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The sincere skeptical inquirer asks . . .
What is the chemical nature of the images? Melanoidins (EU, Volume 4, 2003).
The images are formed of conjugated, complex carbon-carbon double bonds within a carbohydrate layer of starch fractions and some saccharides. In many places this layer is clear. It is only in some places that complex carbon structures have formed; structures that absorb the right spectrums of the colors of light so they appear straw-yellow. Spectra analysis confirms this. Microchemical tests with iodine also detected the presence of starch impurities on the surfaces of linen fibers from the Shroud.
 The impurity layer can be seen by phase-contrast microscopy. And with a scanning electron microscope the fine crystalline structure of the coating can be discerned. The image resists normal bleaching by chemicals or by sunlight, as is expected. But it can be reduced with diimide, also as expected.
The images are not paint, stain, dye or any form of pigment applied to the cloth by hand or mechanical means. They are a pattern of melanoidins, the same chemical products that give beer its color, toasted bread its brown, and bodies their tan from sunless tanning lotions.
The layer in which the color resides is as thin as the wall of a soap bubble. It is as thin in places as 180 nanometers and as thick in other places as 600 nanometers, and it coats only the extreme outermost fibers. By comparison, the average diameter of a linen fiber is 15,000 nanometers. The average human hair is 100,000 nanometers thick.
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Shroud of Turin and the Skeptical Inquirer
Fact:
The 1988 carbon 14 dating used invalid samples snipped from a
discrete medieval repair. Furthermore, kinetics constants for the
loss of vanillin from lignin indicates that the cloth is at least
twice as old as the dates determined by the carbon 14 dating with
the faulty samples.
By some estimates, from
examination of documenting photographs, there is sufficient new
thread (about 60%) to allow adjusting the cloth's date to
approximately the first century.
Fact :
The images are formed by a brownish, complex conjugated carbon
substance within a carbohydrate layer of starch fractions no thicker
than 1/100 the diameter of a human hair.
The images are probably the
product of an amino/carbonyl reaction.
Fact :
The bloodstains are real blood. The blood is unusually red for
old blood.
The blood probably stayed red and
did not turn black as blood normally does because trace chemicals
found in the starch fractions are hemolytic. Also, the blood is rich
in bilirubin, a bile pigment produced when a human body is under
severe traumatic stress. Bilirubin is bright red and stays red.
Fact :
There is a faint, superficial face image on the back of the cloth.
This supports the hypothesis of an
amino/carbonyl reaction.
Fact :
There are sufficient descriptive historical records to suggest that
the Shroud of Turin is the Edessa cloth (ca. before 544 to 944 CE)
and the Bucoleon Palace grave cloth of Constantinople (ca. 944 -
1204).
Fragmentary evidence suggests that
the Edessa Cloth originated in Jerusalem in the 1st century and that
it is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.
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