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The true skeptical inquirer wonders . . .
Were particles of limestone dirt found on the Shroud of Turin?
Joseph Kohlbeck, Resident Scientist at the Hercules Aerospace Center in Utah, and
Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, examined embedded dirt particles taken from the Shroud’s surface. The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone.
Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of samples taken from the Shroud with samples of limestone from ancient Jerusalem tombs.
The chemical signatures of the Shroud samples and the tomb limestone were identical except for some minute fragments of organic cellulous linen fiber that could not be separated from the Shroud samples.
Kolbeck acknowledges that this is not absolute proof that the Shroud was in Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world – though none are known and it is statistically unlikely any will be found – where travertine aragonite has the identical trace chemical composition. It is also slightly possible though highly implausible that this dirt was applied by a forger.
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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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