Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence From Raw Data

2021

If one examines literature on the Turin Shroud, one will find statements claiming in effect that the 3-1 herringbone weave found on it can only be found in ancient times in the Middle East and also statements that it can be only be found in medieval times in Europe. Obviously, if the Shroud were authentic, it would need to fit in with the former category. The fact that there is not a consensus on this question is one of many puzzling aspects of the cloth. This bibliography lists the major sources that address the question. I have also included some papers regarding experiments on textiles, which have applications to dating the Shroud. The bibliography includes both English and non-English sources. There are three Parts. Part I will be sources that believe the Shroud is medieval. Part II will be sources that are neutral; these entries may not even mention the Shroud but will have application to the Shroud in terms of possibly helping to determine the age of the Shroud. Part III will be sources that believe the Shroud is ancient. The bibliography will be updated as needed.

Entropy, 2020

We review the sampling and results of the radiocarbon dating of the archaeological cloth known as the Shroud of Turin, in the light of recent statistical analyses of both published and raw data. The statistical analyses highlight an inter-laboratory heterogeneity of the means and a monotone spatial variation of the ages of subsamples that suggest the presence of contaminants unevenly removed by the cleaning pretreatments. We consider the significance and overall impact of the statistical analyses on assessing the reliability of the dating results and the design of correct sampling. These analyses suggest that the 1988 radiocarbon dating does not match the current accuracy requirements. Should this be the case, it would be interesting to know the accurate age of the Shroud of Turin. Taking into account the whole body of scientific data, we discuss whether it makes sense to date the Shroud again.

2015

In recent discussions on the possible authenticity of the Turin Shroud (Sox 1981; Meacham 1983; Jumper et al 1984), the question of the value of C14 dating persistently recurs. Virtually all researchers agree that the test should be performed; sufficiently small samples can now be measured so that the appearance of the relic is not altered. Several C14 dating proposals are now under consideration by the Archbishop of Turin. In contrast to these positive developments, however, there appears to be an unhealthy consensus approaching the level of dogma among both scientific and lay commentators, that C14 dating will "settle the issue once and for all time. " This attitude sharply contradicts the general perspective of field archaeologists and geologists, who view possible contamination as a very serious problem in interpreting the results of radiocarbon measurement. In this paper I shall examine the issue of the reliability of C14 testing to produce an "absolute date&quot...

2013

The radiocarbon measurement of the Shroud is a complex issue, and the inclusion of all relevant expertise is highly important. In May, 1985, I submitted such a proposal to Cardinal Ballestrero, Archbishop of Turin and official custodian of the relic, in the hope that the ecclesiastical authorities would consider appointing a scientific panel to plan and implement a C14 testing program. The first proposal to date the Shroud was submitted in 1979 by Gove and Harbottle (published in Sox 1981:161-167). It was, in my opinion, seriously flawed by the lack of consultation with archaeologists and experts from other fields. Although the more recent STURP proposal has not yet been published, there is reason (discussed below) to suspect that it likewise has not been researched to the degree warranted by the object to be dated, and that significant input from a range of scholars is lacking. Because the next round of scientific testing of the Shroud may well be the last of this century, it is im...

2022

The late Paul C. Maloney (d. 2018) was one of the most respected researchers in Shroud research. In his eulogy, he was described as “a very meticulous, very detail oriented, and very thorough researcher of truth.” Paul was also described as a “pillar of American sindonology.” Another researcher said of him, “Paul was an erudite teacher and a consummate scholar, full of immeasurable knowledge and of a witty sense of humor. He was a kind and gentle soul.” Maloney was the General Projects Director of the organization known as the Association of Scientists and Scholars International for the Shroud of Turin (ASSIST). Maloney sent letters and papers to the authorities in Turin and Rome regarding potential pitfalls in their plans for the C-14 dating of the Shroud of Turin in 1988. Sadly, those warnings fell on deaf ears. I had, and preserved, various correspondences with Paul in the form of letters and emails spanning over thirty-five years. The correspondences were either to me alone, to multiple researchers or to another person for which Paul or that person sent me a copy. Paul and I also had many phone conversations. He was quite knowledgeable in most aspects of sindonology. This article will be limited to his observations regarding the Shroud’s controversial C-14 dating. The C-14 test putatively dated the cloth to AD 1260-1390, which matched the period in which the Shroud historically surfaced in France in the 1350s. Based on this, most people believed the Shroud was nothing more than an elaborate medieval forgery of some kind. The C-14 test remains the only scientific test that cast doubts on the Shroud’s authenticity. However, plenty of hardcore data exists that refute the results of the 1988 dating. There are now more papers in respected journals that contest the C-14 results than papers that support it. See my article, “The Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin in 1988: Prelude and Aftermath – an English-language Bibliography.” I have documented in an eight-hundred-page book, all of the politics, egos and agendas that played out; the attempt to find out the true age of the Shroud was a secondary consideration. Despite all the material in the book and an additional eighty-plus entries in a supplement available online, this article adds material not found in the book or the supplement. The Shroud C-14 dating test was anything but a simple and straightforward test. The format of the entries will be: *Correspondence type *Date (done in chronological order) *Excerpt or whole of correspondence *Comments by current author (as appropriate) What makes the Maloney correspondence all the more valuable is that some of it was written contemporaneous with the dating itself. He was in constant communications with both Church officials and representatives from the C-14 labs; he recounts insights that didn’t make it into some of official papers of the time but are just as revealing.

2019

2010

Using the 12 published results from the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the TS (Turin Shroud), a robust statistical analysis has been performed in order to test the conclusion by Damon et al. (1998) that the TS is mediaeval. The 12 datings, furnished by the three laboratories, show a lack of homogeneity. We used the partial information about the location of the single measurements to check whether they contain a systematic spatial effect. This paper summarizes the results obtained by Riani et al. (2010), showing that robust methods of statistical analysis can throw new light on the dating of the TS.

2010

The twelve results from the 1988 radio carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin show surprising heterogeneity. We try to explain this lack of homogeneity by regression on spatial coordinates. However, although the locations of the samples sent to the three laboratories involved are known, the locations of the 12 subsamples within these samples are not. We consider all 387,072 plausible spatial allocations and analyse the resulting distributions of statistics. Plots of regression residuals from the forward search indicate that some sets of allocations are implausible. We establish the existence of a trend in the results and indicate how better experimental design might have enabled stronger conclusions to have been drawn from this multi-centre experiment.

International Journal of Archaeology, 2021

The Shroud of Turin is a long, narrow strip of linen cloth believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. The Shroud is unique because faint images of a crucified man are clearly visible on one surface. These body images along with accompanying blood stains have been the subject of scientific inquiry for over a hundred years, yet the process of the image formation has been and remains unknown. Among the more recent of coordinated studies of the Shroud was a radiocarbon dating of excised samples. The results, published in 1989, place the origin of the cloth to sometime in or around the 14th century. The objective of the present study is to survey the cleaning methods (or pretreatments) that were applied to the samples removed for the radiocarbon study. Specifically, we explore the extent to which these methods may have given rise to a peculiar structure in the "raw" radiocarbon data published in 2019. The data from two of the participating laboratories, Zurich and Arizona, appear to bifurcate into groups separated by roughly 100 radiocarbon years. By comparing the pretreatment for each subsample and its group membership, we conclude that these pretreatments do not account for the bifurcation effect. As all subsamples represent portions excised from an originally intact and continuous sample of Shroud material, we assume they are all the same calendar age. Granted this assumption and given the results of the present study, two hypotheses remain to account for the curious anomaly: either 1) the carbon isotope ratios 14 C/ 12 C of the fabric itself were altered by some currently unknown process, or 2) a non-isotropic distribution of contamination remained after the samples underwent the documented pretreatments. A resolution of the question is important for deciding whether future radiocarbon studies are called for and, if so, how the testing protocols should be structured.