Part of the history of the shroud falls more into an area where I have a little bit of knowledge, and that's artistic restoration. Prior to approximately the 1930's restoring work meant making it look like new. For this reason, after the fire, etc, when restoration work was done, the restorers attempted to make the shroud look new. Historical accuracy was not one of their concerns, and, of course, they could not have known that future examiners would look at weaving techniques and use some unknown at the time dating system. If the shroud got frayed, it was repaired.
Much of the second half of the twentieth century restorers have been removing the "restoring" of greek and roman statues. It used to be common practice to restore arms, legs, etc., with no regard for what the original looked like. Later restorers removed the repairs. This left many statues without heads or arms, but all the remaining work is now work done by the original artist (think about Ted Turner "fixing" movies like Casablanca by colorizing them).
This is one area where I think some of the scientific researchers have honestly moved into an area where they have less expertise. I don't think they are deliberately trying to mislead, but I do think there are several issues for them, and I think it colors their judgement.
First, many of the researchers assume that the shroud is a fake, and therefore look for those results. Second, finding a date of 1st century AD could be extremely embarassing for them. One of the common tenants of science today, for many, is that it rejects any possibility of the supernatural. Therefore, a naturalistic explanation MUST be found. Third, as I mentioned earlier, several of the researchers were undoubtedly not familiar with medieval restoration techniques, and discounting of these techniques could easily lead even a non-biased researcher to look at restored areas and assume they are part of the original.
That was the point of my original post. If the shroud is fake, it is a fake produced by wrapping the object around a three dimensional item. The glass technique suggested in the original article assumes three dimensional knowledge by a painter that simply did not exist in the 1300s, and use of photographic negative techniques that didn't exist until the early 1800s.
One area I've never seen explored is whether the wrapping technique used was the one commonly used by Jews of the first century, and also whether the cloth making technique was one used during the first century. While not conclusive, these examinations should be non-destructive.
The concept of historical accuracy did not become common until approximately one generation after the invention of the camera. That's why, for examply, you see Renassiance paintings of Jewish slaves dressed like fourteenth century Italian court ladies and Roman guards dressed like fifteenth century French militamen. People simply didn't think in terms of historical accuracy. They assumed everyone had always done things pretty much the way they had.
I've never seen much data on this aspect of the shroud, and I think it could be extremely enlightening.
This has been researched and the answer is that they did indeed shroud their dead in such a manner... although usually not with such a fine cloth. Most shroud material was an inexpensive one over one weave. The Shroud is a three over one herringbone twill weave. The threads are handspun. Such a cloth could have taken a master weaver several weeks to produce.
In answer to your question about the technique being used in the 1st Century:
Recently, Mechthild Flury Lemberg, a former curator of the Abegg Foundation textile museum in Switzerland and a leading authority on historic textiles, has found a strong similarity between the Shroud's fabric and fragments of cloth produced in the Middle East about 2,000 years ago. Lemberg has likened stitching on both hems of the Shroud and on a lengthy seam down one side to that on cloth found in the ruins of Masada. Masada was a Jewish stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea and Jordan. The Masada fabrics have been dated at between 40 BCE and 73 CE.
It should be noted that Madam Flury Lemberg was also the moving force behind the ill advised 2002 shroud restoration that removed all the charred portions, ironed it, removed the patches placed on the Shroud by the Nuns of Poor Clare in the 14th Century, and replaced the Holland cloth backing. The purported reason for the restoration was the erroneous theory that the charred areas were still expanding under some kind of oxidation. Her work on "restoring" the Shroud was done under less than scientific methods... she handled the shroud with bare hands, used weights to stretch wrinkles out, trimmed charred areas with scissors and scraped others, power vacuumed the shroud and steam cleaned some soiled areas. Most other researchers were horrified. The wrinkles, soil, and chars were part of the Shroud's history and should have been retained.