The Shroud of Turin

This paper is based on the assumption that the Shroud of Turin is of 14th century origin consistent with its radiocarbon date and historical record and thus must be explained within the technology, social and cultural and contexts of that era. Avoiding the attendant controversy surrounding the date, we present a reasonable plausibility argument to reconcile its visual and forensic properties with extent 14th century printing technology and other related circumstances. We show that striking parallels exist between the general characteristics of an environmentally degraded woodprint and the Shroud image including the pseudo 3-d properties which arise as a natural and unintentional result of the printing process. Existing examples are shown of large woodprints of that era with sufficient detail and contrast variations that resemble the Shroud image resolution and contrast variation. Further the argument is reinforced with analytical results showing that under any reasonable assumptions about the surface bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) the observed 3-d properties cannot be reconciled with any known radiative imaging process