I shall try to reconstruct as best I can, though it may take some time ( days rather than hours).
The next posting (and all future ones) will be copied to file before posting. If they disappear , they will be replaced immediately.
(Have been doing some tests - seems I've been hacked. Can't say as I'm surprised).
Halleluja: have been able to retrieve the first part of my posting by accessing Google cache:
Here it is, with some patching up here and there. See change to original plan (at end). Nuff said.
It's hardly surprising, is it, that a model for the Turin Shroud that starts with "Mix some plain flour and water 700 years ago" fails to set the world of sindonology on fire?
But that's in essence what was proposed some 6 weeks ago, i.e. that the TS image began life as a flour imprint on linen, to which suggestion the response from some could be described as looks of blank incomprehension(well, the internet equivalent thereof) and expressions of derision and contempt from others.
I'm sorry that the model uses so plebeian a commodity as plain flour as imprinting medium. Had I given it more thought, it could so easily have been something more upmarket. Saffron? From Saffron Walden, Essex, hopefully to give a UK connection with medieval France, and attract the attention of the Times and the Guardian? Saffron would certainly give an instant yellow imprint, eliminating the need for that hazardous second-stage development with nitric acid. But would the sceptics, whether pro- or anti-authenticty, buy into that story: "TS image is simply a saffron imprint"? I doubt it somehow. Shame. I could have stayed in the cosy well-appointed kitchen laboratory, avoiding the cold confines of my garage had safe old saffron been the answer.
I must also apologize for describing it as the "stick 'n' stain" model in my last posting. How utterly common can you get?
But I have this difficulty you see. It's to do with that serendipity thingy. You know, you start off with a brilliant idea to try this or try that, and along comes something totally unexpected and surprising that one would never have predicted in a million years.
Well, that's exactly how it happened. This blogger/retired science bod was casting around for something organic that might give a yellow-brown colour with nitric acid in pursuance of his "simulated sweat imprint" model of the Turin Shroud, and decided to use flour. Why flour? Maybe it's because he used to be Head of Nutrition and Food Safety at the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association, as it was then called when based at Chorleywood. Or maybe it's because he had been tinkering with ideas to do with Maillard browning reactions a year or so ago, and had done some halfhearted experiments with flour attracting pitiful glances from his wife. Irrespective, flour was chosen some 6 weeks ago, mixed with hot or cold water to make a paste or glue that he then painted onto various parts of his anatomy as imprinting medium. Something totally unexpected was seen, and duly reported here as follows (italics) on 21st April. Here are my words, under the first of many photographs showing linen clinging to anatomy, thanks to the incredible adhesive properties of flour paste (which incidentally were used to stick family photos into a home-made album I made some 60 years ago). From April 21st:
Some details re the imprinting technology thus far (as promised)
I used my right hand to paint the left one with a thick paste made the previous day using white flour and hot water (it set to a gel overnight in the fridge, which reverted to a paste on stirring). Linen was placed on top, as shown, and then pressed down firmly to produce an imprint on the underside of the linen. Note the considerable detail in the imprint, even at this early stage.
Fast forward to the present:
It took a little while for the significance of that photograph to sink in, namely that the use of an ADHESIVE paste as imprinting medium virtually guaranteed that one would get an unbeatable Stage 1 imprint, provided the linen peeled away cleanly, taking most of the flour with it, and provided that imprint could then be successfully developed chemically with something that reacts quickly with one or more components of the flour without too much discoloration of the linen.
Well, the crucial peel-off step worked better than one dared to hope. Sometimes one would hardly know that one's hand had been painted with flour, given the extent to which flour transferred cleanly to linen. And we hit the jackpot first time with that choice of nitric acid as Stage 2 developer giving, among other things, a rapid xanthoproteic reaction with the gluten of the flour. End result: a prominent yellow colour that then went a more (TS-like?) yellowish-brown when the excess of acid was neutralized with mild alkali (sodium bicarbonate).
Just yesterday I discovered that nitric acid could be replaced with the less hazardous limewater (calcium hydroxide solution, also an alkali) though unlike nitric acid it does not work quickly in the cold, needing some heat to produce (probably) a Maillard reaction between reducing sugars and protein, and, as before, a yellowish-brown imprint.
Enough of the chemistry, for now at any rate. I shall proceed to hit the post button, but be adding more to this posting in the next few days. I shall be summarizing briefly how I arrived at the decision to raid the kitchen cabinet for that oh-so-boring plain white flour, though a hint has already been given ("simulated sweat imprint").
This also got wiped yesterday:
Yet another attempt to infantilize... It gets boring after a while.
But see this immediate response from Dan Porter, who assures one there was no attempt to belittle the man or his ideas.
This was the first comment:
June 7, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Colin…hope you’re not offended by the pic Dan posted….I can
remember a few months back when you posted pic after pic in response to
some comments…..I laughed….hilarious!
However I think the problem you have with this site is that there are too many people here
(with excellent knowledge) that “call you” on some of your theories. Maybe it’s better for you
to go to a site where there are more like minded people, who will give you a pat and the back whether your theory make sense or not. I’m not sure if the shroud is real or not…but I do know that I’ll miss your postings.
My reply (posted here only):
The only 'pat on the back' one expects from some of that site's regulars would be a cow pat (fresh, aka BS ;-)However I think the problem you have with this site is that there are too many people here
(with excellent knowledge) that “call you” on some of your theories. Maybe it’s better for you
to go to a site where there are more like minded people, who will give you a pat and the back whether your theory make sense or not. I’m not sure if the shroud is real or not…but I do know that I’ll miss your postings.
My reply (posted here only):
Nuff said methinks.
Update: Sunday June 7
Change of plan: I'm now terminating all posting on the Shroud of Turin, feeling as I do that I've given it my best shot, and that it's now time to move on. However, I'm still available here to respond to questions, criticism etc as best I can (see quick link to Comments top right).
New directions:
1. Am planning a website on Crete as a tourist destination. The ginormous island gets a somewhat unenthusiastic write-up in my Rough Guide - the only one to hand at present. It has to be better than described - somewhere, some place surely- maybe off the beaten track. So a detailed recce will be made, probably next year, with a view -finally- to penning a travelogue, assuming I can find a publisher. May look in on Heraklion this year, if only to suss out hire car options, and get the capital out the way - it maybe deserving its reputation of being a place one does not linger.
2. Re-activated a Telegraph account yesterday, a previously problematic Chief Moderator who shall nremain nameless having moved on.
Here your host in full demob happy opinionated mode:
(a) in response to a post exposing Vladimir Putin's army of hired trolls, posing as regular commenters on internet sites, English-language included:
SORRY ABOUT THE GAPS THAT FOLLOW. THIS SITE'S SOFTWARE HAS A FLAW, IN THAT IT SLAVISHLY ADOPTS THE FORMATTING (OFTEN HIDDEN) OF ANYTHING THAT ONE INSERTS AS A CUT-AND-PASTE, AND IT'S THEN THE DEVIL'S OWN JOB TO REMOVE ONCE IT'S BEEN INCORPORATED AS A DEFAULT FORMAT, OVERRIDING ONE'S OWN SETTINGS.
He's the one who (unlike his Soviet predecessors) constantly alludes to his possession in concrete bunkers of the ultimate 'deterrent' despite facing no obvious threats, at least that we are aware of (anything-for-a-quiet-life-Obama???). Hopefully sense will prevail.
That then is the trouble with being expansionist - it generates its own momentum. Russia already spans11 time zones. Surely that's sufficient. We in the UK manage with just one.
Then there was this one in response to the address given at Cheltenham Science Festival by Prof. Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal:
Meanwhile, back on Mother Earth, hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants flee largely dried-up politically-unstable parts of Africa and the Middle East that once, just a few thousand years ago, were both wet and fertile, but our top scientists prefer to reflect on the challenge of
Wouldn't it make more sense to scrap all manned space missions, to continue to develop robotry for space exploration, and begin a massive programme for making the deserts bloom? Surely the abundant solar power from cloudless skies is sufficient to power coastal distillation plants and the pumps to send the precious 'sweet' water inland for irrigation. Where's there's a will... Or is it a certain religion that stands in the way of effecting that kind of material progress, of making lives better for ordinary citizens in otherwise 'God-forsaken' regions? Why isn't oil income being used to promote fertility and regrowth of forests and grassland etc. with job opportunities, instead of being squandered to create prestige replicas of Shanghai or New York?
It's a mad, mad world...
Subsequent comments (from others on the thread, my italics):
Update: Wed 10 June
This comment has just appeared from David Mo on the shroudstory site. It's not addressed to this blogger, but reiterates the same (dubious) assertion (see my italics) we've seen several times of late, namely that if the TS were a medieval forgery, then we'd have seen the technology used elsewhere:
June 10, 2015 at 1:48 am
Someone should study why de common sense is the worst respected of all senses.
Jos Verhulst had said a very common sense thing (June 8, 2015 at 10:2am) that has gone unnoticed by almost everybody: If the formation of the image of the Shroud were a natural process, we would have a lot of similar images.
So we have two possibilities only:
The image was produced by a process common in the Antiquity or Middle Ages that is not possible in the present days. That is the hypothesis of painting (or similar imprinting) with time degradation added.
Or it is a miracle.
Both processes are difficult if not impossible to test. Time and resurrection are variable that we can not reproduce. Perhaps a more accurate testing of the cloth by an independent and interdisciplinary team of experts could find evidences about pigments or similar, but resurrecting a man is out of our possibilities… for the moment.
Only an answer is possible for the moment: we don’t know.
I know that this methodical scepticism is not welcome by those that need confirmatory evidences for their faith or think that science can solve every problem in the universe. May be these are good reasons to refuse to hear the common sense arguments of the prudent man.
Jos Verhulst had said a very common sense thing (June 8, 2015 at 10:2am) that has gone unnoticed by almost everybody: If the formation of the image of the Shroud were a natural process, we would have a lot of similar images.
So we have two possibilities only:
The image was produced by a process common in the Antiquity or Middle Ages that is not possible in the present days. That is the hypothesis of painting (or similar imprinting) with time degradation added.
Or it is a miracle.
Both processes are difficult if not impossible to test. Time and resurrection are variable that we can not reproduce. Perhaps a more accurate testing of the cloth by an independent and interdisciplinary team of experts could find evidences about pigments or similar, but resurrecting a man is out of our possibilities… for the moment.
Only an answer is possible for the moment: we don’t know.
I know that this methodical scepticism is not welcome by those that need confirmatory evidences for their faith or think that science can solve every problem in the universe. May be these are good reasons to refuse to hear the common sense arguments of the prudent man.
2 comments:
The comment that follows comes from Thibault Heimburger MD , posted to Dan Porter's shroudstory site. As stated earlier, I prefer now to take questions and criticisms here on my own site, especially as I'm now winding down from shroudology, and keen to avoid any further confrontation. So here's the comment, followed by a provisional response as a separate comment.
Thibault HEIMBURGER commented on Dear Colin Berry.
in response to Dan:
Colin Berry tells us he is moving on. Change of plan: I’m now terminating all posting on the Shroud of Turin, feeling as I do that I’ve given it my best shot, and that it’s now time to move on. However, I’m still available here to respond to questions, criticism etc as best I can […]
Colin,
“Change of plan: I’m now terminating all posting on the Shroud of Turin, feeling as I do that I’ve given it my best shot, and that it’s now time to move on”
Your “best shot”. Certainly not.
Your experiments, thoughts and models are very interesting.
You are certainly able to refine your thoughts.
We need you.
Nevertheless, if you decide now to move out, please give us a detailed (PDF ?) document explaining how the TS image might/could have been produced in the middle-ages.
Thank you.
Thank you for the appreciative comments
I have given some thought to the matter of producing a 'research paper' on the TS body image as a medieval imprint. But that is not for me. Why not? Firstly, I have never seen the TS with my own eyes and am unlikely ever to do so. That leaves me ignorant of the true colour of the TS image. Photographs? No two photographs look the same, and most if not all seem to have been enhanced or even de-enhanced. How can one hope to write an authoritative paper if one has to make guesses, educated or otherwise, about the subject of study?
There are still more pressing reasons - chemical ones - so that's all the more reason for being circumspect. There are virtually no chemical data on the body image. We do not know whether the image is degraded linen, or present on some kind of acquired impurity coating. There are conflicting reports as to whether there are traces of starch, apparently negative evidence for additional nitrogen in image areas that may or may not be conclusive. Given the absence of reliable or detailed analytical data, how can one seriously propose this or that model for image formation?
One can't. It would be foolish and presumptious in the extreme to do so. There's also the small matter of experimentation. I have coped as best I can these last few weeks handling hazardous acids in my garage - sulphuric and nitric - and feel enough has been seen and recorded by way of photographs on this site to be able to propose a simple idea, one that can be expressed in a few words (see below). It's now for others to decide whether the idea has any merit, and whether they wish to pursue it further, either via model studies, ideally in a properly equipped laboratory, or maybe even in drawing up a protocol for a STURP Mk2 return to Turin, were the go-ahead to be given.
As I say, the idea is absurdly simple. The objective of the medieval forger was to produce an imprint on linen that could be claimed to be that left by the newly crucified Jesus on Joseph of Arimathea's linen. The body image would be claimed to be a 1300 year old and yellowed sweat imprint. That would be produced by coating a human volunteer with an organic substance, then adding blood, then imprinting onto linen, and then developing the imprint with a chemical to make it more yellow/brown, more visible.
A possible combination would be plain flour paste/glue for Stage 1 imprinting, followed by chemical treatment with nitric acid solution or limewater in Stage 2.
Flour paste guarantees a good imprint, due to its adhesive properties.
I could pack this box with a lot more chemical detail (and speculation) but feel enough has been said. It's the essence of the idea that counts: imprinting of a negative image from a 3D (or bas relief) subject followed by separate chemical development. That's really all there is to it.
Post a Comment