Pyrolysis/Mass Spectrometry show threads from Shroud of Turin Carbon-dating different

www.Shroud.com ^ | January 2004 | Ray N. Rogers,

[Swordmaker]

PYROLYSIS/MASS SPECTROMETRY APPLIED TO THE SHROUD OF TURIN

Raymond N. Rogers
Fellow
University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM, USA
©2004 Raymond N. Rogers
All Rights Reserved

Our primary goal in undertaking pyrolysis-MS analyses on samples from the Shroud of Turin was the detection of impurities (e.g., painting materials). Most of the structural materials and probable impurities in Shroud samples were carbohydrates. We wanted to see traces of materia ls that were not carbohydrates.

The samples were run at the Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry (MCMS), University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This is a National Science Foundation "Center of Excellence," and it ranks among the foremost facilities in the world.

Walter McCrone had ignored agreements on how the STURP samples were to be observed, and he contaminated all of our samples by sticking them to microscope slides. All of the fibers were immersed in the tape's adhesive, Joan Janney (now Joan Rogers) laboriously cleaned and prepared Shroud fibers for analysis at the MCMS.

Mass spectrometry is based on the fact that charged particles in motion have their trajectories bent by electric and/or magnetic fields. Molecules in a high vacuum can be ionized (charged) by electron impact or chemical ionization. Chemical ionization uses collisions with excited atoms or molecules to ionize the sample, and it gives a much simpler mass spectrum than electron impact. Since we desired detection sensitivity rather than high resolution, we used a machine with moderate resolution, chemical ionization, and high sensitivity. The method was sufficiently sensitive to detect traces of the low-molecular-weight fractions (oligomers) of the polyethylene bag that Prof. Luigi Gonella had used to wrap the Raes threads.

It did not detect any unexpected pyrolysis fragments that indicated any Shroud materials other than carbohydrates. That is exactly what would be expected from a piece of pure linen. This helped confirm the fact that the image was not painted.

The oldest known paintings appeared in prehistoric times (ca. 30,000 BC), and they are found in the caves of France, Spain, and Africa. They were done in natural materials, e.g., red and yellow ochre and charcoal. There is evidence that the pigments were mixed with animal fat for application to the irregular cave surfaces. Tempera painting appeared early in history. It involves powdered pigments mixed with egg, plant gums, and/or glues. Aside from fresco, tempera was the principal painting medium before the introduction of oil paints.

The Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck are generally (probably incorrectly) credited with the invention of oil painting. Their careers are well documented between about 1422 and 1441. They normally worked on canvas that was made from either linen or a linen-cotton blend. It would be extremely unlikely that oil paints had been used to hoax the image during or before the 14th Century; however, we planned observations that would detect such materials. Oils were the favorite vehicles for pigments during the time of the 1532 fire. They could have been used in an attempt to reproduce the Shroud, if it had been totally destroyed in the fire . . .

. . .The pyrolysis-MS analyses did not detect any nitrogen-containing contaminants. This seemed rule out glair (egg white) as well as any significant microbiological deposits, confirming microchemical tests that were also made. They did not detect any of the sulfide pigments were used in antiquity, e.g., orpiment, realgar, mosaic gold, and cinnabar (vermilion, mercury sulfide, HgS). The Shroud's image had not been painted with any known vehicles and pigments. Many of the pyrolysis fragments observed by pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry would be the same products of thermal degradation whether they came from cellulose, hexose sugars, pentose sugars, or starches. However, the ratios of products can be characteristic and important . . .

The Shroud [all of the shroud except the area where the carbon-14 test material was taken - Swordmaker] is nearly pure linen. Notice that the hydroxymethylfurfural signal at m/e 126 is quite large: the furfural signal at m/e 96 is quite small.

The spectrum obtained for the Raes sample (cut in 1973 from the area adjoining the radiocarbon sample of 1988) shows absolutely no m/e 126 signal: the cellulose of the sample had not yet started to pyrolyze. There is, however, a significant m/e 96 signal: furfural was being produced at this temperature. This proves that the sample contained some pentose-sugar units. This is unique among all of the Shroud samples: no other area showed this pentose signal.

Chemical analyses have proved that the Raes samples are coated with a gum/dye/mordant system that has been used for millennia to color cloth. It is stained with a synthetic system. Apparently the intent was to make these threads look like the old, sepia yarn of the main part of the cloth . . .

. . . Maps of all of the other samples were also obtained. They all showed the same difference in product ratios: the Raes sample was unique. It was contaminated with some material that produced pentose pyrolysis products at relatively low temperatures. . .

Conclusion:
The pyrolysis/MS data confirm the identification of a gum coating on the Raes threads.

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This is an extract of the information contained in the Rogers report. The entire report (6 pages) can be downloaded at the source. It is a PDF file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to read. Swordmaker

[Swordmaker]

Taken from Barrie Schwortz's Shroud of Turin site. This . . . "is a technical paper by Ray Rogers, Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and former STURP team member . . . The paper, titled, "Pyrolysis/Mass Spectrometry Applied to the Shroud of Turin." In it, Ray explains how Pyrolysis/Mass Spectrometry was used to detect impurities on samples of the Shroud of Turin. Interestingly, a gum coating was found on the fibers from the Raes Sample, a section cut from the Shroud in 1973 from an area directly adjoining the 1988 c14 sample. However, this gum coating was not found on any fibers from anywhere else on the Shroud. The tests provided quantitative evidence that the Raes sample and consequently, the adjoining 1988 c14 sample, were both anomalous and different from the rest of the Shroud. This paper provides the quantitative data from those tests and casts further doubt on the validity of the 1988 c14 dating of the Shroud." - Barrie Schwotrz.

This report shows not only that the linen in C-14 Sampled Area is not only spectographically DIFFERENT than the linen in the rest of the shroud, it also shows a gum coating not found on other threads of the shroud.

In addition, it adds to the mountain of evidence proving that there are no pigments found on the shroud.

[Swordmaker]

Pinging the Shroud list...

Barrie Schwortz has updated his Shroud Web Site. This is one of the latest scientific papers on the Shroud and has some important information on the C-14 test sample area.

If any one wishes to be included (or excluded) on the Shroud Ping list, please Freepmail me. Swordmaker

[RaceBannon]

I do not believe the Shroud is genuine.

The Bible accounts of burial techniques disprove the image.

(John 11:43 KJV) And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

(John 11:44 KJV) And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.



Lazarus had a napkin around his head. If the shroud was around him, also, there would still be a napkin around his head.

So did Jesus.

(John 20:6 KJV) Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,

(John 20:7 KJV) And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

(John 20:8 KJV) Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.

To believe that the entire shroud had an image of Christ onit, this image had to be created also through this napkin.

IF this is His image, then it all would be a miracle. But, to not only go through the napkin, and onto the shroud, BUT HAVE NO NAPKIN which would have been DIRECTLY attached to His face, tells me this is a hoax.

[Ff--150]

All RIGHT!! Time for the "experts" show up. Hehehe. Fun City. Sudarium of Oviedo , Shroud of Turin. Let the names be called =-)

[RightOnline]

That would be the Sudarium........located in Oviedo, Spain.

http://www.shroud.com/guscin.htm

[Graymatter]

No napkin, thus hoax.

If it's a hoax it's a darn good one, continuing to stump us for all our 21st c science. I wouldn't make up my mind on the absence of another cloth. If some unknown energy transferred the image onto the shroud, it might also have transferred an image onto a napkin---some lost souvenir we can't examine. And how uniform was the practice of preparing the dead, do you know? I've been reading about the shroud since the 1960's, my verdict is still out. It would be nice to have a photographic record of the Lord but perhaps holiness in an object is still more mischief than it's worth.

[RightOnline]

Sudarium aside.........the Shroud is anything but a hoax. This has been shown pretty clearly in years of research for those who choose to read it.

[Swordmaker]

and his face was bound about with a napkin

Race, that is a good point.

However, there is no discrepancy. The cloth around the face, the napkin, was a binding to keep the jaws closed. It went under the beard, around the head by the ears and was tied at the top. It did NOT cover his face.

That cloth STILL exists! It has matching blood stains and bears a very strong correlation to the shroud. Both have human blood of Type AB, the blood stains appear to have come from the same head wounds. This second cloth is called the Sudarium of Oviedo and has been kept since the sixth century in a church in Oviedo Spain.

There is some scholarship that indicates the Sudarium was placed over Jesus' face while he was still on the cross to cover his dead image, perhaps from his mother. The cloth was probably then re-used as the head-jaw binding.

If you research the relevant passages in the original Greek, much of your concerns disappear. The words used "othonia" and "sindon" are synonomous with "binding cloth" and "shroud" respectively. Another greek term also used is a generic term for "burial cloths," meaning all of the various bindings and shroud used. There is NO evidence that Jews ever bound their dead like mummies.

[FSPress]

While I was reading this article, I was reminded of writing with "invisible ink" as a kid. A sugar water solution will dry clear on a piece of paper and then show up as brown writing when the paper is exposed to mild heat. We also used a rubber date stamp to stamp the date on the paper with our invisible ink. I wonder if this image was stamped (perhaps using a persons actual face as the stamp with some enhancements in a stronger sugar solution painted in) onto the cloth with sugar water and then gently heated to make the image appear. Also, one thing has always puzzled me, if the body were lying down I would not expect the hair to be framing the face as shown, it would have fallen back.

Oh well, I will leave it to the experts in these matters to determine if the shroud is real.

[Swordmaker]

Also, one thing has always puzzled me, if the body were lying down I would not expect the hair to be framing the face as shown, it would have fallen back.

Tests on living persons and cadavers have shown that with the "napkin bound about his head" (under the jaw and around the head by the ears) the long hair exhibits EXACTLY that pattern... it is supported by the rolled up napkin (othonia). This is especially true if the hair is (as in this case) matted and stiff with blood and sweat.

[Graymatter]

I reversed the positive and removed scratches, got this. Looks very realistic for an image nobody can see with the naked eye. And the face looks rather older than a man in his 30's.

[Swordmaker]

I wonder if this image was stamped (perhaps using a persons actual face as the stamp with some enhancements in a stronger sugar solution painted in) onto the cloth with sugar water and then gently heated to make the image appear.

There are many things wrong with this hypothesis. First, and foremost, the image does not exist UNDER the undisturbed bloodstains! That means the blood was placed on the cloth before the image was formed.

Any artist would have to have some method of placing the blood stains accurately without the image... and THEN "stamped" the image to exactly match the placement of the blood... without disturbing it.

Next, the image does not soak into the linen... it exists only on the very top fibrils of the linen thread... and is composed of linen that is more oxidized than the rest of the thread.

Finally, any "stamping" technique would not duplicate the perfect negative nature or the three-dimension information encoded into the image on the shroud.

[FSPress]

I went back and looked at the photos again and the hair appears to continue down past the chin line, so I don't see how that portion of the hair would have stayed in place even if it were stiff.

[FSPress]

Using a real human head to stamp the image would exactly get the 3-D information effect. You would not want to drench the cloth with the sugar solution if you wanted the sharpest clearest image, only a small amount on the face would be needed.

[bigcat00]

Thanks for an interesting post.

A layman's question....i.e., a dumb question, perhaps, but nonetheless...Would it be possible to retrieve human DNA from the Shroud? And could it be determined where the DNA originated? I realize the Shroud has probably had many hands upon it over the centuries, but what about one of the potions with the image?

[bigcat00]

Thanks for an interesting post.

A layman's question....i.e., a dumb question, perhaps, but nonetheless...Would it be possible to retrieve human DNA from the Shroud? And could it be determined where the DNA originated? I realize the Shroud has probably had many hands upon it over the centuries, but what about one of the portions with the image?

[4CJ]

Romans 10:17 (KJV) 'So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.' What is being preached? Can we duplicate it today? If we could, it would be easy to disprove/discredit the Shroud.

I have faith ;o)

[pgkdan]

BUMP FOR LATER

[Johnny_Cipher]

If they keep taking pieces of the Shroud for destructive testing, they're going to have to start referring to it as the Washrag of Turin before long.

[johnb838]

bfl