On 9 Apr 2007 06:35:22 -0700, "mathematician" <haporopu@luukku.com>
wrote:

Hi,

I found one interesting article and abstract of which I copy below,
please take a look for your comments !!!

Best Regrads,

Hannu Poropudas

------------------------------------------------------------COPY
BELOW--------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich
determined the age of a sample from
the Shroud of Turin.

They reported that the date of the cloth's production lay between A.D.
1260 and 1390 with 95%
confidence.
..............

so it is >600 years old, isn't that old enough for a museum piece?
did anyone really expect more?


w.
--
soc.culture.austria answering service
proposals and complaints to:
salzamt@nacl.at

On 9 Apr 2007 06:35:22 -0700, "mathematician" <hapor...@luukku.com>
wrote:

Hi,

I found one interesting article and abstract of which I copy below,
please take a look for your comments !!!

Best Regrads,

Hannu Poropudas

------------------------------------------------------------COPY
BELOW--------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich
determined the age of a sample from
the Shroud of Turin.

They reported that the date of the cloth's production lay between A.D.
1260 and 1390 with 95%
confidence.
..............

so it is >600 years old, isn't that old enough for a museum piece?
did anyone really expect more?

w.
--
soc.culture.austria answering service
proposals and complaints to:
salz...@nacl.at

mathematician wrote:

I found one interesting article and abstract of which I copy below,
please take a look for your comments !!!

Rogers' Article that you refer to
http://www.shroud.it/ROGERS-3.PDF

Claims of Invalid "Shroud" Radiocarbon Date Cut from Whole Cloth
by Joe Nickell, CSICOP's Senior Research Fellow
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/shroud.html

Longtime Shroud of Turin devotee Ray Rogers, a retired research
chemist, now admits there is the equivalent of a watercolor paint on
the alleged burial cloth of Jesus. By tortuous logic and selective
evidence, however, he uses the coloration to claim the "shroud"
image was not the work of a medieval artist (Rogers 2004, 2005).
Rogers follows many other shroud defenders in attempting to discredit
the medieval date given by radiocarbon testing (Nickell 1998,
150-3151).

In a paper published in Thermochimica Acta, Rogers (2005) claims that
earlier carbon-14 dating tests--which proved the linen was produced
between 1260 and 1390 (Damon et al. 1989)--were invalid because they
were conducted on a sample taken from a medieval patch. "The
radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than
the main part of the shroud relic," Rogers told BBC News ("Turin"
2005).

In fact, the radiocarbon sample (a small piece cut from the "main
body of the shroud" [Damon 1988, 612]) was destroyed by the testing.
Rogers (2005) relied on two little threads allegedly left over from
the sampling, [1] together with segments taken from an adjacent area
in 1973. He cites pro-authenticity researchers who guessed that the
carbon-14 sample came from a "rewoven area" of repair--"As unlikely
as it seems," Rogers admitted to one news source (Lorenzi 2005).
Indeed, textile experts specifically made efforts to select a site
for taking the radiocarbon sample that was away from patches and
seams (Damon et al. 1989, 611-3612).

Rogers compared the threads with some small samples from elsewhere on
the Shroud, claiming to find differences between the two sets of
threads that "prove" the radiocarbon sample "was not part of the
original cloth" of the Turin shroud (as stated in his abstract
[Rogers 2005, 189]).

The reported differences include the presence--allegedly only on the
"radiocarbon sample"--of cotton fibers and a coating of madder root
dye in a binding medium that his tests "suggest" is gum Arabic. He
insists the sampled area was that of an interwoven medieval repair
that was intentionally colored to match the "older, sepia"olored
cloth" (Rogers 2005, 192, 193).

However, Rogers' assertions to the contrary, both the cotton and the
madder have been found elsewhere on the shroud. Both were
specifically reported by famed microanalyst Walter McCrone (1996, 85)
who was commissioned to examine samples taken by the Shroud of Turin
Research Project (STURP). After McCrone discovered the image was
rendered in tempera paint, STURP held him to a secrecy agreement,
while statements were made to the press that no evidence of artistry
was found. McCrone was then, he says, "drummed out" of the
organization [Nickell 1998, 124-3125; 2004, 193-3194]. As evidence of
its pro-authenticity bias, STURP's leaders served on the executive
committee of the Holy Shroud Guild.

Not only did McCrone find "occasional" cotton fibers on the Shroud,
but the source of Rogers' sample, Gilbert Raes, has since been
challenged as to his claim, cited by Rogers (2005, 189), that "the
cotton was an ancient Near Eastern variety." In fact,
others--including French textile expert Gabriel Vial and major
pro-shroud author Ian Wilson (1998, 71, 97)--believe the cotton may
be entirely incidental. They point out it could have come from the
cotton gloves or clothing of the Turin's cloth's handlers or a
similarly mundane source.

On the tape-lifted STURP samples (affixed to microscope slides),
McCrone found a variety of substances (including mold spores and wax
spatters). Major pigments were red ocher (in "body" areas) and
vermilion (together with red ocher in the "blood" areas), contained
in a collagen tempera binder. He also found the madder, [2] orpiment,
azurite, and yellow ocher pigments, as well as paint fragments,
including ultramarine and titanium white--together suggestive of the
shroud's origin in "an artist's studio" (McCrone 1996, 85, 135)..

Astonishingly--and with serious implications to the spirit of peer
review--Rogers omits any mention of McCrone's findings from his
report while insisting elsewhere, "let's be honest about our
science" (Rogers 2004).

Although Rogers is a research chemist, unlike McCrone he is not an
internationally celebrated microanalyst with special expertise in
examining questioned paintings. Working in his "home laboratory," he
did not, as far as his report informs, use a "blind" approach as
McCrone did to mitigate against the subjectivity that has continually
plagued the work of shroud advocates. Moreover, McCrone once referred
to Rogers' and his fellow STURP co-author's "incompetence in light
microscopy" and pointed out errors in the test procedures they relied
on (McCrone 1996, 157, 158-3171).

Rogers (2005) now also reports the presence of vanillin in the lignin
of the radiocarbon-sample area, in contrast to its reported absence
in other areas of the cloth. This is a dubious finding given his
extremely limited samples. He attempts to date the shroud by the
amount of the lignin decomposition but admits that that method can
offer only an accuracy range of a whopping 1,700 years (contrasted
with about 150 years by radiocarbon dating). He concedes that the
decomposition could have been accelerated by the baking of the cloth
in its reliquary that occurred during the fire of 1532, but thinks it
unlikely the cloth is medieval.

However, apart from the fire damage, the cloth is remarkably well
preserved for a reputed age of nearly 2000 years. Also, no examples
of its complex herringbone weave are known from the time of Jesus
when, in any case, burial cloths tended to be of plain weave (Nickell
1998, 35; Wilson 1998, 98-399, 188; Sox 1981). In addition, Jewish
burial practice utilized--and the Gospel of John specifically
describes for Jesus--multiple burial wrappings with a separate cloth
over the face.

Other evidence of medieval fakery includes the shroud's lack of
historical record prior to the mid-fourteenth century--when a bishop
reported the artist's confession--as well as serious anatomical
problems, the lack of wraparound distortions, the resemblance of the
figure to medieval depictions of Jesus, and suspiciously bright red
and picturelike "blood" stains which failed a battery of
sophisticated tests by forensic serologists, among many other
indicators. These facts argue against Rogers' assertions that the
shroud is neither a forgery nor a miracle--that "the blood is real
blood" [3] and the image was produced by "a rotting body" (Rogers
2004).

Science has proved the Shroud of Turin a medieval fake, but defenders
of authenticity turn the scientific method on its head by starting
with the desired conclusion and working backward to the
evidence--picking and choosing and reinterpreting as necessary. It is
an approach I call "shroud science."

For notes, references and Rogers' reply, see:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/shroud.html