Why the 13th Century Radiocarbon Dating is Surely Wrong
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Experiments in physics and chemistry with old linen have failed to reproduce images at all like those on the Shroud of Turin. [Antonacci 2000, ch.5; Antonacci 2015, app. C & D] The images that have been produced are very diffuse, use chemistry unlikely to be known or used in a hurried burial or in the 13th century and are very speculative.
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An imprint of a dilepton lituus, a coin minted around AD 30 under Pontius Pilate, has been identified on the right eye of the frontal image on the Shroud. [Fanti 2015, 143] In fact, the inscription on the image is misspelled just like an extant dilepton lituus. Yet another fact that identifies the time and place of the Shroud, which would be nearly impossible for a forger to get right.
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Giulio Fanti [2015, 155] states: “The results of radiocarbon measurements of Arizona, Oxford, and Zurich yield a calibrated date of 1280-1300 with only a significance level of only 1.2%. These results therefore furnish the conclusive evidence that the samples used by [the] labs are NOT homogeneous in C-14 content.”
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Giulio Fanti [2015, 185-187], a mechanical engineer at the University of Padua, Italy, performed alternative, blind, non-C14 dating methods on the Shroud and other ancient linen. Two were chemical testing methods: Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman vibrational spectroscopy. Several years earlier Raymond Rogers also made preliminary chemical measurements of amount of vanillin content in the lignin present in the Shroud fibers. Because of a shortage of samples, could only conclude that the Shroud was much older than the radiocarbon dates. Next Fanti [2015, ch. 7] used a mechanical multiparametric dating method. The results of Fanti’s various dating methods statistically provide a date of 33 BC ± 250 years (95%), contradicting the radiocarbon dating.
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Robert Rucker [2020a] has analyzed the raw statistical coherence of the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud and found a linear, systematic increase in the dates in the samples taken nearer the body: 31 years per centimeter. Analysis of the values obtained in the 1988 carbon dating indicates a number of problems: 1) two of the three laboratories obtained statistically different dates, 2) the carbon date is different for different locations on the cloth increasing about 36 years per cm (91 years per inch) as the sample location is further from the bottom of the cloth, and 3) the probability of obtaining a variation of the dates for the 1988 Shroud samples at least as large as was obtained is only 1.4%, which is below the usual acceptance criteria of 5.0%.
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This led Rucker to a comprehensive neutron absorption hypothesis explaining not only the date discrepancy but also the formation of the images on the Shroud. If more testing of the Shroud were to be allowed, this hypothesis can be proven or disproven scientifically. See details in the §Radiation Hypothesis section of this compendium.
Attempted Alternative Explanations for the 13th century carbon-14 date
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Various hypotheses have been suggested to explain away the 1988 radiocarbon dates. Among them a bioplastic coating of accumulated organic bacteria, incense, and oil, which would render a younger age for the linen. But this has been discounted as too insignificant to shift to date from AD 33 to the 13th century. [Antonacci 2010]
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The linen samples tested were taken only from one corner of the Shroud, where it was handled repeatedly—thus suggesting body oil could have skewed the results. Like the bioplastic coating this would not have contributed enough 14C to shift the data from AD 33 to the 13th century. [Antonacci 2010]
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Jones [2015] has advanced the hypothesis that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date range of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacker. He argues that all other explanations fail, including invisible reweave repair with 16th century cotton and sample-switching.
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The chapel fire of 1532 added 16th century soot. This would not have changed carbon-12 into carbon-14, and any accumulated soot would have been minimal and washed off when the Shroud was doused with water.
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Some observers claim that the tested samples were taken from where the cloth had been repaired using an “invisible” reweaving technique, but such “reweaving” has not been proven. [Antonacci 2010, 168 ff]
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Mary and Alan Whanger [1998] explain away the exceptional carbon-14 dating by noting examples where this method has proven inaccurate. However, the Shroud would have to be a rare anomaly to a dating method which is usually is accurate enough to not be off by many centuries within two millennia.
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Do these explain a 14C date shift by 12+ centuries? No! Such small amounts of contaminants could not alter the date by centuries. Further, the cleaning techniques used before the 14C analysis would eliminate most contaminants. However, a verifiable hypothesis explaining the C-14 date shift appears elsewhere in this compendium. See §Radiation Hypothesis