The Shroud Markings
The extraordinary image of a man that we can see on the Shroud is a scientific mystery. During the past century, several scientists have had the opportunity to examine the image in detail in an attempt to understand how it was formed. However, no-one has yet been able to explain how the image was created and despite many attempts, no-one has been able to produce an image with the same characteristics as the image on the Shroud.
There are a number of different marks that are visible on the Shroud. These are described and explained in the four sliding images shown below.
These faint impressions of the front and back of a naked man are the reason why there continues to be widespread interest in the Shroud. These remarkable imprints have captivated many historians, artists and scientists who have performed extensive research on the Shroud since the end of the nineteenth century. Scientific studies of the Shroud have significantly increased our understanding of the extraordinary nature and characteristics of these images but they continue to puzzle researchers who have yet to adequately explain or reproduce them.
- The Extraordinary Image
- STURP Findings
- Microscopic Properties
- What caused the image?
The remarkable photographic negative image
The first major discovery about the extraordinary nature of the Shroud images was made when the Shroud was photographed for the first time in 1898. The reversal of light and shade in the photographic negative images transforms the faint imprints seen on the Shroud into a strikingly realistic and anatomically perfect image of a man. Indeed these images seen opposite could easily be mistaken for photographs of the body of a man in repose.
This remarkable and unexpected discovery was the catalyst for the extensive research which has continued throughout the years since 1898.
Three-dimensional properties
Another unique feature of the Shroud image was discovered in 1976 when it was scanned by Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper using a VP-8 Image Analyzer. This instrument is able to convert a two-dimensional black and white image into a three-dimensional representation, by generating a vertical relief profile based upon the shading intensity of the image.
When this device was used with photographs or paintings it invariably produced a distorted and inaccurate representation of the original image. However, a scan of the Shroud image using the VP-8 Image Analyzer produced an accurate three-dimensional representation of the Man of the Shroud, with facial features, arms, legs and chest all contoured correctly. The two scientists later demonstrated this to Peter Schumacher, the engineer who installed production VP-8 devices and trained Jackson and Jumper.
He later recalled his astonishment:
“I had never heard of the Shroud of Turin before that moment. I had no idea what I was looking at. However, the results are unlike anything I have processed through the VP-8 Analyzer, before or since. Only the Shroud of Turin has produced these results from a VP-8 Image Analyzer isometric projection study.”
Shroud of Turin Research Project
The discovery that there was 3-D information encoded within the Shroud image led to yet another surge of interest in the Shroud, with many scientists curious to find out how this image had been produced. Eventually, a multi-disciplinary team of leading scientists, led by John Jackson and Eric Jumper, were given permission to conduct examinations of the Shroud over a period of five days in October 1978. Their primary objective was to determine the scientific properties of the image on the Shroud of Turin, and what might have caused it.
Several of the team were far from convinced that the Shroud was authentic and later admitted that they expected that they would find evidence that the image had been painted within a few minutes of beginning their examinations. However it proved to be not quite that simple.
They examined the Shroud around the clock for five days, during which they took numerous X-Ray, ultraviolet and natural light photographs and obtained surface samples by pressing adhesive tape onto the surface of the Shroud. They then spent the next three years studying all the data which they had collected, during which they published twenty-four scientific papers covering the findings revealed by the diverse workstreams of this complex research project. In 1981 they announced and published their report conclusions:
“No pigments, paints, dyes or stains have been found on the fibrils. X-ray, fluorescence and microchemistry on the fibrils preclude the possibility of paint being used as a method for creating the image…
… It is clear that there has been a direct contact of the Shroud with a body, which explains certain features such as scourge marks, as well as the blood. However, while this type of contact might explain some of the features of the torso, it is totally incapable of explaining the image of the face with the high resolution that has been amply demonstrated by photography…
… We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.”
The following links provide further information about the STURP examination
The Shroud of Turin Research Project 1978 Scientific Examination of the Shroud. A comprehensive, photograph-rich account by Barrie Schwortz covering the 1978 examination.
A summary of STURP’s Conclusions. The complete official summary of STURP’s conclusions as distributed at the press conference following STURP’s final meeting in October 1981:
STURP’s Published Papers. A list of STURP’s published scientific papers including links to most of these important research documents.
Characteristics of the image markings
Although the STURP Team failed to achieve their main goal of determining how the Shroud image had been formed, their studies did reveal a substantial amount of information about the properties and characteristics of the image.
They discovered that the image on the Shroud is a result of small numbers of discoloured fibres in the linen threads where the image is visible. These discoloured fibres are all of the same colour and so the darker shades on the image are due to there being a greater density of discoloured fibres where the image is darker.
The short video to the right zooms into the nose area until the threads and the fibres are visible. You can clearly see that a relatively small number of these fibres are discoloured, and appear darker than the rest.
Copyright Performco Ltd.
Even though the thickness of the linen threads used to make the Shroud is typically only 0.25 millimetres, remarkably it is only a few fibres close to the fabric surface which are discoloured; the majority of the fibres in the thread are unaffected as depicted in the schematic below. An examination of these discoloured fibres, each of which is less than the thickness of a human hair, revealed yet another surprise which was that the depth of the colour penetration in each fibre was found to be approximately two micrometres. This is the thickness of the primary cell wall of the linen fibre and although this is uniformly coloured all around the cylindrical surface, the interior of the fibre is colourless. The STURP team concluded that: “The scientific consensus is that “…the image was produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the microfibrils of the linen itself”.”
Another fascinating observation made by STURP was that no discoloured fibres were found beneath the bloodstains. This suggests that the bloodstains were already present on the cloth when the image was formed and so protected the fibers underneath from receiving the image during the image formation process. Clearly it’s difficult to imagine a forger applying the bloodstains first and then creating the image around it. However, it is consistent with the belief of many Shroud researchers that the image was formed by some unknown phenomenon that occured in the tomb following the burial of the bloodstained body: a burst of radiation at the moment of resurrection perhaps?
What Caused the Image?
In recent years there have been many attempts to identify and explain a process which could have produced an image with the same properties as the Shroud image. These fit into one of three categories:
- It’s an artist’s creation
- The image was the result of natural processes which can occur when a body is wrapped in linen
- The image was the result of a form of radiation
An Artists Creation
Perhaps the most well-known advocate of this hypothesis was Walter McCrone, a respected microscopist who examined sticky tape samples that had been removed from the Shroud by the STURP team. He found iron oxide on the samples which he claimed indicated the use of tempura paint and also reported finding minute paint fragments is some of the samples that he analysed.
The STURP team had however already discovered that iron oxide was present over the entire cloth, not just in the areas where the image was present. These trace deposits of iron oxide were believed to be due to the retting process used to remove the flax fibres from the plant stalk, which involved soaking the plant in pond water. The presence of minute paint fragments on the Shroud was also to be expected as it is documented that many painted copies of the Shroud have been ‘sanctified’ in the past by laying them on the original. McCrone also claimed that the bloodstains consisted of iron oxide, mercury sulphide and vermillion but STURP found that there was insufficient iron oxide or vermillion to account for a single painted drop of blood, let alone all the blood markings present on the Shroud.
Unlike McCrone, whose investigation of the sticky tape samples had mainly involved studying them under a microscope, STURP’s John Heller and Alan Adler were also able to perform chemical tests and study X-ray data that had been obtained during the 5-day examination of the Shroud. The results of these studies, which were peer-reviewed published in leading scientific journals, completely invalidated the conclusions of Walter McCrone’s research but despite this he persisted in his claim that the Shroud image was a painting.
There have been other proposed artistic methods for producing the image, including using a bas-relief sculpture and rubbings, painting with powder and using a heated, sculpted model to scorch the cloth. There have even been suggestions that it would be possible to create a proto-photographic image using raw materials that were available in medieval times. However, none of these methods can produce an image with all the characteristics of the image on the Shroud.
Natural Processes
There have been several suggestions of how a wrapped corpse could have produced an image through natural chemical and biological processes. Most of these involve contact between the body and the cloth which wrapped it but it is widely accepted that this would have resulted in major distortions in the image produced, unlike the anatomically accurate representation of a body that is visible on the Shroud. A contact-based process also fails to address the fact that the Shroud image exists in places where the fabric would not have been in contact with the body, for example in the space between the nose and the cheeks.
STURP chemist Ray Rogers has proposed that a chemical reaction could have taken place between amine vapours produced by the body during the early stages of decomposition and starch residues left on the surface of the cloth during the manufacturing process. His experiments using small samples of linen cloth showed that this Maillard chemical reaction can eventually produce a yellow-brown colouring of a linen fabric that was treated to have a thin starch contamination layer. This gas diffusion process can produce some fibre discolouration characteristics similar to those observed on the Shroud but it doesn’t explain others, in particular the sharp, well-defined features and accuracy of the Shroud image.
Radiation
Some of the most promising explanations of a possible mechanism for replicating the Shroud image involve some form of radiation.
French scientist Father Jean-Baptiste Rinaudo exposed samples of linen fabric to proton radiation and found that a specific radiation intensity produced a superficial yellowing of the fabric similar to that observed on the Shroud. He believed that the protons were produced by the disintegration of deuterium which is present in small quantities in the human body. The deuterium disintegration would also have produced neutron radiation which he believed would have made the Shroud appear much younger than its true age when it was radiocarbon dated in 1988.
Other scientists have also concluded that the emission of proton and neutron radiation could explain how the Shroud image was produced and an incorrect radiocarbon dating result. Jean-Pierre Laude has built upon the work of Fr. Rinaudo by suggesting that the likely cause of these emissions was a large, violent thunderstorm which gospel accounts indicate may have accompanied the crucifixion of Jesus. The strong electric field that accompanies lightning would also cause protons emanating from the skin surface to follow a vertical path and this could account for the image’s extraordinary characteristics, such as the high-resolution, realistic image of the body with encoded 3D information. Nuclear physicist Bob Rucker, who has performed detailed calculations showing how neutron emissions from the body would have affected radiocarbon measurements of fabrics in the tomb, is another leading scientist to propose that vertically-columnated proton radiation was responsible for the production of the image.
Research led by former STURP scientist John Jackson has led to the development of a ‘Radiation Fall-Through Hypothesis’. This proposes that the body wrapped in the Shroud became radiant throughout its entire volume with ultraviolet light as it simultaneously dematerialised. As the cloth fell through the space left by the body, the surface fibres absorbed some of the ultraviolet radiation which produced the image.
Experiments led by Italian physicist Paolo Di Lazzaro have come tantalisingly close to matching the distinctive hue on a few square centimetres of linen fabric. With his colleagues at Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), he conducted five years of experiments, using state-of-the-art excimer lasers to direct short bursts of ultraviolet light at the raw linen. However, although they managed to achieve similar discolouration, they were unable to match all the physical and chemical characteristics of the shroud image. They also couldn’t reproduce a whole human figure. According to Di Lazzaro, the ultraviolet light necessary to do so exceeds the maximum power released by all ultraviolet light sources available today and would require pulses having durations shorter than one forty-billionth of a second, and intensities of the order of several billion watts.
More recently, Giulio Fanti and Robert Siefker have proposed a new hypothesis which involves the Holy Fire. This is a remarkable phenomenon that occurs each year on Orthodox Easter Saturday in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre and has been shown to be accompanied by a high intensity electrical discharge. The ‘Divine Photography Hypothesis’ proposes that this annual phenomenon is an echo of what could have occurred at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection. This event produced an intense electric field at the same time that the body of Jesus dematerialised. This field produced electrons at the surface of the linen fibres, which induced localised chemical reactions on the fibres closest to the body, causing the discolouration seen on image fibres. This reaction affected the entire circumference of the fibre due to electrons being distributed over the surface. This electric field also gave the image that was formed sufficient resolution to reproduce the appearance of the front and back of the body.
What all of these different radiation-based hypotheses have in common is that they involve a phenomenon which is outside the realm of science, such as the miracle of the resurrection accompanied by a ‘divine light’. However a miracle cannot be investigated by the scientific method and so it is unlikely that science will be able to ‘prove’ which, if any, of these proposed hypotheses is responsible for the image seen on the Shroud.
The following links provide further information about image formation hypotheses
The Shroud of Turin: an Enduring Mystery. An informative slide presentation by Dr. Ray Sneider which reviews many of the suggested image-creation mechanisms outlined above
The Shroud of Turin: an amino-carbonyl reaction (Maillard reaction) may explain the image formation. A paper by Ray Rogers and Anna Arnoldi detailing how a natural chemical reaction could have produced the Shroud image.
How the Image Was Formed on the Shroud. A paper by Bob Rucker which describes his vertically-columnated proton radiation hypothesis.
Linen Coloration by Pulsed Radiation: A Review. Slides of a talk by Paolo Di Lazzaro which describes his experiments with UV lasers.
Holy Fire and Body Image of the Holy Shroud: Divine Photography Hypothesis. Paper by Giulio Fanti which describes the ‘Holy Fire’ phneomenon and how this could indicate how the Shroud image was formed
