Domingo Aerden - LINKS
The Turin Shroud
The Turin Shroud is a Å4m long burial cloth that bears the impressive image of what many believe is the crucified body of Christ. The image resembles a photographic negative, and the corresponding positive was only revealed in the 19th century on (negative) photographic plates.
|
|
Magnification of the face as seen on a negative print (showing a positive image) |
Scientific research on the shroud has shown that the image was not painted but was produced by a superficial (microns deep) scorching of the linen fibres composing the cloth. However, the image-formation mechanism remains a mystery as none of the possibilities considered so far (heat, vapors, various forms of radiation etc.) seem to account for all of the optical properties of the image including it's high resolution, 3-D information (correlation of distance to the surface of the body and colour intensity) and lack of distortion.
In 1988 the church gave permission to radiocarbon date a small piece of linen cut from one of the corners of the cloth. The dating was carried out by three independent labs in Zurich, Oxford and Texas, which produced consistent results in the range of 1280-1350 AD. For many people this meant the definitive unmasking of the shroud as a clever medieval forgery. However, debate about the authenticity of the shroud is presently more alive as ever following research by Raymond Rogers (2005) and Benford and Marino (2008) who show that the dated piece probably corresponds to an area of the cloth that was mended in the 16th century. During this retoration fresh cotton threads were introduced that had been previousy died to match the colour of the much older linen. The point is that die residues and cotton fibresappear to be abundantly present in the dated pieces, but absent from the more central image-bearing part. Carbon dating of a mixture of 1st century linen and 16th century cotton fibres would in fact account for (apparent) 1280-1350 AD ages, so the possibly still exists that this is after all the genuine burial shroud of Jesus Christ. This realization and the unique properties of the imegae itself makes the shroud of Turin one of the most fascinating objects on Earth from both a religious as scientific point of view.
More information :
á Shroud of Turin website maintained by Barry Schwartz, team member of the 1978-1981 "Shroud of Turin Research Project" (STURP):
á http://www.shroud.com/menu.htm
á Official site of the catholic church: http://www.sindone.org/en/scient/hp_scien.htm (
á Editorial column on the shroud in Nature by Philip Ball: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050128/full/news050124-17.html
á Raymond Roger's article: Rogers, R.N., 2005. Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of Turin. Thermochimica Acta 425 (2005) 189–194
á Benford & Marino, 2005. Chemistry Today (2008). "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin shroud" http://chemistry-today.teknoscienze.com/pdf/benford CO4-08.pdf
á Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_turin