Radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin (Turin Shroud), a linen cloth commonly associated with the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ, has undergone numerous scientific tests, the most notable of which is radiocarbon dating, in an attempt to determine the relic's authenticity. In 1988, scientists at three separate laboratories dated samples from the Shroud to a range of AD1260–1390, which coincides with the first appearance of the shroud in France in the 1350s.[1]

This dating has been questioned by some, and doubts have been raised in particular regarding the representivity of the sample that was taken for testing. These challenges have been refuted by experts using actual shroud evidence.

History

1978: the creation of S.Tu.R.P.

The idea of scientifically dating the shroud had first been proposed in the 1960s, but permission had been refused because the procedure would have required the destruction of too much fabric (almost 0.05 sq m ≅ 0.538 sq ft). The development in the 1970s of new techniques for radio-carbon dating, which required lower quantities of source material,[2] prompted the Catholic Church to found the Shroud of Turin Research Project (S.Tu.R.P.), which involved about 30 scientists of various religious faiths, including non-Christians.

The S.Tu.R.P. group initially planned to conduct a range of different studies on the cloth, including radio-carbon dating.[3][4] A commission headed by chemist Robert H. Dinegar and physicist Harry E. Gove consulted numerous laboratories which were able at the time (1982) to carbon-date small fabric samples. The six labs that showed interest in performing the procedure fell into two categories, according to the method they utilised:

To obtain independent and replicable results, and to avoid conflict between the laboratories, it was decided to let all interested laboratories perform the tests at the same time.[6]

The 1985 rift between S.Tu.R.P. and the candidate labs

In 1982, the S.Tu.R.P. group published the list of tests to be performed on the shroud; these aimed to identify how the image was impressed onto the cloth, to verify the relic's purported origin, and to identify better-suited conservation methods. However, a disagreement between the S.Tu.R.P. group and the candidate laboratories devolved into a P.R. rift:[7] the S.Tu.R.P. group expected to perform the radiometric examination under its own aegis and after the other examinations had been completed, while the laboratories considered radio-carbon dating to be the priority test, which should be completed at the detriment of other tests, if necessary.[8]

The "Turin protocol of 1986"

A meeting with ecclesiastic authorities took place on September 29, 1986 to determine the way forward. In the end, a compromise solution was reached with the so-called "Turin protocol",[9][10] which stated that:

The Vatican subsequently decided to adopt a different protocol instead.[18]

These deviations were heavily criticized.[21]

The blind-test method was abandoned, because the distinctive three-to-one herringbone twill weave of the shroud could not be matched in the controls, and it was therefore still possible for a laboratory to identify the shroud sample. Shredding the samples would not solve the problem, while making it much more difficult and wasteful to clean the samples properly.[22] Professor Harry Gove, director of Rochester's laboratory (one of the four not selected by the Vatican), argued in an open letter published in Nature[23] that discarding the blind-test method would expose the results - whatever they may be - to suspicion of unreliability. However in a 1990 paper Gove conceded that the "arguments often raised, … that radiocarbon measurements on the shroud should be performed blind seem to the author to be lacking in merit … lack of blindness in the measurements is a rather insubstantial reason for disbelieving the result."[24]

In the heated debate that followed, a Church's spokesperson declared that

(t)he Church must respond to the challenge of those who want it to stop the process, who would want us to show that the Church fears the science.
We are faced with actual blackmail: unless we accept the conditions imposed by the laboratories, they will start a marketing campaign of accusations against the Church, which they will portray as scared of the truth and enemy of science. [...]
The pressure on the ecclesiastic authorities to accept the Turin protocol have almost approached illegality.
—Luigi Gonella[25]

The final protocol

The proposed changes to the Turin protocol sparked another heated debate among scientists, and the sampling procedure was postponed.[26]

On April 17, 1988, ten years after the S.Tu.R.P. project had been initiated, British Museum scientific director Michael Tite published in Nature[27] the "final" protocol:

Among the most obvious differences between the final version of the protocol and the previous ones stands the decision to sample from a single location on the cloth.[28] This is particularly significant because, should the chosen portion be in any way not representative of the remainder of the shroud, the results would only be applicable to that portion of the cloth.[29]

A further, relevant difference was the deletion of the blind test method, considered by most scholars as the very foundation of the scientific method.[30][31][32] The blind-test method was abandoned because the distinctive three-to-one herringbone twill weave of the shroud could not be matched in the controls, and it was therefore still possible for a laboratory to identify the shroud sample. Shredding the samples would not solve the problem, while making it much more difficult and wasteful to clean the samples properly.[22]

Account of the testing process

Sampling (April 1988)

Samples were taken on April 21, 1988 in the Cathedral by Franco Testore, an expert on weaves and fabrics, and by Giovanni Riggi, a representative of the maker of bio-equipment "Numana". Testore performed the weighting operations, while Riggi made the actual cut. Also present were Cardinal Ballestrero, four priests, archdiocese spokesperson Luigi Gonella, photographers, a camera operator, Michael Tite of the British Museum and the labs' representatives.

As a precautionary measure, a piece twice as big as the one required by the protocol was cut from the Shroud; it measured 81 mm × 21 mm (3.19 in × 0.83 in). A strip showing coloured filaments of uncertain origin was discarded.[33] The remaining sample, measuring 81 mm × 16 mm (3.19 in × 0.63 in) and weighing 300 mg, was first divided in two equal parts, one of which was preserved in a sealed container, in the custody of the Vatican, in case of future need. The other half was cut into three segments, and packaged for the labs in a separate room by Dr Tite and the archbishop. The lab representatives were not present at this packaging process, in accordance with the protocol.

The labs were also each given three control samples (one more than originally intended), that were:

May–September 1988

Tucson performed the tests in May, Zürich in June, and Oxford in August,[34] and communicated their results to the British Museum.

On September 28, 1988, British Museum director and coordinator of the study Michael Tite communicated the official results to the Diocese of Turin and to the Holy See.

Official announcement

In a well-attended press conference on October 13, Cardinal Ballestrero announced the official results, i.e. that radio-carbon testing dated the shroud to a date of 1260-1390 CE, with 95% confidence. The official and complete report on the experiment was published in Nature.[35] The uncalibrated dates from the individual laboratories, with 1-sigma errors (68% confidence), were as follows:

As reported in Nature, Professor Bray of the Instituto di Metrologia 'G. Colonetti', Turin, "confirmed that the results of the three laboratories were mutually compatible, and that, on the evidence submitted, none of the mean results was questionable."[35]

Criticisms of the dating result

The sample was part of a later repair

Although the quality of the radiocarbon testing itself is unquestioned, criticisms have been raised regarding the choice of the sample taken for testing, with suggestions that the sample may represent a medieval repair fragment rather than the image-bearing cloth.[36][37][38][39] It is hypothesised that the sampled area was a medieval repair which was conducted by "invisible reweaving". Since the C14 dating at least four articles have been published in scholarly sources contending that the samples used for the dating test may not have been representative of the whole shroud.[40]

These included a 2005 article by Raymond Rogers, who conducted chemical analysis for the Shroud of Turin Research Project and who was involved in work with the Shroud since the STURP project began in 1978. Raymond Rogers argued in a 2005 article that the chemical analysis he performed on unprovenanced threads sent to him by a clergyman who was not authorized to possess shroud material, show traces of tanning products, likely used by medieval weavers to match the colour of the original weave when performing repairs and backing the shroud for additional protection, and stated: "The radiocarbon sample contains both a gum/dye/mordant coating and cotton fibers. The main part of the shroud does not contain these materials".[41] Rogers stated that after further study he was convinced that: "The worst possible sample for carbon dating was taken."[42] Rogers made his analysis with documented samples.[43] He received 14 yarn segments from the Raes sample from Prof. Luigi Gonella (Department of Physics, TurinPolytechnic University) on 14 October 1979. He took 32 adhesive-tape samples from all areas of the shroud and associated textiles in 1978. On 12 December 2003, He received samples of both warp and weft threads that Prof. Luigi Gonella claimed to have taken from the radiocarbon sample before it was distributed for dating. Gonella reported that he excised the threads from the center of the radiocarbon sample.[43]

As part of the testing process in 1988, Derbyshire laboratory in the UK assisted the Oxford University radiocarbon acceleration unit by identifying foreign material removed from the samples before they were processed.[44] Professor Edward Hall of the Oxford team noticed two or three "minute" fibers which looked "out of place",[44] and those "minute" fibers were identified as cotton by Peter South (Textile expert of Derbyshire laboratory) who said: "It may have been used for repairs at some time in the past, or simply became bound in when the linen fabric was woven. It may not have taken; us long to identify the strange material, but it was unique amongst the many and varied jobs we undertake.” [44]

The official report of the dating process, written by the people who performed the sampling, states that the sample "came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas."[45]

In 2008 former STURP member John Jackson rejected the possibility that the C14 sample may have been conducted on a medieval repair fragment, on the basis that the radiographs and transmitted light images taken by STURP in 1978 clearly show that the natural colour bandings present throughout the linen of the shroud propagate in an uninterrupted fashion through the region that would later provide the sample for radiocarbon dating. Jackson stated that this could not have been possible if the sampled area was a later addition.[46]

Mechthild Flury-Lemberg[47] is an expert in the restoration of textiles, who headed the restoration and conservation of the Turin Shroud in 2002. She has written that it’s possible to repair a coarsely woven fabric in such a way as to be invisible, if the damage was not too severe and the original warp threads are still present, but that it is never possible to repair a fine fabric in a way which would be truly invisible, as the repair will always be "unequivocally visible on the reverse of the fabric." She criticized the theory that the C14 tests were done on an invisible patch as "wishful thinking". She states that Gabriel Vial, a textile expert who was present when the sample was taken, confirmed repeatedly that the sample was taken from the original cloth, and that "neither on the front nor on the back of the whole cloth is the slightest hint of a mending operation, a patch or some kind of reinforcing darning, to be found."[48]

In 2010, professors of statistics Marco Riani and Anthony C. Atkinson wrote in a scientific paper that the statistical analysis of the raw dates obtained from the three laboratories for the radiocarbon test suggests the presence of contamination in some of the samples. They conclude that: "The effect is not large over the sampled region … our estimate of the change is about two centuries."[49]

According to professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit in 2011, "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up."[50]

In December 2010 Professor Timothy Jull, a member of the original 1988 radiocarbon-dating team and editor of the peer-reviewed journal Radiocarbon, coauthored an article in that journal with Rachel A Freer-Waters. They examined a portion of the radiocarbon sample left over from the section used by the University of Arizona in 1988 for the carbon dating exercise, and found no evidence of a repair, nor of any dyes or other treatments. They found "only low levels of contamination by a few cotton fibers" and concluded that the radiocarbon dating had been performed on a sample of the original shroud material.[51][52]

In March 2013 Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua conducted a battery of experiments on various threads that he believes were cut from the shroud during the 1988 Carbon-14 dating, and concluded that they dated from 300 B.C. to 400 A.D., potentially placing the Shroud within the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth.[53][54][55][56][57][58][59] Cesare Nosiglia, Archbishop of Turin and Custodian of the Holy Shroud, responded that "as it is not possible to be certain that the analyzed material was taken from the fabric of the Shroud, the Holy See and the Papal Custodian declare that no serious value can be recognized to the results of such experiments."[60]

The dating contradicts other evidence

Raymond Rogers [61] argued in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta that the presence of vanillin differed markedly between the unprovenanced threads he was looking at, which contained 37% of the original vanillin, while the body of the shroud contained 0% of the original vanillin. He stated that: "The fact that vanillin cannot be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicate that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggest the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years".[41] Rogers concluded from this that the Shroud is much older than the earlier purported estimates.[62][63][64][65] Rogers also noted that the thread he examined contained a significant amount of cotton, and stated that cotton was absent in the main-body of the Shroud.[65][66][67]

It has further been stated that Roger’s vanillin-dating process is untested, and the validity thereof is suspect, as the deterioration of vanillin is heavily influenced by the temperature of its environment - heat strips away vanillin rapidly, and the shroud has been subjected to temperatures high enough to melt silver and scorch the cloth.[68] Rogers’ analysis is also questioned by skeptics such as Joe Nickell, who reasons that the conclusions of the author, Raymond Rogers, result from "starting with the desired conclusion and working backward to the evidence".[69]

The sample was contaminated

In 1993 Dr. Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes discovered the presence of polyhydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA)-producing bacteria Leobacillus rubrus on Shroud's fabric and confirmed their presence on three Egyptian mummies.[70] According to Garza-Valdes, "the scientists that carried out the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin in 1988, were not aware of the presence of this unsuspected contaminant (natural plastic coating)". Garza-Valdes outlines further, that while studying thin sections from the Shroud fibers it was found that "more than 60% of the fibers' area is bioplastic".[70] Pictorial evidence dating from c. 1690 and 1842[71] indicates that the corner used for the dating and several similar evenly spaced areas along one edge of the cloth were handled each time the cloth was displayed, the traditional method being for it to be held suspended by a row of five bishops. Wilson and others contend that repeated handling of this kind greatly increased the likelihood of contamination by bacteria and bacterial residue compared to the newly discovered archaeological specimens for which carbon-14 dating was developed. Bacteria and associated residue (bacteria by-products and dead bacteria) carry additional carbon-14 that would skew the radiocarbon date toward the present.

Professor Harry Gove, director of Rochester's laboratory (one of the laboratories not selected to conduct the testing), has also hypothesised that a “bioplastic” bacterial contamination, which was unknown during the 1988 testing, would render the tests inaccurate. He has however also acknowledged that the samples had been carefully cleaned with strong chemicals before testing.[72]

STURP scientist Dr John Jackson has discounted the hypothesis that the sample was contaminated by more recent bioplastic residues from microbial action, on the basis that the samples were carefully cleaned first to eliminate this kind of contamination, and that the quantity of microbial mass required to skew the results would be significantly greater than the mass of the linen itself.[73]

Rodger Sparks, a radiocarbon expert from New Zealand, had countered that an error of thirteen centuries stemming from bacterial contamination in the Middle Ages would have required a layer approximately doubling the sample weight.[74] Because such material could be easily detected, fibers from the shroud were examined at the National Science Foundation Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry examination failed to detect any form of bioplastic polymer on fibers from either non-image or image areas of the shroud. Additionally, laser-microprobe Raman analysis at Instruments SA, Inc. in Metuchen, New Jersey, also failed to detect any bioplastic polymer on shroud fibers.

Professor Gove notes that different cleaning procedures were employed by and within the three laboratories, and that even if some slight contamination remained, about two thirds of the sample would need to consist of modern material to swing the result away from a 1st Century date to a Medieval date. He inspected the Arizona sample material before it was cleaned, and determined that no such gross amount of contamination was present even before the cleaning commenced.[24]

Others have suggested that the silver of the molten reliquiary and the water used to douse the flames may have catalysed the airborne carbon into the cloth.[75] The Russian Dmitri Kouznetsov, an archaeological biologist and chemist, claimed in 1994 to have managed to experimentally reproduce this purported enrichment of the cloth in ancient weaves, and published numerous articles on the subject between 1994 and 1996.[76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83] Kouznetsov's results could not be replicated, and no actual experiments has been able to validate this theory, so far.[84] Professor Gian Marco Rinaldi and others proved that Kouznetsov never performed the experiments described in his papers, citing non-existent fonts and sources, including the museums from which he claimed to have obtained the samples of ancient weaves on which he performed the experiments.[85][86][87][88] The Russian was arrested in 1997 on American soil under allegations of accepting bribes by magazine editors to produce manufactured evidence and false reports.[89]

Likewise proposed was a reaction with carbon monoxide (CO), a trace gas present in air, which it was claimed could add additional “fresh” C14 to the sample.[90] However carbon monoxide does not undergo significant reactions with linen which could result in an incorporation of a significant number of CO molecules into the cellulose structure.[91]

The 2008 documentary Sindone, prove a confronto (lit., "The Shroud, comparing evidence") by David Rolfe suggested that the quantity of carbon 14 found on the weave may have been significantly affected by the weather, the conservation methods employed throughout the centuries,[92] as well as the volatile carbon generated by the fire that damaged the shroud while in Savoy custody at Chambéry. Other theories include that candle smoke (rich in carbon dioxide) and the volatile carbon molecules produced during the two fires may have altered the carbon content of the cloth, rendering carbon-dating unreliable as a dating tool.[93][94]

The calculations were done incorrectly

In 1994, J. A. Christen applied a strong statistical test to the radiocarbon data and concludes that the given age for the shroud is, from a statistical point of view, correct.[95]

However critics claim to have identified statistical errors in the conclusions published in Nature:[35] including: the actual standard deviation for the Tucson study was 17 years, not 31, as published; the chi-square distribution value is 8.6 rather than 6.4, and the relative significance level (which measures the reliability of the results) is close to 1% - rather than the published 5%, which is the minimum acceptable threshold.[96][97][98][99] None of these errors would however produce an altered dating supportive of a 1st Century manufacture.

In 2008 the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Christopher Ramsey, told the BBC that "With the radiocarbon measurements and with all of the other evidence which we have about the Shroud, there does seem to be a conflict in the interpretation of the different evidence".[100] Ramsey has stressed that he would be surprised if the 1988 tests were shown to be far off, let alone "a thousand years wrong", but said that he would keep an open mind.[101]

Books discussing the carbon-dating

There are two books with detailed treatment of the Shroud's carbon dating, including not only the scientific issues but also the events, personalities and struggles leading up to the sample taking. The books offer opposite views on how the dating should have been conducted, and both are critical of the methodology finally employed.

In Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud (1996; ISBN 0-7503-0398-0), Harry Gove provides an account of the interaction between Prof Carlos Chagas, chairman of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and Cardinal Ballestrero, with Gove and Gonella. He provides a detailed record of meetings, telephone conversations and correspondence.

The Rape of the Turin Shroud by William Meacham (2005; ISBN 1-4116-5769-1) devotes 100 pages to the carbon dating. Meacham is also highly critical of STURP and Gonella, and also of Gove. He describes the planning process from a very different perspective (both he and Gove were invited along with 20 other scholars to a conference in Turin in 1986 to plan the C-14 protocol) and focuses on what he claims was the major flaw in the dating: taking only one sample from the corner of the cloth. Meacham reviews the main scenarios that have been proposed for a possibly incorrect dating, and claims that the result is a "rogue date" because of the sample location and anomalies. He points out that this situation could easily be resolved if the Church authorities would simply allow another sample to be dated, with appropriate laboratory testing for possible embedded contaminants.

See also

References

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  2. ↑ Harbottle, G. - W. Heino - Carbon Dating the Shroud of Turin - A Test of Recent Improvements in the Technique - Archaeological Chemistry IV, Allen Ralph O. ed., Advances in Chemistry Series 220, American Chemical Society, Washington D.C, 1989, Chapter 16, pp. 313-320.
  3. ↑ Jumper, E.J., and Mottern, R.W. (1980). Scientific investigation of the Shroud of Turin. Appl. Opt 19, 1909–1912.
  4. ↑ Jumper, E.J. - An Overview of the Testing Performed by the Shroud of Turin Research Project with a Summary of Results - IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society, October 1982, pp. 535-537.
  5. ↑ "Shroud History". Shroud.com. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  6. ↑ Robert Patruno. E quel falso lenzuolo diventò un business. La Repubblica, October 15, 1988, p. 20.
  7. ↑ Schafersman, S. D. - Are the STURP scientists pseudoscientists? - The Microscope 30 No.3, 1982, pp. 232-34.
  8. ↑ Power, B.A. - Implications of Energy Compressibility for Shroud of Turin Image-Process and Carbon-14 Dating - Typescript - Dorval, Quebec, Canada, Jan. 20, 1984, pp. 1-11.
  9. ↑ Jennings, P. - Art Historian Not Convinced the Shroud is a Fake - Our Sunday Visitor, Oct. 23, 1988, p. 24.
  10. ↑ Jennings, P. - Shroud of Turin to Undergo Radiocarbon Testing - Our Sunday Visitor, Feb. 14, 1988, p.3.
  11. ↑ Meachum, W. (1986). "Radiocarbon Measurement and the Age of the Turin Shroud: Possibilities and Uncertainties". Shroud Spectrum International 19.
  12. ↑ Nell'occasione si era aggiunto ai candidati anche il laboratorio francese di Gif-sur-Yvette.
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  15. ↑ Mechtilde Flury-Lemberg, esperta mondiale in tessuti appartenente alla Fondazione Abegg di Berna. In altre occasioni verrà chiamata per eseguire studi sul lenzuolo; in particolare nel 2000 fece parte di una commissione creata per studiare i metodi migliori per la conservazione del lino; nel 2002 ha eseguito alcuni studi sulle toppe che coprivano i buchi causati dall'incendio di Chambery.
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  19. ↑ White, N.R., D. Phil Thesis, Oxford, 1981
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  21. ↑ Raloff, J. - Controversy Builds as Shroud Tests Near - Science News, April 16, 1988, p. 245.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin, Damon et al, Nature, Vol. 337, No. 6208, pp. 611-615, 16th February, 1989,
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  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 DATING THE TURIN SHROUD-AN ASSESSMENT. H E Gove, Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, in RADIOCARBON, VOL 32, No. 1, 1990, P 87-92, at https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1254/1259
  25. ↑ Radiocarbon dating the shroud of Turin A critical review of the Nature report (authored by Damon et al.) with a complete unbiased statistical analysis, Remi Van Haelst, Collegamento pro Sindone Internet - ottobre 2002.
  26. ↑ Anonymous - Shroud Dating Isn't Ironed Out - Science News, 1987, 132, p. 302.
  27. ↑ "Turin Shroud" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-11-29.
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  29. ↑ Marino, J. - The Shroud of Turin and the Carbon 14 Controversy - Fidelity, Feb. 1989, pp. 36-45.
  30. ↑ Van Oosterwyck-Gastuche, M.-C. - Le Sain Suaire et le radiocarbone - Sel de la Terre, No. 20, Printemps 1997, pp. 31-54.
  31. ↑ Van Oosterwyck-Gastuche, M.-C. -Que penser des ages radiocarbone? - Science et Foi- Les Nouvelles du CESHE (Cercle Scientifique et Historique, Tournai, Belgique), No. 30, 4eme trimestre 1993, pp. 23-31.
  32. ↑ Whanger, A.D. - Whanger, M. - Comments on the C-14 Carbon Dating Results on the Shroud of Turin - Typescript, Sept. 29, 1988, pp. 1-4.
  33. ↑ Anonymous - Rogue Fibres Found in the Shroud - Textile Horizons, December 1988.
  34. ↑ Hedges, R.E.M. - R. A. Housley - C.R. Bronk - G.J. Van Klinken - Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry datelist 11 - Historical and religious artefacts - Shroud of Turin - Archaeometry, Vol. 32, Part 2, Aug. 1990, p. 233
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Damon, P. E.; Donahue, D. J.; Gore, B. H.; Hatheway, A. L.; Jull, A. J. T.; Linick, T. W.; Sercel, P. J.; Toolin, L. J.; Bronk, C. R.; Hall, E. T.; Hedges, R. E. M.; Housley, R.; Law, I. A.; Perry, C.; Bonani, G.; Trumbore, S.; Woelfi, W.; Ambers, J. C.; Bowman, S. G. E.; Lesse, M. N. Tite, M. S. — Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin. Nature 1989, 337, 611-615
  36. ↑ Busson, P. – Letter – Sampling error? – Nature, Vol. 352, July 18, 1991, p. 187.
  37. ↑ John L. Brown, "Microscopical Investigation of Selected Raes Threads From the Shroud of Turin"Article (2005)
  38. ↑ Robert Villarreal, "Analytical Results On Thread Samples Taken From The Raes Sampling Area (Corner) Of The Shroud Cloth" Abstract (2008)
  39. ↑ Benford, Marino, "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin Shroud", Chemistry Today, vol. 26, 4, pp. 4-12,article
  40. ↑ R.N Rogers, "Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin", Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, 2005, pp. 189–194, article; S. Benford, J. Marino, "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin shroud", Chemistry Today, vol 26 n 4 / July–August 2008, p. 4-12, article;Emmanuel Poulle, ″Les sources de l'histoire du linceul de Turin. Revue critique″, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, 2009/3-4, Abstract; G. Fanti, F. Crosilla, M. Riani, A.C. Atkinson, "A Robust statistical analysis of the 1988 Turin Shroud radiocarbon analysis", Proceedings of the IWSAI, ENEA, 2010.
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Raymond N. Rogers, 2004, Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin, Thermochimica Acta 425 (2005) 189–194
  42. ↑ Turin Shroud 'could be genuine as carbon-dating was flawed Stephen Adams in the Daily Telegraph 10 Apr 2009
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 Thermochimica Acta 425 (2005) 189–194
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 Rogue fibres foundin the Shroud Textile Horizons, December 1988
  45. ↑ "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin". Shroud.com. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
  46. ↑ A New Radiocarbon Hypothesis by John P. Jackson; [Turin Shroud Center of Colorado; May 5, 2008 http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/jackson.pdf]
  47. ↑ "German Wikipedia". Translate.google.com. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  48. ↑ "The Invisible Mending of the Shroud, the Theory and the Reality" (PDF). Shroud.com. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
  49. ↑ Riani M., Atkinson A.C., Fanti G., Crosilla F., (4 May 2010). "Carbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin: Partially Labelled Regressor and the Design of Experiments". The London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  50. ↑ The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it Tom Chivers in the Daily Telegraph 20 Dec 2011
  51. ↑ R.A. Freer-Waters, A.J.T. Jull, Investigating a Dated piece of the Shroud of Turin, Radiocarbon, 52, 2010, pp. 1521-1527.
  52. ↑ "INVESTIGATING A DATED PIECE OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN". Retrieved 2013-11-28.
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