The Carbon-14 dating of the Shroud
The Shroud: part 2
The first scientific examinations on the Shroud were carried out by the STURP (Shround of Turin Research Project), born in 1978 and composed of various world-renowned scientists in charge of studying the sacred relic. Given the conflicting results, the best method then seemed to be to entrust the exact historical location of the Shroud to the "super partes" examination of the C14 dating. This technique allows us to establish, with a minimum approximation, the age of an organic find and is based on the principle that all animal and plant beings absorb a certain amount of radiocarbon or C14, a radioactive isotope of carbon during their life. Upon death, this isotope is released at a constant rate; we know, in fact, that after 5730 years it is reduced to half, after another 5730 years to a quarter and so on.
In the presence of Cardinal Ballestrero and under the supervision of Dr. Tite, director of the British Museum, a small sample of the cloth measuring 8.1 x 1.6 cm was taken. This sample was then divided into two parts one of which was retained and the other divided into a further three parts each of which was sent to three laboratories, that of the University of Tucson in Arizona, the University of Oxford and the Polytechnic of Zurich, whose leaders were also present at the time of the removal from the Shroud cloth.
On 13 October 1988 the custodian of the relic, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, archbishop of Turin, communicated the result of the exams; all three laboratories argued in unison that the fabric of the Shroud should be placed between 1260 and 1390!
The Shroud would therefore seem to be a medieval forgery.
Obviously, controversies and disputes regarding the validity of laboratory tests arise. One of these relies on the fact that "the samples analyzed in 1988 were taken with bare hands and according to some they were part of a mending following one of the fires mentioned" and that therefore "the examination had been altered by various factors, such as chemical nature of linen, the presence of molds and the hydrolysis suffered by the fabric after the fire of 1532".
This is what the Russian Kuznetsov argued, who together with Ivanov in 1993 carried out further laboratory tests from which the error of radiocarbon dating, tests that, it was said, could easily be repeated by any scientist. But Paul Damon, Douglas Donahue, and A.J.T. Jull of the University of Arizona Radiocarbon Dating Unit, expert scientists in radiocarbon dating, have declared to have been unable to reproduce the results obtained by Kuznetsov in the laboratory. Ions, not least those that the temperature of a fire does not seem to be able in any way to generate atomic processes necessary for the alteration of the C12-C14 ratio in the canvas and that in any case in order to obtain an alteration such as to falsify the dating it would be necessary that a out of two flax fibers had been altered by fires. But there are those who claim that a wrong choice of the sampling site was made: from a single point and moreover from a corner that is very polluted and may have been restored in the Middle Ages.
Chemist Alan Adler of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury (USA), member of the Commission for the conservation of the Shroud, analyzed 15 fibers extracted from the Shroud sample used for radiocarbon dating. After a comparison with 19 fibers from various areas of the Shroud, he found on the sample used for the radiodating a degree of pollution such as to be able to declare that it is not representative of the entire sheet. On the problem of carbon dating and the photographic image imprinted on the sheet, an article recently appeared in the HERA magazine signed by the director Adriano Forgione in which the aforementioned thesis of Kuznetsof is married according to which, we repeat, the examination to radiocarbon was carried out "neglecting the responses of biology, physics, medicine and archeology that had previously provided some pieces in contrast with the new dating" and that "no one, furthermore, pointed out that the samples analyzed in 1988 were taken with bare hands and according to some they were part of a mending following one of the fires mentioned" and therefore "the examination had been altered by various factors, such as the chemical nature of the linen, the presence of mold and the hydrolysis suffered by the fabric after the fire of 1532".
Regardless of the purely scientific aspect, one wonders how it is possible that a "subsequent mending" taken "with bare hands" was used for such an important exam, especially since, as already mentioned, the three laboratories were present at the time of sampling of the fabric and, at least, they will have had a say if not on which part of the fabric to cut at least on how to intervene to ensure a correct outcome of the analyzes. But the rehearsals aren't over. There are those who do not give up and develop a thesis that in practice has given the desired results; a piece of cloth dating back to about the year zero is taken, it is divided into two parts: the first is given ... result "year 0" the second piece is treated as the Shroud was treated (fire, water, air ..). The dating of this "abused" piece of cloth is a further confirmation: "Anno 1500" a rejuvenation of 1500 years!
And again: “Three Italian researchers, prof. Mario Moroni, Eng. Francesco Barbesino and Dr. Maurizio Bettinelli, conducted important experiments on the canvases of an Egyptian mummy: these samples, irradiated with a neutron flux and subsequently heat treated by simulating the Chambéry fire, were found to be about 1100 years younger than their true age at radiocarbon dating. Very interesting are also the experiments of the biophysicist Jean-Baptiste Rinaudo, researcher of nuclear medicine in Montpellier. According to this scientist, the acid oxidation of the superficial fibrils of the Shroud in the image areas, the three-dimensional information contained in the figure, the vertical projection of the points can be explained by an irradiation of protons that would have been emitted from the body, under the effect of an unknown energy supply. The experiments conducted on linen fabrics have led to results comparable with the Shroud. It is interesting that the subsequent artificial aging of the samples reinforces the colors of the oxidations obtained. J.-B. Rinaudo believes that the atoms involved in the phenomenon are those of Deuterium, present in organic matter: it is the element that needs the least energy to extract a proton from its nucleus, which is made up of a proton and a neutron. It's a stable core, so it took an energy boost to break it down. The protons produced would have formed the image, while the neutrons would have irradiated the tissue, with the consequent enrichment in C14 which would have distorted the dating".
Comparative opinions that fail to give certainty. On the one hand, the radiocarbon examination that would make the Shroud a medieval cloth, on the other hand those who dispute the validity of this examination, affected by the most varied alterations of the fabric.
Perhaps it is appropriate at this point to take a further step; assuming that the examination at C14 is correct, we must ask ourselves how the imprint on the Shroud cloth was formed or with what technique it was made.
But all this we will try to see in the third part.
