Are there any plans to run new carbon dating tests on a newly cut piece of the Shroud? The three which were done years ago were, if I remember, proved to have come from a newer piece of the cloth which was sown on and not part of the original.
The sample tested that yeilded the now debunked carbon dating information was a repaired section and had been mended by medival nuns using the process of french “reweaving” where they try to match the original linen as closely as possible —a laborous process.
“The Shroud was in a fire in 1532 that nearly destroyed the cloth. Eight gaping holes were patched up and the entire cloth was attached to a backing cloth for support.
This occurred in 1534 at a time when weaving had become an art and professional weavers were called upon to do “invisible mending” on fine tapestries restoring them to their original condition.
Now for what’s making the news. The violation of the sampling protocol in 1988 appears to have been a colossal mistake.
Recent micro-chemical tests performed on thread samples from the area cut for carbon dating have been compared with threads taken from the main body of the Shroud and low and behold they are not the same!
It appears that Gonella and the carbon labs were fooled by the handiwork of highly skilled French re-weavers according to museum textile experts.
Another violation of the protocol now seems more important too. The labs were supposed to do micro-chemical tests on the sample to make sure it was representative of the entire cloth. Guess what, they didn’t do that either. It seems like they just looked at it and said, “Yep, sure looks like the Shroud to me. Let’s cut it and get out of here.”
We had to wait 17 years for Ray Rogers, a retired Fellow with the Los Alamos Scientific laboratory and lead chemist for the original Shroud project in 1978, to do the micro-chemical tests the carbon labs were supposed to do in the first place. Published recently (January 20, 2005) in a peer reviewed scientific journal, ThermoChimica Acta, is an article containing the results of his analysis.
The key findings are as follows:
The radiocarbon sample that was used to date the Shroud has a very different composition and structure than the rest of the cloth and was not valid for dating the Shroud.
The sample used for carbon dating had been dyed with Madder root dye and applied to the surface in a plant-gum medium. This was to hide the repair (probably done in 1534). This dye and gum mixture does not exist anywhere else on the cloth.
The flax portion of the carbon sample had been bleached by a different method than the Shroud showing that the threads were manufactured at different times and not part of the original cloth.
The carbon dating sample also contained a significant amount of cotton. The cotton was woven in with the flax in the repaired area to help the dye adhere better. There is no cotton in the main body of the Shroud.
Linen (flax) contains a natural polymer called vanillin. Vanillin decays over time. Most medieval linen still contains a portion of the original vanillin whereas the vanillin content of the Dead Sea Scroll wrappings is completely depleted.
The area cut for carbon dating still contains 37% of its original vanillin whereas 0% remains in samples taken from the main body of the Shroud.
All combined, it indicates that the carbon labs dated a rewoven area of the cloth.
It also shows that the Shroud is significantly older than 700 years.
Dr. Ray Rogers can only offer a date range of 1,300 to 3,000 years old because the rate of vanillin decay depends on storage temperature, something that is not known. But now, the Shroud being 2,000 years old doesn’t seem out of the question anymore.