possibly the biggest radiocarbon dating mistake ever

3D Data Content: This is perhaps the most intriguing image attribute. A plot of a moving average of the grayscale value of the image, as it appears on the shroud, produces a visual terrain map.

This is compelling evidence that the image on the shroud is not a representation of reflected light, either by the eye of an artist as in a painting, or by some photographic method. It suggests, but does not prove, that the image represents distance between facial features and the cloth. So far, no theory fully explains how this is possible.

Chemistry of the Image: This is a phase-contrast microscopic picture of a single image-bearing fiber. A very thin polysaccharide layer coats the outermost fibers of the cloth. In places this coating has formed into a brown, caramel-like substance. It is the brown color that forms the image.

From numerous samples, it is estimated that the layer is between approximately 180 and 600 nanometers thick. By comparison, a sheet of typical ink-jet printer paper about 100,000 nanometers thick.

The layer is consistent with an evaporation concentration (a residue) of various saccharides deposited from impurities in wash water during air drying. The brown that forms the image is consistent with a Maillard (amino/carbonyl) reaction. It is not consistent with caramization because the heat required would have colored the cellulose fibers as well. The layer can be removed with adhesive and the fiber is clear.

A more profound questions is why? In an age so undemanding as the medieval, when any sliver of wood could pass as a piece of the "true cross," any bramble as a piece of the "crown of thorns," why bother?

Because the picture was a negative, some have speculated that the Shroud of Turin might be a medieval proto-photograph; an invention that was used only once for a single fourteen-foot long fraud, and never mentioned or used again until it was reinvented in an age of science. Chemical and image analysis have ruled out this as a possibility.

Carbon 14 Sampling Map. Large white area is missing cloth and the smaller white area is the Raes sample. Note that Arizona received two pieces because, after cutting and trimming away disparate material, the Arizona sample was too small.

Giovanni Riggi, the person who actually cut the carbon 14 sample from the Shroud stated, "I was authorized to cut approximately 8 square centimetres of cloth from the Shroud…This was then reduced to about 7 cm because fibres of other origins had become mixed up with the original fabric …"
 

The pattern distorts the images. When it is filtered out using Fourier Transform algorithms, much of detail is altered. Thus it is understood as background noise.

The pattern is significant because it suggests that the cloth was not field bleached and, therefore, not likely medieval.

End-to-end Splice: The two ends show different colors and amounts of coating.

According to Rogers, "[The thread] shows distinct encrustation and color on one end, but the other end is nearly white . . . Fibers have popped out of the central part of the thread, and the fibers from the two ends point in opposite directions. This section of yarn is obviously an end-to-end splice of two different batches of yarn. No splices of this type were observed in the main part of the Shroud."

Photograph of a Sample: One of the carbon 14 samples showing suspicious changes in the width

Gilbert Raes, when later he examined some of the carbon 14 samples, noticed that cotton fibers were contained inside the threads, which could help to explain differences in fiber diameter. This may also explain why the carbon 14 samples apparently weighed much more than was as expected.