The Authentication of the Turin Shroud: An Issue in
Archaeological Epistemology : Part 5
By William Meacham - Archaeologist
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY - Vol. 24 - NåÁ 3 - (June 1983)
Published by the University of Chicago Press
Copyright 1983 by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
------------------------------------------------------------
by Joe Nickell
568 N. Broadway, Apt. 16, Lexington, Ky. 40508, U.S.A. 5 xii
82
Meacham makes so many claims that it is obviously impossible
to respond to all of them in the space allowed. Many have
been refuted elsewhere (e.g., Mueller 1982, Schafersman
1982a, Sox 1981), and in general I question his emphasis and
sources.
For example, he cites a priest's and a professor of
geriatric psychiatry's supposed evidence of "coins" over the
eyes. While conceding that this may be due to "vagaries of
the image on the weave," he nevertheless finds "a small
measure of credibility" in the claim. He states, "Filter
photographs and enhancements done by STURP" also show
similar shapes, "but somewhat askew. " His reference to
Weaver (1980:753) as his source is puzzling, since Weaver
does not give this information (and the page referenced is
simply a photo of the Shroud face). Not only have critics
observed "inscriptions" elsewhere on the cloth, but most
Shroud scholars and STURP scientists have found the claim
absurd, suggesting that the nonexperts are probably seeing
what they want to see (Mueller 1982:24; Sox 1982:26-27).
Meacham quotes Coon as describing the man of the Shroud as
Semitic in appearance and claims that Coon's description is
"supported by Stewart"; the truth is that this Smithsonian
expert merely conceded that the face "could be Semitic" but
warned that "there's no way to be certain without a
profile." He emphasized that one could not tell whether "he
was from Palestine or Greece" and observed that the likeness
is quite "close to the traditional representation of Christ"
(quoted in Wilcox 1977:129-32). Given the 1,300-year gap in
the history of the cloth, this similarity is highly
suspicious. In fact, the Shroud incorporates a number of
artistic motifs common to the place and time of the reported
forger's confession.
With regard to the "blood," Meacham cites the tests by two
nonforensic scientists, none of which were specific for
blood. Forensic expert John Fischer finds their conclusions
untenable. In fact, similar results can be obtained with a
tempera paint. The new claim (reported in a pro-authenticity
religious publication) that tests supposedly "indicated"
human blood will obviously require similar scrutiny. In the
meantime, it must be held in grave doubt in light of the
Commission's forensic experts' impressive analyses. These
included standard chemical tests as well as neutron
activation analysis, thin-layer chromatography,
microspectroscopic analysis, and many other highly
sophisticated tests - all of which were negative, including
those for species. Moreover, the highly respected McCrone
laboratories positively identified artists' pigments as
comprising the "blood" - notably red iron oxide and
vermilion, plus traces of rose madder (McCrone 1980). Unlike
the STURP scientists, McCrone is a distinguished expert in
the identification of pigments. Authenticity advocates still
need to show a similarly old (600-2,000 years) bloodstain
which has remained red and to explain how dried blood (as on
the arms) was transferred to cloth. A forger, of course,
could have used some real blood.
Admitting that the lack of historical documentation and the
reported artist's confession are "difficulties," Meacham
asserts that "the evidence from the medical studies must be
treated as empirical data of a higher order." But the
pathologists he cites have all been religious devotees of
the "relic," and two serve on the Executive Council of the
Holy Shroud Guild (as do STURP's leaders). So it was that
Medical World News (December 22, 1980) reported an
independent pathologist's review. Chosen was Michael M.
Baden, one of America's foremost medico-legal experts. Baden
stated: "If I had to go into a courtroom, I could not say
there was rigor, whether the man was alive or dead, or that
this picture was a true reflection of injuries on the body."
He added, "Human beings don't produce this kind of pattern."
Baden doubts that the Shroud ever contained a corpse and
that, even if it did, any qualified pathologist would reach
the kind of conclusions being touted as expert medical
opinion. For example, he finds the "blood" flows from the
"scalp wounds" highly suspect. Blood from a scalp wound, he
stated, "doesn't flow in rivulets; the blood mats on the
hair."
While conceding that if the Shroud is an actual burial cloth
its image was formed "by unknown mechanism," Meacham largely
ignores this profound argument against its authenticity.
Contact imprints from bodies are invariably grossly
distorted and vapors and radiations (on which other
hypotheses are based) penetrate the cloth, whereas the
Shroud image is quite superficial. Thus Meacham should give
more serious consideration to the artistic-rubbing
hypothesis. While he implies otherwise, rubbings are known
from ancient times and were common in Europe at the time the
Shroud made its fist-known appearance.
Used with a bas-relief sculpture, the wet-mold, dry-pigment
technique automatically produces monochromatic negative
images with minimal distortion and visually proper tonal
gradations. Such images are superficial, "directionless,"
highly resolved, fire-stable, and characterized by blank
spaces surrounding the forms. There is no cementing of
fibers. The technique works well with a powdered iron oxide
pigment (as identified by McCrone and found only in image
and "blood" areas). Indeed, one medieval variety of pigment
can account for the cellulose degradation that apparently
represents much of the Shroud's visible image (to the
puzzlement of STURP).
It seems that no other image-forming mechanism has been
demonstrated which will so closely replicate the Shroud
image. Anxious - like Meacham - to dismiss an artistic
solution, some writers argue against the rubbing hypothesis
on the basis of a dubious "3-D test," one which the
physicist Mueller (1982:22-23) observes is largely based on
circular reasoning. Ill-founded objections to a viable
hypothesis should not conceal the fact that authenticity
advocates have no viable image-forming hypothesis and are
reduced to the unscientific position of suggesting a
miracle.
In summary, the historical, iconographic, pathological,
physical, and chemical evidence does not allow what Meacham
rashly asserts is "a firm archaeological judgement for
authenticity." Rather, the evidence at present is to the
contrary (see Nickell 1983). Ideally, further tests -
including carbon-14 dating - will be performed, if so, they
should obviously be conducted by independent, impartial, and
qualified experts.
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by Adam J. Otterbein
Holy Shroud Guild, P.O. Box 336, Ephrata, Pa. 17522, U.S.A.
5 xi 82
The author has made a balanced and well-rounded presentation
of the evidence from all sciences which should be considered
in evaluating the Shroud of Turin. Recent tests and
investigations have placed the emphasis on chemistry and
physics. It is important to note that in spite of intensive
study with sophisticated equipment no evidence of fraud or
contradiction of 20th-century science has been proven. While
this type of evidence is in a sense negative, its
accumulated mass and variety are truly impressive.
Meacham makes an excellent point in saying that, although
chemistry and physics alone will never be able to prove that
the Turin cloth is the burial cloth of Christ, a broad
archaeological assessment which includes all relevant data
can lead not to a "leap of faith," but to a logical
conclusion based on the total evidence. Not all
archaeological conclusions can be proven by a microscope or
reproduced in a laboratory.
He correctly divides the question of authenticity into two
sections: (1) Is the Shroud a genuine burial cloth? and (2)
Is the Shroud the burial cloth of Christ? Although science
is still unable to explain the chemistry of the image
formation process, recent investigation has reinforced the
arguments that the Shroud did enclose a human corpse. In
previous centuries those who claimed fraud never denied that
the image was intended to represent Christ. Today science
denies fraud and says that the image could be Christ. In
treating the Shroud's relation to the biblical record,
Meacham mentions some objections which suggest an apparent
conflict between the Shroud and the Gospels. His position
could be strengthened by reference to two articles by
Wuenschel (1945, 1946), who has shown that the original
Greek text admit of interpretations compatible with the
Shroud and Jewish burial customs.
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by S. F. Pellicori
Santa Barbara Research Center, 75 Coromar Drive, Goleta,
Calif. 93117, U.S.A. 11 xii 82
Many scholars have addressed the Shroud of Turin problem,
but Meacham does a better job than most. While he appeals to
noble motives in his introductory thesis of applying
stringent, but normal, criteria for examining the question
of authenticity, he unfortunately concludes with no more
convincing resolution of the problem than other scholars
have.
The foundation for Meacham's conclusion rests heavily on
some pieces of "evidence" which have not been adequately
substantiated. Much weight is given to pollen studies;
however, Frei does not provide data which would permit the
statistical significance of his findings to be assessed. For
example, from the sample as a whole, what is the true
percentage of positive identifications? What is the
predicted probability of occurrence? etc.
Much heat and emotion have been generated over the
"findings" of inscriptions, coins, etc., by some people. The
methodologies of these people are in themselves suspect, a
problem often encountered when nonscientists attempt to
apply scientific techniques. Regardless of that observation,
examination of high-quality STURP photos failed to reveal
unambiguous letter forms. The technique of preexposing a
pattern to the retina (Whanger) assists the eye in seeing
this Pattern in a subsequent field of dots which are
unrelated (except for a preferred linear trend due to the
weave structure). STURP scientists issued a statement to the
effect that letters could not be identified from examination
of the photos. This was more than one year ago. Until
objective (and reproducible) methodologies are devised and
applied to the problem, the coin-letter data point is
insubstantial.
There are a few errors in Meacham's record. The Turin
Commission did report that "blood" penetrated the weave. The
detail existent in the scourge marks was revealed through
ultraviolet fluorescent photography (by Miller and
Pellicori, not Gilbert and Gilbert). The "pigtail" is most
likely an artifact resulting from nonuniform image-resulting
chemistry as the weave direction changes. This phenomenon
also occurred in the strips that appear to be the separation
between face and hair - an argument for caution in the
selection of "data."
The image chemistry is known (as Meacham reviews it), but
the mechanism of transfer of the body image to the cloth is
not yet explained. It is important to make this distinction
in discussing and demystifying the image formation process.
Suggestions that Kirlian or Volckringer-like effects might
somehow be applicable to the study of the image formation
are based on a lack of understanding of those effects and of
the known image chemistry. As such, they contribute nothing
to the science.
In his closing argument, Meacham appeals to the "scientific
character of historical knowledge," something, I assume,
which he has invented. Contrary to his arguments, there
really are no verifiable facts in the Shroud's seriously
incomplete historical record, nor is there irrefutable
evidence that warrants authentication as an obvious
conclusion. The image resulted from naturally occurring
cellulose chemical reactions and was not painted. However,
the book is still open; Stage 1 is as much as we can
support. The so-called evidence in favor of authenticity is,
and always will remain, circumstantial.
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by Steven Schafersman
Department of Geology, Rice University, Houston, Tex. 77251,
U.S.A. 13 xii 82
Meacham's paper claims that the Shroud of Turin has been
authenticated as a genuine burial shroud that once contained
the body of the crucified Jesus Christ. Althrough such a
blatant example of human credulity rarely finds its way into
the professional scholarly literature, it is useful that
Meacham is permitted to present his case, especially since
other popular scientific and scholarly journals have allowed
the same. All the empirical and logical evidence to date
demonstrates that the Shroud is the product of a clever
medieval artist, a forged relic with no other purpose than
to awe and deceive an ignorant and credulous stream of
pilgrims willing to pay to view it. The major difference
between the Shroud of Turin and other medieval relics is
that it is a far more cunning and convincing artifact than
the others. Another difference is that the other relics are
not today believed to be genuine by intelligent and educated
adults.
Meacham writes that the "image was found to be anatomically
flawless down to minor details" and that the body has "no
observable defects." Why does he fail to mention the fact
that the right forearm and fingers of the image are
unnaturally elongated? Indeed, the whole body has an
elongated aspect highly characteristic of Gothic art.
Meacham presents all the evidence that the image was formed
by contact with a corpse (rigor mortis, wounds, blood
flows), even stating that all medical authorities agree with
this conclusion. The evidence is spurious, however, and the
conclusion is nonsense, since for the most part only the
believers have bothered to make their opinions known on this
notorious subject. Forensic pathologists have explicitly
disagreed with the conclusion of legitimacy (Rhein 1980),
citing such evidence as the lack of realism of the "blood"
flows, which do not coagulate, even on the hair, but form
perfect rivulets and pools everywhere. The existence of
blood itself is another issue. Contrary to Meacham's claim,
the presence of blood cannot be "considered as firmly
established." Not a single one of the chemical tests of
Heller and Adler (1981) confirms the presence of blood;
their tests are marred by false positives caused by the
protein binder of the applied pigment (Nickell 1983).
Meacham's assertion that a 14th-century C14 date would "fail
to settle the matter" of the age of the Shroud because of
"exchange and contamination over the centuries" is absurd;
other artifacts susceptible to C14 dating much older and
more exposed than the Shroud have been dated with great
reliability. Samples of the linen can be used now with no
equivocation. The absence of a radiometric date today is due
entirely to foot-dragging by the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Max Frei's pollen evidence is questionable (Schafersman
1982c), so pollen samples taken from the Shroud do not
"reveal that it has been in Turkey and Palestine." Meacham's
claim that the antiquity of the Shroud can "be established
from archaeological data now available" is interesting, but
he rails to provide this important information in his paper.
Instead, he offers us speculation and hearsay about a
fanciful history of the Shroud before its first documented
appearance in 14th-century France.
Meacham's conclusions that the notion that the Shroud is an
artifact has "been disproved so thoroughly and absolutely
that it should be permanently buried" and that it "should
now be considered well-established that the Shroud is indeed
an archaeological document of crucifixion" are entirely
unjustified. The evidence he presents to support these
erroneous conclusions is variously inadequate, incorrect,
irrelevant, and unconvincing. It is the same evidence Shroud
enthusiasts have been popularizing for years in their
misguided attempt to promote the authenticity of the Turin
Shroud. Clearly a much longer reply is necessary to detail
all of Meacham's errors and misrepresentations; I refer
readers to Schafersman (1982a, b), Mueller (1982), and
Nickell (1983) for further details. I do want to state that
Meacham's flat dismissal of the results of McCrone (1980,
1981) has no justification whatsoever. McCrone demonstrated
convincingly that iron oxide and mercuric sulfide artists'
pigments are found on the image and "blood" areas but not on
the clear (nonimage) areas of the Shroud. The presence of
the pigment documents that pigment was applied somehow (the
method, painting or rubbing, is still debated), and the
distribution of the pigment refutes the hypothesis of
contamination. Furthermore, McCrone discovered that the
pigment in the "blood" was in a protein tempera binder. The
image on the Shroud today is due primarily to the dehydrated
cellulose of the linen (the alteration or recrystallization
of the cellulose was effected by some component, still
undetermined, of the pigment or binder) and hardly at all to
the iron oxide pigment, which explains STURP's spectroscopic
results. The original Shroud image was darker and clearer to
the naked eye, since the Shroud was the subject of paintings
in earlier centuries, when artists did not have the benefit
of filtered photographs. The conspicuous image was mostly
destroyed by one or more washings (Sox 1981) which
undoubtedly removed most of the original particulate iron
oxide pigment.
I have no quarrel with the notion that the image on the
Shroud is supposed to represent Jesus Christ. And as a
religious relic, why shouldn't it? From the moment of the
Shroud's first appearance to the present, no one has
suggested otherwise, except rhetorically as a prelude to
documenting the evidence for the true identity of the man on
the Shroud. Meacham's painstaking rendition of this ritual
is therefore characteristic and serves only to reveal his
dogged belief in the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin and
of Jesus Christ, a personage best considered by available
evidence to be mythical. I agree with Meacham, however, in
his rejection of the commonly heard claim that the Shroud's
identification with Jesus Christ is outside the bounds of
scientific or scholarly investigation and requires a leap of
faith. Such things as the existence of Jesus, the true
origin of the Shroud of Turin, and any connection between
the two are very definitely within the limits of such
investigation. I submit, however, that all investigations to
date demonstrate that the Turin Shroud is an artifact
connected with the mythical crucified and resurrected Christ
only as a religious relic, and certainly not in any material
sense.
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by Giovanni Tamburelli
Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni, Via Guglielmo
Reiss Romoli, 274, 10148 Torino, Italy. 13 xii 82
This paper is an interesting and all but exhaustive analysis
of the problems concerning the authentication of the Turin
Shroud. Only the results obtained by computer (see
Tamburelli 1981, cited by Meacham, and also Tamburelli 1979)
have not sufficiently been taken into account. I quote from
my recent article on the subject, based on computer image
processing done at the Centro Studi e Laboratori
Telecomunicazioni (Tamburelli 1982:3-11, reprinted By
permission):
In fact, almost the whole Passion of the Man of the Shroud
according to the Gospel could be read in the data supplied
by the computer. Obviously, this is only a probable
"reading," because, after 2,000 years, very clear details
can be interpreted in terms of hypotheses or, at most,
probabilities.
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to list the new data
obtained with the computer, making a distinction between
data previously undiscovered or doubtful on the
2-dimensional images. Undiscovered data include (numbers
refer to the details on the illustrations of the face [fig.
1] and body [fig. 2] images):
* the blood on the whole face. This is the logical
consequence of a third dimension, corresponding to a single
transformation law of all points of the face, even if
without streams and clots of blood;
* streams and clots of blood, most of which were
previously undiscovered, flowing down or towards the fore
part of the face and the hair;
* the clot of blood cut on the left cheek near the left
nostril (1);
* the mark which begins on the right side of the hair is
slightly cut on the right cheek and on the nose and stops on
the above-mentioned clots (2);
* the swelling of the right zygoma (3);
* the cuts on the left zygoma (4);
* the wrinkled clot on the left eyelid (5);
* the two streams of blood flowing down from the nose
(6);
* the drop of blood under the upper lip (7);
* the clearly stereoscopic drop of blood on the right
side of the upper lip (8);
* a sharp-pointed drop of blood on the right nostril
(9);
* the clot of blood on the right side of the upper lip
(10);
* the clot of blood on the left side of the upper lip
(11);
* the clot of blood on the lower lip under the drop of
blood flowing from the central part of the upper lip (12);
* the flowing aspect of the two streams of blood on the
left side of the lower lip (13);
* the two holes at the sides of the nose (14);
* the cut on the nose near the two holes (15);
* the excoriation of the tip of the nose (16);
* the slight deviation of the tip of the nose (17);
* the drops of blood on the right side of the beard
(18);
* the possible relief of the left-hand thumb on the 3-D
image of the body (21);
Of the second data we can list:
* the cut on the right cheek deriving from a cudgel blow
(19);
* the circular mark on the right eyelid probably left by
a coin (20).
The correspondence between these data and the Gospels was
detailed in my article as follows:
* The Man of the Shroud sweated blood, as supported by
the presence of blood in all the points of the face.
* Therefore, he received heavy blows such as the
numerous scourgings to be seen on the body image, the cudgel
blow to be seen on the right cheek (19) and on the nose
(15), the blow or blows on the clearly swollen right zygoma
(13). As a consequence, he suffered the breakage of the
nasal septum which is seen to be deviated and pierced by two
lateral holes (14); the nose lost blood (6) which dropped
from the upper lip (7), forming a clot on the lower lip
(12).
* The Man of the Shroud began the way to Golgotha with
the cross on the right shoulder, as shown by the imprint on
the linen wrap. At a certain moment, the forehead began to
bleed with a stream flowing on the left side of the face.
This stream formed a clot on the left eyelid (5), a clot
near the left nostril (1) and the clot on the left side of
the upper lip (11). This last clot (11) enlarged and took on
a sharp-pointed appearance and acted as a watershed; in fact
it divided the stream of blood into two rivulets which
flowed on the left side of the lower lip (13). As this
stream did not soak the beard vertically and as the clot
near the left nostril was clearly cut while the victim was
on the cross (as explained later) and hence was not fully
clotted, the stream did not appear long before crucifixion.
The Man of the Shroud fell, striking the left cheek on the
ground, where the cheek was cut by the gravel (4);
furthermore, the crown of thorns cut the skin, giving rise
at that moment, i.e., not long before crucifixion, to the
stream of blood mentioned above and to other streams which
soaked the hair.
As shown by the nail marks on both wrists and feet, the Man
of the Shroud was crucified. After a certain time he bent
his head towards the right side. This brought about the
deviation of the stream on the right side of the face
causing it to flow along the right side of the nose to the
right nostril (9) from whence blood dripped on the right
side of the lip (10) and then onto the beard (8).
The clot of blood on the left eyelid was wrinkled (5) by the
movement of the eyelid. When the Man of the Shroud bent his
head the stream of blood was diverged and thus did not cover
the wrinkles; this clot was quite large and stuck the eyelid
of the left eye together.
The position of the drop on the right side of the lip (8)
shows the inclination of the face before death. The other
streams of blood also flowed towards the right side, as
clearly shown in fig. 1.
A person with a sponge soaked in vinegar and put on the tip
of a branch of hyssop refreshed the Man of the Shroud: in
fact, we can note that the clot on the left side of the
cheek (1) is cut.
The upper part of the cut is straight and may correspond to
the flat part of the tip of the hyssop branch, due to the
cut with a sickle, while the lower part is round and may
correspond to the cylindrical part of the tip.
Furthermore, the mark beginning from the right side of the
hair (2), is slightly cut on the right cheek and on the nose
and stops on the clot, showing that at the beginning the tip
of the hyssop branch was placed an the right side of the
hair and then dragged across so that the sponge reached the
mouth of the Man of the Shroud and caused the cut seen on
the clot of blood.
The last drop, dripped from the nostril and is greatly
diverged towards the right side (9). In fact, when He died
the muscles of the neck were fully distended and the head
bent down more.
The drop has a pointed form, because the gradual decrease in
blood flows caused a decrease in its section, and its weight
was not sufficient to make it fall (this is a proof that the
blood ceased flowing while he was on the cross and hence
that the Man died on the cross.)
To ensure that the Man of the Shroud was dead, a soldier
stabbed him in the right chest with a lance, as shown in
fig. 2 (22), and water and blood flowed out.
The death on the cross is also confirmed by the fact that
all streams of blood are in the fore part of the face and
none are directed towards the back, where they would have
arrived had the Man of the Shroud continued to lose blood
after the deposition from the cross. To keep the right
eyelid shut, a coin was placed on it, as is clearly shown by
the circular flat area in fig. 1 (20). The coin must then
have been removed as the mark is impressed in the linen
wrap.
The striking similarities of these facts with Gospel are a
clear contribution in favor of the Shroud's authenticity.
Hence, the probability that the Man of the Shroud was Jesus
Christ is greatly increased by the results obtained with the
aid of the computer.
The computer showed us also what the face of Jesus Christ
probably looked like before the Passion or after
Resurrection, through an electronic cleaning of the blood
and wounds which provides the almost natural images of the
face (fig. 3).
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