THE SHROUD OF TURIN AND ITS RADIOCARBON DATING
MARIA GRAZIA SILIATO
Historian and Archaeologist, Italy

We pointed out on other occasions that as Archaeologists and Historians, we were unable to indicate any object, in any museum or church, which from a scientific point of view, is comparable to the Shroud of Turin.
We know that radiocarbon dating carried out in 1988, which placed the origin of the Shroud in the Middle Ages between 1260 and 1390, is not consistent with the chemical, physical, historical and archaeological data resulting from this famous object.
The Shroud of Turin carries with it a centuries old dramatic story.
IT WAS MANIPULATED MANY TIMES FOR MENDING AND RESTORATION WORKS!

II/IX Century: Various vicissitudes, like escapes, sieges-Jerusalem, Pella, Edessa
944/1205 : Cuttings for relics and restoration works
13 ?? : Fire and repair works
1534 : Patching, fixing, covering by Poor Claires Sisters of Chambery
1694 : Various restoration works by Venerable Sebastiano Valfre
1858 : mending and lining by Giulia Savoya Bonaparte
1973 : mending by the sisters of St. Joseph, Turin

Photo 1. Reparation St. Claire nuns 1534

It seems that the only untreated part of the Shroud was the one bearing the facial imprint.
The quantity and variety of mending stitches observed on the Shroud from the Middle Ages to date, from Edessa to Constantinople, Lirey, Chambery and Turin, is impressive: tacking, hemming, whipping, stringing and mending stitches, and many others.
Add to this an amount of parts, invisible to the naked eye, which were reinforced and maybe remade with the invisible mending technique. The Shroud’s Mediterranean cloth,
because of its very ancient-handcrafted structure, the significant caliber and the thick weaving, perfectly absorbs an intervention of this kind.
In 1978, Mottern, London and Morris performed in Turin radiographic examinations on the region of the Shroud where, ten years afterwards, the sample for C-14 dating would be taken. What emerged was a considerable irregularity of the cloth, which showed low-density and very high-density areas.

The most external band of the cloth, albeit similar in structure, appears to be somewhat connected, or reinforced, to the Shroud’s cloth by restitching. It is a region which has been largely mishandled over the centuries. The cloth was held, exactly on these places according to “exhibiting” and “displaying” techniques. We have a visual, authentic documentation of what happened during these exhibitions, (See picture 1, 17th century
and picture 2, 19th century).
This is confirmed by the way the imprints are exhibited. The face is on the left side. This typical display was traditionally maintained and is still in use today.
These are spine-chilling documents and have certainly not been discovered today. They were universally known when it was decided to choose the part of the Shroud from which the sample had to be taken.
In fact, instead of removing fragments of yarn here and there in order to reach the necessary weight for each of the laboratories, it was decided to cut a piece of cloth. The upper corner, to the left of the person looking at it, was cut, that is, in the spot were RAES had already cut a sample. Therefore, the Shroud’s linen cloth was damaged again in a significant, irreparable way.

We have come to the core of the problem.
At that time, product analyses carried out by experts TIMOSSI and RAES calculated, with good accuracy, the MEDIUM WEIGHT PER SQUARE CENTIMETER OF THE SHROUD’S CLOTH: 1) A. TIMOSSI, expert in textiles 23 mg
2) Prof. G. RAES, Director of the Laboratory of Technology of Textiles, University of Gent
25 mg
It was also calculated with radiographs by MORRIS, LONDON and MOTTERN in 1978,
and the result was the same as the previous ones
3) R.A. Morris, National Laboratory of Los Alamos 25 mg
4) G. RIGGI 20 mg
The means of the four data is: 23.2 cm, and as upper threshold limit, the average weight of 23 mg per square cm can be assumed.
Considering the irregularities of an ancient, handcrafted cloth, and in order to move within safer margins, we have applied a prudential surplus tolerance to the measures indicated.
Let us therefore assume an average weight of 25.00 MILLIGRAMS PER SQUARE CENTIMETER of the SHROUD’S CLOTH.

SAMPLE TAKING FOR RADIOCARBON DATING:
1) According to the official operator in charge of taking the sample, the sample measures 8.1 x 1.6 cm which is 12.96 square cm.
2) In the video showing the taking of the sample, the weight measured on the scales is 478.1 mg.
3) Dividing the sample’s weight by its surface (478.1 mg: 12.96 cm2), we obtain a WEIGHT of approximately 36.89 mg per cm2. Therefore, the sample weighs 11.89 mg per cm2 MORE than the original cloth. (36.89 – 25= 11.89).
4) However, the operator in charge of taking the sample, says that he removed some irregularities and some “free” threads of the sample. The operator reduced the sample’s measures to 7.00 cm x 1.00, namely 7.00 cm2.
5) Then the operator reports the WEIGHT of the sample, “cleaned” and distributed to the 3 laboratories: 300 mg and that would translate in 300 mg:7 cm2= 42.85 mg per cm2, so the sample weighs 17.85 mg per cm MORE than the original cloth should, at most. (42.85 – 25= 17.85).
A few millimeters away, we find differences of nearly 6 mg per cm2 (42.85-36.89).
6) AS A RESULT, WHAT EMERGES, IS THE PROOF THAT THE SAMPLE WAS IRREGULARLY LOADED WITH FOREIGN, UNDETERMINED TEXTILE MATERIAL in other words, MANY THREADS WERE ADDED FOR ITS MENDING with various techniques IN DIFFERENT, MUCH LATER AGES.
7) The proportion of the “youngest” threads is 32.23 % -almost a third of the total- on the whole sample. In the case of the “cleaned”, radio dated sample, it increases to 41.65 %, approaching half of the sample to be radiocarbon dated.

These data, which are already striking per se, could be subject to further modifications and radiocarbon dating could be even more unreliable, if the average weight, was that declared by the operator, namely, just 20 milligrams.
If that were the case, the mixture of textile material in the taken sample would rise to 45.80 % and, in the “cleaned” sample delivered to the laboratories, will reach the striking percentage of 53.30 %.
Such a mixture of younger radiocarbon material–how much younger ?? twelve, fifteen, sixteen centuries ??—dramatically changes the amount of residual carbon 14.
It should be borne in mind that testing laboratories always carry out a rigorous cleaning procedure on samples to be radiocarbon dated and eliminate any impurities and foreign bodies. But they could not eliminate the YOUNGEST LINEN CLOTH, structurally consistent with the original.
Furthermore, the amount of “younger” threads varies depending on the parts of the Shroud and is documented by the weight differences observed even in contiguous parts. It is reflected in the examination’s results, probably astonishing the radiocarbon experts themselves, who consulted with one another, in an attempt, to come to a “common average dating”.
In fact, the three radiocarbon examinations show sharp differences. The resulting dates range from 1260 to 1390. Here too, it is possible to note the irregular mixture of original fibers with younger fibers. This completely changes the radiocarbon dating data, which appear unreliable.
Finally, it should be noted that such calculations start with the weight per cm2 of the “original” cloth in its entirety. It is clear, though, that there would have been no need to mend and restore an intact region. Therefore, we do not know “how much” of such mishandled corner of the original cloth has unraveled or got pulverized; in other words, HOW MUCH OF IT HAS BEEN LOST IN TERMS OF WEIGHT and by how much the percentage of the restoration increases as a result.
In light of the above really nobody knows on “what” the radiocarbon dating operation was carried out.
All of this, maybe, led to the contradictions, inaccuracies and accusations which surrounded the operation: the cutting of the samples, their delivery, their radiocarbon dating. We will not bring any arguments, suspicions, and more or less fictional reconstructions.
Perhaps the historical and archaeological tragedy which was the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin, defined in the course of the heated arguments as a wild medieval trial by ordeal, was a scientific accident.
At this stage, we cannot fail to highlight, that according to very recent discoveries and experiments, there is an increasing, concrete need to review the parameters used until now for radiocarbon dating cloths, particularly those which may have been subjected to environmental aggressions or temperature leaps. Let us leave the development of this aspect to the experts in the field, as it totally upsets the results of the 1988 radiocarbon dating examination of the Shroud. As far as we are concerned, we are proud to have substantially collaborated to presenting here for the first time in this symposium in Rome and reporting to the international press this discovery, which is so closely related to the real, two-thousand-year-old age of the Shroud of Turin.
Those who, by virtue of well-founded archaeological, historical, medical-legal and scientific evidence, recognize in the Shroud the burial sheet used in the most famous trial of the Roman Empire, believe that this should open the way for a more free, concordant regular study on the subject.
“THE DATA INDICATED IN THIS REPORT WERE ALL GARNERED FROM OFFICIAL SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT ARE THE VIDEORECORDINGS CARRIED OUT BY THE OPERATORS AND THE DATA APPEARING ON THE INSTRUMENTS SHOWN “.

Shroud of Turin Research Project.

In 1976 John Jackson, an active duty United States Air Force Officer, and Bill Mottern, a scientist from the Sandia National Laboratory, worked to generate the first 3-dimensional map of the Shroud Image. Later in that same year Jackson, while teaching physics at the Air Force Academy, in partnership with Eric Jumper, another active duty Air Force Officer teaching science at the Air Force Academy, used a VP-8 analog image analyzing computer furnished by Pete Schumacher, an engineer with Interpretation Systems, Inc., to make a brightness map of the Shroud image. The resulting brightness map confirmed that 3-dimensional information was encoded in the Shroud image. Jackson and Jumper assembled a team of cadets to assist with model building based on the Shroud brightness map. Today a display exists in the lower level of the Air Force Academy Chapel (Colorado Springs, Colorado) that commemorates this pioneering work that directly led to the organization of the Shroud of Turin Research project (STURP), a project born at the USAF Academy.

Photo 1. US Air Force Academy Chapel

Photo 2. John Jackson

Photo 3. Display of 3D model based on the Shroud brightness map

The STURP research team was composed of a large group of outstanding American scientists and support personnel. In October of 1978, the STURP team traveled to Turin, Italy, to conduct an in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud.
This American expedition conducted, what is still the most extensive hands-on study of the Shroud ever undertaken. The STURP team spent over two years prior to embarking for Turin in planning dozens of specific data-gathering experiments, measurements and tests. To support their efforts, they carried to Turin several tons of equipment, including sophisticated scientific measuring and data-gathering instruments. The team arrived in Turin in early October 1978 following a public display of the Shroud commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Shroud’s arrival in that city. For five full days, starting on October 8th, the STURP team examined the Shroud around the clock in a large room at the Royal Palace adjoining the Turin Cathedral. Each 24-hour period was broken down into shifts that allowed the work to proceed uninterrupted while some STURP staff slept and others conducted research. Among the methods used to gather data were direct microscopy, infrared spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, X-ray radiography, thermography, and ultraviolet fluorescence spectrometry. In addition, a broad spectrum of photographic data was collected. Ultraviolet fluorescence photographs, raking-light photographs, normal front-lit photographs and back-lit photographs of the entire Shroud were taken, as well as dozens of micro-photographs of strategically selected areas of the Shroud. The STURP team also collected sticky tape samples from the surface of the Shroud cloth, as well as thread samples that were retained and returned to the United States for further studies. Subsequent studies of these samples were conducted using microscopy, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser-microbe Raman analysis and various methods of micro-chemical testing. The results of STURP research were published in twenty (20) peer-reviewed scientific journal articles over the four years following the team’s conclusion of work in Turin. In addition, numerous other papers have subsequently been published, elaborating on findings and data from the STURP expedition.
In October 1981, the final official report of the STURP team effort was issued. At a press conference to mark the occasion the following official summary of the STURP conclusions was handed to the press:

No pigments, paints dyes or stains have been found on the fibrils. X-ray, fluorescence and microchemistry on the fibrils preclude the possibility of paint being used as a method for creating the image. Ultraviolet and Infrared evaluation confirm these studies. Computer image enhancement and analysis by a device known as a VP-8 image analyzer show that the image has unique three-dimensional information encoded in it. Microchemical evaluation has indicated no evidence of any spices, oils, or any biochemicals known to be produced by the body in life or in death. It is clear, that there has been a direct contact of the Shroud with a body, which explains certain features such as scourge marks, as well as the blood. However, while this type of contact might explain some of the features of the torso, it is totally incapable of explaining the image of the face with the high resolution that has been amply demonstrated by photography. The basic problem from a scientific point of view is that some explanations, which might be tenable from a chemical point of view, are precluded by physics. Contrariwise, certain physical explanations which may be attractive are completely precluded by the chemistry. For an adequate explanation for the image of the Shroud, one must have an explanation which is scientifically sound, from a physical, chemical, biological and medical viewpoint. At the present, this type of solution does not appear to be obtainable by the best efforts of the members of the STURP team. Furthermore, experiments in physics and chemistry with old linen, have failed to reproduce adequately the phenomenon presented by the Shroud of Turin. The scientific consensus is that the image was produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the microfibrils of the linen itself. Such changes can be duplicated in the laboratory by certain chemical and physical processes. A similar type of change in linen can be obtained by sulfuric acid or heat. However, there are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately.

Thus, the answer to the question of how the image was produced or what produced the image remains, now, as it has in the past, a mystery.

We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The bloodstains are composed of hemoglobin, and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.

The attached photographs show the STURP team at work in Turin.
An excellent book recently published and written by John Jackson PH.D., one of the founders of the STURP team, is “THE SHROUD OF TURIN, A Critical Summary of Observations, Data and Hypothesis” ISBN 978-0-692-88573-4
The Turin Shroud Center of Colorado.

Photo 1. Part of the STURP team

Photo 2. Rogers Jackson during research Shroud

This technique was developed by Alan Whanger to compare areas of images, very detailed and superimposed.
This was done by using two slide projectors on top of each other and projecting two superimposed images on a lenticular screen (one with tiny vertical grooves; non-lenticular screens do not work with polarizing filters).
Whanger used then polarizing filters. These are crystalline filters that transmit light in a single plane only. If two of them are positioned so that their planes are in the same direction, you can see through them. But if one is positioned in the horizontal plane and the other in the vertical plane, light is blocked almost totally.
So, using two projectors and the lenticular screen you can, for example, project the Shroud face image through a polarizing filter in the horizontal plane and an Icon face image through a polarizing filter in the vertical plane. Then, using a third polarizing filter which can be rotated in front of your eyes, you will be able to observe the two images fade in and out of one another.
This technique has proven to be extremely useful, as it allows minute, exacting comparisons between the two images. These comparisons can be diagrammed and counted so that anyone who wishes can check them for accuracy and can repeat the same process and compare results. This was published in the peer-reviewed journal APPLIED OPTICS “Polarized Image Overlay Technique,” 766-72.
What you are looking for are points of congruence (PC). In a court of law, fourteen points of congruence (PC) are sufficient to determine the same source for simple images such as fingerprints; for more complicated images such as a face, forty-five to sixty PC are enough to declare the faces to be the same.

THE NEXT DVD SHOWS THE WHANGERS DEMONSTRATING THEIR POLAROID IMAGE OVERLAY TECHNIQUE.

THE TITULUS INRI

In the early fourth century A.D. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, visited Jerusalem after her baptism to Christianity.
Helena, so the story goes, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to search for the tomb of Jesus. When she found it, she found the title, part of the cross and several of the Instruments of the Crucifixion still there. She removed these items from the tomb and made various distributions of them. It is said that she divided the title into three sections, left one in Jerusalem, and took one to Constantinople and one to Rome. The section now in the Santa Croce de Jerusalema in Rome is not the original but is a copy (see photographs).
The letters are gouged out of the wood and painted red. The whereabouts of the original and the other two sections are not known, but a possible reconstruction of the entire title has been made. The plaque measures about thirteen and one-half by twenty-four inches (24 x 13.5 inches) or, sixty-one by thirty-four cm (61 x 34.29 cm).
I made a copy in wood, gouging out the letters (see photograph).

Now there is something special with the text on the titulus. In the King James version of the Bible, the book of the Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 19, verses 19 & 20 states:
Verse 19“ And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
VERSE 20: This title was read by many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin”.

In Latin it said: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum and the first letters form : INRI

In the Jewish language it said: Yeshua HaNotsri V’Melech HaYehudim and the first letters form YHVH which is the Holy Name of God in Hebrew.
Psalm 119, King James version of the Bible, the longest book of the Bible, has a language key. The language key was inserted by the command of King James of England. The language key denotes subtitles indicating the mini chapters in this Psalm. The language key is the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph to Tau.

The English language knows the Lords name as YHWH, W can be changed with V. King James pronounced the name YahWeh, some called the name JeHoVaH.
Jesus name in Hebrew is Yeshua. The word Yeshua in Hebrew means: salvation, God saves, God helps.

Let us look again at the scripture of John 19:19. Pontius Pilatus wrote, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews in 3 languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Greek was the official language of business and commerce. Latin was the language of the ruling Romans. Hebrew was the language of the governed country. Look at the words closely as the fonts of the first letters in Latin have been enlarged, INRI, this is a shortened version in Latin. It has been used by Christians for two millennia.

The deeper meaning of YHWH is understood in the Hebrew language. The High Priest and religious leaders (Sanhedrin) of the Jewish People were extremely upset with Pontius Pilate and told him to change the words, but according to the Gospels Pontius Pilate said:
“What I have written, I have written “, (“Quod scripsi, scripsi”), and refused to change it.

Pontius Pilate wrote the Hebrew name in description. Hebrew is written and read from right to left. So, the first letters formed the word YHVH, YaHWeH, YHWH meaning ADONAI (=GOD). The Priests and the religious leaders had crucified GOD.

Yeshua (God saves, God helps), the Son of God died at the exact time (3 P.M.) as the Pascal Lamb was offered by the High Priest and thousands of priests in the Temple, for the Feast of Passover. The blood offering for the emission of sins was satisfied with the death of God’s Son. That was God’s plan for His creation. The Christ came to satisfy God’s law, not to do away with it.
The new covenant of the Lord had started. Now all He had to do was raise His son from the dead to complete the covenant written in the Gospels John 3:16. The victory over death would satisfy the law, with Jesus as the first fruit of this victory.

“The spotless Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world”.

Now it is interesting to go back to the chapter 6.4: (Three Letters on the Oval Solid Object).
We have proven there the presence of the oval solid object under the beard of the Man on the Shroud, with on the surface in relief, the three Hebrew letters that form the word TS’ON which means: “herd of small animals like sheep and goats”, but like I explained in this chapter it was used as “SACRIFICIAL LAMB” in the Thorah, in Exodus 12:21, when Moises sends the elders back to their tribes and homes with the instructions of God to sacrifice a lamb and put the blood on the doorpost.
From the first moment of Christianity, Jesus Christ was always known and mentioned as “The Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of this world”, so, “THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB”, like the three letters say on the solid oval object under the beard.
That, of course, is no coincidence.

Photo 1. Part of the Titulus in Iglesia della Croce Rome

Photo 2. Part of the Titulus in Iglesia della Croce Rome

Photo 3. Part of the Titulus in Iglesia della Croce Rome

Photo 4. Copy made by Dr. Petrus Soons