[M. T. Cicero II]

I really wish that I knew more about this. My current thinking is that it is a type of painting where a clay statue is made and then covered with paint. The cloth is layed over the statue and then made to conform to the statue with felt hammers. This accounts for the image being only on the surface and the almost photographic nature of the image.

I really wish it were the actual shroud.

[RightOnline]

It is not paint.

Shroud of Turin -- Presentation Update

[john in missouri]

The premier source of at-your-fingertips information on the Shroud is Barrie Schwortz's site www.shroud.com. It contains probably just about every important theory ever devised concerning the Shroud (from every perspective), and tons of papers on the subject, a great many of which I've read. That's the place to go!

Schwortz was a member of the original STURP team investigating the Shroud.

[MHT]

If it was hammered, why does the blood not permeate the cloth? The pressure of the hammer would force substances through the cloth itself.

[MHT]

The Discovery channel has done a continuing series about the shroud, its invalidation, and the more recent research since its carbon-dating. Many public libraries have this in their stacks. It is a worthy series which gives a very good background on the shroud.

[BearCub]

I really wish that I knew more about this. My current thinking is that it is a type of painting where a clay statue is made and then covered with paint. The cloth is layed over the statue and then made to conform to the statue with felt hammers. This accounts for the image being only on the surface and the almost photographic nature of the image.

From the site linked above:

No one knows for sure how the images were created. The images are scorch-like, yet not created by heat and are a purely surface phenomenon limited to the crowns of the top fibers. The Shroud is clearly not a painting. There are no signs of penetration; the blood was on the Cloth before the image (an unlikely way for an artist to work); there is no outline (which world-renowned artist Isabel Piczek calls the horizon event of art); there are no brush strokes, no style of any period or directionality; no binders to hold paint; no evidence of paint, dye, ink, chalk creating the images. The Images shows a perfect photo-negativity and 3 Dimensionality. It is not a Vaporgraph or natural result of vapors. Current theories suggest a possible scorch caused light from a miliburst of radiation consistent with the timing of at the Resurrection resulting in a rapid dehydration; oxidation/degradation of linen coloring it a sepia or straw yellow.

Note: some microscopic particles of paint exist on the Shroud, but these do not constitute the image. During the Middle Ages a practice called the "sanctification of paintings" permitted about 50 artists to paint replicas of the Shroud and then lay their paintings over the Shroud to "sanctify" them. This permitted contact transfer of particles which then migrated around the cloth with the folding and rolling of the Shroud when opened for exhibit and closed again afterwards.

[Swordmaker]

My current thinking is that it is a type of painting where a clay statue is made and then covered with paint. The cloth is layed over the statue and then made to conform to the statue with felt hammers. This accounts for the image being only on the surface and the almost photographic nature of the image.

There are several problems with this scenario... first, there is NO PAINT on the shroud. There are no pigments at all. Secondly, the blood stains are human blood, type AB... and the image does NOT exist beneath the blood stains which means the blood was placed beforethe image was created... without disturbing the blood.

[Pietro]

"I really wish it were the actual shroud."

It most certainly is the shroud of Christ, but God will never allow His existence to be captured proof positive in a jar like a lightning bug.

The true value of the shroud is that it causes such consternation amongst those that refuse to see. It is such willful ignorance that separates the goats from the lambs.

Christians don't require the shroud to be genuine to validate their faith; atheists on the other hand are presented w/ powerful evidence that their non/beliefs are absurd.

I admit to a guilty pleasure in watching them thrash about concocting theories of medeaval geniuses inventing photography merely to play a hoax and never replicating the process.

One can only approach God on one's knees, and never through arrogance.

[polemikos]

On the Net:

Photo Index: http://www.sindone.org/it/scient/restauro_gallery.htm
Hi-Res Full Length:http://www.sindone.org/restauro/hires/sindone_recto.jpg
Hi-Res Face: http://www.sindone.org/restauro/hires/il_volto.jpg

Video footage: http://www.sindone.org/it/scient/restauro_filmati.htm

News: http://www.shroud.com/index.htm
Overview of recent changes: Photo Overview

Research Overview: http://www.shroudstory.com/index.htm
Perhaps the most interesting item on the ShroudStory site:
ESSAY: The Resurrection Problem and the Shroud of Turin
which has research details, especially:
The most intriguing characteristic
A picture of a million words
How were the images formed?

http://www.crc-internet.org/shroud.htm
(Note: the site is schismatic, but the article is interesting).

One of the most noteworthy papers presented at the "Sindone 2000" Orvieto Worldwide Conference in August 2000, was "Evidence for the Skewing of the C-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin Due to Repairs" by Joseph Marino and M. Sue Benford. It presented evidence that the corner of the Shroud where the C-14 samples were taken from in 1988 contained spurious fibers from a medieval reweaving, resulting in an inaccurate date.

[aruanan]

My current thinking is that it is a type of painting where a clay statue is made and then covered with paint. The cloth is layed over the statue and then made to conform to the statue with felt hammers. This accounts for the image being only on the surface and the almost photographic nature of the image.

Your primary hypothesis (your wish statement notwithstanding) is that it couldn't be what it is purported to be. Your secondary hypothesis is the one stated above. You're invoking a secondary hypothesis (for which there is no evidence and against which there is evidence) to rescue the primary hypothesis. Better just to say that it's a remarkable object for which there is, as yet, for you, no satisfactory explanation.

BTW, if a medieval forgery, the forger more likely than not would have referred to then-popular concepts of crucifiction such as nail marks in the palms of the hands rather than in the wrists*. The idea of using a cloth typical of weaves from first century Judea including pollen from that region to give evidential weight to the forgery would have been completely out of such a forger's ken. Such religious con men were often dealing on the level of passing off sheep bones as bones of the saints and chunks of wood as remnants of the cross.

To posit, as some have, a medieval forger using unknown techniques to obtain hitherto unknown results on cloth appropriate to the time and place in question (including pollen from that region), employing unusual characteristics (a Jesus unlike almost anything depicted in that era and wounds to the wrists (part of the anatomy understood by the people of first century Judea referred to as hands*)) for unknown motives quickly gets to be one of those cases--like the resurrection of Jesus itself--in which the explaining away quickly becomes more fantastic than the alleged occurrence.

*For instance, consider Michelangelo's David. It's supposed to be a sculpture of a young David, a Jew, and is done by an artistic genius, yet the statue, either out of ignorance or in deference to current social practices, is of an uncircumcised male.

[Chemnitz]

We have the risen Christ. We do not need the shroud.

The newspaper account in hilarious. The Gospel of John does not say that Jesus guided the fingers of Thomas to His wounds. Perhaps the dingbat journalist should read the passage. There is no record of Thomas touching the wounds, only him saying, "My Lord and my God."

Blessed are those who believe without seeing.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

This accounts for the image being only on the surface and the almost photographic nature of the image.

That's the first time I've heard that. I guess I always thought that the image and markings were the same on both sides.

It just deepens my belief that the shroud is a photographic negative of some kind -- a beautiful elaborate hoax.

[rwfromkansas]

I guess your uninformed opinion solves the case then.

It is fake everyone.....M.T. Cicero, who has never examined the shroud himself, claims it fake.

Nevermind the never-ending contrary scientific evidence that leads to the continued mystery.

End of debate. /sarcasm

And for the record, I am not a Catholic, but a Calvinist/Presbyterian Protestant that tends to not look favorably upon Catholic doctrine. But the shroud fascinates me.

[VOYAGER]

Turin Shroud may be genuine after all!

WHY???