Second Face - Shroud of Turin Glossary

Two academic researchers, Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo of the University of Padua in Italy, reported finding a faint second face on the backside of the cloth. They published their findings in the peer reviewed scientific Journal of Optics (April 14, 2004). Though the facial image was confirmed scientifically, it was not easy to see. However, by filtering out the plaid background with software developed by Robert Doumax, an expert in computerized image analysis, the second face becomes very visible.

The brown image is an unfiltered photograph of the backside of the cloth. The blue image is a computer enhanced image. Fourier transformations and Gaussian filtering were applied to the picture on the left. This purely mathematical process makes the face quite visible. The following picture overlays the backside image and the regular front side image to demonstrate front to back alignment:

The second face was an important find because it virtually eliminates artistic methods while giving credence to a hypothesis that a natural amino/carbonyl chemical reaction formed the images. (See: Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin )

shroud topics

Home Page for Shroud of Turin Story.

New Analysis Confirms Second Face: Raises Questions About Other Images

New Tests Prove 1988 Carbon 14 Dating Invalid: Shroud of Turin Shown to be Much Older.

Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425 pp. 189-194, by Raymond N. Rogers, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California) - The article is available on Elsevier BV's ScienceDirect®

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin: Why nothing makes sense.

Great Links: Watch interviews with experts. Read new material.

What's Wrong with the Shadow Shroud? You can make a glass of nerve toxin look like lemonade. That doesn't make it lemonade. The Shadow Shroud is that much unlike the real Shroud of Turin.

The Ray Rogers FAQ Statements of fact that can be proved from the scientific observations.

The Shroud of Turin and the Skeptical Inquirer: "Imagine slicing a human hair lengthwise into 100 long thin slices, each slice one-tenth the width of a single red blood cell. The images on the Shroud of Turin, at their thickest, are this thin."

The Shroud of Caiaphas: A forensic science mystery

The Second Face What does an announcement by the Institute of Physics in London mean?

Mozarabic Rite What does a 6th century rite from the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain have to do with the Shroud of Turin? A summary of Shroud history.

Shroud of Turin Facts Gallery

Chemistry What do we know about the chemical nature of the images?

Carbon 14 Tests They conclude for a medieval provenance. Are they wrong? It seems so. According to National Geographic News, the Discovery Channel, the New York Times, UPI, etc. there is now definitive chemical evidence that the test samples were cut from a medieval repair patch.

Image Formation Were they created by 1) a faker of false relics, 2) a miraculous event, or 3) some perfectly natural phenomenon?

FAQ Facts and dubious claims.

Addenda

If you read nothing else about the Shroud, read Ray Rogers FAQ - 2004. It is not an easy read for a non-scientist but it is worth it. If you don't know what hydroxymethylfurfural is, don't worry. You will get the gist of the idea from one careful reading of this 19 question FAQ..

Want more papers? Check out the The Shroud of Turin Web Site.

Shroud Description

The cloth

The Shroud of Turin is a single piece of linen cloth measuring about 14 feet by 3½ feet. The weave is a 3 over 1 herringbone weave. The Shroud is bloodstained and shows faint ventral and dorsal images of a man who, by the wounds that are visible, appears to have been crucified. He seems to be in burial repose.

The bloodstains

The bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin are composed of hemoglobin and give a positive test for serum albumin. Numerous tests confirm this.

The images

The Shroud of Turin's images are superficial and fully contained within a thin layer of starch fractions and saccharides that coats the outermost fibers of the Shroud. The color is a caramel-like substance, probably the product of an amino/carbonyl reaction. Where there is no image, the carbohydrate coating is clear. There is also a very faint image of the face on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin which lines up with the image on the front of the cloth. There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the images on the Shroud of Turin were produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the linen fibers. This is incorrect. The coating, whether imaged or clear, can be reduced with diimide or removed with adhesive leaving clear cellulose fiber.

The images as they appear on the Shroud of Turin are said to be negative because when photographed the resulting negative is a positive image.

The Turin Shroud was examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, lasermicroprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing. No evidence for pigments (paint, dye or stains) or artist's media was found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin.

More Stuff

updated 2005

New findings, recently published in respected, secular, peer-reviewed, scientific journals, suggest that the Shroud of Turin is indeed an archeological artifact of a first century burial. The images, thought by some to be miraculous, were probably formed by a natural amino/carbonyl process; a chemical reaction perhaps unique to and commonplace in Jewish tomb burials of the late-Second Temple era. Modern forensic science supports this hypothesis. If this is correct, then there are many good reasons for inferring that ghostlike images are of Jesus.

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and Evangelical Christians — conservative and liberal — are beginning to realize that there is something not easily understood about the Shroud of Turin.

The Shroud of Turin evidence is poignantly contrary to the expectations of believers and skeptics alike. But at the same time it is auspiciously not too fantastic for modern sensibilities.

Together, a conspectus of its history and valid scientific evidence suggest that the Shroud of Turin is a genuine burial cloth of a Roman-style crucifixion victim.

Valid is emphasized because much that is reported in polemic books and websites—by believers and skeptics alike—is junk science.

If the Shroud of Turin is a burial cloth, then historical records are sufficient to infer that the Shroud's enigmatic images of a naked, much wounded man are of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Shroud of Turin is certainly much older than the now discredited radiocarbon date of ca 1260-1390. This is supported by chemical evidence.

The superficial conjugated carbon bonds—the microscopic chromophores of the Shroud of Turin's images—possibly result from a Maillard reaction between reactive body amines and residual starch fractions and saccharides in natural soap. We need only turn to Pliny the Elder to see how ancient linen was made to find supporting evidence.

Science cannot rule out a miracle but it can and does rule out fakery.

If genuine, then the Shroud of Turin is unquestionably the oldest historical document pertaining to the life and death of Jesus. If genuine, it is pictorial and forensic evidence that gives credence to the the passion story.

And if genuine, this piece of ancient linen, the Shroud of Turin, offers new insights in the quest for the historical Jesus and new ways to scrutinize contemporary biblical exegesis.

Is the Shroud evidence of the resurrection? Possibly, but perhaps only indirectly. Clearly, if the Shroud of Turin is a burial cloth, the body it wrapped was separated from it soon after burial and before decomposition products could have ravaged the cloth. Forensic science, applied to the Shroud, argues against the polemics of swoon theory or a stolen body.

Ray Rogers, a Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a chemist who has scientifically examined the Shroud—in Turin—and studied the object for more than 27 years, wrote:

with some legitimacy, we might put up a strong case for a First Century shroud with an image best explained as being that of a crucified man. Isn't that enough? Remember that there weren't any Christians or Christian fanatics (e.g., Templars) in the First Century. There wasn't anyone around so warped that they would crucify a person to create a relic, and the technology did not exist to produce an adequate fake.

Perspective: My name is Dan Porter. I am the author of this website.

Biblical scholar and Anglican bishop, John A. T. Robinson wrote in Honest to God: "All I can do is try to be honest, honest to God and about God and to follow the argument wherever it leads." I have tried to make this my guiding principle in exploring the
Turin Shroud.

JOHN A. T. ROBINSON
SURPRISE »

I am a lifelong Episcopalian with one foot firmly planted in liberal theological views and the principles of Progressive Christianity and one foot planted in conservative thought and traditional orthodoxy. I am a member of Trinity Church Wall Street (Episcopal) in New York City.

While I personally believe in the Resurrection of Christ, I have no opinion about its physical or spiritual nature. I don't interpret the Gospels as literal or linear accounts of the life of Jesus. I believe the Gospels were written to elicit faith and as such are truer than they could be as mere historical narratives. But the accounts, starting with Jesus' arrest and ending with the discovery of the empty tomb, seems very historical.

If the Shroud of Turin is real, as I have come to believe, it confirms the Passion story and lavishes new verisimilitude upon the Resurrection. It could be that we have a picture of Jesus.