Research Article
An Exquisitely Fine Paint Brush for the Turin Shroud’s Body Image
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 2, December 2025
Pages:
141-151
Received:
13 May 2025
Accepted:
11 June 2025
Published:
14 July 2025
Abstract: The Shroud’s body image is a monochromatic half-tone made from a huge number of short, straw yellow discolorations. These discolorations donot penetrate the trheads oreven all the way through the fibers which make up the threads. They appear only on a thin outer layer of the fibers, the fiber primary cell walls. In this work we show that the radioactive isotope rubidium 87 is found in linen fiber’s primary cell walls in sufficient concentrations to initiate yellowing should a large proportion undergo beta decay. This kind of nuclear decay involves the emission of an anti-neutrino which escapes, so that the electron which is produced concurrently can have a variety of kinetic energies and can be launched in a variety of directions. We argue that radiation damage from electron irradiation could have produced uniform yellowing of the fiber primary cell walls and have quenched ultra-violet fluorescence, both characteristics of the Shroud’s body image. Recent developements in the theory of quantum foundations point to the existance of a world, indistinguishable from ours and occupying our same spactime, in which the image was, with certainty, created by 87Rb decays.
Abstract: The Shroud’s body image is a monochromatic half-tone made from a huge number of short, straw yellow discolorations. These discolorations donot penetrate the trheads oreven all the way through the fibers which make up the threads. They appear only on a thin outer layer of the fibers, the fiber primary cell walls. In this work we show that the radioa...
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Research Article
Blood Transfer to the Shroud of Turin: The Washing Hypothesis Revisited
Kelly Kearse*
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 2, December 2025
Pages:
152-156
Received:
12 June 2025
Accepted:
23 June 2025
Published:
16 July 2025
Abstract: The Shroud of Turin is an important archaeological artifact that has been suggested to represent either the burial cloth of the historical Jesus of Nazareth or a clever hoax created during the medieval era. Previous studies have established that authentic blood components are present within the wound areas and shown that numerous serum borders exist, indicative of clotted blood being transferred to the cloth. Controversy exists regarding whether the body would have been washed prior to envelopment in the burial shroud. It has been suggested that Jewish burial customs would have prohibited washing of the body under these circumstances; in this case, resultant blood transfer would likely have occurred either when the blood was relatively fresh and in a liquid or gelatinous state, or after having dried and being remoistened via a high humidity, cave tomb environment. Alternatively, it has been proposed that the body was washed, followed by post-mortem emission from wounds, which were then transferred onto the cloth. Indeed, post-mortem blood has been found to rarely coagulate under these conditions, making such transfer possible even hours after death. The current study demonstrates that inhibition of coagulation precludes the formation of serum borders in bloodstains, an observation which is incompatible with what is observed on the Shroud. These data indicate that it is unlikely that the primary blood transfer mechanism involved washing of the body and subsequent post-mortem emission from wounds.
Abstract: The Shroud of Turin is an important archaeological artifact that has been suggested to represent either the burial cloth of the historical Jesus of Nazareth or a clever hoax created during the medieval era. Previous studies have established that authentic blood components are present within the wound areas and shown that numerous serum borders exis...
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