A new book has just been published on the mysterious Shroud of Turin. Unlike many others, this one chronicles the research of a legitimate scientist who had published over fifty peer-reviewed scientific papers in journals during his lifetime. A Chemist’s Perspective on the Shroud of Turin (Lulu Press, 2008) was written earlier by the deceased Raymond Rogers and published after reviewing by Ray’s widow Joan, also a chemist. In my opinion, it is a must-buy for anyone intrigued by the famous Shroud. The book summarizes Rogers’ 25 years of research on the mysterious linen reputed by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Ray was a chemist with a graduate background in archaeology, soil chemistry, anthropology, and geochronology. In this book, Rogers takes the reader behind the scenes during the famous STURP (“Shroud of Turin Research Project”) tests of the Shroud in 1978, discussing in detail what he was measuring and why, and clearly explaining some challenging chemistry and physics aspects of the cloth. As one example of Rogers’ thoroughness and attention to detail, he and his STURP colleagues produced a table of sebaceous excretions from humans including 13 different constituents (such as fatty acids, wax alcohols, squalene, etc.) to see if any were detectable on the cloth in the event that the Shroud had been in contact with a human being. But the team also included the typical excretions from other animals (sheep, rabbit, ox, etc.) in case a clever hoaxster had somehow used one to stain the cloth. In the end, only human excretions---including blood---were found on the Shroud along with the remarkable image.

Ray was an almost ideal choice to join the STURP team. He had never heard of the Shroud, and assumed it was probably a painted fraud. He told a colleague, “Give me the classical scientific method and 20 minutes, and I’ll have that thing shot full of holes.” But as Rogers soon discovered, after an exhausting series of tests and analyses over a quarter century using some of the best scientific instruments and methods, the Shroud remains a frustrating mystery to anyone with an open mind. In fact, Rogers found the lack of open minds a major hindrance to understanding the true nature of the Shroud. He wrote that there were some devout Christians so fanatical about it that they actually made three separate threats on his life. Ray’s attitude was that “if both fringes hate you, you must be doing something right”---and Ray Rogers was doing a lot right.

There were some scientists in the other “fringe” Ray encountered who “used selected evidence to make it appear that the Shroud was a forgery or hoax.” Ray was convinced these scientists had not “maintained their objectivity.” His disappointment in deceased microscopist Walter McCrone’s involvement with Rogers’ Shroud samples comes across strongly. Ray wrote, “McCrone had not followed the simplest procedures of rigorous analytical chemistry…all he wanted was to debunk the Shroud…I was disappointed to find that Walter could not be objective when he wanted publicity.”

Rogers was less concerned with McCrone’s long insistence that the Shroud image had been painted with glair (egg) and hematite because Ray and all the STURP investigators knew the evidence was so overwhelming that the Shroud was not a painting. To this day, most of the “Debunk the Shroud crowd” still automatically bring up McCrone’s discredited paint hypothesis---but Ray’s book shows that the observations by visible, infrared, x-ray fluorescence, ultraviolet and pyrolysis-mass spectrometry, thermography, and laser-microprobe Raman analyses decisively ruled out any type of paint. And Ray’s studies showed that whatever was causing the Shroud image was coloring only the topmost image fibers---nothing had been absorbed deeper into the cellulose linen fibers, as paint would likely have done. Professor Alan Adler, another deceased STURP team member, had also found strong evidence from his Shroud studies that the cellulose played no role in the formation of the image. These clues led Rogers to a theory for the image formation which I believe will ultimately be crucial to solving the mystery. As he explains, the starch (and carbohydrate) impurities left on the surface Shroud fibers---byproducts of the ancient linen-making process described by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD---could well be the key to finally understanding how the image formed.

Readers will be surprised to learn that the same class of chemical reactions that transforms bread into morning toast or darkens beer may have been at play in the creation of the image on linen of a crucified male. Ray discusses how this may have happened as certain gases (amines)---known to be emitted profusely from a corpse---diffuse into and could chemically react with impurities on the Shroud surface. He presents his ideas clearly for non-technical readers, but in enough detail that professional chemists will appreciate his work as well. His explanations are both informative and entertaining. Before I read this book, I did not believe the Shroud image could have been formed so clearly without employing optics or lenses of some kind. I now believe it is possible and even probable, although it appears to be a remarkably rare occurrence (so rare it is tempting to use the word miraculously here---but I believe Rogers would not and I agree with him). In fact, no one has yet been able to reproduce an image of such quality, though many have tried; Ray describes most of the attempts.

Rogers also weighs in on the international controversy about the 1988 Shroud radiocarbon dating attempt. This has come up because of a growing body of evidence that the sample used for dating was from a portion of the cloth that had been skillfully re-woven at some time in the Middle Ages. Rogers was one of the first to suspect a problem with threads from the region where the radiocarbon sample would ultimately be taken. He ignored it at the time since no carbon dating was contemplated in 1978, but those threads showed different chemical characteristics than the main part of the Shroud. Ray’s final conclusion, after a thorough and objective analysis of the facts relating to the radiocarbon dating in his book: ”The combined evidence from chemistry, cotton content, technology, photography, ultraviolet fluorescence and residual lignin proves that the material of the main part of the Shroud is significantly different from the radiocarbon sampling area. The validity of the radiocarbon sample must be questioned with regard to dating…the cloth. A rigorous application of scientific method would demand a confirmation of the date with a better selection of samples.”

Rogers details his frustrations with Turin and its inexplicable lack of cooperation in trying to answer some of the questions surrounding the Shroud and the radiocarbon dating. Ray was also upset about the so-called “restoration” of the Shroud in 2002 when Turin secretly decided to scrape and vacuum the cloth to remove the charring remaining from the 1532 fire. The Shroud still had the “chemical footprints” of 2000 years of history (assuming it really dates from the first century)---but not after the restoration. Ray calls it “irresponsible…a disaster for Shroud science,” and adds mysteriously “Was it intended to be?” Readers will become almost as frustrated as Rogers had with the mistakes that have been made---and continue to be made---by scientists, laypeople, and some in the Roman Catholic establishment that have prevented us all from gaining a full understanding of this remarkable linen cloth.

A work of supreme importance by the acknowledged dean of STURP, an impeccable critique of the entire range of modern scientific Shroud research, presented with both technical detail and popular intelligibility. A masterwork which defines the field henceforth.