From Dr John Ruskamp:
Revered by some as a religious artifact and rejected by others as a medieval fake, the Shroud of Turin is both a historic and scientific enigma. Indeed! However, for the members of ESCONI's Archaeology group the scientific facts related to this artifact are now clear.
In a presentation by member John Ruskamp, those in attendance at last month's meeting were able to view, study, and photograph one of only a few life size replicas of the Shroud of Turin. (The original shroud is displayed only a few times a century and is kept in Turin, Italy.) Like the Shroud itself, this rare photographic replica presents the viewer with a faint negative image of a tortured man.
The replica was created at John's request by Sir Barrie Schwortz (Knighted by the King of Portugal in 2011 for his work on the Shroud), the official photographer for the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), a multidisciplinary scientific study carried out on the Shroud for five days by over 40 highly respected scientists. This cloth facsimile allows observers the unique opportunity to study and photograph the Shroud in complete detail, something one cannot do with the real thing. Produced from STURP's high-resolution photographic plates, the replica accurately reproduces all of the visual and hidden characteristics of the Shroud itself, including the embedded 3D information unique to this photographically negative image.
Since 1960, when he first viewed a program about the Shroud on television (WTTW), John has continually studied the published research about this relic. While attending the 2010 Shroud conference at Ohio State University, he was able to renew his friendship with a number of the original 1978 Shroud researchers, learning first-hand about their most recent scientific Shroud studies.
Of course, the now highly controversial 1988 C-14 tests performed on a small piece of cloth removed from one corner of the Shroud were discussed at this 2010 conference. In addition, compelling new scientific evidence was presented that calls into question the veracity of the date (AD 1260-1390) assigned to the Shroud by the labs at Arizona, Oxford, and Zurich who did the testing.
In his lecture, John pointed out that while these institutions clearly did good work, it has now been confirmed that the sample of the Shroud provided to them by church authorities was dubious, at best. In violation of the agreed upon 1978 protocol for selecting multiple areas of the Shroud for C-14 analysis, when it came time to "cut the cloth" unfortunately only one slice was taken from a re-woven and contaminated corner of the Shroud of Turin. Nothing was removed for analysis from the main body of the cloth where the image resides, as it should have been. Hence, the 1988 C-14 dating of the Shroud has now been rejected by most serious Shroud researchers.
Over the years, as a result of his longstanding interest and involvement with many of the 1978 Shroud researchers, John has developed warm friendships with both Barrie Schwortz and Pete Schumacher, the developer of the once top secret VP-8 image analyzer, the machine that first revealed the three dimensional information encoded in the Shroud image. Hence, in his talk with the Archaeology group John was able to provide the audience with entertaining, insightful, and informative antidotes given to him by these researchers. More importantly, he shared with the audience some of the more important, yet poorly understood, scientific findings associated with the Shroud of Turin.
Reminding the audience that the Shroud of Turin is arguably the single most studied item in the world, John, in what he calls his "Shroud Lite" lecture, recapitulated the known history of the cloth, and its likely unrecorded history prior to AD 1356. Then, by scientifically comparing features of the Shroud with another ancient cloth artifact, the Sudarium of Oviedo, an item with a known history since at least AD 614, John pointed out the primary scientific findings for each of these relics, thereby making the Shroud of Turin much less of a mystery.
For although the Shroud and Sudarium have separate histories, having traveled by vastly different routes to their modern locations in Turin, Italy, and Oviedo, Spain respectively, these two artifacts, one a burial cloth (Shroud) and the other the facial cloth used prior to internment (Sudarium), confirm their shared history. Each contain blood of the rare type AB, and jointly they share over 120 identical bloodstains indicating that at one time they covered the same body. Nevertheless, while science can delineate everything the Shroud of Turin is not, it still cannot explain nor reproduce the negative three-dimensional image encoded upon ancient cloth.
Augmenting his presentation, John provided members with posters showing the art history of the Shroud, including its likeness on ancient icons and coinage from as early as AD 950. And with handouts detailing the plethora of scientific studies carried out on the Shroud and Sudarium, this uniquely factual lecture left the audience both informed, fascinated, and entertained (attendees were encouraged to take "selfies" with the Shroud, and examine it as closely as they desired.)
For those who missed this lecture, but would like to learn more about the science of the Shroud of Turin, current researchers and a number of the original STRUP members will be present at the upcoming public Shroud Conference, to be held nearby in St. Louis, Missouri, this year during the weekend of October 12th. More information about this event can be found on the Internet.
In addition, Barrie Schwortz maintains the website Shroud.com, which is full of research references and solidly scientific information. And, if your travels ever take you to Alamogordo, New Mexico, near the White Sands National park, be sure to stop by the Shroud Museum run by Deacon Pete Schumacher (a position he worked to achieve as a result of his Shroud studies) where you can operate what is probably the last working VP-8 image analyzer. You can view Pete's Shroud website at www.shroudnm.org.
