Shroud of Turin: Behind the Scenes
N. D. Wilson, son of pastor/theologian/author/iconoclast Douglas Wilson, may have finally discovered the secret of how the famous Shroud of Turin image was produced by Medieval artists. Most fascinating part of his story is that he arrived at his hypothesis by using the logic found in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries.
Share on Facebook
February 19th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Man, I can’t believe you found out about this before I did! Thanks for the link.
(Nate’s an awesome fellow, by the way.)
February 20th, 2005 at 12:23 am
It was on Doug Wilson’s blog, Jason. Always keep up with your own teachers
February 21st, 2005 at 1:27 am
Ah, yes. If only I had the time to keep up with their blogs …
February 26th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Hello,
I live in Moscow, Idaho, a fate I share with Nathan Wilson. Nathan’s ‘research’ has become the topic of some slight conversation in our town. A friend of mine, an analytical chemist and Associate Professor here at the University of Idaho, has corresponded with Nathan on this matter and has a few reservations which he shared with me recently. I’ll post just one here for the time being.
Nathan posits that red ochre, basically rust, and/or vermillion are the pigments making up the image on the shroud. Neither of these are light sensitive, that is they would NOT fade if exposed to sunlight. The red in brick is derived from red ochre, bricks do not fade in color because red ochre is stable in sunlight. Like I said this is only one of a series of problems with Nathan’s experiment.
That said, I would like to congratulate Nate for his ‘thinking outside the box’, and encourage more of the same on this subject.
February 26th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
Thanks for passing that on, Mark. I’m sure that Nathan’s hypothesis will have to be tested in many ways. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with in response.
And the “thinking outside the box?”…I suspect that he comes by it naturally from Dear Old Dad
March 1st, 2005 at 12:34 pm
This is rather funny. I was googling about this morning to watch the ripple effect of this Shroud thing. And Lo! I find the same post my the Mark K. on two different blogs. And, like the last time I found it, I find that he has completely misrepresented what Nates theory is - no chalk, brick, red ochre, or such was used in the making thereof.
My brother was the one who painted the actual image (see Nates site for details) and all that was used was white acrylic house paint and an old window from the side of his house. Nothing was applied to the canvases except for good old solar power.
Thought you might want to know.
Mark
March 1st, 2005 at 1:38 pm
Thanks, Mark B. (this is quickly becoming the community of Marks!) for giving another side. Could this be what Nate’s Dad is referring to in his recent blog post saying that there has been a stirring of hysterical opposition in Moscow to Nate’s hypothesis?
March 1st, 2005 at 5:22 pm
I never claimed that Nate USED red ocher, only that he believed that is what was used to produce the image. You need to read a bit more carefully, Mark B.
I have used the same post on at least three blogs, Mark B. So you’re missing one.
I doubt very much if Doug had me in mind when he made the ‘hysterical’ comment, if he in fact did. We’ve been friends for over twenty years.
March 1st, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Mark K. … glad to hear you are not among the “hysterical”
Here’s Doug’s exact quote:
Since the Shroud of Turin web site went up last week, the response has been really remarkable, with lots of interest and respect from all around the world. But some of our local critics have been beside themselves, and have behaved like a nine-year-old boy throwing rocks at a train . . . ten minutes after it left the station.
March 1st, 2005 at 7:17 pm
Sage,
Doug’s right. Some of the locals are behaving badly, but then what else is new??? They seem to want to constantly believe the worst about Doug, and by doing so disqualify themselves from any thoughtful discussion.
Thanks for citation of what Doug said.
Mark K.
March 1st, 2005 at 7:19 pm
Moscow sounds like an interesting place…
March 1st, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Mea Culpa Mark K.!
Very much my bad. Nate didn’t use red ochre or anything to make the image on the shroud.
But then, neither is he claiming that anything made the image on the shroud. He is claiming that sunlight made everything else but the image (hat tip to G.K.Chesterton, etc.).
Thanks,
Mark B.
March 1st, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Mark B.
Sorry for coming off like a know it all. My wife knows I’m far from that. Since you’re here in Moscow too, let’s get together and compare notes. We both might learn something. Bucer’s?
Mark K.
March 1st, 2005 at 8:20 pm
In my wildest dreams for this blog, I never imagined it would become an entertainment guide for Moscow, Idaho
March 1st, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Foolish Sage - Maybe you could put an advert at the top of your blog “Meet Local Moscow Idaho Men” or such. Nice blog, by the way.
Mark K. - My bookstore is right next to Bucers- if you feel like walking through from Main St, there is a door in the roasting room that leads into the store, or if you feel adventurous, our “front” door in on the alley behind. And I am there from 10 to 6 save when I am battling the dreaded Nadger Plauge. I feel sure that I must have run into you at some point. We’ll see.
Mark B.
March 1st, 2005 at 8:47 pm
“Meet Local Moscow Idaho Menâ€
I shudder to think what Google searchers might end up here via that route!
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:09 am
I am the chemist in contact with Mark K. I just want to clarify a few issues. In 1980 a well-known chemist claimed to have found red ochre and vermillion as the dyes used to paint the image on the shroud. That now seems to be unfounded. The image was not painted and the chemistry that produced the image is not well understood at all. It is not of any recoginzed dye. Furthermore there is a recently discovered (2004) second identical image on the backside of the cloth. That image was not produced by paint soaking through the cloth as there are no pigments between the two images. Radiocarbon results that indicate the cloth to be of medieval origin MAY be unfounded also. The jury is out on that one. A chemical dating method publish just last month indicates that the cloth is much older than the medieval period. If there is an interest, I can give the recent scientific peer-reviewed literature references about the shroud in a later post. Best to all.
March 22nd, 2005 at 8:11 pm
Mark, and Mark, and anyone else,
Seems Nate’s experiment is caught in the ‘popular news item vortex’. Articles showing up not only in the local press, but some national attention also. Unfortunately, as his work becomes big news it also shows signs of unraveling once any hard questions are asked, or even semi-hard ones. And those questions are starting to be asked and the unraveling has begun. Remember in my first post I stated that the red ochre problem wasn’t the only problem with Nate’s work. The state of forteenth century glass making is another obvious problem. Also the image on the shroud is not a dye of ANY kind. That hypothesis was considered, tested, and discarded a few decades ago. And it doesn’t stop there. Seems Nate’s research prior to his experiment was less than adequate.
Nate’s claim is looking similar to the man who declares he knows how Michelangelo created his David, since he’s just created a replica with his chainsaw and a log. However, we know David is not made of wood, and Michelangelo predates the invention of chainsaws. Well, the shroud is not made of a dye of any kind, and glass the size needed didn’t exist for another 300 years, at least.
Mark K.
March 22nd, 2005 at 8:19 pm
Guys,
Sorry, I meant to include this article as evidence for the ‘unraveling’ theory I posted earlier. This, of course, isn’t the only one I could cite. I hope it’s not against the blog law to include website addresses in posts.
http://www.shroudstory.com/shadowshroud.htm
Mark K.
March 24th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
I feel kind of embarrassed posting again on your site Mark T. Instead of getting to work this morning, I was reading the news articles on the Shadow Shroud thingee, and came across these links, the last one had a tacky picture on the left sidebar, so put some post-it notes on the screen before pulling it up. They are both quite familiar sounding.
http://www.funmurphys.com/blog/archive/000687.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/2614/P80/
The link that Mark K. posts above is already familiar to Nate, and he has posted here on the issues raised by Dan Porter:
http://shadowshroud.com/faq.htm#faq9
Perhaps some- Mark K., Dan Porter, and others - have misunderstood that Mr. Wilson it not claiming to have proven beyond a shadow (heh) of doubt that the shroud was faked. He just saying it could have been faked by someone with simple tools, ones available to a medieval forger. In effect, he is saying that it took no more hard work than it would take to copy/paste a post that claims Nate Wilson’s idea “shows signs of unraveling once any hard questions are asked, or even semi-hard ones”, put it on three blogs, and personalize slightly to each site. I haven’t seen any hard questions asked of Nate, mainly because the only hard claims that Nate has made are ones that are bleached quite clearly on a piece of cloth. You still owe me a visit, Mark K.
Thanks,
Mark B.
March 24th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Interesting theory, but how does he explain the other evidence - as reported in the
History Channel’s documentary on The Shroud of Turin and another called “Man of Pain:
The Holy Shroud.”
1. Crucifixion depictions (paintings, sculptures, icons) from medieval times show nails
being driven through the hands. The Shroud depicts nails driven through the wrists as
recently uncovered bones of crucifixion victims also reveal. Wouldn’t it have been
simpler to instill belief for a medieval forger to go with the then popular crucifixion
depiction?
2. The linen is of a type woven in the Middle East from that era.
3. There is microscopic pollen on the linen from the Middle East and from the time
of Christ.
4. Images of the eyes when enhanced digitally reveal 1st Century Roman
coins had been placed on the eyes.
5. There is no trace of pigment or ink on the threads of the Shroud.
6. They have found dirt on the areas of the knees and feet high in a certain chemical
composition (forget which) that is attributable to the Jerusalem area.
G.K. Chesterson’s Father Brown is all well and good. While I’m not jumping to a
conclusion that the Shroud is genuine, I am also not saying it’s a fake.
We should remember Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes’ admonition to not come to a
conclusion before all the facts are in and all the particulars can be explained.
March 24th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Trevor,
You may have misunderstood my previous post. Probably my fault.
I don’t know if the shroud is a fake or the burial cloth of Christ. I’m not convinced either way yet. The only reason I’ve posted here is to let people know that Nathan Wilson’s experiment has very little to do with the image on the shroud. Nate created an image that looks like the shroud image in SOME ways, but is unlike the shroud image in many other ways. In short Nathan didn’t to what he claimed, that is, show how a the image could have been faked in the 14th century. The image on the shroud could not have been formed using Nathan’s process.
Mark K.
March 24th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Looks like we have a battle of the Mark’s here, folks…one this Mark is content to stay on the sidelines and wath. If it gets too hot, I may need to leave my tunic behind and run for it, as did our namesake long ago!
March 24th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
Mark B., Trevor, Sage, and the rest,
I completely understand what Nathan claimed to have done. In fact, here I quote him from the Chrisitianity Today article: …I have not proved that the Shroud was faked. What I have done is crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill.”
Nathan says he has demonstrated how the image on the shroud could have been faked. He hasn’t. He’s shown how someone can make an image that LOOKS like the image on the shroud, but looks are only one criteria. What about the chemical composition, what about microscopic examination of the fibers, what about the absence of any paint, or dye on any of the shroud, what about the image depth(180-600 nanometers, about the thickness of a bacterium), and the list goes on and on. Simply put, the image on the shroud could NOT be made by Nathan’s process.
Eventually, Nathan’s experiment will fall whether the impact is soft or a crash landing will depend almost entirely on Nathan’s attitude toward those who show him he is wrong.
As you all probably know, Nathan appeared on ABC News recently speaking about his experiment. Forbes Magazine has taken ABC to task for the gullibilty and unquestioning reporting on the subject. Here’s the link.
http://tinyurl.com/6zwb4
Thanks for the forum, Sage.
Mark K.
March 24th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
Mark K.
I took the liberty of converting your Forbes link, which ran off the page, to a tinyurl. Thanks for your interesting challenges!
March 25th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Thanks for converting the Forbes link. I saw that it ran way long, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I guess that’s why you’re the boss here.
Mark
March 25th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
No big secret. Go to http://www.tinyurl.com, and you can convert any long URL to a short, email-friendly one for free.
March 25th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Cool.
March 26th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Hi - Mark B. checking back in. Mr. Porter, who keeps the site
http://www.shroudstory.com/
posted the article Mark K. cited a few days ago, spiffily writing it as though he were an unbiased observer rather than someone who makes predictions on the web like this:
http://www.longbets.org/user/shroudie
As for the contents of the article, Nate already responded to them, as I posted two days ago:
http://www.shadowshroud.com/faq.htm#faq7
Mark K, you say that you “completely understand what Nathan claimed to have done” yet you don’t bother interacting with anything on Nate’s site on the subject. When you ask “what about the absence of any paint, or dye on any of the shroud”- I wonder if you have read anything that has been posted on any of the subject at hand. The whole point is the absence of any paint or dye. The absence of such weighs heavily in favor of Nates idea.
You are hasty in posting a dogmatic statement like “the image on the shroud could NOT be made by Nathan’s process” and post an article by a man who, like Nate, has no scientific credentials to speak of (if he had them, I sure he would speak of them), and has a deep bias (not to mention an online prediction) against a fake shroud.
If you would really like to settle your mind about any questions you might have, I’d be glad to give you Nates number. I’m sure he’d be glad to answer any questions you might have.
Mark B.
March 26th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Mark B.
Anyone how wants to know what Nathan’s claim is can read it. I did, and I posted it so you and anyone who wants to can see what Nate claims in his own words, unless he is saying he was misquoted in the CT article. Once more quoting Nathan from the Chrisitianity Today article: “…I have not proved that the Shroud was faked. What I have done is crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill.†These are Nate’s words. I added nothing, I assume he meant what he said. He claims to have discovered a method by which the image on the shroud could have been faked. He hasn’t done that. What he has done is show how one can create an image that LOOKS like the one on the shroud. Was that his only claim? No. He claims to be able to show how ‘the image(on the shroud)could easily be produced. Looks is only one criteria that must be satisfied. Before a person can make Nathan’s claim he has to show that the image he created meets ALL the criteria of the image on the shroud, not simply the ‘It looks like it.’ test. LOTS of people have made images that look like the shroud image, but they are informed enough and humble enough to realize that making a shroud look-alike really has nothing to do with explaining how the shroud image was produced.
Mark K.
March 26th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
As soon as I made my last post, I realized I shouldn’t have assumed anyones motives. I certainly don’t know the degree to which anyone else is informed, much less whether they are humble. I do believe that Nate is sincere in what he presents and that he is open to listening to all sides in the debate. I didn’t mean to insinuate otherwise. Sorry, Nate.
Mark K.
March 26th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Hello,
Mark K let me know of the debate going on here. I am chemist at the University of Idaho and know about the chemistries of the Shroud of Turin (ST) and Nathan Wilson’s shroud. Nathan has produced a good looking copy. However, it doesn’t match the scientific results of ST. Nathan used a flax cloth. Flax and many plant materials contain a pigment called lignin. Lignin sun-bleaches to a lighter color. The ancient Egyptians knew about this:
http://schools.lwsd.org/ICS/ISProjects/ivy6hathi/clothing.htm
And used the sun-bleaching process to produce white linen from flax. The problem with Nathan’s approach is many-fold.
1. The color on the ST is not due to lignin. It is a very superficial oxidation of fibers themselves. And only those supposedly in contact with the body. The fibers of flax on the ST have long lost their lignin color. What is very interesting is that only the outermost fibers have any color, about the width of a bacterium. Nathan’s work would not do this.
2. The ST has a backside mirror image of the body discovered by the same imaging techniques used by the spy satellites and magnetic resonance imaging machines. Nathan called this “ad hoc” on his web site but it is hardly so. His shroud won’t have that feature.
3. Lignin decays rather rapidly, Nathan’s shroud image will be long gone in 100 years and the ST’s image has persisted for at least 700 years or more.
4. There were no flat panes of glass of the size needed to fake ST using Nathan’s method in the years 1200-1400 AD when it was supposedly faked. I talked about this with medieval historians. Glass 2-3 feet in diameter was available but they were very wavy, full of bubbles, and had variations in frostiness across each pane. Overlaying several panes of this type of glass would not produce a clean figure. Lines and waviness would appear in the Wilson method of producing the ST fake. Glass of the type he would need did not appear until about 1700 AD.
5. The ST is not a medieval fake. It might be an ancient one though. Recent chemical dating on the parts of the ST not rewoven by medieval hands put the date of the ST back to Roman times.
Those are just a few of the problems. It is very disappointing to see the press runaway with this. They did not ask him any hard questions. He is not answering them at his web site either. He tends to blow off any science that conflicts with his shroud.
If you are wondering as a scientist I cannot rule out the ST as genuine nor can I prove its authenticity.
If you have any questions just contact my office.
All the best.
March 26th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
[...] iscovered a method by which the Shroud of Turin may have been faked. The debate rages on here. Read about Nathan’s hypothesis here.
Publi [...]
March 28th, 2005 at 12:31 am
If you rub a piece of Scotch tape on the Turin Shroud (where there is image), some of the image will come off on the tape leaving clear cellulose fiber behind. In other words the image is like a crust on the cloth. Close microscopic examination of this material on the tape shows that it is very thin, about 180 to 600 nanometers thick. Such rubbing was done in 1973 and again in 1978. Regrettably, this examination technique was slightly destructive to the image. Here is a photomicrograph of actual image pulled away from a fiber and stuck to adhesive tape.
http://shroudstory.com/faq/images/i10.jpg
It would be very simple for Nathan to provide his cloth to a suitable chemistry laboratory to see if this will happen. However, it should be noted that the fibers are composed of closely packed “ultimate cells” of the fibrillar structure that are cemented together with holocellulose and lignin. In Nathan’s method, the image color is due to the lignin which will not come away on adhesive tape.
Furthermore, with untreated, unbleached linen, like Wilson used, every fiber (perhaps 100 twisted together to form a single thread) will have the same unbleached darker color quality. If you look into the thread, that is what you will find. On the other hand, when you look into the threads of the real Shroud of Turin, the threads are white. The color is completely superficial to the top two or three fibrils. There is strong evidence that the Turin cloth was in fact bleached before weaving and before any image formed on the cloth.
In a nutshell, Nathan has not created an image like the one on the Shroud of Turin and has therefore not shown how someone might have faked the Shroud.
Dan
March 28th, 2005 at 1:30 am
In response to Mark B (did I get the right Mark?)
No, I do not have scientific credentials. I am a businessman. In my thirty-five years of experience in business I have come to depend on experts and to be cautious about conclusions that are unconfirmed.
You say I have a bias. Not really. I have come to an opinion. That opinion – and that is all it is – is that the Shroud is genuine. I cannot prove. I doubt that anyone ever will.
It took me five years to arrive at this opinion. I was initially ceretain that it was fake. I believed, quite simply, that any relic with a footprint in medieval Europe was fake. I also did not accept the notion of a miraculous image or a natural image of such quality. It took me a long time to change my mind. I still ponder about it.
I applaud Nathan for trying. Most of us in the “Shroud Crowd†applaud anyone who offers a new hypothesis, and particularly someone who conducts experiments. Over the years there have been many attempts to find ways to create the image.
The cautious procedure is hypothesize, test and consult. Consulting is perhaps the most important aspect. I can say for certain that Nathan’s ideas would have been entertained by the larger community of researchers. Generally, no one pronounces anything publically without careful examination of the facts.
Nathan jumped the gun. That is what he did wrong. He publicized an idea before testing it and consulting with others. We are not a bunch of religious fanatics. We are are people who describe ourselves as Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, Evangelicals, Jewish and Agnostic.
We are archeologists, historians, chemists, physicists, botanists, palynologists, forensic pathologists, image analysts, art historians, textile experts, and technical photographers. Some, like me, are none of the above.
Many are or were from leading academic institutions or from prestigious scientific establishments including the Los Alamos Laboratory, the Sandia Labs, the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. Their work, which is well documented, formidable in detail, and much of it carefully peer reviewed, warrants consideration. Most of the researchers who have studied the Shroud extensively, conclude, that at some level of understanding, it is authentic. But not all of them do.
Few of us — most likely none — will say that it is material to our faith.
About 100 of us will be meeting in Dallas in September and I would love to see Nathan join us. It is too late to answer the call for papers, but we would still find ways to meet with him and let him explain his hypothesis further.
I would love to see Nathan become part of the Shroud Crowd. We are really a nice bunch of people.
Dan Porter