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The discerning skeptical inquirer considers . . .
Why were the carbon 14 samples invalid? Thermochimica Acta (Pending 2005)
An article, accepted in final form, is available on Elsevier BV's ScienceDirect® online information site. Elsevier is one of the world's largest providers of ethical, peer-reviewed scientific, technical and medical literature. The abstract reads in part:
Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud.
The problem is called material intrusion. It is an uncommon problem in some carbon 14 dating exercises. For instance, in dating peat bogs, which may be very old, the samples often contain miniscule roots from newer plants that grew in the peat. Sometimes the roots, having decomposed, are indistinguishable from the older peat. What is tested might simply be a mixture of old and new material leading to erroneous results. No one expected that material intrusion might be a problem with the Shroud of Turin. But it was. By some estimates, as much as 60 percent of the Shroud of Turin sample was new thread, the result of mending in the 16th century. This is sufficient to change the date of a 1st century shroud to the medieval date range arrived at by the carbon 14 dating.
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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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