 |
| Stuff happens, in academe especially - but do try to put a brave face on it. |
Late addition (17 June): the video says "4 months ago", which this blogger took to mean as having been recorded 4 months ago. But it would now appear to be much older, being a recording of a lecture given by Dr.Wesselow to the British Shroud of Turin Society on October 21st 2012. That kind of exonerates Dr.Wesselow of the second of two charges here (both somewhat tongue-in-cheek I hasten to add) that he borrowed an idea of mine (Feb 2014) re the Veil of Veronica to set up a "just a body imprint" hypothesis that could then be shot down (but only by equating "imprint" with "negative-like photograph", a spurious comparison). But he did use one of my contrast/brightness enhanced pictures of the scourge marks from Shroud Scope, which he was more than welcome to, though a credit might have been nice.
For several days now this blogger has been trying to access the Thomas de Wesselow video on the Turin Shroud, one that comes highly recommended on Dan Porter's shroudstory.site. Each time I tried, there was video but no sound. Finally I was able to trace it to a fault with my default Firefox browser, and hey presto, there was sound when I switched to a different one. (More about the increasingly problematical Firefox in a future posting).
Yes, I know I said I had essentially withdrawn from the fray where the TS is concerned. But that was because my now favoured "Stick 'n' Stain" model (forget scorch imprinting) was either being ignored or instantly dismissed. Why not sit back for a while I thought, and allow time for my new, maybe maverick ideas, to sink in. But that does not mean ignoring what is said or written while that bedding-in process takes effect.
Anyway, I sat through the 60 minutes or so of de Wesselow's lecture, apparently (from the brief preamble) brought to us courtesy of David Rolfe and his Performance Films (DR I have to say not being my favourite shroudologist, having referred to this blogger not so long ago as a "Johnny Come Lately who will always be a Johnny Come Lately").
Be that as it may, I took careful note of the points being made by de Wesselow in his low key but decidedly partisan pro-authenticity presentation, during which I sat up at two points with what politely might be called deja vu moments. (Not knowing Dr. de Wesselow personally,or having engaged with him on this or other blogsites, I refer to him here by his surname, with no offence or disrespect intended: one does not wish to seem over-familiar).
The first was when he put up an image of the scourge marks. Yup, I'd definitely seen that image somewhere else, like one of, you know, my own postings from way, way back, in which the somewhat monochrome Shroud Scope offerings, excellent though they are, had been given some extra contrast and brightness in Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
But as indicated, there was a second deja vu moment, one I have to say that rankled a wee bit more. It was when de Wesselow got onto to his argument that no medieval forger would have attempted to represent what an imprint of Christ might have looked like, based on his somewhat questionable, indeed dubious claim that there was already a supposed imprint in existence, namely the Veil of Veronica. But extant images he said of the Veronica were clearly painted POSITIVE images, and there was no precedent for there being a more realistic-looking true NEGATIVE imprint. Ipso facto, the TS could not have been influenced by the imagery, and thus IDEA of the Veil of Veronica. (Methinks there's a logical flaw there, but never mind).
Here, on the left, is an image I posted many moons ago, making a connection between the TS and the Veil of Veronica. On the right is de Wesselow's slide that determined to sever any supposed linking (by person or persons unknown) between the TS and the Veil of Veronica (with no acknowledgement to the source of what clearly to Dr. de Wesselow is an entirely erroneous idea that needs immediate stamping on).
Yup, that's my image you see on the left, with the Machy Mould/Lirey Medallion face from the mid or late 1350s (grey) compared with a carefully-selected artist's rendering of the Veil of Veronica.
On the right you see the TS compared with... yes, you guessed correctly - the Veil of Veronica and (almost, but not quite) the same image. Snap.
Correction: the one on the white outstretched sheet (far right) IS the same - or virtually identical- as the one I chose.
Now listen you guys, I know I said I was resting, but if you access my postings (as was clearly the case with the enhanced Shroud Scope scourge mark images) and arguably the one I did on the likely Veronica connection, then kindly give a credit. It's how academe is supposed to operate (or did at any rate between 1963 and 1990 when I was ensconced in those ivory towers - or the immediate hinterland thereof.
It's also called fair play. Thanking you for your (future) cooperation. Yup, I'll be watching. Detectives, on the case, never cease WATCHING.
See also this blogger's specialist Shroud site.
Colin Berry PhD
15th June 2015
Afterthought: This posting was not intended to present a detailed critique of de Wesselow's thesis. That would take a little time, and in any case, notwithstanding his opening remarks about how we should all recognize and respect our differences in speciality and thus approach, that art historian's treatment of the TS as not-a-recognizable-work-of-art and thus a genuine relic frankly flawed logic. Yes, I know he looked at, and very quickly excluded medieval forgery too as a more logical alternative to art. But the argument deployed was fallacious. He made a big thing of the Shroud image's negative character, making plentiful allusions to photography, and then declared that no medieval forger would have possessed our modern concept of "negative" photographic character and ipso fact would never have set out to produce a negative image, that being anachronistic. WRONG,WRONG,WRONG ....
Of course they knew nothing about negative photographic images. But they did know about imprints that can be left by, say, muddy bare feet on light coloured surfaces.
They knew about their peculiar character, notably their incompleteness due to presence or absence of the physical contact needed for imaging. They knew about the strangeness of contact-only imprints in other contexts, like brass rubbings or branding of livestock with hot irons. A medieval pilgrim, laying eyes for the first time, would not have said: "That's a negative image". What he would have said, in all probability, noting the empty eye sockets and other gaps in the image due to sunken relief was "That's not a painting - it's a whole body imprint".
No, artist's did not represent the Veil of Veronica as an imprint, the latter being, let's face it, 'non-photogenic' in modern parlance. They did not need to, since the Veil, being an object of legend and thus wonder, could be claimed to have transformed by supernatural agency from simple imprint to a real likeness of Jesus, finally to resemble a painted portrait that today we would describe as a "positive" image.
The life-size double body image, frontal v dorsal, head to head, on quality linen would have told him immediately that what he was looking at was not an artist's portrait, but an actual body imprint, a CONTACT-ONLY imprint, whether "authentic" or not. The location of bloodstains would have removed virtually any doubt as to genuineness, the so-called "clincher" we see being touted to this day, backed by much pseudo-pathology and haematology. But as said many times before, the faking of bloodstains "in all the right places" is made a lot simpler when there was no attempt whatsoever to represent actual wounds (torn or punctured flesh) in the body image. In the "stick 'n' stain" model, the blood is added as drops and dribbles on top of the imprinting medium (flour glue?) before applying linen. That explains why there is no "tearing" of "blood clots", for the simple reason there were no blood clots to start with, the blood either being applied fresh, before it had time to clot, or maybe in a form that had no clotting tendency (viz. an earlier idea of mine that the semi-digested contents of medicinal leeches might have been used as the source of non-clotting blood, as well as this follow-up posting.).
So who commissioned so meticulously-executed and convincing a forgery?
This page from wikipedia probably provides the answer. Look at the 2 names highlighted in yellow: the highest man in the land - King John II of France, aka John the Good - and his close confidante, Geoffroi de Charny, Lord of Lirey.
De Charny died at the Battle of Poitiers, proud bearer of the Oriflamme (royal standard) , his lord and master King John being captured by the English and held to ransom. It was against this background that the Shroud made its first recorded public display, probably 1357 or thereabouts. Where? Lirey. At whose behest? The newly widowed wife of Geoffroi de Charny, Jeanne de Vergy.
What seems probable is the the Shroud was commissioned as a prestigious accoutrement for the Order of the Star. When the latter became essentially defunct with the death of de Charny and the king's capture at the battle of Poitiers, it maybe fell to de Charny's widow to make a decision as to what to do with the Shroud. A small collegiate chapel in Lirey had, after all, been previously authorised and constructed to house what was probably the Shroud. She decided to put it on public display, at the same time commissioning the highly informative Lirey Pilgrim's badge, much to the chagrin of the local bishop, who believed (probably correctly) the shroud to be a fake that had been "cunningly painted". Indeed it was, if what was "painted" was not the linen directly, but a combination of a bas relief (for the face only ) and a real person (for the rest of body), the two used conjointly for IMPRINTING by contact onto linen. Hat tip to Luigi Garlaschelli for suggesting the dual-origin template.
Single stage imprinting with a yellow dye might be theoretically possible, but it's this blogger's belief that a two-stage methodology was used. First stage: paint the templates with an innocuous organic substance that could be colorless of nearly so, preferably one with adhesive properties for high fidelity imprinting (flour/water glue?). Then add the trickles of blood. Then and only then imprint onto linen. Stage 2: develop the image chemically to produce a yellow-brown body image without seriously altering the colour of the blood (maybe turns a brighter red?). Second stage developing agent? Possibly nitric acid (HNO3) which works in the cold, or maybe hot limewater (calcium hydroxide). See previous postings on this site for progress to date since April this year in verifying experimentally the proposed two-stage forgery model.
NB: this blogger did not set out with the intention of disproving the Shroud's authenticity (or proving its non-authenticity). There was no need for that, given he accepts the radiocarbon dating, warts 'n' all, and feeling the onus is on those who reject it to press for re-testing. No, his research, starting December 2011, was a response to Paolo Di Lazzaro and others who claimed that the TS image characteristics, notably superficiality, could or would never be reproduced in a laboratory.
By the same token, this blogger no longer wishes to engage with the pro-authenticity lobby. He knows all their arguments, and has to say he is not impressed with either the science or the logic, for which the appropriate description is "special pleading". What's missing is scientific objectivity, where one subjects one's own hypotheses to the same or greater level of critical scrutiny as those from someone else.
Another postscript: followers of this blog will know that I recently listed 10 reasons (initially) for thinking the Shroud was an imprint, not a free-hand painting (as that irritating Charles Freeman would have us belief, despite lacking a single good argument). I then added another 5 a few days ago.
The mention made above to the Lirey Pilgrim's badge has made me realize there's a 16th reason!
Why go to all the trouble of showing the Man on the Shroud as semi-3D, i.e. bas relief, if the mid-14th century Shroud looked like a conventional painting, with conventional paint pigments used that, according to Freeman have since detached, leaving us with a mere ghost image (yeah, right)?
Answer: they went to the trouble of casting in bas relief because the original Shroud did NOT look like a conventional painting. It looked like a faint contact IMPRINT with real-looking blood, so the badge designer, wishing to emphasize that the image was an imprint, showed the man as he might have looked when laid out on the linen, frontal-side up (left) and dorsal side up (right). There's a world of difference between an artist's representation of a human subject, and a body imprint, whether real or faked. The latter is a mere impression, restricted to areas of physical contact only. The latter image is incomplete, as mentioned earlier, due to the presence of non-contact areas. Medieval pilgrims would have sussed out quickly (with the help of additional visual cues) that they were looking at an imprint, not a painting. It does not say much for the "just a painting" school of so-called thought, correction, blind-or-indifferent-to-the-facts dogma, that despite the benefit of decades of photography and image analysis, it still fails to spot the bleedin' obvious. That choice adjective is a reference to the bloodstains, natch.
Update Tuesday 16 June. Other irons in other fires: here's a comment on a Telegraph posting that provoked the response that follows (topic: the Greek debt crisis, now threatening finally to implode).
Be that as it may, Greece is simply the extreme end of a spectrum of
indebtedness in Southern Europe - like Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal
but more so. Entry into the EU and/or the eurozone played a major part
in triggering state-overspending and with it, increasingly unserviceable
levels of debt. The Brussels jobsworths sat back rubbing their hands
with glee at the growth of their ever-expanding Federal superstate, tied
into a single currency and that absurd and unworkable one-size-fits-all
exchange rate. So it's a bit late in the day to be waving a big stick
at Greece whose past leaders simply grabbed what was on offer. Once the
debt reaches astronomical levels, requiring EU bailouts simply to pay
interest, then it's surely futile to hold the ordinary citizens of the
stricken states to ransom, threatening them with the prospect of
economic meltdown.
The rational solution surely is for creditors to accept that they have thrown good money after bad and to accept the consequences. Yes, Greece too needs to realize the party's over and make further cuts in those over-generous pensions, but its first priority must surely be Grexit, a return to the drachma and as much devaluation as it takes to restore a workable exchange rate.
The chief take-away message is the mind-boggling irresponsibility of those superstate advocates who foisted their politically-motivated empire-building single currency on so disparate a collection of economies. Thank goodness we refused to listen to the doom mongers like Clarke and Heseltine who confidently predicted disaster if we didn't immediately sign up.
Fortunately we had our own control freak Chancellor, who wasn't taking orders from Brussels, hatching his own more domestic Grand Plan for a client state ("borrow to invest and import immigrant labour"). It's a funny old world, where a lesser evil can block the plans of a greater one.
.............................
... and this, posted to Boadicea's Chariot, an entirely non-commercial spin off by civilized intelligentsia from the now largely site-owner-neglected, gone-to-the-dogs my.telegraph :
The rational solution surely is for creditors to accept that they have thrown good money after bad and to accept the consequences. Yes, Greece too needs to realize the party's over and make further cuts in those over-generous pensions, but its first priority must surely be Grexit, a return to the drachma and as much devaluation as it takes to restore a workable exchange rate.
The chief take-away message is the mind-boggling irresponsibility of those superstate advocates who foisted their politically-motivated empire-building single currency on so disparate a collection of economies. Thank goodness we refused to listen to the doom mongers like Clarke and Heseltine who confidently predicted disaster if we didn't immediately sign up.
Fortunately we had our own control freak Chancellor, who wasn't taking orders from Brussels, hatching his own more domestic Grand Plan for a client state ("borrow to invest and import immigrant labour"). It's a funny old world, where a lesser evil can block the plans of a greater one.
.............................
... and this, posted to Boadicea's Chariot, an entirely non-commercial spin off by civilized intelligentsia from the now largely site-owner-neglected, gone-to-the-dogs my.telegraph :
June 17, 2015 at 4:58 am
Sheona (my wife, a Scot) and I (Londoner) went up to Edinburgh a
few years ago to see both sons compete in the marathon. Prior to that
I’d had only occasional glimpses of the city (e.g. attending a
scientific conference). Two things stick in the memory. First: the Royal
Mile. It’s dismissed as over-commercialized above, which may be true,
but there’s a wonderful bonhomie among tourists who plonk down at the
pavement cafes. Maybe it’s the length and narrowness of the single
confining street and sheer variety of the architecture on display, but
it seemed to bring out the best in people. The other thing that came as a
total surprise was the geology – not something one expects to make an
impression in a major city, indeed capital. There’s no escaping the fact
that Edinburgh sits at the centre of what once was an active volcanic
region. The impressive outcrops of bare rock in and around the centre
speak of mighty forces having once been at work in the Earth’s crust,
tearing it apart, leaving behind a giant rockery that has since been
pleasantly infilled with parks, gardens, rows of ancient tenements,
monuments… There’s something very buzzy and elemental about the place,
the result of successfully reclaiming a topsy turvy volcanic wasteland –
turning it into something, well, different from your standard UK town
or city clone. Enjoy Christopher.
Update Wed 17 June: and this to the Telegraph's Politics Blog, penned by Julia Hartley-Brewer, on the need for strict classroom discipline (so-called "low-level" disruption especially):
Politics blog: Julia Hartley-Brewer
ColinB
21 minutes ago
The lady's tone is, in alphabetical order, abrasive, alienating,
contemptuous, dismissive, hectoring, judgmental, scathing, and no doubt
some t-z ones as well (sorry, adjectival fatigue set in). However, let's
overlook the attention-grabbing journalism, given that Julia H-B is in
fact right on the nail as regards every single substantive issue she
raises. Those who live in glass houses (or palaces) ought not to throw
stones (or door-stop encyclicals).
If the planet really is on the cusp of runaway greenhouse-gas warming, the proof should be available in the next decade or two, e.g. from progressive loss of polar ice-cover over both sea (Arctic) and land (Antarctic). Meanwhile, the mass of still unmelted ice and its latent heat of fusion ("thawing") should serve as a handy thermal buffer while the cause-and-effect relationships, real v illusory, become better defined.
In the meantime, Pope Francis would do well to butt out, and leave the science to the scientists. The latter are better qualified to make dispassionate judgements, weighing and scrutinizing every scrap of evidence.
Update: 13:30 18 June
Nope. It was much more than mere tweaking. A better term would be "image differentiation". Put simply, the Shroud Scope images with their peculiar purplish hue (at odds with most folk's idea of the TS image - being broadly speaking sepia, i.e body image, with "too red" bloodstains) needed to be explored in photoediting software to see whether or not there was hidden information there of potential scientific value could be developed. (It's not as if one can waltz into a certain Turin cathedral and see the linen with one's own eyes, and (it has to be said) until the enterprising Mario Latendresse came along, there was not a STURP image gallery either, one that allowed us non-STURP scientists to have some idea as to what the STURP team were privileged to see).
One of the distinctive, one might say unexpected features of the TS is the evidence for scourging and crucifixion resting entirely on bloodstains, with no independent evidence from the body image (sorry to keep repeating myself on that theme, but it's important, I repeat IMPORTANT, nay CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT). That's why this blogger, having been guided personally by Mario L. to make use of his Shroud Scope (which I did post haste), hitherto the subject of just one posting on the shroudstory site (with no follow-up whatsoever) took one look and thought "where's the differentiation between body image and blood?". Answer: there scarcely if any at all. That was the cue to go looking for it by adjusting contrast and brightness,. Gradually, ever so gradually, looking systematically at the entire TS, region by region, a differentiation did emerge. It involved much trial and error 'tweaking' but finally the new universal settings were found that worked ALL OVER THE TS IMAGE, which I reported as (-7, 100,15) in MS Office Picture Manager (that Brightness, Contrast, Mid tone value respectively). Using those settings, body image becomes a pronounced sepia (yellowish/brown colour) while blood becomes a distinctly different, more realistic purplish/red colour. As I say, the objective (achieved) was improved differentiation. Mario provided the raw material; I and my photoediting program worked it up to make it scientifically more useful.
Tweaking? Anyone who thinks the above exercise is/was mere tweaking, as if enhancing holiday snaps, simply has no understanding of the scientific temperament, nor the scientific modus operandi. That's why I waste no more time explaining myself step-by-step on a certain obscurantist mystery-mongering Shroudie web forum - it being a complete and utter waste of time. I hugely regret posting some 1500 or more comments to that site, when the time would have been much better spent focusing on the 'spy clues' of the Turin Shroud, maybe narrowing down to the "sick 'n' stain" much quicker, say in 1.5 years instead of 3.5.
When I've a moment or two (not today) I'll show step-by-step the effect of taking some as-is Shroud Scope images featuring body image AND blood from default (0,0,0) to my preferred (-7,100,15) settings. Reminder: the process is almost obligatory for the scourge marks, given (we're told) that the scourge markings depends ENTIRELY on blood imprinting, albeit faint, with NO contribution from body image. It's details like that which are the focus of interest for scientists who have never been able to see the TS with their own eyes. One has no choice but to take certain things on trust, but oneis then free to deploy as an independent investigator whatever discriminating technology is available (ImageJ, even MS photoediting) to extract as much detail as possible from what is available.
Royal Society motto (approx translation from the Latin - Nullius in verba): "Take nobody's word for it".
Neither should one be deflected from the task in hand by steeped-in-cynicism armchair critics, bashing keys virtually 24/7 on their laptops, desperate to keep their niche product show on the road.
Update Friday June 19
Here's that so-called "tweaking" being used to address another scientific issue regarding the all-important relationship between body image and blood.
Suppose one were interested in the scourge marks across the legs. We're told they are there entirely as an imprinting of blood, with no contribution from body image. But when one looks at the as-is Shroud Scope image on the left, it is well nigh impossible to confirm that claim: body image and scourge marks look virtually identical in colour and contrast. There is a prominent blood stain certainly lower right on the foot, but if one takes that as one's reference for the appearance of blood, it's not possible to see that same coloration for the scourge marks. There may be very sound reasons for that inability to make the match, based say on scourge marks being much fainter images than a prominent bloodstain. However, that's a sound basis upon which to experiment with increases in contrast, not to produce a more "valid" image (who knows what is or is not valid unless they have seen the TS close up with their own eyes?) but to emphasize this or that feature with a view to bringing out differences in image properties that relate in some way to different chemical composition, subtly altering the properties of the light reflected back to the camera used to produce these particular Shroud Scope pictures (Durante 2002).
If that sounds a bit vague, let's be more specific. If scourge marks are blood, then there are three possibilities: they are (a) blood only (b) blood with a body image underlay (experimentally excluded by the Adler/Heller test with protease enzyme) (c) blood with a body image overlay.
Which of those options are suggested in the two images above. The basal Scope image does not allow one to decide. There's simply not sufficient differentiation. The adjusted image (right) on the other hand DOES allow one to address the question posed. What do those scourge marks resemble more closely: the body image (greyish brown) or the blood on the foot (purplish red)? Answer: body image (this observer's opinion, not necessarily the reader's too). What can one conclude from that? Here's what I conclude - that a faint blood image has been overlaid with a stronger body image, such that the final colour is more grey/brown than purplish red. But if it's overlaid, how does that square with the suggestion (STURP SUMMARY 1981) that the image is on the linen fibres themselves? Answer: it does not. But it does square with this blogger's current model which sees the body image as a stained imprint of a coating on the linen. The coating (e.g. flour paste) is smeared onto the subject or template, trickles of blood, including scourge mark blood imprints are added, and the combination is imprinted onto the linen. The result is a blood imprint onto the linen with the coating ON TOP. After chemical development, one has a double layer of colour, so to speak: tan coloured body image ON TOP of blood, such that the fainter scourge marks do not look like blood at all, at least in photographs.
Here's a "tweaked" picture from my 2012 gallery:
I had long puzzled those pale centres in the bloodstains, and was not convinced at all that they had anything to do clotting.The effect might be better described as "blotchiness", due to less than perfect imprinting, i.e. that there was not clean transfer of blood to linen. The new model explains why. The imprinting medium, if sticky flour glue, only works well, transferring efficiently to linen, when there's no blood on top,. But when there's blood on top, the glue is prevented from making contact with linen. Result: a lot of it (not all) stays on thelinen subject's skin when the latter is peeled away taking some of the blood with it, especially from the weaker centre of each patch, lacking the anchoring 'edge-effect'. Result: impaired imprinting of blood. The mechanism might also explain why scourge marks are so faint.
Then there's the site of the lance wound (no wound as such, contrary to some claims) which one would expect to show blood and maybe (if one looks hard enough) some superimposed body image too.
Yes, there does indeed appear to be a mixture of the two distinctive colours here, blood v body image, seen under high contrast. Again, that was always a source of puzzlement to this blogger until the new model came along.
Would that 2-tone effect have been spotted on the as-is Shroud Scope image? I doubt it somehow. The "tweaking" was essential to achieve the differentiation between blood and body iamge:
Tweaking? Where would be be without "tweaking", or as we science bods would say, systematically altering experimental variables with a view to discerning differences that may be subtle but which could be real, and often are, offering possible clues to the problem under investigation.
I see science writer Philip Ball (previously physical sciences and Consultant Editor of Nature) has written a piece on the Shroud image for the BBC Magazine,.
I have dropped him a line, asking if he's aware there's a new kid on the block- the "stick 'n' stain" model.
The model began life as a hunch - that the basal body image of the Shroud was conceived of initially as a sweat imprint, such as might have been left on the linen provided by Joseph of Arimathea. But assuming the Shroud was fabricated in the mid-14th century, it had to look like a 1300 year old sweat imprint, which was imagined to be somewhat yellowed, brown even. Thinking like a medieval, one had to imagine how an ancient sweat imprint could have been simulated. The route taken was round about, experimenting first with acids (sulphuric first, then nitric), thoughts only moving to flour paste as a primary imprinting medium when it was found that nitric acid acid discolors uncoated linen more quickly than sulphuric, and then experimental with pre-coated linen (flour glue). What one hopes should be clear is that the current hypothesis developed as a series of exploratory steps, each building on the other, organically so to speak, So it's most heartening to look back on the initial findings that preceded the new model, when the scorch hypothesis was in the frame (being a contact-imprinting mechanism and seemingly relevant in initially), and finding unexpected support for the new model, as in those photos above showing superimposed blood and body image. I am now increasingly confident that the current model is correct in principle, even if the precise composition of the imprinting medium and chemical developing agent cannot be specified.
Update: 20 June
Those who still have the time and energy to follow my admittedly verbose and meandering blog (for which I make no apology - it being a scientist's alternative to notebook crammed with long hand) might be interested to hear the latest refinement to my 'stick 'n' stain' model (or as some might say "tweaking"). It came as a result of thinking about regions of high and low image intensity, which some seem to think can only happen as a result of body-cloth distance in their pro-authenticity models. In my model, image intensity can result from differences in manual pressure applied to the linen when moulding to 3D topography, with more or less transfer of the imprinting medium, more or less colour on secondary chemical development. But there's something the 'authenticity' folk seem to have overlooked, namely the half-tone effect. Given the latter sees discoloration as an all-or-nothing effect (some fibres with a certain fixed level of yellow colour, others with none, with no intermediate levels), then there is an upper limit on image intensity, one where all the exposed fibres on the surface of threads are coloured. That places a severe limit on image intensity, whichever model is considered. But how could my model produce both colour in the surface layer of imprinting medium AND in discrete linen fibres underneath (with the latter accounting maybe for a residual 'ghost' image after centuries of flaking of the coating 'contaminant')?
It's hard to see how a nitric acid or hot limewater bath could cause colour development in the imprinting medium (e.g. flour/water glue) to transmit to the surface linen fibres, far less in a "half-tone" either/.or manner. But what if the first stage flour imprint, instead of being chemically developed, were instead thermally-developed, to instigate, say, caramelisation and/or Maillard non-enzymic browning reactions? In other words, lightly toasted. How might that be done, or more importantly, have been done?
Might simple pressing with a heated flat iron have been sufficient, the temperature being high enough to affect the imprinted areas only, with minimal effect of the non-imprinted areas? Half tone effect? Some of those other subtle microscopic features, like striation, discontinuities etc etc? Tricky, but suppose it was due to microscopic regions of contact v non-contact? Starch granules? Particulate gluten aggregates? Might they act as bridges between hot iron and linen, as conductors of heat? Yes. We are now moving back towards the scorch model. But so what? I've always had a soft spot for the scorch model, except for one aspect. It needed a heated metal template ("statue") instead of a real human being. What's proposed now is a hybrid system: one that uses a real person from which to imprint, and then hot metal to develop that image.
The great thing about this modification is that no return to hazardous chemcals in the garage is needed (except maybe a little alkali lime as additive in the flour imprinting medium to help kick start Maillard reactions when heated). Instead, it's the ironing board that can now be brought into play. Watch this space.
Other irons etc: response to Norman Lamont in the Telegraph
Further update, 20 June
Glory be. Prediction realized. A hot iron on linen setting (highest temperature) develops a flour imprint thermally (no chemicals needed).
More to come. Time to think about bringing light out from under bushel.
Comment placed on Philip Ball's "biological properties of water" website:
sciencebod said...
Any thoughts Philip on the facilitating agent par excellence for altering the properties of water that may (or may not) be crucial in advancing transplant surgery (exponentially)? I refer to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and imminent (?) head transplants, where the PEG allegedly helps severed spinal column nerves to rejoin?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11672996/Russian-man-to-undergo-worlds-first-full-head-transplant.html
If one googles polyethylene glycol membrane fusion, one finds a Prof. Jack Lucy paper (1970) listed prominently in the list of returns. I worked in his department at the Royal Free for six years, first as PhD student, then post doc fellow/hon lecturer. There was much discussion over coffee as to the mechanism by which PEG fused membranes, with a certain lecturer in the chemistry dept trying to dismiss it as due to trace amphipathic impurities. Some of us had to put said lecturer straight on the ability of a polyether to form hydrogen bonds with so much water (at least at high concentrations) so as to alter the thermodynamics of hydrophobic interactions, weakening the forces that hold lipid bilayers together, facilitating membrane fusion. It's good to see the blue sky thinking of 40 years ago finally finding practical applications.
Did you see my comment re your BBC Magazine article on the Turin Shroud image in your embedded mail inbox? I've made what I consider an important discovery just an hour ago that greatly simplifies my proposed mechanism. See tail end of my current sciencebuzz posting (ed. THIS!). Look for photograph using a heated flat iron (electric iron being modern-day equivalent) applied to a flour/water imprint of my own hand to initiate Maillard browning reactions).
http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.co.uk/
Any thoughts? Your candid opinion would be welcome.
Colin Berry (aka sciencebod)
email: sciencebod01@aol.com
Update Wed 17 June: and this to the Telegraph's Politics Blog, penned by Julia Hartley-Brewer, on the need for strict classroom discipline (so-called "low-level" disruption especially):
Politics blog: Julia Hartley-Brewer
If we need the Pope to teach us about science, then God help us all
If the planet really is on the cusp of runaway greenhouse-gas warming, the proof should be available in the next decade or two, e.g. from progressive loss of polar ice-cover over both sea (Arctic) and land (Antarctic). Meanwhile, the mass of still unmelted ice and its latent heat of fusion ("thawing") should serve as a handy thermal buffer while the cause-and-effect relationships, real v illusory, become better defined.
In the meantime, Pope Francis would do well to butt out, and leave the science to the scientists. The latter are better qualified to make dispassionate judgements, weighing and scrutinizing every scrap of evidence.
Update: 13:30 18 June
Merely "Tweaked", the latest put-down from Dan Porter on his shroudstory site ? That's his now customary jaundiced description of my contrast/brightness adjusted image of the scourge marks, spotted in Thomas de Wesselow's slide presentation (minus attribution) - just one of some 20 from my gallery of 'corrected' images?
Nope. It was much more than mere tweaking. A better term would be "image differentiation". Put simply, the Shroud Scope images with their peculiar purplish hue (at odds with most folk's idea of the TS image - being broadly speaking sepia, i.e body image, with "too red" bloodstains) needed to be explored in photoediting software to see whether or not there was hidden information there of potential scientific value could be developed. (It's not as if one can waltz into a certain Turin cathedral and see the linen with one's own eyes, and (it has to be said) until the enterprising Mario Latendresse came along, there was not a STURP image gallery either, one that allowed us non-STURP scientists to have some idea as to what the STURP team were privileged to see).
One of the distinctive, one might say unexpected features of the TS is the evidence for scourging and crucifixion resting entirely on bloodstains, with no independent evidence from the body image (sorry to keep repeating myself on that theme, but it's important, I repeat IMPORTANT, nay CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT). That's why this blogger, having been guided personally by Mario L. to make use of his Shroud Scope (which I did post haste), hitherto the subject of just one posting on the shroudstory site (with no follow-up whatsoever) took one look and thought "where's the differentiation between body image and blood?". Answer: there scarcely if any at all. That was the cue to go looking for it by adjusting contrast and brightness,. Gradually, ever so gradually, looking systematically at the entire TS, region by region, a differentiation did emerge. It involved much trial and error 'tweaking' but finally the new universal settings were found that worked ALL OVER THE TS IMAGE, which I reported as (-7, 100,15) in MS Office Picture Manager (that Brightness, Contrast, Mid tone value respectively). Using those settings, body image becomes a pronounced sepia (yellowish/brown colour) while blood becomes a distinctly different, more realistic purplish/red colour. As I say, the objective (achieved) was improved differentiation. Mario provided the raw material; I and my photoediting program worked it up to make it scientifically more useful.
Tweaking? Anyone who thinks the above exercise is/was mere tweaking, as if enhancing holiday snaps, simply has no understanding of the scientific temperament, nor the scientific modus operandi. That's why I waste no more time explaining myself step-by-step on a certain obscurantist mystery-mongering Shroudie web forum - it being a complete and utter waste of time. I hugely regret posting some 1500 or more comments to that site, when the time would have been much better spent focusing on the 'spy clues' of the Turin Shroud, maybe narrowing down to the "sick 'n' stain" much quicker, say in 1.5 years instead of 3.5.
When I've a moment or two (not today) I'll show step-by-step the effect of taking some as-is Shroud Scope images featuring body image AND blood from default (0,0,0) to my preferred (-7,100,15) settings. Reminder: the process is almost obligatory for the scourge marks, given (we're told) that the scourge markings depends ENTIRELY on blood imprinting, albeit faint, with NO contribution from body image. It's details like that which are the focus of interest for scientists who have never been able to see the TS with their own eyes. One has no choice but to take certain things on trust, but oneis then free to deploy as an independent investigator whatever discriminating technology is available (ImageJ, even MS photoediting) to extract as much detail as possible from what is available.
Royal Society motto (approx translation from the Latin - Nullius in verba): "Take nobody's word for it".
Neither should one be deflected from the task in hand by steeped-in-cynicism armchair critics, bashing keys virtually 24/7 on their laptops, desperate to keep their niche product show on the road.
Update Friday June 19
Here's that so-called "tweaking" being used to address another scientific issue regarding the all-important relationship between body image and blood.
 |
| Left: Shroud Scope image of frontal legs "as is". Right: after applying my standardized new settings (-7,100,15 in MS Office Picture Manager - brightness/contrast/midtonevalue respectively). |
Suppose one were interested in the scourge marks across the legs. We're told they are there entirely as an imprinting of blood, with no contribution from body image. But when one looks at the as-is Shroud Scope image on the left, it is well nigh impossible to confirm that claim: body image and scourge marks look virtually identical in colour and contrast. There is a prominent blood stain certainly lower right on the foot, but if one takes that as one's reference for the appearance of blood, it's not possible to see that same coloration for the scourge marks. There may be very sound reasons for that inability to make the match, based say on scourge marks being much fainter images than a prominent bloodstain. However, that's a sound basis upon which to experiment with increases in contrast, not to produce a more "valid" image (who knows what is or is not valid unless they have seen the TS close up with their own eyes?) but to emphasize this or that feature with a view to bringing out differences in image properties that relate in some way to different chemical composition, subtly altering the properties of the light reflected back to the camera used to produce these particular Shroud Scope pictures (Durante 2002).
If that sounds a bit vague, let's be more specific. If scourge marks are blood, then there are three possibilities: they are (a) blood only (b) blood with a body image underlay (experimentally excluded by the Adler/Heller test with protease enzyme) (c) blood with a body image overlay.
Which of those options are suggested in the two images above. The basal Scope image does not allow one to decide. There's simply not sufficient differentiation. The adjusted image (right) on the other hand DOES allow one to address the question posed. What do those scourge marks resemble more closely: the body image (greyish brown) or the blood on the foot (purplish red)? Answer: body image (this observer's opinion, not necessarily the reader's too). What can one conclude from that? Here's what I conclude - that a faint blood image has been overlaid with a stronger body image, such that the final colour is more grey/brown than purplish red. But if it's overlaid, how does that square with the suggestion (STURP SUMMARY 1981) that the image is on the linen fibres themselves? Answer: it does not. But it does square with this blogger's current model which sees the body image as a stained imprint of a coating on the linen. The coating (e.g. flour paste) is smeared onto the subject or template, trickles of blood, including scourge mark blood imprints are added, and the combination is imprinted onto the linen. The result is a blood imprint onto the linen with the coating ON TOP. After chemical development, one has a double layer of colour, so to speak: tan coloured body image ON TOP of blood, such that the fainter scourge marks do not look like blood at all, at least in photographs.
Here's a "tweaked" picture from my 2012 gallery:
I had long puzzled those pale centres in the bloodstains, and was not convinced at all that they had anything to do clotting.The effect might be better described as "blotchiness", due to less than perfect imprinting, i.e. that there was not clean transfer of blood to linen. The new model explains why. The imprinting medium, if sticky flour glue, only works well, transferring efficiently to linen, when there's no blood on top,. But when there's blood on top, the glue is prevented from making contact with linen. Result: a lot of it (not all) stays on the
Then there's the site of the lance wound (no wound as such, contrary to some claims) which one would expect to show blood and maybe (if one looks hard enough) some superimposed body image too.
Yes, there does indeed appear to be a mixture of the two distinctive colours here, blood v body image, seen under high contrast. Again, that was always a source of puzzlement to this blogger until the new model came along.
Would that 2-tone effect have been spotted on the as-is Shroud Scope image? I doubt it somehow. The "tweaking" was essential to achieve the differentiation between blood and body iamge:
 |
| Left: region of presumed lance "wound", as indicated by blood, as-is Shroud Scope. Right, the same image after applying (-7,100,15) in MS Office Picture Manager, showing the two-tone effect. Note faint blotchiness too as earlier. |
Tweaking? Where would be be without "tweaking", or as we science bods would say, systematically altering experimental variables with a view to discerning differences that may be subtle but which could be real, and often are, offering possible clues to the problem under investigation.
I see science writer Philip Ball (previously physical sciences and Consultant Editor of Nature) has written a piece on the Shroud image for the BBC Magazine,.
I have dropped him a line, asking if he's aware there's a new kid on the block- the "stick 'n' stain" model.
The model began life as a hunch - that the basal body image of the Shroud was conceived of initially as a sweat imprint, such as might have been left on the linen provided by Joseph of Arimathea. But assuming the Shroud was fabricated in the mid-14th century, it had to look like a 1300 year old sweat imprint, which was imagined to be somewhat yellowed, brown even. Thinking like a medieval, one had to imagine how an ancient sweat imprint could have been simulated. The route taken was round about, experimenting first with acids (sulphuric first, then nitric), thoughts only moving to flour paste as a primary imprinting medium when it was found that nitric acid acid discolors uncoated linen more quickly than sulphuric, and then experimental with pre-coated linen (flour glue). What one hopes should be clear is that the current hypothesis developed as a series of exploratory steps, each building on the other, organically so to speak, So it's most heartening to look back on the initial findings that preceded the new model, when the scorch hypothesis was in the frame (being a contact-imprinting mechanism and seemingly relevant in initially), and finding unexpected support for the new model, as in those photos above showing superimposed blood and body image. I am now increasingly confident that the current model is correct in principle, even if the precise composition of the imprinting medium and chemical developing agent cannot be specified.
Update: 20 June
Those who still have the time and energy to follow my admittedly verbose and meandering blog (for which I make no apology - it being a scientist's alternative to notebook crammed with long hand) might be interested to hear the latest refinement to my 'stick 'n' stain' model (or as some might say "tweaking"). It came as a result of thinking about regions of high and low image intensity, which some seem to think can only happen as a result of body-cloth distance in their pro-authenticity models. In my model, image intensity can result from differences in manual pressure applied to the linen when moulding to 3D topography, with more or less transfer of the imprinting medium, more or less colour on secondary chemical development. But there's something the 'authenticity' folk seem to have overlooked, namely the half-tone effect. Given the latter sees discoloration as an all-or-nothing effect (some fibres with a certain fixed level of yellow colour, others with none, with no intermediate levels), then there is an upper limit on image intensity, one where all the exposed fibres on the surface of threads are coloured. That places a severe limit on image intensity, whichever model is considered. But how could my model produce both colour in the surface layer of imprinting medium AND in discrete linen fibres underneath (with the latter accounting maybe for a residual 'ghost' image after centuries of flaking of the coating 'contaminant')?
It's hard to see how a nitric acid or hot limewater bath could cause colour development in the imprinting medium (e.g. flour/water glue) to transmit to the surface linen fibres, far less in a "half-tone" either/.or manner. But what if the first stage flour imprint, instead of being chemically developed, were instead thermally-developed, to instigate, say, caramelisation and/or Maillard non-enzymic browning reactions? In other words, lightly toasted. How might that be done, or more importantly, have been done?
Might simple pressing with a heated flat iron have been sufficient, the temperature being high enough to affect the imprinted areas only, with minimal effect of the non-imprinted areas? Half tone effect? Some of those other subtle microscopic features, like striation, discontinuities etc etc? Tricky, but suppose it was due to microscopic regions of contact v non-contact? Starch granules? Particulate gluten aggregates? Might they act as bridges between hot iron and linen, as conductors of heat? Yes. We are now moving back towards the scorch model. But so what? I've always had a soft spot for the scorch model, except for one aspect. It needed a heated metal template ("statue") instead of a real human being. What's proposed now is a hybrid system: one that uses a real person from which to imprint, and then hot metal to develop that image.
The great thing about this modification is that no return to hazardous chemcals in the garage is needed (except maybe a little alkali lime as additive in the flour imprinting medium to help kick start Maillard reactions when heated). Instead, it's the ironing board that can now be brought into play. Watch this space.
Other irons etc: response to Norman Lamont in the Telegraph
Further update, 20 June
Glory be. Prediction realized. A hot iron on linen setting (highest temperature) develops a flour imprint thermally (no chemicals needed).
 | ||||
| I started again with coating my hand with flour/water slurry. then laying a sheet of linen on top, then pressing lightly. The linen was then peeled off for 2nd stage colour development of the flour imprint, but this time, NOT with chemicals, as previously, but with HEAT. |
 |
| Here's the result, after ironing one half of the linen), not directly, but from opposite side. Photo on left- as is. Photo on right: tweaked (the lazy way with Autocorrect). |
More to come. Time to think about bringing light out from under bushel.
Comment placed on Philip Ball's "biological properties of water" website:
sciencebod said...Any thoughts Philip on the facilitating agent par excellence for altering the properties of water that may (or may not) be crucial in advancing transplant surgery (exponentially)? I refer to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and imminent (?) head transplants, where the PEG allegedly helps severed spinal column nerves to rejoin?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11672996/Russian-man-to-undergo-worlds-first-full-head-transplant.html
If one googles polyethylene glycol membrane fusion, one finds a Prof. Jack Lucy paper (1970) listed prominently in the list of returns. I worked in his department at the Royal Free for six years, first as PhD student, then post doc fellow/hon lecturer. There was much discussion over coffee as to the mechanism by which PEG fused membranes, with a certain lecturer in the chemistry dept trying to dismiss it as due to trace amphipathic impurities. Some of us had to put said lecturer straight on the ability of a polyether to form hydrogen bonds with so much water (at least at high concentrations) so as to alter the thermodynamics of hydrophobic interactions, weakening the forces that hold lipid bilayers together, facilitating membrane fusion. It's good to see the blue sky thinking of 40 years ago finally finding practical applications.
Did you see my comment re your BBC Magazine article on the Turin Shroud image in your embedded mail inbox? I've made what I consider an important discovery just an hour ago that greatly simplifies my proposed mechanism. See tail end of my current sciencebuzz posting (ed. THIS!). Look for photograph using a heated flat iron (electric iron being modern-day equivalent) applied to a flour/water imprint of my own hand to initiate Maillard browning reactions).
http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.co.uk/
Any thoughts? Your candid opinion would be welcome.
Colin Berry (aka sciencebod)
email: sciencebod01@aol.com