of Jesus Christ, came out of the survey badly. Five of the 38 participating laboratories used this 
technique, for which samples weighing a few milligrams are acceptable. The other techniques require grams 
of the sample. Baxter says that some of the accelerator laboratories were way out when dating samples as 
little as 200 years old. Because so little material is used in accelerator mass spectrometry, the effects of 
chemical pre-treatment are likely to be more serious, says Baxter. `The samples are probably more prone to 
atmospheric dust or dandruff,' he said. In the light of the results, researchers are to adopt new practices to 
improve quality control. One is to increase the frequency with which laboratories have samples `blind' 
checked by others. Another, backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is to improve the standard 
reference materials of known age for analysts to test their machines' accuracy. The agency will distribute a 
standard set of materials from 1990." (Coghlan, A., "Unexpected errors affect dating techniques," New 
Scientist, 30 September 1989, Australian edition, p.10)

14/06/2007
"I do not know whether the Shroud of Turin is a fake or not, but the issue, contrary to the claims of this 
book, has not been solved. Before you decide that I am just another gullible, credulous `believer', let me 
show you otherwise. I am actually a skeptic myself. I am a former member of the South Shore Skeptics in 
Cleveland, Ohio, a supporter of CSICOP, and I have even attended several lectures given by Mr. Nickell. 
First of all Mr. Nickell is no James Randi! Mr. Nickell's `explanations' for the unexplained always are strained 
and require so many leaps of faith, that one might just as well believe in the original claim. Mr. Nickell has 
almost zero credibility as a debunker of the strange and unexplained. Skeptics and debunkers are certainly 
needed, but people like Mr. Nickell give the rest a bad name, which is why some are skeptical of the 
skeptics! ... Mr. Nickell has an axe to grind. He decided before even writing the book that the Shroud had to 
be a fake, because of his strong atheistic beliefs and decided that since he could `duplicate' the Shroud 
himself, it had to be a fake. The truth, however, is that he could not, and did not duplicate the Shroud image. 
Mr. Nickell's method of brushing the image leaves behind directional brush markings. There are none on the 
Shroud. The image on the Shroud is 3 dimensional, Mr. Nickell's image is not. Mr. Nickell's whole book is a 
red herring for those that are uncomfortable at the thought that maybe, just maybe, the Shroud is authentic. 
The Shroud is a real mystery and should be treated as such. This artifact has been seriously studied more so 
than any other ancient artifact in history. It is not something that can be dismissed in one book, especially 
by the likes of Mr. Nickell who by trade is only a mere magician with no scientific training at all. The other 
glaring problem with this book is that Mr. Nickell relies so heavily on the `research' of Dr. McCrone, who 
stated that before even examining the Shroud, that `he knew it was a fake' and was gonna prove it! What 
objectivity! Dr. McCrone's work has been proven to be corrupt and his conclusions wrong. He claimed that 
the Shroud does not contain any blood and that the image is made from paint. He has been shown to be 
wrong on both accounts, and Mr. Nickell is still standing by his corrupt research afraid to admit that he 
made a mistake. I do not know whether the Shroud is authentic or not, but I do know the following: The 
conclusions in this book are wrong. If the Shroud is fake, it was not faked by anything remotely similar to 
the methods suggested by this book. Finally, the Shroud is a real mystery and should not be treated in the 
same contemptuous manner as non-mysteries such as the Bermuda Triangle. The Shroud is an item of 
genuine research and to this date, the creation of its image remains a mystery. Believers and non-believers 
alike should treat the Shroud with respect until a legitimate verdict is in, and not dismiss it with the likes of 
other bunk, such as the most recent bigfoot sighting or UFO abduction. The Shroud is in a whole different 
class." (Knepshield, D., "Please do not be misled by this book!," Review of "Inquest on the Shroud" by Joe 
Nickell, Prometheus, 1999. August 29, 2000, Amazon.ca)

15/06/2007
"The Bloodstains The `blood' areas on the Shroud have attracted considerable attention since the first 
color photographs of the cloth became available. It appeared that blood had flowed from the man's feet, 
wrists, and side. ... The reddish, brown stains appear to be quite anatomically correct, as on would expect if a 
man had bled after being stabbed in the side and nailed through his wrists and feet. The edges of these 
stains are also precisely defined. If the Shroud actually covered a real corpse, one wonders how the cloth 
was removed without smearing and dislodging the edges of the clotted blood. When they arrived in Turin 
in 1978, the scientists did no know whether the `bloodstains' were really blood. ... The 1978 team hoped to 
settle the blood question once and for all by examining the bloodstained areas with a full battery of optical 
tests throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. ... The most important and conclusive work was done by 
John Heller and Alan Adler in their laboratory at the New England Institute. [Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 
"Blood on the Shroud of Turin," Applied Optics, Vol. 19, 1980, pp.2742-2744] Heller and Adler 
examined several `sticky tape' samples which contained pieces of `bloodstained' fibrils. They looked at the 
spectrum of the visible light transmitted from these samples under a microscope, a test known as 
microspectrophotometry. The results suggested that hemoglobin was a component of the color. To further 
test this possibility, Heller and Adler removed the iron from the samples and tried to isolate porphyrin, a 
component of blood which fluoresces red under an ultraviolet light. Indeed, the substance which the 
chemists isolated from the samples fluoresced red under ultraviolet light. This confirmed that the substance 
was porphyrin, and thus strongly indicated that the bloodstained areas really were blood. A further 
indication that blood was present on the Shroud came from the ultraviolet fluorescence photographs taken 
by Vernon Miller and Samuel Pellicori. Blood itself does not fluoresce. However, when Miller and Pellicori 
studied their ultraviolet fluorescence photographs of the blood areas, they discovered a light fluorescent 
margin around the edges of several of the bloodstained areas. These areas were the side wound, the nail 
wound in the wrist, and the blood flow at the right foot on the dorsal image. The probable explanation for 
this unexpected discovery is that the fluorescent margins were blood serum, the colorless fluid part of the 
blood. Miller and Pellicori showed in the laboratory that blood serum on linen does fluoresce moderately. 
Thus, it is likely that the fluorescent margins are blood serum which had become separated from whole 
blood before or after the man's death. Several other tests confirmed the presence of blood on the Shroud. 
Protein, a component of blood, was detected in the blood areas, although no protein was found elsewhere 
on the cloth. X-ray fluorescence examination found that iron, a component of blood, was present in the 
blood area. The team's summary of research concluded that the bloodstained areas were very probably 
stained by real blood. [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: 
Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, 1982, pp.3-49]" (Stevenson, K.E. & 
Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant 
Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, pp.78-80. Emphasis original)

15/06/2007
"August was now approaching. By now, the Canadian Forensic Society had our paper [Heller, J. H. & Adler, 
A. D., "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin." Canadian Forensic Society Scientific Journal, 
Vol. 14, No. 3, 1981, pp. 81-103]. It included over a thousand individual experiments, would turn out to be 
twenty-two printed pages long, and was the most difficult writing chore either Adler or I had ever 
undertaken. It cleared the last of the peer reviewers, was accepted, and was scheduled for publication in 
September 1981. But first would come the August debate with McCrone at the plenary session of the 
society, in Hamilton, Ontario. Doctors John Jackson, Robert Bucklin, Alan Adler, and I would present the 
physical, forensic, and chemical data. Dr. McCrone would present his forgery conclusions. Everyone's 
anticipation grew, for this was a proper scientific forum, and we knew that the scientific press also had made 
reservations to be there. Unfortunately, the confrontation did not take place. McCrone decided not to 
attend, and sent an assistant in his stead. The assistant had not done the work, so he could only repeat 
what was in McCrone's papers, which everyone already knew. Nor did the scientific press appear. During 
the question period from the audience, someone asked McCrone's assistant, `Heller and Adler found blood, 
and you claim it's iron oxide. How do you explain that?' `We're particle experts, not blood experts.' Then 
Adler and I presented our data on iron oxide. It was in the water-stain margins, and not elsewhere definitely 
not in the images and blood areas, except where the waterstain margins intersected them. Adler was asked, 
`Your data and McCrone's are at variance, aren't they?' He replied, `Apparently.' And with that, the epic 
collision ended. It was neither epic nor a collision. The final meeting of STURP was set for New London in 
the fall of 1981, and it would be historic, from the point of view of the scientists. It would mark the third 
anniversary of their five days of work on the Shroud in Turin. Though we had published our results in the 
scientific literature, it was at the end of three years that we had promised to report to the public on all of our 
work. This gathering would mark the last time that all of the STURP team would meet together as a unit. ... 
McCrone was invited to take part, but he declined once more." (Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of 
Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, pp.212-214)

15/06/2007
"We began our presentation. One by one, we gave our short talks with slides, graphs, spectra, and tried to 
make them intelligible to the nonscientist. Everything that had been done was included, from mathematical 
models, VP-8 and physical experiments, to pathology. ... We explained that we hoped to obtain permission to 
do a carbon 14 dating test some time in the future, but we had not yet received permission. We all wanted to 
be very careful that we did not overstate anything. We were extremely cautious to make no statement of any 
kind that could not be supported by the data. Bit by bit, the complex story involving optics, mathematics, 
physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine unfolded. Most of the questions were excellent. Adler was asked 
how he could answer McCrone's claim that there was no blood, but merely a mixture of red ocher and 
vermilion. Adler flashed on the screen the following table from our paper. Table 5 Tests confirming the 
presence of whole blood on the Shroud 1. High iron in blood areas by X-ray fluorescence 2. Indicative 
reflection spectra 3. Indicative microspectrophotometric transmission spectra 4. Chemical generation of 
characteristic porphyrin fluorescence 5. Positive hemochromogen tests 6. Positive cyanomethemoglobin 
tests 7. Positive detection of bile pigments 8. Positive demonstration of protein 9. Positive indication of 
albumin 10. Protease tests, leaving no residue 11. Positive immunological test for human albumin 12. 
Microscopic appearance as compared with appropriate controls 13. Forensic judgment of the appearance of 
the various wound and blood marks Then, after explaining each item briefly, Al said, `That means that the 
red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!'" (Heller, 
J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, pp.215-216. Emphasis 
original)

15/06/2007
"Many people in the audience and in the press asked, in more ways than I thought were possible, whether 
the scientific evidence indicated that the Shroud was the authentic burial cloth of Jesus. We thought we had 
answered this question as many times as it was asked. Finally, Ray Rogers took the floor. `In science, you're 
entitled to any hypothesis you choose, including the one that the Shroud was made by elves from the Black 
Forest. But if you don't have a test to examine that hypothesis, it's not worth anything. We do not have a 
test for Jesus Christ. So we can't hypothesize or test for that question.' It did not work. The question still 
came, over and over: `But do you think it is authentic?' We would reply, `That's not a scientific question. 
We're here to present the scientific findings. We can't answer that question. ... At that point, one of the real 
people asked, `Have you found anything that would preclude the Shroud's being authentic?' `No.' And that 
question is not a trivial one. Nothing in all the findings of the Shroud crowd in three years contained a 
single datum that contravened the Gospel accounts. The stigmata on the body did not follow art or legend. 
They were of life. They were medically accurate evidence of a man who had been scourged with a flagrum-
type device, both front and back, by two men; who had carried something rough and heavy across his 
shoulders, which had been bruised; who had had something placed on his head that had caused punctate 
bleeding wounds over the scalp and forehead; who had lesions on nose and knee commensurate with a fall; 
who had been beaten about the face; who had been crucified in the anatomically correct loci, the wrists; 
whose blood running down the arms had drips responding to gravity at the correct angles for the position 
of the arms in a crucifixion; whose legs appeared unbroken; who had an ellipsoid lesion in the side, whence 
cells and serum had come, and, lying on the cloth, had post-mortem blood dribbling out of the wound and 
puddling along the small of the back; whose lacerating scourge marks were deep enough to be bloody, with 
serum albumin oozing at the margins; whose feet had been transfixed with a spike and bled; and on the soles 
of whose feet there was dirt. All in all, it is a startling medical documentary of what was described so briefly 
in the Gospels. Nor was there anything else on the Shroud that would negate the actual presence of a 
scourged, crucified man lying in that linen. But exactly whose body was it? Science has no way of 
determining the answer. We just do not know." (Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton 
Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, pp.216-217. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"Then, of course, there came the other question that we had been wrestling with for nine months: `How did 
the images get on the cloth?' We answered by discussing all the possibilities we had been able to conjure 
up: And then we explained that we had had to reject all of them, one by one. `Where,' we were asked, `does 
that leave you?' `We just do not know!' And that is the nub of it. No member of the team had worked in a 
vacuum. When confronted with a problem, he would discuss it with other colleagues at his own or other 
institutions. Each of the forty STURP members must have consulted at least ten other investigators who 
were not part of the Shroud team. Thus, at least four hundred scientists had added their input. In addition, 
all of us had given lectures before meetings of Sigma Xi, the scientific society to which most research 
scientists belong, at chapter meetings of the American Chemical Society, at universities across the country 
and their alumni groups, such as MIT's, at meetings of other scientific societies - from physical engineering 
to the medical sciences. From all of these we had received contributions of knowledge and suggestions. But 
on the subject of how the body images got on the Shroud, every suggestion had been invalidated by the 
data. The Shroud remains, as it has over the centuries, a mystery." (Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of 
Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, p.218)

16/06/2007
"Epilogue So where does all this huge amount of science leave us? The Shroud of Turin is now the most 
intensively studied artifact in the history of the world. Somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 scientific 
man-hours have been spent on it, with the best analytical tools available. The physical and chemical data fit 
hand in glove. It is certainly true that if a similar number of data had been found in the funerary linen 
attributed to Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or Socrates, there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that 
it was, indeed, the shroud of that historical person. But because of the unique position that Jesus holds, 
such evidence is not enough. I have discussed with most of the team, during the interviews preceding my 
writing of this book, how they felt about the Shroud. Three of them, John Jackson, Robert Bucklin, and 
Barrie Schwortz, believe that it is probably the authentic, burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. The rest of us 
have to say that we do not know. There is no such thing as a scientific test for Jesus, and there probably 
never will be." (Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, p.219. 
Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"The images are the result of dehydrative acid oxidation of the linen. The blood is human blood. How the 
images got on the cloth is a mystery. We would love to have the answer to this mystery, to explain the 
science of it. If it turns out that some form of molecular transport we have not been able to fathom is the 
method whereby the images of the scourged, crucified man were transferred to the linen, we shall have 
solved only another little micropart of the puzzle. We do know, however, that there are thousands on 
thousands of pieces of funerary linen going back to millennia before Christ, and another huge number of 
linens of Coptic Christian burials. On none of these is there any image of any kind. A few have some blood 
and stains on them, but no image. The Shroud bears the images of a man who has had incredible, violent 
damage done to his body, yet whose face is filled with serenity and peace. It is an extracanonical witness to 
what happened to Jesus Christ, whether the man in the Shroud was Jesus or not." (Heller, J.H., "Report on 
the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, p.220)

16/06/2007
"The highlight of the exhibition is Lindow Man. I found him slightly disappointing in that only half of him 
survived, and he was rather squashed and leathery, and not as impressive as the German and Danish ones. 
But there are continuing problems over his date. Three sets of radiocarbon dates have been obtained. Firstly 
there are those obtained by conventional methods from the peat that surrounded him, which has been dated 
both by Harwell and by the British Museum at dates around 300 BC, and this is the date they are adopting 
for publication. The other dates are done by the two new super-duper small measurement laboratories at 
Harwell and at Oxford, which can date minute samples of the body itself, of the hair, bones and skin. 
However whereas all the Oxford samples come out consistently in the 1st century AD, all the Harwell 
samples come out consistently in the 5th century AD. At one time they thought that the difference might be 
due to the differing pre-treatment at the laboratories, so they swapped samples following pre-treatment, but 
the resulting measurements came out within the respective series for each laboratory. The archaeological 
world waits with bated breath to see how this problem is resolved." ("The British Museum Exhibition," 
Current Archaeology, Issue 101, Vol. IX, No. 6, August 1986, p.163)

16/06/2007
"Further attempts to resolve the dating of Lindow Man have been made with the Oxford Accelerator Mass 
Spectrometer facility using a total of eighteen samples. These form part of the latest date list issued by the 
Oxford Laboratory and published in Archaeometry (30, Part 1, 1988). One problem, that of a difference in 
date between Lindow Man and the surrounding peat, still seems to be with us although the gap is closing. 
Thus the peat gave dates ranging from 2220 ± 80 BP to 2670 ± 80 BP whereas his hair gave a date of 1920 ± 
75 BP, a muscle dated to 2125 ± 80 BP and ten samples from the same vertebra with different methods of 
pretreatment gave dates in the range 1800 ± 80 BP to 2190 ± 100 BP." ("Oxford AMS Dates," Current 
Archaeology, Issue 110, Vol. X, No. 6, July 1988, p.107)

16/06/2007
"Certainty, it seems, is on the wane. The sun may rise tomorrow on schedule, and the sea sons may pass as 
they always have. But radioactive decay-the pacemaker of geologic time-can no longer be called precisely 
`clocklike.' Says geochemist Douglas Hammond of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los 
Angeles: Everybody always assumes radioactive decay to be totally independent of temperature, pressure, 
and chemical Some it seems there are some exceptions.' In the 15 September issue of Earth and Planetary 
Science Letters, geochemist Chih-An Huh of the Institute of Earth Sciences of the Academia Sinica in 
Taipei reports that the decay rate of beryllium-7 varies, depending on its chemical form. Creationists hoping 
to trim geologic history to biblical proportions will be disappointed-the variations seen so far are much too 
small, just a percent or so, to affect Earth's overall time scale. Still, the variability in beryllium decay will 
prompt those who want to trace out fine divisions in the earliest reaches of time to take a close look at their 
pacemakers. Theoreticians long ago anticipated some variability of radioactive decay. The decay of 
beryllium-7, for example, should depend on the density of electrons at the nucleus. That's because it 
transforms itself into lithium-7 by capturing one of its own electrons, turning one of its protons into a 
neutron, and emitting a gamma ray. When a change in chemical bonding subtly rearranges the electrons and 
increases an electron's chance of finding itself at the nucleus, the odds are better that it will be captured and 
the beryllium will decay. In the last few years, German researchers have demonstrated the converse of this 
effect: a surge in the decay of rhenium-187, which emits an electron rather than capturing one. When Fritz 
Bosch and his colleagues at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany, stripped 
away all the electrons from rhenium nuclei, something that might happen in a star's harsh interior, its half-life 
plummeted from 42 billion years to 33 years. But, until now, researchers have detected only tiny variations 
(or none at all) in the decay rate of beryllium and other atoms under Earth-like conditions. Undismayed, Huh 
applied the latest technology to the problem. He used an extremely sensitive but stable gamma ray 
spectrometer to monitor the decay of beryllium-7 (which has a half-life of about 53.3 days) in the form of the 
hydrated ion, the hydroxide, and the oxide-chemical combinations common in the environment. Thanks to an 
unprecedented precision of i0.01%, he could see that the half-lives of the three forms were 53.69 days, 53.42 
days, and 54.23 days, respectively. The 1.5% range is `probably quite real,' says geochemist Teh-Lung Ku of 
USC. `Although the idea has been around quite a while, this time [the researchers] will be able to show it 
more convincingly.'" (Kerr, R.A.., "Tweaking the Clock of Radioactive Decay," Science, Vol. 286, 29 
October 1999, pp.882-883, p.882)

16/06/2007
"So although it would be an immense boost to the case for the Shroud's authenticity if the apparent coin 
inscription could really be trusted as such, the only arbiter likely to satisfy world opinion of the Shroud's 
date is the carbon-14 test, the now forty-year-old method of dating ancient organic objects such as wood or 
linen by gauging the extent to which they have lost their radioactive-carbon-14 content. Because the 
technology of carbon dating has been available for a long time and has become almost routine in 
archaeological circles, the Turin ecclesiastical authorities have often been accused of being unnecessarily 
backward-looking in having failed so far to allow samples of the Shroud to be dated. It has been said that 
they are frightened of an adverse result and have therefore resorted to every delaying tactic in order to 
avoid having `the truth' become known. In fact, as has been stressed by Cardinal Ballestrero, the faith of the 
Church does not rest on the Shroud. Belief in the Shroud's authenticity, or that of any other `holy' relic, is 
not and never has been required of the Church faithful. In Ballestrero's own words, `The Church has nothing 
to fear from the truth.' The real reason why the Shroud has so far not been carbon dated is much more 
complex and is partly linked to the amount of sample required. Until about five years ago, the test would 
have demanded the destruction of something of the order of a pocket-handkerchief-sized portion of the 
Shroud linen, with no guarantee that a second cutting of this size would not be needed if the first test 
proved inconclusive." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, pp.133-
134)

16/06/2007
"However, in very recent years the world's major carbon-dating laboratories have been working on new 
methods of dating using very much smaller samples, requiring, in the case of linen, a portion no larger than a 
fingernail. Broadly, two quite separate methods for such work have evolved. One, best represented by the 
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, is essentially no more than a refinement of the old technique. 
Described as the `proportional counter' method, its minor disadvantage is that in the case of a small sample, 
up to three months may be required for the actual `counting' of the radiocarbon decay. The second method, 
usually known as the accelerator mass spectrometer technique, has been pioneered by England's Oxford 
University Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art and a similar facility at the University of 
Arizona, Tucson. Involving a three-million-volt accelerator, it counts the actual atoms of radioactive carbon 
14, rather than its decay products, and is, inevitably, more expensive. But it has the advantage of being 
much quicker, it being possible to date a Shroud sample, along with several others, in a matter of a few 
hours." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, p.134)

16/06/2007
"As has been pointed out by the British archaeologist Professor Colin Renfrew of Cambridge University, 
radiocarbon datings are rarely quite as tidy as one would like them, whichever method or laboratory is used. 
In such circumstances, determining who should carbon-date the Shroud and when is scarcely the easiest 
task, particularly bearing in mind the wide public debate which will inevitably surround whatever dating 
result is eventually achieved. Gratifyingly, one man has risen to the challenge the situation presents, STURP 
scientist Dr. Robert Dinegar of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Almost uniquely qualified for his task, 
Dr. Dinegar is both holder of a Columbia University, Ph.D in physical chemistry and a theological degree 
from the College of Santa Fe. Although Dr. Dinegar's work everyday is as a research physical chemist, until 
his recent retirement Sunday worshipers at the Hill Episcopal Church knew him as their assistant rector. Very 
quietly and unobtrusively, Dinegar has won interest and confidence in a Shroud dating project on the part 
of no less than six internationally respected carbon-dating laboratories: in the U.S.A., the Brookhaven 
National Laboratory, New York; the Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory, University of Rochester; and 
the Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry, University of Arizona; in England, the Low Level Measurements 
Laboratory, Harwell; and the Research Laboratory for Archaeology, Oxford; and in Switzerland, the 
Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: 
London, 1986, p.134)

16/06/2007
"Not only for the benefit of the Shroud but for all similar contentious dating projects, the laboratories have, 
among themselves, been participating in cross-calibration procedures supervised by Dr. Michael Tite of the 
British Museum Research Laboratory. These have involved each laboratory `blind' dating identical samples 
of Egyptian linen of known antiquity (the third millennium B.C.), also fragments of ancient wood, the object 
being to establish which laboratories are providing the most reliable dating results and which need time for 
further improvements. Independently, a similar cross calibration, using samples of oxalic acid prepared from 
modern and fossil carbon, has been instigated by Dr. George Coleman of the Department of Chemistry, 
Nebraska Wesleyan University. When all the inevitable problems and discrepancies between the 
laboratories' differing procedures have been ironed out, the way should be open for a dating of Shroud 
samples so well considered that whatever result is achieved must command respect. When that time comes, 
there seems little doubt that the Church authorities, the ultimate decision maker being Pope John Paul II, will 
allow the requisite amount of Shroud sample to be taken for analysis by an as yet unspecified number of the 
laboratories named above. Approximately two square centimeters should satisfy each of the six. There is not 
even need for the slightest impairment of the Shroud's visible appearance. As revealed by the X radiographs 
taken in 1978, there are substantial portions of original Shroud linen underlying the patches sewn on by the 
Poor Clare nuns in 1534; suitably unscorched portions of these could be removed without affecting any 
visible area." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, pp.135-136)

16/06/2007
"The real unknown quantity is the extent to which any result is likely to be sufficiently clear-cut finally to 
resolve the Shroud issue. Assuming all six laboratories received samples and furnished a consistent 
fourteenth-century date, that should certainly be decisive enough to cause a massive re-think among those 
who, in common with this author, support the Shroud's authenticity. ... an interesting detective trail would 
be set in motion to determine just what manner of centuries-old artist could have fooled so many ostensibly 
competent modern pathologists, chemists, physicists, and other scientists and scholars. But almost any 
other result, even a consistent first-century date, is likely simply to alter the pro-forgery stance, not to 
destroy it. If the Shroud's linen is proved to be of first-century manufacture, the pro-forgery faction can still 
argue that the medieval forger simply obtained a genuinely ancient piece of linen for his purpose, because 
as yet there exists no known means of dating the all too insubstantial body and blood images. If, as is more 
than likely, various laboratories produce a span of dates, ranging from, say, the second century B.C. to the 
fourth century A.D., Shroud detractors can offer a choice of arguments. If they accept that the image is of 
someone genuinely crucified, they can argue that he was simply one of the many thousands of unknown 
victims of this form of execution prior to Emperor Constantine the Great's ban on the practice in the early-
fourth century A.D. Or, if they, believe it is a painting, they can argue that it was simply an early-Christian 
forgery of Christ's shroud." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, 
p.136. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"Obviously the best possible result for those convinced of the Shroud's authenticity would be an 
unequivocal first-century date for both the linen and its image (a technique possibly helpful for the latter is 
being developed by Dr. Roderick McNeil of Cambridge Laboratory Technologies, Connecticut) combined 
with equally unequivocal determination that the body and blood images derive from totally natural/ 
supernatural causes. Even with the most ultrasophisticated modern technologies, expectation of the likely 
achievement of such a result is almost wildly optimistic, but even then, as stressed by Dr. Jackson and his 
STURP colleagues, this would be no proof that the Turin Shroud was ever the actual burial wrapping of 
Christ." (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, p.136)

16/06/2007
"But even if we cannot prove that it is Jesus, establishment with the best means of science that it is not 
inauthentic can still scarcely be other than awe-inspiring. Without any hyperbole, the close 
correspondence of the Shroud injuries with those recorded of Jesus, combined with the image's 
extraordinary singularity, make the likelihood of identification with Jesus at least reasonable. When we then 
consider that this cloth has survived to our own time, the only age with the technology to begin to 
understand it, and the very age when material evidence is demanded of everything, we can scarcely do other 
than ask: Has this been by accident, or could it have been intended for our time?" (Wilson, I., "The 
Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, p.137. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"Even before STURP's first journey to Turin in 1977 to propose testing the cloth to a panel of appointed 
authorities and sindonologists, plans were included for dating the cloth. Dr. Jackson went so far as to 
contact Dr. Libby who is credited with the development of modern carbon dating. Dr. Walter McCrone, who 
joined STURP in Turin, proposed a dating procedure at a cost of approximately $50 thousand. ... After 
STURP arrived in Turin in October 1978, I [Stevenson] was practically accosted by Dr. Harry Gove of the 
University of Rochester who interrupted my press conference to question what made me an `expert' on 
carbon-14 dating. I had at no point claimed such expertise. The issues surrounding C-14, as well as the 
media's constant claim that the church was refusing the test because it had something to hide, had 
necessitated a statement of STURP's official stance on C-14. As team spokesman, I had been quoted 
delineating the caveats for such testing. Gove didn't agree with the caveats at all. When the dust settled, he 
became one of the representatives of several labs to propose a formal dating plan for the Shroud. As we 
shall see later in this chapter, however, perhaps even Gove would agree the STURP caveats were well-
advised after all." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson 
Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.46-47)

16/06/2007
"Carbon-14, also known as radiocarbon, is radioactive and has a documented half-life of roughly 5,730 
years. Since living organisms can absorb C-14 and dead ones cannot, the dating theory of radiocarbon 
requires measuring the residual C-14. Due to the fact that C-14 decays at an exact and constant rate, an 
approximate age can be determined. C-14 has been somewhat controversial since its development, and 
experts have often been hotly divided over its reliability. At one point some even suggested that those 
pushing for a Shroud dating would use the cloth as a `guinea pig' for testing new methodology. While I 
certainly would not question the sincerity of all C-14 researchers, such use of the Shroud was indeed a real 
concern. Now that very concern overshadows all the current media statements on C-14 dating." (Stevenson, 
K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, 
pp.47-48)

16/06/2007
"The gist of Turin's dating stipulations presented in 1978 was as follows: l. The laboratories selected to do 
the dating must agree on methodology so as to provide an equal comparison. (Later proposals suggested 
alternate methods to increase objectivity on the date received; unfortunately, however, the alternate 
protocol was dropped.) 2. They must also agree to conduct a double blind study. (Typically a scientific 
double blind ensures objectivity by requiring the lab to test at least two unidentified samples 
simultaneously-one of a known date. This too was apparently violated.) 3. They must first successfully date 
a sample of known origin. (During this test one of the selected labs was off by over a thousand years.) 4. 
They must (as we did) first brief the archbishop or his representative on all results. ... We were asked to do 
this as a courtesy, and we agreed. Apparently, so did the C-14 labs." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 
"The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.48-49)

16/06/2007
"The C-14 situation progressed significantly. To begin with, Dr. Gove and his associate were deleted from 
the C-14 testing (although we understand that he worked with Paul Damon, C-14 expert at the University of 
Arizona who headed their dating work there on the Shroud), reputedly for having a different orientation from 
the selected labs which use the gas counter method. The samples were received by three laboratories, the 
University of Arizona, the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Switzerland, and Oxford University in England. 
The results began to leak first from Oxford and then from multiple sources. Finally, in exasperation, the 
representative for Archbishop Ballestrero announced that the dating was completed and the age was 
medieval." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson 
Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.49)

16/06/2007
"But serious questions about both the dating procedures and the stated results have been raised from many 
quarters. To begin with, let's understand the chosen methodology. Unlike the Libby method, which requires 
pieces of significant size, the selected process uses an accelerator to do mass spectrometry to determine 
age. This method requires substantially less material for analysis. The pretreated, chemically modified 
sample (converted to graphite) is ionized and passed through an electric field to strip electrons from its 
atoms, leaving highly charged individual atoms. These in turn are accelerated and bent (the bending is a 
function of atomic weight and imposed magnetic field) along different paths specific to each atom-even to 
its isotopes. This step occurs in a cyclotron which detects these accelerated atoms much like a centrifuge. 
Only atoms with the masses of C-13 and C-14 are detected. Filtered beams (filtering removes nitrogen 14) of 
the remaining carbon atoms strike detectors that count the C-13/C-14.3 Most labs claim an accuracy of +/- 
200 years. This new technique would only require a few centimeters of material, a piece no bigger than the 
nail on your little finger." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas 
Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.49-50)

16/06/2007
"According to the Los Angeles Times, the entire dating `process [was] being supervised by the British 
Museum, Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a representative of the Archbishop of Turin.' ["Wrapped in 
Mystery," Los Angeles Times, 29 May 1988, p.1] While the museum claims it was in fact not supervising 
the dating but was merely the institution selected for the C-14 symposium, it was definitely responsible for 
the certification of the Shroud samples and the statistical analysis of the data itself. Even though the labs 
were given three cloth samples to conduct the blind study (they were not told, of course, which came from 
the Shroud), Michael Tite of the British Museum also noted, `A laboratory could if it wanted to, 
distinguish the shroud sample from the others, so the blind test depends ultimately on the good faith of 
the laboratories.' [ Ibid., italics added] To my horror, I discovered that the labs openly admitted they knew 
when they were dating the Shroud: `He [Paul Damon] was looking at a quarter-inch-square piece of the 
Shroud of Turin.' [McClellan, W., "Secrets of the Shroud," St. Louis Dispatch, 15 May 1988, C1, p.16] The 
significance of this statement will be discussed in detail later in this chapter." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, 
G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.49-50)

16/06/2007
"I want to make it clear from the outset that if we are to arrive at a solid conclusion concerning the age of the 
Shroud, C-14 is not nor should it be the acid test of the Shroud's possible authenticity. Meacham put it 
extremely well at the 1986 Hong Kong Shroud Symposium: `There appears to be an unhealthy consensus 
approaching the level of dogma among both scientists and lay commentators [that C-14 dating will] settle 
the issue once and for all time. This attitude simply contradicts the general perspective of field 
archaeologists and geologists [notice these are the ones most likely to need accurate dating on a regular 
basis] who view possible contamination as a very serious problem in interpreting the results of radiocarbon 
measurement ... I find little awareness of the limitations of the C14 method, an urge to `date first and ask 
questions later,' and a general disregard for the close collaboration between field and laboratory personnel 
which is the ideal in archaeometric projects ... statements quoted (from Shroud researchers both pro and 
con) reveal an unwarranted trust in radiocarbon measurement to produce an exact calendar date.... I doubt 
anyone with significant experience in dating ... would dismiss ... the potential danger of contamination and 
other sources of error. No responsible field archaeologist would trust a single date, or a series of dates on a 
single feature, to settle a major historical issue.... No responsible radiocarbon scientist would claim that it 
was proven that all contaminants had been removed and that the dating range was ... its actual calendar 
date.' [Meacham, W., "Radiocarbon Measurement and the Age of the Turin Shroud: Possibilities and 
Uncertainties," Proceedings of the Symposium "Turin Shroud - Image of Christ?," Hong Kong, March 1986] 
... Remember this comes from a scientist who, though recognizing C- 14 `is not an infallible technique, and ... 
contamination ... is always to be taken seriously,' nevertheless `excavated and prepared and submitted ... 
more than 70 samples ... and had liaison with major C-14 laboratories at Oxford [a selected lab], Canberra and 
Teledyne' in his own archaeological work." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the 
Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.51-52. Emphasis original).

16/06/2007
"The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology also has some important facts to add 
concerning C-14 dating relevant to the Shroud. To begin with, it points out several critical forms of 
`variation' that are problematic to all C-14 dating. These include secular variation and the DeVries effect and 
they result `in the necessity to calibrate conventional C-14 dates.' ["radiocarbon dating," McGraw-Hill 
Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 6th edition. italics added] Secular variation refers to a general 
long-term variation in C-14 dating in which the radio-carbon years and calendar years are not equivalent. 
This form of variation exhibits a sine-wave function of 150 to 800 years in deviation. The causes of it are not 
yet totally understood. Nevertheless, in the case of the Shroud, secular variation alone could cause the C-14 
testing to give faulty data. The DeVries effect is a high frequency variation in dating which causes 
anomalies in the dating process. As a result of this effect, an article can reflect `two or more points in time' 
for a single artifact being dated. [Ibid., 125]. Furthermore, neither the scientists nor the current store of data 
are internally consistent on artifacts that date from before A.D. 1000. Due to secular variation and the 
DeVries effect, articles `between about A.D. 1300 and the later part of the first millennium B.C. ... register 
too young.' [Ibid., 126, italics added]. There is also `a lack of complete agreement concerning the frequency 
and magnitude of relatively rapid periods of oscillation before A.D. 1000.'  [Ibid., 123] If that were not 
enough in the way of caveats, the article goes on to say that `variations equivalent to up to several hundred 
years can result:' Therefore they conclude, `C-14 has lost a considerable amount of its significance.' [Ibid., 
128, italics added]" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson 
Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p52. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"More germane to the issue is the dry run of C-14 testing, which was detailed in the journal Radiocarbon 
in 1986. Scientists used C-14 to date an Egyptian Bull Mummy linen (the wrappings from an ancient 
Egyptian burial) as well as two Peruvian linen cloths. The results of this testing using the new accelerator 
method was extremely revealing. First of all, it underscored the fact that the method is somewhat wanting in 
accuracy. On the Egyptian Bull Mummy linen, the dates ranged from 3440 to 4517 B.P. (before present)-a 
span of 1100 years. Although the known age of the cloth was 3000 B.C., the closest date they could get 
using C-14 was 2528 B.C. ..., a date which required a calibration of 472 years to correct it. That should raise 
plenty of eyebrows. The second sample, one of the Peruvian cloths, was not much better, with a span of 450 
years and the closest date 250 years off. Finally, the third, also a Peruvian cloth, had a span of over 1100 
years and the closest date less than 100 years off. This Peruvian cloth was a much easier target to hit 
because the date was `guesstimated' between A.D. 1000-1400. That range gave the testers a built in window 
of +/- 200 years to start with! After the tests on these three samples were run, the farthest dates were 1549 
years, 709 years, and 439 years off respectively. To allow that margin of error on calibration alone would be 
ridiculous. Moreover, even admitting that errors of contamination would radically affect the test results still 
underscores the inherent weaknesses of this dating method. In fact, when the testers accredited these poor 
results to contamination during pretreatment and reran the tests with significant improvement, the oldest 
cloth still showed an error of nearly 1,000 years. Most importantly, it was 1,000 years on the young side!" 
(Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: 
Nashville TN, 1990, pp.53-54. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"The significance of all of these dates is that they clearly demonstrate that serious anomalies not only exist 
but that even the calibration techniques used to correct them are not an exact science. For example, let's look 
at the calibrated results themselves. The three samples gave the following date ranges after calibration: 
3255-2827 B.C. (on a 3000 B.C. cloth), A.D. 1400-1668 (on an A.D. 1200 cloth), and A.D. 1289-1438 (on an 
A.D. 1000-1400 cloth). [Burleigh, R., Leese, M. & Tite, M., "An Intercomparison of Some AMS and Small Gas 
Counter Laboratories," Radiocarbon, Vol. 28, 1986, pp.571-577, p.575] These results confirmed what the 
experts had said concerning C-14 dating and its problems. Admittedly the calibrated results were much 
improved, but being over 400 years off on a known sample seems significant. Indeed, these results 
confirmed what the experts had said concerning C-14 dating and its known drawbacks. I must point out, 
however, that the article in Radiocarbon very glibly understated these problems and, in fact, concluded the 
following: `Overall, there is good agreement between the results obtained and the expected historical 
dating of the samples.... A coherent series of results can be obtained when several laboratories undertake 
separate blindfold measurements of the same sample.... there are no special difficulties in dating textiles 
by C-14 using small sample techniques ... the distribution (span) of the results ... lends added emphasis to 
the need for the dating of any important relic such as the Shroud of Turin to be shared by several 
laboratories if the results are to have maximum credibility.... as a further check, exchange of pretreated 
samples ... might be desirable. [Ibid., p.576] You need to understand that the number of labs determined for 
conducting C-14 tests on the Shroud was reduced to three from the seven proposed; one of the three 
selected labs was the lab which had the most `outlying results'; one of the protocols or methods of testing 
was totally eliminated; and the samples were sent in such a fashion that Tite, spokesman of the British 
Museum, admitted the test was not truly a blindfold test. Furthermore, the two labs that in essence 
developed the accelerated method were eliminated from the testing." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 
"The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.54. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"As we were preparing this manuscript, articles began appearing everywhere stating that the Shroud was 
dated with 95 percent accuracy between 1260 and 1390. The worst part of it all was that many articles added 
that the Shroud was obviously a forgery. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if the dating was not 
fraught with problems, the Shroud has been demonstrated to be a genuine burial garment and not a 
human endeavor. Certainly had the date been reported to be first century the opponents to authenticity 
would have raised an array of concerns, or merely claimed that the `artist' used an ancient cloth. But the 
mood of the day seemed to be to accept the dating without question and to springboard to an unwarranted 
conclusion. Nevertheless, even the scientists involved in the C-14 testing have made comments that 
contradict such a facile reception of the medieval date. For example, the Oxford lab has stated, `At least 1 in 
5 dates are contrary to expectation.... A major source of error in the dating procedure was in ... their [the six 
labs doing the pretesting, namely, Arizona, Bern, Brookhaven, Harwell, Oxford, and Rochester] method of 
pretreatment of samples, i.e., in removing contamination.... Before AMS (the method used on the Shroud) is 
accepted as the final arbiter of chronology, criteria are needed to decide if and when an AMS date is 
unacceptable.' [Burleigh, R., Leese, M. & Tite, M., `An Intercomparison of Some AMS and Small Gas 
Counter Laboratories,' Radiocarbon, Vol. 28, 1986, pp.571-577, p.576] It's interesting in the light of these 
comments that Oxford, with very little experience in dating cloth, dated the Shroud and was among the first 
to leak the reports that claimed the Shroud was a fake. It seems incredible that the Oxford lab could so 
quickly pronounce the Shroud a fraud on a single dating in a field in which the lab has limited experience, 
especially given the caveats they themselves raised." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and 
the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.54-55. Emphasis original)

16/06/2007
"But they are not the only enigma in the Shroud C-14 dating. Dr. Willy Wolfi of the Zurich lab, whose 
testing of the Egyptian Bull Mummy was so far off, stated `One single date, is no date ... for the particular 
case discussed here [i.e., an Egyptian cloth] it is obvious that the number of 64 investigated samples is 
still too small to properly understand the observed disparity between radiocarbon dates and historical 
chronology.' [Wolfi, W., "Advances in accelerator mass spectrometry," Nuclear Instruments and Methods 
in Physics Research, B29, 1987, pp.1-13] If sixty-four samples from an Egyptian cloth were insufficient, how 
can such accuracy now be claimed in regard to the Shroud when only one sample was tested? When 
discussing the Shroud testing, Dr. Gove himself, in a strong letter of protest to the British Museum, said in 
part, `... there are many people who are overly suspicious of this entire operation.... I am astonished you 
would permit the British Museum to risk having its reputation called into question in what has become a 
somewhat shoddy enterprise.' [Gove, H., Letter to Sir David Wilson, British Museum, 27 January 1988]" 
(Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: 
Nashville TN, 1990, p.55)

16/06/2007
"In addition, the C-14 results have yet to be published in acceptable scientific journals, much less subjected 
to the same intense peer review and criticism that were both a blessing and a curse to STURP. Initial reports 
indicate the following discrepancies: 1. The samples were all taken from the bottom of the Shroud, a mere 
two to three centimeters from a repair site due to the 1532 fire. This site selection created serious problems 
for the dating procedure. For example, if, as some sindonologists have suggested, the dating zone (or test 
sample) was actually an added strip of cloth and therefore not part of the original Shroud, we have no 
knowledge of its history and testing it would have resulted in an inaccurate age for the Shroud. Furthermore, 
we know for a fact that the Shroud was heavily handled throughout its history and that it was damaged by 
fire and repaired with strips of cloth during the Middle Ages. Each of these factors adds an unknown 
variable of contamination to the dating equation, making a definitive C-14 dating extremely difficult, if not 
impossible." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson 
Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.56)

16/06/2007
"2. No testing or measurements were done to ensure that the fire damage in no way altered the cloth due to 
isotope exchange, which occurs at 300°[F] even though the Shroud was in a fire of at least 960°[F] and was 
also subjected to supersteam vapor when doused with water during the fire. When the Shroud was burned 
in the 1532 fire, carbon molecules from its silver casing, the case's silk lining, and its framing materials would 
have begun to mix with the Shroud's carbon molecules. This would have occurred at any temperature over 
300°F. Dousing the Shroud with water would have also caused additional molecular exchange. By not 
checking out these factors and including them as part of the dating equation, the labs left themselves open 
for a faulty date." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson 
Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.56-57)

16/06/2007
"3. Only one type and amount of solvent was used to cleanse all three samples, though stronger solutions 
may have removed additional contaminants from the cloth and thereby resulted in an older date." 
(Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: 
Nashville TN, 1990, p.57)

16/06/2007
"4. The small counter method (gas), which is considered much more reliable and effective for testing cloth 
samples, was eliminated. (Remaining gas can even be redated.)." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The 
Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.57)

16/06/2007
"5. A true scientific blind study was never conducted: a) All labs involved in the dating were present at the 
removal of the Shroud samples, so they knew which samples were which; b) The linen was left intact with its 
unusual weave (3-1 herringbone twill with a `Z' twist), obviously recognized by the labs during the tests (it 
has been reported that some labs even found fibers of the red silk backing cloth during their preparations); 
c) The date of the `dummy' cloth was published and available to all the labs; d) The `dummy' cloth was of a 
totally different weave from the Shroud." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the 
Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.57)

16/06/2007
"6. The textile expert present at the removal of the test samples has not made detailed public statements or 
published a report concerning the location, examination, or extrication of the samples for C-14 dating. This is 
a critical oversight, especially in light of reports that some stray threads on the sample were merely snipped 
off, not unwoven to help prevent contamination. I [Stevenson] have received several letters concerning a 
video of this procedure. All the writers stated that it `appeared' to them that the test samples were from the 
side strip-a highly contaminated portion of the Shroud. One of these observers also confirmed the reports 
that stray threads on the sample were merely `snipped off.'" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The 
Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.57-58)

16/06/2007
"7. There was no publications or peer review of the method and the results before boldly proclaiming the 
date results to the public." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas 
Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.58)

16/06/2007
"8. The labs' interpretation of the dating results was prejudicial. The labs stated they had `proof of forgery,' 
which certainly undermines their professed objectivity in the light of the other published, peer-reviewed 
technical data on the Shroud that have not yet been successfully refuted. [Meacham, W., "Comments on the 
British Museum's Involvement in Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Hong Kong, Nov. 1988, p.2] Indeed, 
this data have been largely confirmed by others in their respective fields of expertise." (Stevenson, K.E. & 
Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.58)

16/06/2007
"9. Potentially the most damaging single piece of evidence to controvert the 1988 test results comes from the 
reported disclosure that there was a secret dating of the Shroud conducted at the University of California 
nuclear accelerator facility in 1982. Separate ends of a single thread were dated, with one end dating A.D. 
200 and the other A.D. 1000. ["Turin Shroud Dated to A.D. 200-1000 in Secret Testing: Results Inconsistent 
with Recent Dates," News release, 14 October 1988] At least two conclusions can be drawn from this data. 
For one, the wide divergence in dating-even on the same thread, much less between the different samples 
for the 1982 and 1988 tests-should be alarming for those who conclude that the 1988 carbon dating was 
definitive. 22 For another, the plus or minus factor for C-14 would place the end of the thread dated earlier at 
about the time of Jesus. At any rate, the 1982 test results should at least lessen dogmatism over the 
conclusiveness of the 1988 dating." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," 
Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.58)

16/06/2007
"10. The final straw to be added to the back of this horribly overloaded camel is best reflected in the words 
of Wolfi of Zurich: `The C-14 method is not immune to grossly inaccurate dating when non-apparent 
problems exist in samples from the field. The existence of significant indeterminate errors occurs 
frequently" [Wolfi, W., "Advances in accelerator mass spectrometry," Nuclear Instruments and Methods 
in Physics Research, B29, 1987, pp.1-13 , italics added] Keep in mind that this man's lab was the same lab 
that had the extreme outlying results during the dry run C-14 tests." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 
"The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.58-59. Emphasis 
original)

16/06/2007
"Given all of the above, where do we stand with C-14 in regard to the question of the C-14 dating of the 
Shroud? At the very least, the first round of C-14 testing has allowed the widespread publication and 
interpretation of data that have raised serious questions yet to be answered. At the worst, it has introduced 
inaccurate data that have been permitted to jeopardize the search for sound answers to the questions 
surrounding the Shroud's authenticity. In both instances, the 1988 C-14 tests did little to advance scientific 
study on the Shroud." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas 
Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.59)

16/06/2007
"Whatever the final verdict on the initial C-14 testing, presently it has only added a serious degree of 
confusion at a crucial turn in Shroud studies. Having built up the dating as the `be all and end all' of 
sindonology, Turin authorities are now faced with the extremely disappointing results. Moreover, they 
appear to have accepted very questionable data without question. Fortunately, however, efforts are even 
now underway to petition Turin and the Vatican to seek a more scientific `second' opinion. If all these tests 
had produced different dates, controversy would have raged for years while the main issues were pushed 
aside. Since all the tests apparently have produced a medieval date, even C-14 experts as diverse in opinion 
as Gove (who rejects the Shroud's authenticity) and Meacham (who accepts the Shroud's authenticity) are 
beginning to shout `Foul!' over the protocols alone." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and 
the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.59)

16/06/2007
"Also no one has taken into account the bizarre history of the Shroud itself and what impact that might have 
had on the dating. Meacham spelled it out this way: `For the Shroud, there is a 600-year history in a number 
of different environments and unknown handling situations, and a possible further 1300-year existence 
during which the object could have been in contact with virtually any natural or man-made substance in the 
areas it was held. To measure Shroud samples, one must therefore consider every possible type of 
contamination and attempt to identify and counter them all.' [Interview, 15 July 1988]. (Stevenson, K.E. & 
Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.59-
60. Emphasis in original)

17/06/2007
"One is bound to ask why some unknown `forger,' for that is what he must have been, should have gone to 
such elaborate lengths to produce an image capable of being `seen' and properly comprehended only in the 
twentieth century." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.18)
17/06/2007
"Neither Delage nor Vignon escaped personal abuse in the imbroglio. Delage was derided as a betrayer of 
science and a traitor to his religious convictions. His only answer to the insults appeared in the Revue 
Scientifique in a letter to Charles Richet, the editor. `When I paid you a visit in your laboratory several 
months ago to introduce you to M. Vignon ... had you the presentiment of impassioned quarrels which this 
question would arouse in the press ... I willingly recognize that none of these given arguments offer the 
features of an irrefutable demonstration; but it must be recognized that their whole constitutes a bundle of 
imposing probabilities, some of which are very near being proven ... a religious question has been 
needlessly injected into a problem which in itself is purely scientific, with the result that feelings have run 
high, and reason has been led astray. If, instead of Christ, there were a question of some person like a 
Sargon, an Achilles or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making any objection ... I have 
been faithful to the true spirit of science in treating this question, intent only on the truth, not concerned in 
the least whether it would affect the interests of any religious party ... I recognize Christ as a historical 
personage and I see no reason why anyone should be scandalized that there still exist material traces of his 
earthly life.'" (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.106-107. Ellipses original)

17/06/2007
"The evidence seems, then, to indicate that the man of the Shroud was very probably a Jew crucified under 
the Romans. This draws us to the inevitable question, Could it have been Jesus? To what extent does the 
image on the Shroud correspond to the crucifixion of Christ as recounted by the Gospels? Given the premise 
that the Shroud is from all other points of view genuine, this presents us with virtually no difficulty. ... 
1. Jesus was scourged (Mt. 27:26, Mk. 15:15, Jn. 19:1). The body is literally covered with the wounds of a 
severe scourging. 2. Jesus was struck a blow to the face (Mt. 27:30, Mk. 15:19, Lk. 22:63, Jn. 19:3). There 
appear to be a severe swelling below the right eye and other superficial face wounds. 3. Jesus was crowned 
with thorns (Mt. 27:29, Mk. 15:17, Jn. 19:2). Bleeding from the scalp indicates that some form of barbed `cap' 
has been thrust upon the head. 4. Jesus had to carry a heavy cross (Jn. 19:17). Scourge wounds in the area 
of the shoulders appear to be blurred, as if by the chafing of some heavy burden. 5. Jesus' cross had to be 
carried for him, suggesting he repeatedly fell under the burden (Mt. 27:32, Mk. 15:21, Lk. 23:26). The knees 
appear severely damaged as if from repeated falls. 6. Jesus was crucified by nailing in hands and feet (Jn. 
20:25). ... There are clear blood flows as from nail wounds in the wrists and at the feet. 7. Jesus' legs were not 
broken, but a spear was thrust into his side as a check that he was dead (Jn. 19:31-37). The legs are clearly 
not broken, and there is an elliptical wound in the right side. Of these seven stages, it is possible that stages 
one, two, and four through seven could have occurred in the case of any crucifixion victim. But the third 
stage, the crowning with thorns, is virtually signatory. ... If the Shroud itself is genuine, the case for it being 
actually Jesus' shroud is very strong, as even one of those most convinced of its fraudulence, the Jesuit 
historian Herbert Thurston, felt obliged to admit in 1903: `As to the identity of the body whose image is seen 
on the Shroud, no question is possible. The five wounds, the cruel flagellation, the punctures encircling the 
head, can still be clearly distinguished... . If this is not the impression of the Christ, it was designed as the 
counterfeit of that impression. In no other person since the world began could these details be verified.' 
[Thurston, H., "The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History," The Month, CI, 1903, p.19]" (Wilson, I., 
"The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.37-38. Brackets added)

17/06/2007
"As is well known to everyone with some knowledge of archaeology, there is one scientific test, now almost 
routine, that could at a stroke determine whether the Shroud dates from the fourteenth century, or is indeed much 
older. This is what is now popularly known as the carbon-14 test. Carbon 14 is a radioactive isotope produced by 
cosmic-ray bombardment of the earth's atmosphere, and all living things take it in. When they die, this intake 
ceases, and radioactive decay sets in, the carbon 14 changing into other atoms at a precisely measurable rate. In 
an object that has once lived, whether bone or the flax of linen or the reed of papyrus, half the carbon 14 decays 
and disappears in about 5,600 years, this being known as the half life of carbon 14. By measuring the amount of 
carbon 19. present in any organic object of unknown antiquity, it is possible to determine with a remarkable 
degree of accuracy the date-when it `died.' In the case of the Shroud this would be when the flax of the linen was 
cut down. The technique has been applied successfully to materials very close in composition to the Shroud, 
most notably to a linen wrapping to the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was dated by the pioneer of carbon 14, Willard F. 
Libby of Chicago, to between 167 B.C. and A.D. 233, the sort of accuracy that, although not ideal, would at least 
give an unquestioned antiquity to the Shroud. Among the various possible testings of the Shroud considered by 
Cardinal Pellegrino's commission, carbon-14 testing was high on the agenda. Dr. Cesare Codegone, director of 
the Technical Physics Institute of Turin Polytechnic, was actually set the task of preparing a feasibility study for 
carbon-dating the Shroud. When Codegone made his recommendations, it became obvious that this was one test 
that would have to wait for future technical refinements. The test-at least in the form then understood by the 
Italians - demanded a sample of linen thirty centimeters square, which would need to be totally destroyed in the 
process of isolating the carbon 14. For cross-checking purposes, thought particularly necessary in view of the 
various contaminations (fire and water-splashing) the Shroud was known to have undergone in its history, the 
destruction of a further three or four samples of similar size was considered desirable. And it was known that 
even in the most ideal conditions carbon-14 experts were at loggerheads among themselves as to the precise half-
life dating. Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, for instance, had shown certain flaws in Libby's theories for 
carbon 14, namely that as a result of various environmental vicissitudes the rate of carbon-14 decay has not been 
absolutely consistent through time. For very understandable reasons the Commission therefore decided that the 
carbon-14 test would have to wait. Deprived of this independent means of dating, we are thrust upon the greatest 
dilemma of Shroud studies, what and where could the Shroud have been in history." (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.66-67) 

18/06/2007
"Deprived of this independent means of dating, we are thrust upon the greatest dilemma of Shroud studies, 
what and where could the Shroud have been in history. ... Without dispute the Shroud's history could be 
traced back to the year 1453, when it came into the possession of the Savoy family, the ancestors of King 
Umberto. Its owners then were Duke Louis of Savoy and his wife, Anne de Lusignan, a pious couple 
constantly accompanied, it was said by a retinue of Franciscan friars. Chevalier's documents showed how in 
that year Anne and Louis had acquired the Shroud after somewhat obscure negotiations with an intrepid 
French widow, Margaret de Charny. The records also showed how the Shroud could then be traced in the 
possession of the de Charny family back to the mid-1350s. How did the de Charny family acquire the 
Shroud? Here one comes to the core of the mystery. Margaret de Charny inherited the cloth from her father, 
Geoffrey II de Charny, a distinguished bailli of France, who died in 1398. He in turn had inherited it from 
his father, Geoffrey I de Charny, who had died in 1356. Very little was known about the Shroud at the time of 
Geoffrey I de Charny." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.67-68)

18/06/2007
"But from the year 1389 there exists a formidable memorandum [Pierre d'Arcis, Bishop of Troyes, to Pope 
Clement VII, trans. Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J., in "The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History," The 
Month, CI (1903), pp.17-29] which seems to provide all the relevant details. Its author, Pierre d'Arcis, 
Bishop of Troyes, had had his attention drawn to a grave scandal which was going on at the de Charny 
family seat at Lirey, about twelve miles from Troyes, and in the bishop's diocese. The canons of the 
collegiate church there, founded thirty-six years earlier by Geoffrey I de Charny, were, it was said, exposing 
for veneration a cloth carefully described, with papal authorization, as a `likeness or representation' of the 
`sudarium of Christ.' There can be no doubt that this was the Shroud. It was being shown on a lofty platform 
flanked with torches and with great ceremony. And while they were describing it only as a likeness, the 
canons were making it known privately that it was the actual Shroud in which Christ had been wrapped in 
the tomb, a claim that was attracting multitudes of pilgrims. It was a cause of annoyance to Bishop d'Arcis 
that Geoffrey II de Charny had bypassed him and obtained permission for the expositions from Cardinal de 
Thury, the papal legate. It was also a time notorious for abuses relating to relics, and d'Arcis, a thoroughly 
honest and upright churchman, was concerned that something of this kind should not be perpetrated on his 
doorstep. He made enquiries and discovered that this was not the first time that the de Charnys had shown 
the cloth. There had been a burst of similar expositions thirty-four years earlier, about the time of Geoffrey I, 
when the same cloth was claimed quite openly to be the true Shroud by the canons of Lirey. The then 
Bishop of Troyes, Henry of Poitiers, had similarly investigated the matter. In the words of a forthright 
memorandum d'Arcis drew up for the pope, Bishop Henry back in the 1350s had been told by `many 
theologians and other wise persons ... that this could not be the real shroud of our Lord having the 
Saviour's likeness thus imprinted upon it, since the holy Gospel made no mention of such imprint, while, if it 
had been true, it was quite unlikely that the holy Evangelists would have omitted to record it, or that the fact 
should have remained hidden until present time.' [Ibid., p.22] D'Arcis went on with a sentence that to many 
has been the coup de grâce to the Shroud's authenticity. I again quote Herbert Thurston's translation: 
Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he [Henry of Poitiers] discovered the fraud and how the 
said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that 
it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed. [Ibid.] It may be argued, however, 
that the passage about `the artist who had painted it' is not quite all it seems in Thurston's translation. Latin 
lacks the definite article, and we can legitimately replace Thurston's `the artist' by `an artist.' Similarly, 
while depingere certainly means `to paint,' it can also mean `to copy,' the phrase therefore being 
translatable as `the truth being attested by an artist who had copied it.' This could throw quite a different 
complexion on the whole passage. Despite this, the de Charnys' guilt seemed to be independently 
demonstrated by various factors, not least of which is that they failed to make any attempt to explain how 
they acquired the cloth. If the Shroud was genuine, such an explanation would surely have put an end to the 
matter." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.67-68)

18/06/2007
"They were, it must be understood, not the sort of family who would be expected to have in their 
possession such a fabulous relic, bearing in mind that relics of the Passion were worth a king's ransom at 
that time. And their withdrawal of the cloth after the enquiry by Bishop Henry of Poitiers seemed clear 
evidence of their guilt. Also, from 1389 and for the next sixty years they described it in official documents 
only as a "likeness or representation" of the Shroud of Christ, seemingly as if they too were not convinced 
of its genuineness. To visit today the village of Lirey where these events took place can only reinforce the 
apparent absurdity of the whole affair. Tucked away in rolling French countryside south of Bouilly, it is a 
tiny hamlet notable only for the disrepair of a few ancient timbered dwellings. Long gone is Geoffrey de 
Charny's wooden collegiate church where the canons so controversially exhibited the Shroud. There never 
was any ducal chateau in which might have dwelt the sort of great magnate who might have acquired the 
genuine Shroud by some legitimate means." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: 
London, 1978, pp.69-70. Emphasis original)

18/06/2007
"One peculiar aspect was that Geoffrey II actually married a niece of Henry of Poitiers some time after the 
fuss about the first spate of expositions had blown over. Pierre d'Arcis held the see of Troves for some 
twelve years before the 1389 controversy, had previously had a perfectly reputable legal career, and 
possessed no apparent sinister motive for sticking his neck out in this case. Rather the reverse, as the pope 
appears to have been displeased with his attitude and even threatened him with excommunication. Yet, 
despite the plethora of documents, one cannot escape the feeling that there is something missing, 
something more to the affair than meets the eye. For instance, why after all the fuss there had been in the 
1350s did Geoffrey II bring out the Shroud again in 1389? By this time he was a well-respected official of the 
king. It would surely not have been avarice that led him to bring out a relic whose authenticity had already 
been challenged. Why also, before commencing the expositions, did he seek out the approval not of his 
local bishop but, via the papal legate, of Pope Clement VII, agreeing, without qualm it would seem, to call the 
Shroud merely a `likeness of representation.' Why, if he genuinely believed the cloth was only a `likeness or 
representation,' did he indulge in the most elaborate ceremonial for Shroud expositions, amounting to virtual 
idolatry? Why, after having received Bishop d'Arcis's powerfully worded memorandum, did Pope Clement 
VII not suppress the expositions as d'Arcis requested? Clement is known to have upheld the expositions as 
long as the de Charnys continued to describe the cloth as only a `likeness or representation,' and most 
intriguingly insisted on two occasions that Bishop d'Arcis should remain `perpetually silent' about the 
matter. And why, during the early fifteenth century, did Margaret de Charny, who withdrew the Shroud from 
the canons of the Lirey church when the structure fell into disrepair, resist several determined legal appeals 
on their part for its restoration, only to go to enormous lengths then to find some suitable noble family (the 
Savoys) to take it over from her? Were these the actions of a family knowingly perpetrating a forgery? Or 
did the de Charnys know something about the origins of the Shroud that, for reasons unknown, they were 
unprepared at the time to reveal?" (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, 
pp.70-71)

18/06/2007
"The whole crux of the affair seems to center on the personality of the Shroud's first known owner, 
Geoffrey I de Charny. His background is obscure. Recorded by genealogists as only `probablement' the 
son of a Burgundian Jean de Charny, he appears to have had no lands by family inheritance. Instead he 
acquired some modest estates by gifts from the king, and by two marriages, the first to a Jeanne de 
Toucy, and the second to Jeanne de Vergy, the mother of Geoffrey II. In the historical record he is 
pictured as a self-made man, a professional soldier with the highest ideals of honor and chivalry, 
important in an age that set great store by them. There were several recorded incidents of his personal 
heroism, among them a gallant attempt to recapture Calais from the English which, foiled through 
treachery, resulted in his spending eighteen months in prison in England in 1350 and 1351." (Wilson, I., 
"The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.71)

18/06/2007
"The most curious aspect, however, was his plan for building the collegiate church at Lirey, which he 
would seem to have formulated during his captivity. In itself this would not be unusual. It was quite 
common at that time for rich men to found churches and chantries. But Geoffrey was not a rich man. He 
would appear to have had no means of his own for such a luxury, and had for the purpose to obtain a 
`rent' from his king, granted in 1353. Even then he was able to afford only a modest wooden structure, 
which was to fall into disrepair in less than half a century. ... Because Geoffrey is known to have 
founded the Lirey church in 1353, most investigators have assumed that he had the Shroud at that time 
and that his intentions of keeping it in the church were already obvious. Fortunately, the documents 
have been preserved for both the foundation of Geoffrey's church in 1353 and its completion and 
consecration on May 28, 1356. Despite every opportunity, there is no mention of the Shroud among 
otherwise very ordinary relics placed in the church.." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club 
Associates: London, 1978, p.71)

18/06/2007
"Furthermore, the man who presided at the 1356 consecration was Bishop Henry of Poitiers, the very 
bishop who according to d'Arcis discovered the great Shroud fraud. On May 28, 1356, Bishop Henry 
was eulogizing over what Geoffrey had done. Clearly the first expositions of the Shroud and the 
subsequent controversy had not yet taken place. These facts throw an entirely different light on the 
whole story as related more than thirty years later by Bishop d'Arcis. For we know with certainty that 
within four months of Bishop Henry's consecration of the Lirey church Geoffrey I de Charny was dead, 
killed in battle. Shortly after having been appointed standard-bearer of France, on September 19, 1356, 
he was on the battlefield of Poitiers, facing the English army of Edward the Black Prince, at the side of 
his king, John the Good, in a gallant last stand. ...Then, seeing a lance being thrust at his king, Geoffrey 
fatally intercepted it with his own body. When fourteen years later France had returned to some 
normality after the crushing defeat, Geoffrey's remains were given a hero's tomb, at royal expense in the 
Eglise des Celestins, Paris. Was this knight, who wore on his epaulets the words `Honor conquers all,' 
the perpetrator of the hoax claimed by d'Arcis? It seems unlikely.." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," 
Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.71-72)

18/06/2007
"Above all, how was there time in the three and a half months between the Lirey consecration and 
Geoffrey's death at Poitiers for the controversial Shroud expositions, said to have drawn crowds from 
foreign countries, to have taken place? In terms of medieval communications and transport this seems 
impossible, and fortunately on this point careful rereading of d'Arcis's memorandum reveals his 
hesitations about the timing. He said the expositions had taken place thirty-four years "or 
thereabouts" before the time he was writing, 1389. This put the year of the expositions at 1355. With a 
margin of error of only two years, admissable by the vagueness of `or thereabouts,' the possible date of 
the expositions could have been 1357-a year after Geoffrey's death. This possibility threw a different 
light on how the expositions suppressed by Bishop Henry of Poitiers may have come about. It seemed 
arguable that Geoffrey might have inherited the Shroud in circumstances that were difficult to divulge, 
requiring him to choose his moment carefully. He had therefore proceeded first with the building of the 
church to house the relic, and revealed perhaps only to his immediate family circle his true intentions. 
His premature death at Poitiers ended his plans, leaving his widow, Jeanne de Vergy, with six clergy 
and a young son to support in hopeless financial circumstances. Did Jeanne de Vergy then decide to 
bring out the Shroud to fulfill her late husband's intentions, thus enabling the Lirey canons to be kept 
in business? Unable to say how her husband had acquired the cloth, did she bring upon herself the not 
unjustifiable incredulity of Bishop Henry of Poitiers?" (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club 
Associates: London, 1978, pp.72-73. Emphasis original)

18/06/2007
"The first investigations into the Shroud's pre-fourteenth-century history were not encouraging. In the 
absence of any pertinent information from the Gospels, Fr. Maurus Green, a quiet-spoken, Ampleforth-
trained Benedictine priest, had patiently extracted from pre-fourteenth-century documents every possible 
reference to supposed `shrouds' of Christ. [Green, M., "Enshrouded in Silence," Ampleforth Journal, 
LXXIV, 1969, pp.319-45] Some of these were descriptions of actual preserved shrouds, others mere 
speculations of what might have been the fate of the sindon purchased by Joseph of Arimathea." 
(Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.73-74)

18/06/2007
"The earliest example was a quotation, preserved by St. Jerome, from the otherwise lost second-century 
`Gospel of the Hebrews.' According to this, after his resurrection Jesus had given his shroud (sindon) to 
the `servant of the priest' before appearing to James. ... the priest's servant mentioned in Mark 14:47. ... 
Another tradition came from St. Nino, the fourth-century apostle of Georgia. Shortly before her death she 
recounted information she had learned about the instruments of the Passion during her youth in Jerusalem. 
According to her, the burial linen was for a while in the possession of Pilate's wife ... The soudarion had a 
separate fate. It was found by Peter, who `took it and kept it, but we know not if it was ever discovered.' ... A 
seventh-century letter by Bishop Braulio of Saragossa (A.D. 635-51) ... said: `At that time many things were 
known to have happened which are not written down; for example concerning the linteaminibus and the 
sudarium in which the Lord's body was wrapped-we read that it was found but we do not read that it was 
preserved. Yet I do not think that the apostles neglected to preserve these and such-like relics for future 
times.' [O'Rahilly, A., "The Burial of Christ," Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 59, 1941, p.59, transl. of 
Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 80, p.689]" (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: 
London, 1978, p.74)

18/06/2007
"As Father Maurus pointed out, the only faintly encouraging sign was that the same bishop's liturgy (the 
Mozarabic rite particular to Spain), contained in its Illatio for Easter Saturday the cryptic sentence: `Peter 
ran with John to the tomb and looked at the recent traces [vestigia] on the linens of the dead and risen 
man.' Someone had suggested that this could be a memory that there had been some form of image on the 
linen found by Peter and John. ... Father Maurus's research into the actual preservation of reputed shrouds 
was little more enlightening. The earliest reference, dated about 570, was in an account of the pilgrimage of 
St. Antonius Martyr, which, in describing a cave convent on the banks of the Jordan, stated, `In the same 
place is said to be the sudarium, which was over the head of Jesus.' ... It was a century before another 
account of a reputed shroud found its way into the historical records. This time there was much more 
information. About 670, a Frankish bishop, Arculf of Perigueux ... related ... the story of his recent pilgrimage 
and how he had actually seen in Jerusalem the reputed shroud of Jesus. He told how he had learned that not 
long before there had been a dispute about the shroud between Christians and Jews, and Jerusalem's 
Saracen ruler had subjected it to a trial by fire, the relic fortunately landing safely in the hands of the 
Christians. He himself saw it taken out of its shrine `and raised aloft, amid a multitude of people assembled in 
the church, who kissed it, and he himself kissed it. And it was about eight feet long.'" (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.74-75)

18/06/2007
"In fact, in all the years from the death of Christ to the time of Geoffrey I de Charny, Father Maurus was able 
to produce only one reference that seemed, albeit vaguely, to answer the description of the Shroud of Turin. 
This was the account of an ordinary French soldier, Robert de Clan, who related something that he had seen 
exhibited in Constantinople in August 1203, shortly before hostilities between Crusaders and Byzantines 
began. There was in Constantinople, he said, a church, `which they called My Lady St. Mary of Blachernae, 
where was kept the sydoine in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which stood up straight every Friday 
so that the figure of Our Lord could be plainly seen there.' [de Clari, R., "The Conquest of 
Constantinople," McNeal, E.H., transl., Columbia University Press: New York NY, 1936] It is an intriguing 
passage, particularly as it seems to be an eyewitness account. There was some uncertainty as to whether in 
early thirteenth-century French parlance figure had its modern French meaning of `face,' or whether it might 
actually have been intended to describe a full figure in the English sense of the word. Either was suggestive. 
But what happened to the sydoine? Intriguingly, de Clari added, `No one, either Greek or French, ever 
knew what became of this sydoine after the city was taken.' In this one lone account lay many possibilities. 
The setting was, after all, Constantinople in Turkey, one of the places where Frei's research actually 
suggested the Shroud had been at some stage in its history." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club 
Associates: London, 1978, pp.76-77) 

18/06/2007
"If one forgot that the Shroud was a shroud, forgot about the relic's fourteen-foot length and its double-
figure image, and concentrated only on the face, it took on a certain haunting familiarity, a certain 
`somewhere I've seen it before' quality. The likeness on the Shroud, even though seen so imperfectly on the 
cloth itself, is unmistakably the same likeness that has come down through history as being the human 
appearance of Jesus. This likeness can be traced many centuries earlier than the era of Geoffrey de Charny. 
It is familiar also for another reason. One of the most vivid of Christian legends is the story of the 
"Veronica" cloth, the cloth on which, according to a very tangled tradition, Jesus' face was miraculously 
impressed as he toiled towards Calvary. As a tradition, whatever its truth, that cloth's ancestry also 
stretched back well before the fourteenth century. With such an unmistakable affinity between the Shroud 
face, the portrait of Christ in art, and artists' copies of the Veronica, there had to be a historical link among all 
three. Indeed, several authors of books about the Shroud had suggested the same, but had failed to follow 
the idea through." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.78. Emphasis 
original)

18/06/2007
"Could one possibly tell by tracing the likeness back through the early centuries where and what the Shroud 
may have been? There was nothing to lose by giving the method a try. It was important to establish certain 
first principles. For instance, if there were clear reliable descriptions of what Jesus looked like dating from his 
time, or if there was an unbroken artistic tradition dating from his time, the method would be a futile one. But 
neither was the case. It comes as a surprise to many to learn that there is, in fact, no mention in the Gospels 
of what Christ looked like. The New Testament can be scoured from beginning to end without providing one 
morsel of information-whether he was tall or short, bearded or clean-shaven, handsome or ugly. Nor is there 
any independent contemporary information.... As early as the second century, writers were in fact obliged to 
resort to conjecture as to Christ's earthly appearance from the lack of any other reliable information." 
(Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.78)

18/06/2007
"Ironically, the earliest known example of a portrait of Jesus, albeit a poor one, occurs in a provincial Jewish 
setting, Dura-Europos on the Euphrates, where interpretations of the second commandment were clearly 
less severe. It is a fresco of the mid-third century and depicts Jesus young, beardless, and with short hair, in 
a scene of the healing of the paralytic. The same type of youthful, beardless likeness occurred in the fourth 
century in locations as far apart as Rome's cemetery of Massimus and St. Felicity, and the mosaic floor of a 
Roman country house excavated at Hinton St. Mary, Dorset, England, this latter being the earliest portrait of 
Christ found in Britain. The same type was also found in the fifth century-in a Good Shepherd mosaic from 
Ravenna's Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and in a well-known ivory diptych of the scenes from the miracles. 
There could be no doubt from these that in the centuries closest to Christ many of those in the civilized 
Roman world envisaged their Savior more as the Apollo of their forefathers than as a bearded Jew." (Wilson, 
I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.81) 

18/06/2007
"The best method of approach seems to be to track back rather than forward, and to use as a base the 
fifteenth century, i.e., within the period that the Shroud was known to have been preserved. In fact 
there was from this period an ideal work of art with which to compare the Shroud likeness, the `Rex 
Regum' of Jan van Eyck, which, although the original has not survived, is known to us from no less 
than four excellent copies made at the time. It is ideal because it has the same rigidly front-facing aspect 
as the Shroud face. One can therefore see how in each of the distinctive features-long hair parted in the 
middle and falling to the shoulders, a moderately long, forked beard, a long prominent nose, a thin 
mustache drooping to join the beard, a distinctive hairless gap beneath the lower lip-it matches the 
Shroud likeness virtually exactly. It might have been copied from the Shroud face, except that it is 
known from the work of art experts such as Pachts that, in fact, Van Eyck derived it from Christ portraits 
of the East, from the world of Byzantium, in which artist after artist had copied from another the same 
likeness in a tradition going back many centuries. It is this tradition that is the path to the source of the 
likeness." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.82) 

18/06/2007
"Looking back to the thirteenth century, the likeness can be found in a large and magnificent mosaic of Christ 
Enthroned in the gallery of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople. From the twelfth century there is an excellent example 
of the likeness in the huge, brooding Christ Pantocrator mosaic that dominates the apse of the Norman-Byzantine 
church of Cefalù, Sicily, a work described by British art critic John Beckwith as `one of the most sublime attempts 
to represent the Logos Incarnate.' [Beckwith, J., "Early Christian and Byzantine Art," in "Pelican History of Art," 
Penguin: London, 1970, p.123] The likeness is awe-inspiringly evident in the Christ Pantocrator from the 
eleventh-century dome of the church of Daphni, near Athens, a likeness called by writer Sacheverell Sitwell `a 
terrifying countenance that makes it credible that a man has lived beyond the grave.' There are two splendid 
tenth-century examples of the likeness, the Christ Enthroned fresco in the church of Sant'Angelo in Formis near 
Capua, Italy, and the majestic `Christ as Holy Wisdom' mosaic uncovered in this century high above the royal 
door in the narthex of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople. Looking back to the eighth century, an epoch in which most 
eastern portraits of Christ were destroyed during the wave of image-smashing, or iconoclasm, the same likeness 
can be found, heavily influenced by Byzantium in a Pantocrator painting from the catacomb of St. Pontianus, 
Rome. One can find the same likeness even as far back as the sixth century in several examples, but notably a 
mosaic Christ Enthroned at Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo church, and a medallion portrait of Christ in the 
Byzantine manner on a silver vase discovered at Homs, the ancient Emesa, in Syria." (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.82-83) 

18/06/2007
"With these examples the trail back ends. Earlier, all that can be found is the vague and widely varied 
portraits of the time of St. Augustine and before. What seems clear is that at one given point, the sixth 
century, the features of Christ in art were brought into focus, as if by an invisible decree. The hair became 
long and center-parted, the beard established and decisively forked, the nose longer and more pronounced, 
the eyes deeper and their pupils larger, and the whole countenance set in a rigidly front-facing attitude. 
There is an authority about it that seems to suggest that someone, somewhere suddenly knew what Jesus 
had looked like. But how? Art historians merely attribute the phenomenon to the Byzantine tendency at this 
period to create rigid artistic formulae that then became the pattern for future generations. But if this was so, 
it is surely a remarkable coincidence that the Shroud likeness was followed so exactly. Without probing 
further, one can only say that if the face on the Shroud in some way introduced the likeness into art, one 
thing is certain. It happened in the sixth century, not later, and seemingly not before. And one can also say 
that whatever the source of the likeness, it had some special relationship with the Christ Enthroned portrayal 
of Christ, as if it were this type in particular, with its rigid front-facing aspect and tendency to be given pride 
of place in church decoration, that embodied the true likeness as it was then known." (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.83) 

18/06/2007
"Before probing deeper into what might have had such a profound artistic influence in the sixth century, it is 
important to consider whether there is any way in which one could be more positive that the Shroud 
likeness had been at work. Fortunately, there is, in the form of some most unusual, and so far largely 
unrecognized research on the part of Frenchman Paul Vignon, the biologist colleague of Professor Yves 
Delage. In the 1930s Vignon turned his interest away from the scientific aspects of the Shroud, and began to 
study some of the post-sixth-century Byzantine portraits looked at earlier in this chapter, together with many 
similar pre-fourteenth-century portraits of Christ. He had noticed that in many of these portraits there were 
certain oddities, certain peculiarities to the Christ face. One painting to which he paid particular attention 
was the eighth-century Christ Pantocrator from the catacomb of St. Pontianus, Rome. On the forehead 
between the eyebrows of this work a starkly geometrical |_| shape had caught his eye. Artistically it did not 
seem to make sense. If it was intended to be a furrowed brow, it was depicted most unnaturally in 
comparison to the rest of the face. It, therefore, intrigued him greatly that when he turned to the equivalent 
point on the Shroud face, there was the same feature, equally as geometric, and equally as unnatural 
because it appeared to have nothing to do with the image itself. The significance of the Pontianus discovery 
was heightened when other Byzantine Christ portraits were found to exhibit the same marking. The eleventh-
century Daphni Pantocrator, the tenth-century Sant'Angelo in Formis fresco, the tenth-century Hagia 
Sophia narthex mosaic, and an eleventh-century portable mosaic from Berlin are typical of many Byzantine 
works featuring the same peculiar shaped brow, generally more stylized, but still suggestive of the same 
derivation. Coincidence? Or could the Byzantine artist have been working from some blueprint likeness of 
Christ, faithfully reproducing this feature derived from the Shroud? Vignon, and after him the American 
scholar Edward Wuenschel, [Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy 
Shroud Guild," Esopus NY, 1954] began to search for other such peculiarities, and found some twenty in all, 
oddities originating from some accidental imperfection in the Shroud image or weave, and repeated time and 
again in paintings, frescoes, and mosaics of the Byzantine period, even though artistically they made no 
sense. By no means every work featured every peculiarity. Nor were the markings confined exclusively to 
front-facing portraits but were sometimes found three-quarter face. Occasionally some, such as the forehead 
markings, were given to saints, perhaps as a special mark of holiness. And some were seen reversed right to 
left, perhaps because of understanding of the reversing effect of an `impression.'" (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.83-84)

18/06/2007
"Not all of the twenty markings deduced by Vignon and Wuenschel are acceptable. Because of the very 
imprecisions of the Shroud likeness, many seem too elusive to permit firm deductions. But even so, one 
could still make a reasonable case for the validity of some fifteen that a Byzantine artist might have `seen.' 
These are: 1. A transverse streak across the forehead. 2. The three-sided "square" on the forehead. 3. A V 
shape at the bridge of the nose. 4. A second V shape inside feature 2. 5. A raised right eyebrow. 6. An 
accentuated left cheek. 7. An accentuated right cheek. 8. An enlarged left nostril. 9. An accentuated line 
between nose and upper lip. 10. A heavy line under the lower lip. 11. A hairless area between lip and beard. 
12. The fork to the beard. 13. A transverse line across the throat. 14. Heavily accentuated, owlish eyes. 15. 
Two loose strands of hair falling from the apex of the forehead. It is even possible to produce statistics for 
the presence of these features in works of art. Taking as an example the Pantocrator from the dome of the 
church of Daphni, no fewer than thirteen of the features can be identified, particularly noteworthy being the 
triangle or V shape at the bridge of the nose, the |_| shape, the V shape within this, and the streak across the 
forehead (these somewhat stylized in the hands of a very competent artist), together with heavy 
accentuation of the eyes -and the raised right eyebrow. The Sant'Angelo in Formis fresco also features 
thirteen features, the Cefalù apse mosaic fourteen, and the Hagia Sophia mosaic nine, an average incidence 
of an impressive eighty per cent. When all is said and done, the peculiarities are so distinctive and prevalent 
that it seems doubtful that they could be mere imagination or coincidence." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," 
Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.85)

18/06/2007
"Then what does it all mean? It seems likely that some unknown artist carefully prepared from the Shroud 
face a drawing-as it were, from the life. He carefully studied each feature and composed it into a living face 
accumulating on the way many of the peculiarities of the Shroud image that he could not hope to 
understand. He would, for instance, have "seen" open eyes because this is how they indeed appear on the 
cloth itself, open and staring, even though as we know from the photographic negative they were in reality 
closed in death. Copies of such a drawing circulated throughout the Christian world, wherever churches 
were being decorated, would have quickly established the new "true likeness" that emerged from the sixth 
century on. Was it the cloth we now know as the Shroud of Turin that the artist worked from? If so, where 
was it at the time? The answer seems to be to track back, just as we have done with the portrait of Christ in 
art, the Veronica-type tradition of Christ impressing his face on cloth." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," 
Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.86)

18/06/2007
"Was the whole saga of Veronica merely a totally distorted version of the story of the gospel Hemorrhissa? 
Were the Shroud-like face on the eventual cloth `relic' and the long tradition of the impression of Christ's 
features all pure fabrication? However much this might appear implicit from what has gone before, the 
answer is no. Those who wrote down traditions such as that of the Veronica were not charlatans or 
inventive geniuses who spun the stories out of nothing. Nor was the likeness on the Veronica cloth, as 
revered during the Middle Ages, the brain child of one inspired eleventh-century Italian artist. As historians 
of the eminence of Sir Steven Runciman have recognized, the common source was a deeply rooted tradition 
of the East, the story of another immensely renowned cloth portrait of Christ, the image `not made by hands' 
of Edessa, or as the Byzantines were later to call it, the Mandylion. This was a cloth image of Christ with an 
early historical existence, the parent both of the Veronica cloth itself and several of the post-sixth-century 
elements of the Veronica story." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, 
p.91. Emphasis original)

18/06/2007
"In the collection of Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace is a seventeenth-century icon of the 
Mandylion that beautifully illustrates its appearance and, in surrounding painted panels, something of its 
long history as one of the foremost relics of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Part of this history is 
semilegendary. As early as the first century A.D. it is supposed to have been sent to a King Abgar of 
Edessa to cure him of a disease. But most of the history is firmly historical-from its sixth century 
rediscovery in Edessa, to A.D. 944, when it was transferred to Constantinople, to 1204, when it disappeared 
without trace from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club 
Associates: London, 1978, p.91. Emphasis original)

18/06/2007
"In considering the Mandylion and the Shroud, with their obvious common denominator of a mysteriously 
imprinted image of Jesus on cloth, there are many features of potential major significance. One is that the 
known locations of the Mandylion-Constantinople in western Turkey, and Edessa (present-day Urfa) in the 
eastern Anatolian steppeland-conform perfectly to what is known so far of the geographical origins of the 
Turkish pollen on the Shroud identified by Dr. Frei. Another is that the Mandylion's apparent rediscovery in 
the sixth century corresponds precisely to the starting point of the seemingly Shroud-inspired definitive 
likeness of Jesus that we have seen emerge in art. Yet another is the similarity of the sepia-colored face on 
artists' copies of the Mandylion to the sort of face one might reconstruct from that visible on the Shroud. 
This latter is reinforced by the powerful and consistent literary tradition that the Mandylion's image, like that 
of the Shroud, was acheiropoietos, a Greek word meaning `not made by hands.' ... Last, and by no means 
least, is the fact that the period of the Mandylion's known history would fill in, with just a comparatively 
short gap, almost the entire missing period of the history of the Turin Shroud." (Wilson, I., "The Turin 
Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.91-92)

18/06/2007
"Could the Mandylion of the Eastern Orthodox Church have been one and the same as the cloth we know 
today as the Shroud of Turin? It was not an easy question even to begin to tackle. On the one hand, the 
Shroud of Turin is an existing fourteen-foot length of linen bearing the imprint of the front and back of a 
human body, and for all the world appears to have been a burial wrapping. On the other, the Mandylion is a 
now apparently lost cloth that from artists' copies made of it at the time of its known existence, and from 
contemporary descriptions, seems to have born the image only of the face of Christ, and that apparently 
made when he was alive and well. One cloth has been known for certain only in the West, the other cloth for 
certain only in the East. The only reasonable grounds for suggesting common identity were the shared 
concept of the image having been `impressed' in some extraordinary manner upon cloth, and the strangely 
familiar Shroud-like look of the face on artists' copies of the Mandylion." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," 
Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.92-93. Emphasis original)

18/06/2007
"The problem is made all the more difficult by the air of secrecy that has surrounded the Mandylion-secrecy 
while it was kept in Edessa up to 944, during which time there was not a single record of a viewing of the 
cloth, let alone an exposition; secrecy after its transfer to Constantinople, during which time only the 
privileged few were allowed to see it. The most crucial aspect of study is therefore to determine what one 
can of the overall physical characteristics of the Mandylion vis-a-vis the Shroud. There is a reasonable 
amount of artistic and documentary information available, but what rapidly becomes clear is the importance, 
as in an archaeological `dig,' of placing each item in its chronological sequence. Only by this method do 
certain details make sense. There is for instance a significant difference between copies of the (Wilson, I., 
"The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.92-93. Emphasis original)

19/06/2007
"The precise nature of the burial cloths has been the subject of much debate. The synoptists tell us that 
Joseph of Arimathea bought (Mark) a clean (Matthew) linen shroud or sheet (Greek - sindon) and 
wrapped Jesus in it (Matthew, Mark, Luke) [Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:50-56]. John mentions no shroud, but 
speaks in the plural of linen cloths (othonia) [Jn 19:40; 20:5-6] and also of a soudarion - "the napkin, 
which had been on his head ... rolled up in a place by itself." [Jn 20:7] The disputed (but probably authentic) 
passage at Luke 24:12 makes no further reference to the sheet, but mentions othonia lying by themselves. 
Christian artists have commonly depicted the grave-clothes of Jesus as broad bandages wound round the 
limbs and the body, together with a turban-like towel around his head. Some writers have visualised the 
linen sheet being torn into strips and the spices being wound into the folds. It has then been supposed that 
at the resurrection the soudarion and othonia collapsed in situ to form two separate piles. As will be 
seen presently this does not in fact tally very well with what the evangelists say, but it illustrates the 
apparently rather imprecise and confusing picture which they seem to give. John gives us an account of a 
normal burial in a well-to-do home in his record of the raising of Lazarus: "The dead man came out, his hands 
and feet bound with bandages ( keiriai), and his face wrapped with a cloth (soudarion). Jesus said to 
them, `Unbind him, and let him go.'' [Jn 11:44] There is nothing in this account to suggest a winding of long 
bandages around arms and legs and other parts of the body; indeed just the opposite, for the resuscitated 
corpse was certainly not deprived of wrappings which left him standing there naked. Before burial he had 
been washed, anointed with perfumed ointments and dressed in his best clean garment. Short strips of cloth 
had apparently been tied round wrists and ankles to keep his arms and legs in position, and the soudarion 
kept the mouth from falling open. The hobbled Lazarus was able to shuffle to the entrance of the tomb, 
where he was set free by the untying of these three cloths. And now he stood there fully clothed." 
(Wenham, J.W., "Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Stories in Conflict?," [1984], Paternoster: Exeter UK, 
Reprinted, 1987, pp.66-67)

19/06/2007
"John's full story is in line with a short, but disputed, account in Luke 24:12: "Peter rose and ran to the tomb; 
stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home wondering at what had 
happened." When Luke says that Peter saw the linen cloths "by themselves" he presumably means simply 
that he saw only linen cloths - no body. Although this verse is not found in some manuscripts the RSV is 
not justified in omitting it. Some have argued that it was a later addition borrowed from the Gospel of John. 
But in this account of the visit to the tomb there is no reference to any other disciple, which shows 
independence of the later gospel, rather than a borrowing from it. It is better to suppose that when John 
came to write he supplemented Luke's account and added his own attestation. It should be noted, however, 
that although Luke only mentions Peter, he shows himself aware of the presence of more than one person 
when he quotes the Emmaus disciples as saying that in addition to the women `some of those who were 
with us went to the tomb' (24:24). John fills in the story with vivid details, most of which seem to have no 
theological significance, but are simply recounted the way they were remembered. That John reached the 
tomb first could have been because he was the younger man. (Peter was leader of the twelve and may well 
therefore have been older than John, but even so youth and fleetness of foot are not synonymous.) John, 
more diffident than Peter, peers into the tomb and sees the grave-cloths. The impulsive Peter goes in, and 
John follows. Having entered John `saw and believed'. He may here be countering the impression which 
might have been gained from Mark and Luke that the unbelief of the men was total. He dates the beginning 
of the revival of his own faith from the moment he saw the disposition of grave-cloths (othonia) and 
napkin (soudarion). What precisely it was that convinced him is not clear. It may be that it was the mere 
sight of burial-wrappings and no body which persuaded him - he realised that neither friend nor foe would 
have carefully removed the coverings and then carried a naked corpse through the Jerusalem suburbs. Or 
had he something more in mind? John gives prominence to the fact that he saw `the napkin, which had been 
on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.' Some have supposed that he 
was describing burial-wrappings that had collapsed after the body had passed through them. But in that 
case the head-covering and the body-covering would have been almost, if not quite, touching each other; 
also we should not have expected the napkin to have been described as `rolled up'. It will be noted that John 
nowhere mentions the linen sheet or shroud (sindon) which the other three evangelists describe. If a 
sheet had covered the whole body, the napkin would not have been visible after the body had passed 
through it, but would have remained hidden beneath it. Of interest is the mention by Luke in 23:53 of a linen 
shroud or sheet (sindon - in the singular) and here of the linen cloths (othonia - in the plural). The 
former is the word used by Matthew and Mark and the latter by John. It has to be acknowledged that from 
the gospel texts alone it is not possible to say precisely what these terms mean, since both sindon and 
othonia have a wide range of closely similar uses. Sindon would certainly be a suitable word for a large 
sheet or shroud, and it is commonly so translated, but in itself it means no more than a piece of linen. 
Othonia is either a diminutive word which would be suitable to describe small pieces of linen, or it could 
be an adjective of quality used as a noun, in which case it could refer to linen pieces of any size, including a 
large sheet. In other words, the othonia might be the bandages which bound wrists and ankles or they 
might include the shroud as well. One thing seems clear: John is not describing burial-cloths which 
collapsed in situ with the removal of the body, he is showing that the soudarion at least had been folded 
up by supernatural hands and moved to a separate place. He saw, not disorder left by grave-robbers, but the 
visible tokens of his master set free from the bonds of death." (Wenham, J.W., "Easter Enigma: Are the 
Resurrection Stories in Conflict?," [1984], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1987, pp.92-93. Emphasis 
original) 

19/06/2007
 "Frank Morison (Who Moved the Stone? chap. 15) was immensely impressed by Jerome's quotation of a 
fragment of The Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was regarded by J.B. Lightfoot as `one of the 
earliest and most respectable of the apocryphal narratives' (Galatians p. 274), which says that the Lord 
gave `the linen cloth unto the servant of the priest.' On this M.R. James comments: `This is a famous 
passage. One interesting clause is apt to escape notice, about the giving of the shroud to the servant of the 
(high) priest, which implies that the priests must have been apprised of the resurrection as soon as the 
apostles. Was the servant of the priest Malchus? Presumably the servant was at the sepulchre: if so, it was 
being guarded by the Jews as well as the Roman soldiers (as in the Gospel of Peter).' (Apocryphal NT, 
Oxford, 1924, 4) This fragment is too dubious to bear any weight, but there is nothing improbable about 
Malchus having been a member of the temple guard which was on duty both at Gethsemane and in Joseph's 
garden." (Wenham, J.W., "Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Stories in Conflict?," [1984], Paternoster: 
Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1987, pp.153)

19/06/2007
"An elaborate attempt has been made by A. Feuillet to interpret John's account in terms of grave-cloths 
collapsed by withdrawal of the body. He argues that Peter saw the linen cloths lying flat and the cloth which 
had been on his head, not lying flat like the other linen cloths, but on the contrary rolled up in the same 
place where Jesus' head had been and pushing up enough to be visible under the cloth which enveloped it. 
(`La decouverte du tombeau vide en Jean 20. 3-10.' Esprit et Vie, 1977, pp. 252-266; 273-284; reprinted 
Hokhma 7 (1978) 1-45.) The discussion is scholarly but it does not carry conviction as a natural reading of 
the Greek. Nor does it seem plausible as an account of what Peter might have seen, when it is remembered 
(a) that the cave with its low entrance would have been rather dark, and (b) that the large quantity of spices 
would have impaired the flatness of the shroud and made it difficult to discern what was underneath it. 
Feuillet's interpretation appears to be influenced by a desire to make it conform to data from the Turin 
shroud. I am not altogether sceptical about this relic, but it is important that the exegesis of the passage 
should be considered in its own right before external considerations are introduced into the discussion. 
When radiocarbon dating has shown the shroud to belong to the first century then will be time enough to 
bring it into the debate." (Wenham, J.W., "Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Stories in Conflict?," [1984], 
Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1987, pp.155-156)

19/06/2007
"Carbon 14, Again We are faced with a choice. There are two irreconcilable conclusions, one of which 
must be wrong. All the studies on the sudarium point to its having covered the same face as the Shroud did, 
and we know that the sudarium was in Oviedo in 1075. On the other hand, the carbon dating specialists have 
said that the Shroud dates from 1260 to 1390. Either the sudarium has nothing to do with the Shroud, or the 
carbon dating was wrong - there is no middle way, no compromise. If the sudarium did not cover the same 
face as the Shroud, there are an enormous number of coincidences, too many for one small piece of cloth. If 
there was only one connection, maybe it could be just a coincidence, but there are too many. The only 
logical conclusion from all the evidence is that both the Oviedo sudarium and the Turin Shroud covered the 
same face. As we have already seen from the Cagliari congress, there are also many inherent reasons why 
the Shroud cannot be fourteenth century, reasons that nobody has been able to disprove, and only one that 
suggests a medieval origin-carbon dating. Those who believe in the carbon dating have never been able to 
offer any serious proof or evidence to explain why every other scientific method practised on the Shroud 
has given a first century origin as a result, most have not even tried. It can hardly be considered rational or 
scientific to blindly accept what conveniently fits in with one's own personal ideas without even taking into 
consideration what others say. And after all, carbon dating is just one experimental method compared with 
dozens of others, and it stands alone in its medieval theory. If both the sudarium and the Shroud date from 
the first century, then the carbon dating must be mistaken, and it is the duty of those who believe in the dual 
authenticity of the cloths to show why carbon dating has shown the Shroud to be first century. Those who 
have attempted this can be broadly divided into two bands, those who think that the particular process of 
the Shroud's carbon dating was a fake, a deliberate deception by the scientists involved, and those who 
believe that the whole process of carbon dating is not as reliable as it is made out to be, and is far from 
infallible." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.64-65) 

20/06/2007
"STURP succeed better than in laying to rest the theory that the Shroud was the work of a human hand. 
Perhaps these remarks by Meacham best explain the incredible gulf between STURP and the skeptics: `Even 
if one ignored the very compelling evidence to the contrary and granted McCrone's interpretation of the iron 
particles and protein, all one could conclude would be that minute traces of a solution or ointment 
containing pure hematite are present in the body imprint. This is a far cry from proving the image to be a 
painting. As STURP responded to McCrone's first pronouncements, microscopic observations do not exist 
in a vacuum. McCrone is somewhat like Mearn's little man who wasn't there again today. He declined at least 
two invitations to discuss his findings in the multidisciplinary framework of STURP He declined invitations 
to present his work at scientific congresses. He did not follow the STURP `Covenant' which he signed, to 
publish in peer reviewed scientific literature. And as he admits, he has not responded in print to the 
arguments of Heller and Adler, Pellicori, Riggi, and Schwalbe and Rogers on the physics and chemistry of 
the image. He has abandoned his earlier claims of a synthetic iron oxide (Post-1800) in the image and of a 
pigment enhancement of a genuine image.... the established facts are more than sufficient to refute the 
medieval clever-artistry hypothesis. A forger could have obtained a middle-east cloth, could have used 
some primate blood (and serum), could have depicted the body in flawless anatomical detail, and the 
pigment could have disappeared leaving a faint dehydration image-but that all of these unprecedented 
circumstances should have coalesced in the production of a single relic is virtually impossible to imagine.' 
[Meacham, W., "The Authentication of the Turin Shroud: An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology," 
Current Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 3, June 1983, pp. 283-311, p.308] The bottom line for McCrone and all 
who follow with various painting-based hypotheses, is that the now heavily documented, independently 
confirmed, peer-reviewed work of STURP clearly has virtually eliminated the possibility that the Shroud 
image could be the result of an applied pigment. All of the electromagnetic spectrum, all of the chemical 
data, even all of the physics of the image mitigate against a man-made image. Unfortunately, Mueller, 
Nickell, and others who have jumped onto the McCrone bandwagon seem blissfully unaware that for purely 
technical reasons the painting theory, regardless of the methodology, is a dead issue. Amazingly enough 
they continue to flog away at the now rotting carcass of this long dead horse." (Stevenson, K.E. & 
Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.30-31. 
Emphasis original)

20/06/2007
"Early in 1976, while still at Albuquerque, Jackson, following another line of enquiry, was advised to consult 
Bill Mottern, image-enhancement specialist at the Sandia Laboratories. The meeting, which took place on 
February 19, was one Jackson will never forget. Mottern had not even heard of the Shroud before, but as 
Jackson talked about it, he asked whether a specific laboratory machine might be of help. This was an 
Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer, a device which plots shades of image brightness as adjustable 
levels of vertical relief. Jackson handed over an ordinary three-by-five-inch transparency of the Shroud, 
obtained from the Holy Shroud Guild, and Mottern set this up in the machine and casually flipped the 
switches. The next moment he and Jackson gaped astonishedly at the result. On the television screen to 
which the image analyzer was linked was the Shroud figure, seen for the first time ever from the side, in 
perfect three-dimensional relief. Using a facility built into the machine, Mottern rotated the image to view the 
other side. The effect was the same. Details such as the hypothetical `pigtail' ... now showed up clearly with 
a depth that confirmed the feature as thick, tightly compressed hair gathered at the back of the neck in the 
fashion of the early Jews. A separate photograph of the face also showed up with the same high-relief 
effect. For Jackson it was an unforgettable experience, emotionally as much of a surprise as Pia's 1898 
discovery of the Shroud negative, and scientifically one of enormous satisfaction, being instant verification 
of all the careful work with the officer model. To one who is not a scientist the significance may not seem 
obvious until one understands the unusualness of such a perfect result. An ordinary photograph, being 
two-dimensional, simply does not contain sufficient information relating to distance and proportions to be 
immediately translatable into a meaningful three-dimensional image, however good the equipment used. 
Jumper and Jackson verified this for themselves using positive and negative photographs of Pope Plus XI. 
These showed up with immediate distortions, the nose flattened, the mouth contorted, the eves far too 
deeply set. As he subsequently observed: `Only when the degree of illumination received from an object 
depends in some way upon its distance (as for example in a stellar photograph) would three-dimensional 
analysis and reconstruction be possible. Otherwise no less than two photographs separated by a known 
distance are required to build a true relief image. [Jackson, J.P., Jumper, E.J. & Stevenson, K.E., eds., "The 
Three Dimension Image on Jesus' Burial Cloth," Albuquerque conference, March 23, 1977]" (Wilson, I., "The 
Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.198-199)

20/06/2007
"An analysis of pollen grains and plant images taken from the Shroud of Turin, believed by many Christians 
to be the burial shroud of Jesus, places the cloth's origin in or near Jerusalem before the eighth century, 
scientists said here today. The finding appeared to contradict radiocarbon dating tests that in 1988 led a 
group of experts to put the origin of the cloth at between A.D. 1260 and 1390 and to conclude that the 
shroud was most likely a medieval forgery. But revisionist scholars have raised many doubts since then. 
The rectangular linen shroud, which bears faint traces of a man's face, is one of the most venerated objects 
in the Roman Catholic Church, although the Vatican, after the 1988 tests, said it appeared to be inauthentic. 
Avinoam Danin, a botanist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said at a news conference at the 16th 
International Botanical Congress here that flowers and other plant parts apparently were placed on the 
shroud, leaving pollen grains and imprints. Analysis of the grains and the images, he said, identified them as 
coming from species that could be found only in the months of March and April in the Jerusalem region. 
The pollen of one plant, a thistle called Gundelia tournefortii, was especially abundant on the cloth, and 
an image of the plant was identified near the image of the man's shoulder. Some scientists say this may have 
been the species from which Jesus's crown of thorns was plaited." (Stevens, W.K., "New Date for Shroud of 
Turin," New York Times, August 3, 1999) 

20/06/2007
"The evening of the meeting with Mottern, Jackson could scarcely contain his excitement. He phoned 
Jumper, described the discovery, and then spoke of an additional observation from the three-dimensional 
pictures. There was something strange about the eyes, he said. Each had a curious unnatural bulge to it 
viewed in three-dimensional form-as if something had been laid on it. ... Jackson ... began searching his 
library, hunting out references to ancient Jewish burial practices. In an article in the 1898 Jewish Quarterly 
Review he found the information he was looking for. It was a custom, the article said, among Jews and 
certain other nationalities to lay coins or pieces of potsherd over the eyes when laying out a corpse for 
burial, the intention being to keep the deceased from seeing the way by which he was carried to his last 
home. A small coin laid over each eye, Jackson realized, would match the configuration of the `bulges' 
exactly. ... Jackson and Jumper were particularly eager that computer enhancement might reveal more 
information on the apparent coins over the eyes, such as an identifiable image or inscription. In this hope 
they remained disappointed. It was possible to make out shadows, slightly irregular in shape, in the area of 
the `bulges' that could be the outline of small coins. It was even possible to say that in size and uneven 
roundness they were consistent with the lepton, the `widow's mite' of the New Testament. That was all. Any 
further information on the coins intrinsic in the Shroud was certainly not available via the three-by-five-inch 
negatives that the scientists had to work with." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: 
London, 1978, pp.199-201)

20/06/2007
"Away to the southwest in Pasadena, California, two highly skilled image-enhancement specialists of the jet 
Propulsion Laboratory were working on photographs being received of the Viking Mission to Mars when 
Jackson called on them for their help. One was technician Jean Lorre, the other supervisor Donald Lynn. 
Although Catholic, Lynn knew virtually nothing about the Shroud until contacted by Tom Dolle of the 
Santa Fe Christian Brotherhood. It was through Dolle that Jackson's visit was arranged, and fortunately the 
Laboratory authorities gave their consent for the use of the image-enhancement equipment for Shroud 
research. In their spare time during Sundays in the summer of 1976, Lorre and Lynn worked on the negatives 
and slides of the Shroud provided for them by Jackson. The first step was to scan the material in order for it 
to be translated into numerical light values-an extension of the same micro-densitometer work undertaken 
earlier by Jackson and Jumper in Albuquerque. The information was fed into the image-processing 
laboratory's IBM computer, after which Lorre and Lynn were ready for application of their specialized 
techniques. A lot of the early work was concentrated on the image of the face, involving mathematical 
removal of the visibility of the cloth weave and the distracting crease lines. ... Using a process not unlike 
that of Mottern's VP-8 Analyzer, they produced a directional or gradient image of the Shroud, on which 
detail of a directional character was enhanced, thereby giving an effect of relief to the two-dimensional 
image. This had a particularly striking effect on the scourge marks on the dorsal image. Viewed from a forty-
five-degree angle in one direction, those seeming to have been delivered by a flagrum wielded from the left 
stood out most markedly. Viewed from the opposite angle, the same characteristic could be noted of the 
marks that appeared to have been delivered by a flagrum wielded from the right. The significance of this was 
that it was the only aspect of the Shroud image that showed any directionality-and one to be expected of 
strokes already suggested as going one way and then the other. For the rest of the Shroud image there was 
no directionality, and this argued powerfully for the image not having been made by an artist. In their work 
on the enhancement of the image of the face, Lorre and Lynn produced one scan which showed information 
they had mathematically taken out of the image, an apparently meaningless set of vertical and horizontal 
lines. To the scientists this was not meaningless. It was visual confirmation that whatever created the image 
was some nondirectional process, something virtually impossible for an artist to simulate." (Wilson, I., "The 
Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.200-201)

20/06/2007
"Unfortunately, Mueller, Nickell, and others who have jumped onto the McCrone bandwagon seem 
blissfully unaware that for purely technical reasons the painting theory, regardless of the methodology, is a 
dead issue. Amazingly enough they continue to flog away at the now rotting carcass of this long dead 
horse. Nickell, for example, touts a dusting/rubbing method which obviously would leave a heavy 
distribution of chemicals between the fibers of the cloth and on its reverse side. Body paintings and 
rubbings invariably contain pigment layers and distortion in three-dimensional projection, all of which are 
absent on the Shroud. In addition, STURP member John Jackson, using the Nickell technique, found severe 
difficulties in its lack of distance information. Although not strictly an action-at-a-distance hypothesis, 
another bas-relief based mechanism has been proposed by Nickell and involves contouring cloth to the bas-
relief and `dusting' the deformed cloth surface so as to produce an image.... We conformed, as Nickell 
indicates, wet linen to the bas-relief so as to make all image features (eyes, lips, etc.) impressed into the 
cloth. We then `dabbed' the cloth with fine tempera powder ... the shaded image seemed to contain more 
curvature than distance information of the face, in addition, we noted large quantities of powder falling 
through the cloth weave structure and accumulating on the reverse side. Accordingly we conclude that this 
mechanism is unacceptable.' Keep in mind that this method was investigated despite the fact that it failed 
to match the known chemical characteristics of the Shroud. Nor was the technique known in medieval 
times: `Clearly, to be testable and viable, the hypothesis must derive from or at least not conflict with the 
known elements of 14th-century art. This it manifestly fails to do.... there is no rubbing from the entire 
medieval period that is even remotely comparable to the Shroud, nor is there any negative painting. Nickell's 
wet-mold-dry-daub technique was not known in medieval times according to art historian Husband and 
even that technique fails to reproduce the contour precision and three-dimensional effect, the lack of 
saturation points, and the resolution of the Shroud image. [Meacham, W., "The Authentication of the Turin 
Shroud: An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology," Current Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 3, June 1983, pp. 
283-311, p.308]" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: 
Nashville TN, 1990, pp.30-31. Emphasis original)

20/06/2007
"Where do we stand now? Scientifically speaking, the Shroud is not a painting of any type. It rather seems 
clearly to be a genuine burial garment, stained with real blood and containing an image of the male body it 
once contained. Chemically, that image is composed of dehydrated-oxidized cellulose of the linen itself. The 
recent carbon-14 dating has raised more than a few concerns. Touted far and wide as proof that the Shroud 
is a hoax, this late addition to the Shroud data bank is not at all what it is cracked up to be. In short the C-14 
data flies in the face of all the other data and yet is expected to stand by virtue of its name alone-in spite 
of the fact that most scientists will readily admit that C-14 is not infallible. As we shall see in the next 
chapter, the dating as it has been presented to the public (with limited and secondhand facts at best) is 
severely flawed and in fact proves nothing. On the other hand, multiple fields of research indicate scientific 
evidence, including pollen, coins, mites, and textile data, to support the Shroud's longevity and its Middle 
Eastern origin. Photographic research confirms that it was known and copied long before its appearance in 
medieval France, and possible pigment contaminants may also confirm that." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, 
G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.44. Emphasis 
original)

20/06/2007
"Dr. Danin noted that the 1988 analysis was performed on a small corner of the cloth, while the new one 
involves the whole shroud and compares with a cloth known to exist before the eighth century. The sample 
may have been contaminated, said Alan D. Whanger, of the Duke University Medical Center. The sample 
came from a water stained, scorched edge of the shroud, he said, and carbon could have been added to the 
cloth, obscuring the true date of its origin. Also, living fungi and bacteria have been found growing inside 
the fibers, he said, possibly contaminating the sample." (Stevens, W.K., "New Date for Shroud of Turin," 
New York Times, August 3, 1999)

20/06/2007
"Two pollen grains of this species [Gundelia tournefortii] were also found on another ancient fabric, 
called the Sudarium of Oviedo, which many believe to be the burial face cloth of Jesus. A first century origin 
for the face cloth has been documented, the scientists here said, and it has been in the Cathedral of Oviedo 
in Spain since the eighth century. The shroud has been kept in Turin, Italy, since 1578. Both the Sudarium 
and the shroud appear to carry type AB blood stains, and the stains are in a similar pattern, Dr. Danin said. 
`There is no way that similar patterns of blood stains, probably of the identical blood type, with the same 
type of pollen grains, could not be sychronic, covering the same body,' he said. `The pollen association 
and the similarities in the blood stains in the two cloths provide clear evidence that the shroud originated 
before the eighth century.' He did not offer a more specific date." (Stevens, W.K., "New Date for Shroud of 
Turin," New York Times, August 3, 1999)

23/06/2007
"McCrone also seems to have been distinctly underwhelmed by the fact that Italian forensic medicine 
Professor Pierluigi Baima-Bollone, after analysing full threads that he extracted from the Shroud's `small of 
the back' bloodstains during the STURP examination of 1978, claimed to have positively identified these as 
human blood of the group AB. [Baima-Bollone, P., Jorio, M. & Massaro, A.L., "Identification of the Group of 
the Traces of Human Blood on the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 6, March 1983, pp.36] 
Similarly ignored went the highly respected French geneticist Professor Jerome Lejeune's confident 
identification of human haemoglobin on a Shroud `blood' sample that he had obtained. ... While all might 
seem a total impasse there is, in fact, thanks to the recent advances of science, one further approach to the 
problem that ought to help act as some kind of arbiter. This is based on the fact that if the Shroud's 
`bloodstains' truly are composed of just iron oxide and vermilion, as McCrone claims, then they could not 
possibly provide meaningful results for the presence of DNA, the code of life. Conversely, if they are truly 
`blood', as claimed by Alder and his colleagues, then at least some vestiges of DNA should be present and 
lend themselves to meaningful interpretation. In the event, vestiges of DNA do seem to be present. The first 
indication of this came from Italy, based upon two 1.5-cm-long threads that Italian scientists had taken from 
the bloodstained foot region of the Shroud when they worked alongside the STURP team in 1978. When in 
1995 these threads were examined specifically for DNA at Genoa's Institute of Legal Medicine, the Institute's 
Professor, Marcello Canale, duly reported: `We have extracted the DNA present on these tiny threads and 
have amplified this with a chain reaction that allows us, via a particular enzyme, to keep on replicating the 
DNA an infinite number of times. It is a method that can be used even in the case of a single cell ... The DNA 
chain is very long, and we are able to identify very small sectors representing individual characteristics 
which can ultimately enable us to identify the individual from whom they derive.' [Regulo, L., Chi, August 
1995]" (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," 
Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.88-89. Emphasis original)

20/06/2007
"There are at least three signs on the Shroud that Jesus was dead when He was buried. First, the body of 
the man in the Shroud is in a state of rigor mortis, in which the muscles stiffen, keeping the body in the 
position the person occupied just prior to death. Such a state is complete in about twelve hours after death, 
begins to wear off in twenty-four hours, and disappears in thirty-six to forty hours. Of course, these times 
are variable and imprecise, and therefore somewhat unreliable. Closely related to rigor mortis is a state called 
cadaveric spasm, an immediate stiffening, a rather sudden contraction of the muscles that occurs quickly 
after some violent deaths. Rigor mortis is observable on the Shroud in several places. The head was bent 
forward, the feet were somewhat drawn up, and the left leg in particular had moved back toward its position 
on the cross. Especially visible in the three-dimensional image analysis of the Shroud are the retracted 
thumbs and the "frozen" posture of the chest and abdomen. As was also noted by Bucklin, the entire body 
was quite rigid and stiff, occupying some of the positions it did on the cross. The second evidence of death 
in the man of the Shroud is the post-mortem blood flow, especially from the chest wound. If the heart had 
been beating after burial, the blood literally would have been shot out onto the cloth. But the blood oozed 
out instead. Also, a comparatively small quantity of blood flowed, and there was no swelling around the 
wound. Finally, the blood from the chest, left wrist, and feet separated into clots and serum and was much 
thicker and of much deeper color than it would have been prior to death. Zugibe also mentioned a third piece 
of evidence based on his medical experience. If Jesus had been alive after the spear wound, the soldiers and 
others at the site would have heard a loud sucking sound caused by breath being inhaled past the chest 
wound. Zugibe related that when answering a distress call after a man had been stabbed in the chest, he 
heard the loud inhaling of the unconscious man all the way across the room. He saw this phenomenon as "a 
direct refutation of the theory that Christ was alive after being taken down from the cross." [Zugibe, F.T., 
"The Cross and the Shroud," Angelus Books: New York NY, 1982, p.165]" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, 
G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.113. Emphasis 
original) 

21/06/2007
"[John 20:]5. And seeth the linen cloths lying. The linen cloths were, so to say, the slough, which 
should produce faith in Christ's resurrection. For it was improbable that His body would be stripped to 
be taken elsewhere. This would have been done neither by a friend nor by a foe. That His head was 
wrapped in a napkin refutes the falsehood of the Papists, who pretend that the whole body was sewn 
up in one linen cloth, which they show to the unhappy masses to adore. I overlook their ignorance of 
Latin, which led them to make the word `napkin' (which was used to wipe sweat off the face) into a 
covering for the whole body. I overlook also their impudence in boasting-in five or six different 
localities-that they have this same napkin. But this gross falsehood is intolerable, for it openly 
contradicts the Gospel history. To this is added the fabulous miracle which they have invented, that 
the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen. I ask you, if such a miracle had been performed, 
would the Evangelist have suppressed it, when he is so careful to relate less important things? Let us 
be content with this simplicity, that by laying aside the tokens of death, Christ meant to testify that He 
had put on a blessed and immortal life." (Calvin, J., "The Gospel According to St. John," Part Two, 
[1553], Parker T.H.L., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1959, Reprinted, 1979, pp.193-194. Emphasis 
original)

22/06/2007
"We have only to look at the wound-marks to be able to say that they are not the work of a forger. Let us 
suppose, for instance, that some man in the Middle Ages, an inhabitant, we will say, of Byzantium, or even 
the self-avowed forger himself, whose confession was published by the Bishop of Troyes, has before him a 
large piece of linen cloth, on which are already two impressions of a human body. He does not know how 
the impressions were made, but he sets himself to paint in the wound-marks ; he may even use blood instead 
of paint ; the impressions may now pass for those of Jesus Christ, no matter whose they were originally. Is 
not this a perfectly natural hypothesis ? No, because where could he have procured the linen cloth bearing 
such impressions? But, granted that he had procured it, we say that he would not have known how to 
paint in the wound-marks, and that if he had known he would not have wished to represent them as they 
are in fact represented. In the first place, the wounds are too real, too natural in all their details to be 
fraudulent." (Vignon, P., "The Shroud of Christ," [1902], University Books: New York NY, Reprinted, 1970, 
p.28. Emphasis original)

22/06/2007
"Let us turn now to another wound, the reproduction of which would have required even greater ingenuity 
and skill. We allude to the large drop of blood visible on the forehead above the left eyebrow. This drop 
springs from a definite point, indicated by its darker colour ... This dark point corresponds to one of the 
wounds made by the crown of thorns. The blood which has flowed therefrom has met in its course the two 
wrinkles of the forehead, and has, by this slight opposition, been forced to spread itself out, forming two 
small horizontal pools ; thence it continued to flow, until it ended in a tear of blood close to the eyebrow, 
and having thus flowed, it dried upon the skin. Now any drop of blood, drying thus, upon a substance into 
which it does not penetrate, takes, when coagulated, a sort of basin-like shape, a section of which we give 
here (Fig. 2). The border or brim of the basin is formed by the fibrine of the blood, containing the red 
corpuscles in its coagulum ; the centre is composed of the serum, which in drying takes a dull brown tint. 
Here, as the liquid part of the serum evaporates, the convexity of the centre is depressed. The contour of the 
drop of blood preserves, however, the same shape as it had when it was fresh. Now this description applies 
exactly to the blood-drop on the forehead. In the parts where the blood has flowed, and where it has 
accumulated in sufficient quantity, it is bordered by a dark edge. The centre of the little stream, and the 
centre also of the terminal tear, are of a lighter tint. This drop of blood is reproduced not only with the 
greatest minuteness and delicacy, but with entire faithfulness to scientific detail. No painter, in his most 
elaborate work, has ever risen to such exactitude, as a glance at any of the numerous representations of 
Christ, Crowned with Thorns, will show us." (Vignon, P., "The Shroud of Christ," [1902], University Books: 
New York NY, Reprinted, 1970, pp.29-30. Emphasis original) 

22/06/2007
"The important thing in all this is the sagging of the body, which drops by 10 inches; it is clear that this 
sagging can only take place if it is not held up by any sedile or bound by any ropes. The sagging has 
taken place; there must, then, have been no ropes or sedile; the body was supported only by the nails in 
the hands, while the nail in the foot, in the sagging position, would be supporting nothing whatever. We, 
therefore, need to find a place in the hand where the nails would be able to hold firmly and to uphold this 
weight of nearly 209 pounds per nail. An executioner who knew his trade would know that the palm of a 
hand which was fixed by a nail would become torn away. We must, then, find out where the nail really went. 
Certainly, according to the shroud, it was not into the metacarpus. It is worth noting as we go along that a 
forger would certainly have placed it there. In this case, as in that of so many strange images which 
contradict the ways of iconography, he would have had to conform to the normal customs, since this false 
shroud was destined for the contemplation of the faithful. It would seem that this forger appears to be more 
and more clumsy." (Barbet, P., "A Doctor at Calvary," [1953], Image Books: Garden City NY, 
Reprinted, 1963, pp.114-115)

22/06/2007
"I repeated the same experiment with several men's hands .... Each time I observed exactly the same thing. 
Once it had passed through the soft parts, and the nail had entered fully into the wrist, I could feel it, in spite 
of my left hand which was holding it firmly, moving a little obliquely, so that the base was leaning towards 
the fingers, the point towards the elbow; it then emerged through the skin of the back of the wrist at about a 
centimetre above the point of entry, which I observed after removing the nail from the plank. Radiographs 
were taken at once. I had thought, a priori, that the nail would dig deep into the wrist, and would probably 
pass through the semilunar bone, crushing it on its way. The movements of the nail while it was sinking had, 
however, made me suspect that it had found a more anatomical path. In fact, in the radiograph taken in 
profile, the nail, which is a little bit oblique, in a backwards and upwards direction, passes between the 
projections of the semi-lunar and of the capitate, which remain intact. ... The radiograph taken from the front 
is even more interesting: the shadow of the square nail appears to be rectangular, on account of its 
obliquity. The nail has entered into Destot's space; it has moved aside the four bones which surround it, 
without breaking one of them, merely widening the space. ... The dissection of the hand confirmed my 
radiographic results. The point of entry, being a little outside and medial to Destot's space, the point of the 
nail reached the head of the great bone, slid along its mesial slope, went down into the space and crossed it. 
The four bones were pushed aside, but were intact and by reason of thus being pushed were closely 
pressed against the nail. Elsewhere the latter was resting on the upper end of the transverse carpal ligament. 
Should one not, as St. John did when telling how Jesus was spared the breaking of the legs, remember the 
words of the prophet: 'Os non comminuetis ex eo-You shall not break a bone of him'? [Jn 19:36; Ex 12:46; 
Num 9:12; Ps 34:20] The point of emergence is thus a little above and a little within the point of entry. If I had 
driven in the nail a little on the inner side of the bending fold I should have fallen straight into Destot's 
space, which is a little on the inner side of the axis of the wrist in the axis of the third intermetacarpal space. 
The obliquity of the nail pointing backwards and upwards is solely caused by the arrangement of the bony 
surfaces around Destot's space, for this happened every time during my experiments and in spite of my 
resistance. I have, in fact, repeated this experiment a dozen times since then on the hand of an arm which 
had just been amputated, moving the point of entry all round the middle of the bending fold. In each case 
the point took up its own direction and seemed to be slipping along the walls of a funnel and then to find its 
way spontaneously into the space which was awaiting it. ... Is it possible that trained executioners would 
not have known by experience of this ideal spot for crucifying the hands, combining every advantage and 
so easy to find? The answer is obvious. And this spot is precisely where the shroud shows us the mark of 
the nail, a spot of which no forger would have had any idea or the boldness to represent it. ... the nails in the 
hands were driven into a natural space, generally known as Destot's space, which is situated between the 
two rows of the bones of the wrist. Now, anatomists of every age and land regard the wrist as an integral 
part of the hand, which consists of the wrist, the metacarpus, and the fingers." (Barbet, P., "A Doctor at 
Calvary," [1953], Image Books: Garden City NY, Reprinted, 1963, pp.116-119. Emphasis original)

22/06/2007
"But these experiments had yet another surprise in store for me. I have stressed the point that I was 
operating on hands which still had life in them immediately after the amputation of the arm. Now, I observed 
on the first occasion, and regularly from then onwards, that at the moment when the nail went through the 
soft anterior parts, the palm being upwards, the thumb would bend sharply and would be exactly facing the 
palm by the contraction of the thenar muscles, while the four fingers bent very slightly; this was probably 
caused by the reflex mechanical stimulation of the long flexor tendons. Now, dissections have revealed to 
me that the trunk of the median nerve is always seriously injured by the nail; it is divided into sections, 
being broken sometimes halfway and sometimes two-thirds of the way across, according to the case. And 
the motor nerves of the oponens muscles and of the short flexor muscle of the thumb branches at this level 
off the median nerve. The contraction of these thenar muscles, which were still living like their motor nerve, 
could be easily explained by the mechanical stimulation of the median nerve. Christ must then have 
agonised and died and have become fixed in the cadaverous rigidity, with the thumbs bent inwards into His 
palms. And that is why, on the shroud, the two hands when seen from behind only show four fingers, and 
why the two thumbs are hidden in the palms. Could a forger have imagined this? Would he have dared to 
portray it? Indeed, so true is this that many ancient copyists of the shroud have added the thumbs; in the 
same way they have separated the feet and shown their forward faces with two nail holes; but none of this 
is to be seen on the shroud. (Barbet, P., "A Doctor at Calvary," [1953], Image Books: Garden City NY, 
Reprinted, 1963, pp.118-119. Emphasis original) 

22/06/2007
"Research in the 1930s revealed the full significance of wrist-nailing. The experiments were carried out by Dr. 
Pierre Barbet, then chief surgeon at St. Joseph's Hospital, Paris, one of the city's largest teaching hospitals. 
He had at his disposal excellent facilities for experimental work, both on corpses and amputated limbs. 
Barbet, aware of the complexity of the bones in the wrist, was concerned to establish the exact point, 
according to the Shroud, that the nail had penetrated. He felt that there was a likelihood that small wrist 
bones would have been broken in the process, and that was contrary to the Old Testament prophecy 
regarding the Messiah, that not a bone of his should be broken (Ps. 34:20 and Ex. 12:46; cf. Jn. 19:36). Taking 
a freshly amputated arm, he held a nail at the point the Shroud seemed to indicate, the chief bending fold of 
the wrist, at the very junction of the hand and forearm. He gave the nail a firm blow. To his surprise it 
diverted slightly upward and, with renewed blows, passed cleanly through the wrist. It had found and 
enlarged a passageway that was already known by anatomists as `the space of Destot' but was thought too 
small for a nail to penetrate. It was clear to Barbet that the spot had been known and sought for by one of 
the obviously experienced men who had carried out the crucifixion. What astounded him was a quite 
unexpected inward contraction of the thumb, which happened spontaneously at the very moment of driving 
the nail through the wrist. Careful probing with the scalpel revealed the reason. The median nerve, one of 
the great nerves of the body, had been touched by the nail, and this mechanical stimulus had `worked' the 
muscles, making the thumb snap, as by remote control, into the palm. [Barbet, P., "A Doctor at Calvary," 
New York, 1953] He referred to the Shroud. No thumbs were visible to either hand. In life, the piercing by the 
nail had made this happen to the man of the Shroud. In his own words: `Could a forger have imagined this?' 
Although this experiment was carried out forty years ago, it has been recognized by medical men even today 
as a brilliant piece of research, and one of the many which carry absolute conviction for the Shroud's 
authenticity." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.26-27) 

23/06/2007
"Not only are all the above tests consistent with the presence of blood, but venous blood flows can even be 
distinguished from arterial blood flows in some of the bloodstains on the man's forehead. In general, venous 
blood appears denser and darker red, and it flows more slowly than arterial blood. In large wounds or 
wounds that puncture a vessel and produce a large blood flow, venous blood slowly thickens as it 
descends because it takes a few minutes for the coagulation process to begin and a clot to form. The large 
epsilon-shaped clot in the middle of the man's forehead is a good example of a large venous blood flow. .... 
In contrast to blood from a vein, arterial blood spurts from a wound, driven by the pumping action of the 
heart. ... Dr. Rodante, who has made one of the most extensive studies of the forehead wounds to date, has 
identified the origins of many of the head wounds based on the size or coagulation pattern of blood flows 
on the skin. (The arterial or venous origins of blood flows matted in the hair, and not free-flowing on skin, 
are impossible to determine.) As examples, the epsilon-shaped forehead clot lies exactly over the frontal 
vein, while the arterial wound numbered AI in figure 21 precisely corresponds with the frontal branch of the 
superficial temple artery. [Rodante, S., "The Coronation of Thorns in the Light of the Shroud," Shroud 
Spectrum International, Issue 1, December 1981, pp.5-24] According to Rodante, "The perfect 
correspondency of the forehead dots imprinted on the [Shroud], overlaying as they do the vein and the 
artery in mirror image, gives us the certainty that the linen covered the corpse of a man, who, while living, 
suffered the lesion of these blood vessels:' [Ibid, p.8] ... These examples of distinctly venous and arterial 
wounds indicate that the injuries evident on the man's image could have occurred only on an actual human 
body. Regardless of technique, no artist, especially one working in the Middle Ages, has ever represented 
the distinction between venous and arterial blood so accurately. .... In fact, the difference between arterial 
and venous blood was not even discovered until 1593 [actually 1628 - SJ], more than 230 [265 - SJ] years 
after some allege that the Shroud image was painted. The epsilon-shaped clot on the man's forehead 
contains another realistic detail. As the blood flow descended, it broadened and changed course twice. 
Physicians believe this was because forehead muscles spontaneously contract when they are injured. The 
forehead, temple, and scalp contain a web of nerves that is highly sensitive to pain. [Ibid] Thus, contracting 
forehead muscles would be a natural reaction to the intense pain caused by having more than thirty head 
wounds." (Antonacci, M., "The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological 
Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, pp.25-26)

23/06/2007
"The first clear traces of spilled blood are again from a group of wounds that we have no trouble in 
identifying. In David Willis's precise medical terminology: `... Turning to the front, there are similar 
puncture wounds with their counter-drawings of bloodflows but not so numerous as on the back. 
There are four or five that start from the top of the forehead moving down towards the eyes and the 
remainder are tangled in the masses of hair framing the face. The most striking of these flows is one in 
the shape of a reversed three and repays detailed study, so true to life is it. It starts just below the 
hairline to the left of the midline from a single wound; the flow then moves down to the medial part of 
the arch above the left eye following a meandering course obliquely and outwards. As the stream 
descends it broadens and alters course twice, finally building up and spreading out horizontally to the 
mesial line. Immediately below but separate is a `tear' of blood close to the eyebrow, which is 
presumably part of the same flow, or possibly from an independent wound. The reason for the 
meandering course of this vivid mark indicates that it met some obstruction in its downward course, 
and most likely this was due to the reflex contraction of the muscles of the brow from the pain of the 
wounds, furrowing the surface.' [Willis, D., unpublished notes, c.1976] As Dr. Willis found, it is quite 
impossible to talk sensibly about wounds such as these except in the context of a crown, or as it 
seems most likely to have been, a cap of thorns as described in the mockery of Christ as King of the 
Jews. Equally, as one reads such a description from a qualified physician, one cannot fail to be caught 
up by his own conviction of the sheer physiological logic of these wounds. Willis was not alone in this 
regard. Vignon too was fascinated by the thorn wounds, particularly the one shaped like a numeral 
three, which he too found entirely faithful to scientific and physiological detail. As he remarked, `No 
painter, in his most elaborate work, has ever risen to such exactitude.' [Vignon, P., "The Shroud of 
Christ," London, 1902, p.30]." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, 
pp.23-24. Emphasis original)

23/06/2007
"Rather less easily dismissable, however, are a set of visible `bloodflows' that may be included in this same 
category of injuries. Quite unmistakable on the Shroud's frontal image are several `blood' trickles visible at 
the level of the forehead, together with others extending down the hair .... Most pronounced of these, as 
visible on the negative, is a full-bodied rivulet that begins at the apex of the forehead, trickles downwards in 
a `3' shape (as if it has met a couple of diversions along the way), then terminates in a final glob just above 
the left eyebrow. As has been pointed out by several physicians, including Britain's Dr David Willis and 
Italy's Dr Sebastiano Rodante, not only is the way that this rivulet has flowed absolutely characteristic of 
venous blood, but the 3 shape is consistent with where the muscles of the brow would have contracted and 
formed ridges under intense pain ... [Rodante, S., "The Coronation of Thorns in the Light of the Shroud," 
Shroud Spectrum, Issue 1, 1981, pp.4-24] There are also four or five other trickles above the eyes, one of these 
seeming to derive from a puncturing of the artery to the right temple (hence apparent arterial blood in this 
instance), while others seem to run down the hair. If we had any doubts how to interpret these, reference to 
the back-of the-head area on the dorsal image quickly provides the answer, for here can be made out at least 
eight more streams of apparent blood, not counting those which have divided on themselves. Some veer to 
the left, others to the right, as if from a head that has tilted from one side to the other. All the flows cease 
along a line convex to the back of the head. The only reasonable interpretation is that these flows came from 
injuries that were caused by something spiked that was worn on the head, their path checked by the band 
which kept this in place. And in looking for what that 'something' could have been it is virtually impossible 
not to envisage an object very like a crown of thorns." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New 
Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.33-34)

24/06/2007
"As Dr Adler continues to argue, [Adler, A.D., "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and 
Physical Characteristics', International Scientific Symposium "The Turin Shroud, past, present and future," 
Villa Gualino, Turin, 2-5 March 2000] in the wake of Heller's death and having been granted a relatively 
recent direct viewing of the cloth to facilitate conservation recommendations, `the body' image areas are 
superficial in the extreme, lying only on the very top of the Shroud threads. They do not penetrate the cloth, 
nor do they exhibit any capillarity or absorptive properties. They are more brittle than their non-image 
counterparts, as if whatever formed them corroded them. They are uniform in coloration, they are not 
cemented together, neither are they `diffused' as they would be if they derived from some dye or stain. They 
do not `fluoresce' or reflect back any light. Most emphatically, they are not made by pigment contact." 
(Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 
2000, p.74)

24/06/2007
"As further noted by former Kodak technician Kevin Moran of Belmont, North Carolina, who has recently 
been able to make direct studies of body image on the sticky tapes taken by Dr Max Frei: `Since the linen 
fibres are some 10 to 30 microns in diameter and appear as smooth fibre optics, the section where the 
darkened [i.e. image] fibre meets the clear [i.e. nonimage] fibre looks like a precision line formed on a modern 
semiconductor.' [Moran, K.E., "Microscopic Observations on the Max Frei 1978 Samples," Private 
communication, 25 June 1995] This is something completely outside any conceivable technology, medieval 
or modern." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara 
Books: London, 2000, p.74)

24/06/2007
"As for the `blood' stains, according to Heller's and Adler's studies these derived from genuine clotted 
wounds, and they pass eleven different diagnostic tests, enabling them to be pronounced to be true blood 
in any court of law. Blood constituents such as proteins, albumen, haem products, and the bile pigment 
bilirubin (on which Adler is an acknowledged expert) can all be determined to be present. One remarkable 
feature noted by Adler is that where blood occurs in the same region as body image, the cloth fibres lack 
body image characteristics below the bloodstain, suggesting that the blood was on the cloth before the 
body image-making process began. [Adler, A.D., "Chemical and Physical Characteristics of the Blood 
Stains," International Scientific Symposium "The Turin Shroud, past, present and future," Villa Gualino, 
Turin, 2-5 March 2000] That is hardly the way any artist might be expected to work." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, 
B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.75)

24/06/2007
"Characteristically, throughout the last two decades McCrone has firmly stuck to his original verdict, even 
to the extent of self-publishing a book on his findings. [McCrone, W.C., "Judgement Day for the Turin 
Shroud," McCrone Research Institute: Chicago, 1996] Yet, despite this, not even those otherwise most 
convinced of the Shroud's fraudulence have come forward in his support. For instance, although he 
accurately predicted, years in advance, the date that the radiocarbon dating would find for the Shroud, the 
radiocarbon-dating scientists declined to beat a congratulatory path to his door. He has also seen his 
greatest glory, his highly publicized debunking of the Vinland Map, overwhelmingly overturned by higher-
tech methods than his own [Cahill, T.A., et al., "The Vinland Map Revisited: New Compositional Evidence 
on its Inks and Parchment," Analytical Chemistry, 59, 15 March 1987, pp.829-33] - resulting in the Map's 
owners, Yale University, formally reinstating it as genuine after all. 10 Not least, when the professional artist 
Isabel Piczek tried applying to clean, untreated linen small squares of canvas that she had recently painted 
using typical Renaissance-period pigments, she found that sub-micron-sized iron-oxide particles easily 
became transferred and were just like those that McCrone claimed to be the Shroud's image. [Piczek, I., "Is 
the Shroud a Painting?," Actes du Symposium Scientifique International, Rome, 1993, Upinsky, A.A., ed., 
Francois-Xavier Guibert: Paris, 1995 p.266] All in all, McCrone's interpretations now have little going for 
them. (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: 
London, 2000, pp.75-76. Emphasis original)

26/06/2007
"Concerning the shroud of Turin, it appears that everyone is expecting the recent carbon dating tests to 
come up with the real age of the shroud, give or take a few years. However, one important aspect about the 
shroud may invalidate the carbon dating tests. If we start from the proposition that the shroud is genuine, 
then we must ask the question: how did the image get on the shroud? A burst of energy resulting from the 
resurrection has been suggested in the past. If this was so, then it is perfectly feasible that this release of 
energy resulted in the activation of stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen, and produced more of the 
radioactive carbon-14 than was already present naturally in the shroud. Carbon dating works by measuring 
the amount of carbon-14 present in an object; but there is a fundamental assumption that the carbon-14 got 
there by natural processes, so when researchers look at the shroud today, if there was any extra carbon-14 
present due to a resurrection energy release, this would give the appearance that the shroud was younger 
than it really is. Specifically, if the recent press leak is to be believed, the results of the carbon dating tests 
appear to date the shroud at about AD 1350. However, if energy released in the resurrection process 
activated an extra 18 per cent of carbon-14 compared to that present naturally in the cloth, the shroud 
although being 2000 years old would appear to be only 650 years old. And it is certainly possible to produce 
that extra amount of carbon-14 via a short burst of high energy. Let me clarify that I am not trying to prove 
that the shroud is genuine-all I am attempting to point out is that the carbon dating tests could in this case 
give a totally misleading result due to the very nature of the shroud. " (Kelly, B., "Turin shroud," New 
Scientist, Vol. 119, 22 September 1988, Australian edition, p.94). 

28/06/2007
"Such is the importance and interest value of this claim that I decided to check its credibility independently 
with American-born specialist in ancient DNA, Dr Thomas Loy, who happens to be conveniently near to me 
at Queensland University's Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology and is sufficiently famous in his field 
that he is mentioned in its connection in the book Jurassic Park. He confirmed to me that he finds 
absolutely no cause to doubt the Tryons' findings. Thus, as I learned, the DNA in blood and tissue from 
archaeological finds even several thousands of years old is now quite routinely being analysed and 
evaluated. One current study is examining what can be gauged of the inbreeding indulged in by the 
Egyptian pharaohs. Unlike in the case of McCrone-type microscopic analysis, in which so much depends 
upon the microscopist's eye, DNA analysis is instrument based and a far more exact science. The 
amelogenin X and Y genes, as found by the Tryons, are absent from bacteria and fungi, and genuinely 
suggestive of a human source. Loy was also supportive of the credibility of Alan Adler's explanation for the 
`too red' blood. He himself had come across 300,000- year-old blood of a similarly vivid colour, it always 
being the circumstances of the deceased's death, rather than anything to do with the sample's age, that is 
responsible for this. As Loy stressed, the one major factor that everyone has to be on guard for when 
dealing with DNA, both ancient and modern, is that of contamination. However, when I put this point 
directly to Nancy Tryon she assured me that because the Center's work often has to be presented in courts 
of law, they have the most stringent controls to guard against it. Only if someone secondary to the original 
individual whose blood appears on the Shroud had happened to bleed again onto the very same spot could 
serious contamination have been introduced - and (nuns pricking their fingers while carrying out repairs 
excepted), that scenario has to be considered reasonably unlikely." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: 
New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.91-92) 

29/06/2007
"The Turin Shroud is a linen cloth over 4 m in length, bearing the shadowy image of the front and back of a 
man who appears to have been scourged and crucified; it is therefore believed to have been Christ's burial 
shroud. The history of this cloth is known with certainty back to about AD 1350, when it was in the 
possession of the de Charny family in France. Even then it appears to have caused something of a religious 
furore, being declared by some to be a fake and by others to be the true Shroud. In 1898, photography of the 
Shroud revealed that when seen in negative the image is strikingly life-like. This discovery and subsequent 
medical findings fuelled wide debate that the cloth could conceivably be genuine. In 1987, the British 
Museum was asked to participate in the certification of sampling for radiocarbon dating and in the statistical 
analysis of the results. Samples measuring only a few square centimetres were given to each of three 
accelerator laboratories: Oxford, Zurich and Tucson. The calibrated radiocarbon result, published in the 
journal Nature in 1989, was 1260 - 1390 AD, demonstrating that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval. 
The result corresponds well with its first appearance in France. However, it remains to be established how 
this striking image came into being." (Bowman, S., "Radiocarbon Dating," Interpreting the Past, British 
Museum Publications: London, 1990, p.36)

30/06/2007
"[Cardinal] Ballestrero gave the laboratory representatives a letter to enable the containers to pass though 
customs without any difficulty. Teddy Hall placed his in his briefcase, and with Hedges was the only one of 
the scientists to meet television cameras when returning home. They didn't say much to BBC except when 
pressed about when the world would know the answer. Hall responded: `We've waited five years for this.' In 
another interview Hall repeated his earlier remark that `I'd be hopping mad if I wasn't chosen', but added: 
`Having only three labs doesn't undermine the validity of the dating. I think it was absolutely the right 
decision. You only need one lab to get it badly wrong to confuse everything, and the chances of that are 
higher with seven than with three. [Schoon, N., "Analysing the Strands of Time," The Independent, 25 
April 1988] That was hardly the way the unchosen saw the matter, and privately they were saying the three 
were going to make certain they agreed - no matter how long it took." (Sox, H.D., "The Shroud Unmasked: 
Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," The Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, 1988, p.134)

30/06/2007
"The samples were photographed by normal and microphotography. By this time Wolfli and several others 
had a good look at the three. Anyone who knew the texture of the Shroud was aware which was from the 
relic. Wolfli joked: `All you would need is to look at the pictures in the National Geographic. It didn't take 
me long to know - Z1. Z1 and Z3 were both twill weave. Z2 was a tabby weave like mummy cloth. Unlike Z1, 
Z3 had irregular edges. Z1 was carefully trimmed piece as if to make absolutely certain it was an exact third. I 
could imagine the `code' for the three Shroud samples of the three labs as: A3 (Arizona); O2 (Oxford) and Z1 
(Zurich). Wolfli decided to halve each of his samples. This was in case he needed to do further testing. He 
said the condition he gave for being involved in the first place was having enough sample material with 
which to work. If anything went wrong - as it had in the inter-lab comparison of 1982 - Wolfli wanted another 
try." (Sox, H.D., "The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," The Lamp Press: 
Basingstoke UK, 1988, pp.137-138) 

30/06/2007
"Wolfli felt that he had more important work to do than dating the Shroud, but he recognised its importance 
to the public. He hoped he would not be damned by Shroud enthusiasts if the date is medieval. As a fairly 
agnostic Protestant, he has no feeling one way or the other. But because it was a `one-off' affair, Wolfli 
decided to cut Z1-1, Z2-l, and Z3-1 into three samples each. He was taking no chances." (Sox, H.D., "The 
Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," The Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, 1988, 
pp.139-140)

30/06/2007
"Beyond all this, of course, the relic soars into the realm of religion, where, if it is authentic, its value 
becomes immeasurable. Those who believe in it have already named it `The Fifth Gospel,' a term that has 
brought loud cries of protest from the opposition. And yet, if it is authentic, a `fifth' Gospel is just what it 
is, since it yields more graphic details about Christ's Passion and death than the New Testament and its 
commentaries combined." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, p.xi)

30/06/2007
"The facts recorded here have always been available in newspapers, books, documents and human memory, 
but they have been difficult to gather. I have sought them, off and on, for four years, finally visiting Europe 
in the search. But I have not set them down here in any effort to convince. Indeed, the reader must come to 
his own conclusion. Only this much is certain: The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and 
instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence-showing us in its dark simplicity how He appeared to men-or it is 
one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record. It is 
one or the other; there is no middle ground." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 
1963, pp.xi-xii. Emphasis original)

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