Conclusions
A number of points have been discovered about the nature of the experiment image which raise points of difficulty if the shroud of Turin was really the burial cloth of Christ (quite apart from the carbon dating evidence).
1. The image could not be produced from a body laying on a shelf in rock cut tomb. (i.e. on a hard flat surface.)
2. Several medical men have noted that the right shoulder appears lower than the left. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that this may be an indication of the man on the shroud's trade as carpenter. This distortion is not present in this experiment.
3. In the shroud of Turin image there is an apparent disproportionate length of the lower right arm amounting to a projection distortion of 16 degrees. This elongation can not be observed in the experimental image.
4. Drs Bucklin and Barbet, said that both feet were nailed with a single nail through the Lisfrance joint commenting: "In examining the photograph of the right foot, (on the dorsal image) we are able to make out an almost complete imprint. The border is slightly blurred in its middle part, but it still presents a very definite concavity corresponding to the plantar arch. More to the front the imprint is wider, and we can distinguish the imprint of five toes. The print is that which one might leave as he stepped on the flagstone with a wet foot. " There is no image of the sole of the foot observed from the test.
The experiment shows a very interesting result for the dorsal image. The test was conducted on a hard surface, a floor, and the body only touches the cloth at five main points. The head, shoulders, buttocks, calves and heels. In between these points no image was made, despite the fact that the model was dripping with paint. The fluid ran down the body to the points of contact where it puddled. Although a convection transfer method of image formation could explain and possibly reproduce the front image no convection process can work in the formation of the back image which has to be formed by contact.
Whilst the front image confirmed what had been expected about the process of image formation the rear test image was very different. The print was only formed where the body touched the floor and despite every effort by the subject to lie completely flat and still a complete rear image was not produced. The copious amount of runny pigment on the subject can be seen from the sideways smearing of the image caused by the model rolling to one side when getting up and can also be seen to have collected in the small of the back. This rear image has to be caused by a contact print as no convection mechanism works against gravity. There is no image of the underside of the foot.
This result caused some initial problems in understanding and explaining what had happened. The solution did not come until later that evening whilst lying in bed. The soft mattress supported the whole of the back despite the human body's lack of flatness.
The obvious conclusion was that the only way to produce a complete dorsal image, as that seen on the shroud, was if the subject was laid on a soft bed. Dead bodies are not laid out on soft absorbent beds so here was evidence from a most unexpected quarter that the victim had been treated not as a corpse but as a living subject who was not to be killed, just tortured.
An explanation also occurred which explained the three other problems of the lowered right shoulder, the elongated right arm and degree of detail in the genital region. The image production process takes a vertical section of the subject's body which is not flat if it is on a soft mattress. If the mattress is of the lumpy palliasse type then it will not support the body evenly. Consider if the subject has a lumpy bit under the right shoulder and a soft hollow under the left lower body. When viewed in vertical section the body appear to have a lower right shoulder and a right arm which is too long. The angle of projection of this distortion of the lower right arm has been estimated at 16 degrees. A simple trigonometrical calculation reveals that to cause this angle with an arm of 20 inches in length the difference in height between the lower left pelvis and right shoulder would need to be about five and half inches. This is exactly what would happen if the victim had been dumped onto a straw palliasse which had a shroud placed on it and was then covered over with the remainder of the shroud.
The hypothesis of a soft but lumpy palliasse also explains the formation of the foot image which is totally impossible from a living body lying flat on a hard surface but could be obtained from a body lying on a soft underlay. The images produced during the experiment have been shown and it is interesting to note that in the detail half of the face a profile print has been produced. The beard and hair of the original subject would have stopped the shroud falling in this way about the face and thus stopped a profile contact image being formed.
This simple, if somewhat messy experiments fits in completely with a Templar scenario of how the shroud came to be formed and even provides a degree of confirmation from the post crucifixion treatment of the victim that he was not intended to die from the interrogation.
For further detail of this scenario see The Second Messiah, published by Arrow, 1997