Ere Pumparse ... 534

"England's Most Successful Team Ever (18&5)"

I buttume you refer to the now-discredited carbon-dating tests of 1988, when 3 labs were presented with invalid samples and thus mistakenly dated the Shroud to some time between 1260 and 1390. No need to tell you of course that Leonardo da Vinci wasn't even born till 1452, nearly 200 years later, if you accept 1260 as the date of its manufacture. Which means the Shroud was lying somewhere unused for 200 years before da Vinci found it and decided to paint a man in negative on it?

In any case, even if it were true that da Vinci painted it, how did he manage to paint it ***in negative,*** and more intriguingly, ***why***??

Here's an image of the face on the shroud as it actually appears.

And here's the photographic negative of the face, which as you can see is actually positive.

Taking a photo of the shroud, in other words, means your negatives will be the positive image and your prints will be the negatives, just as it appears on the shroud. I'd be most interested to hear your views on how ***and why*** a 15th century artist would produce such an image.

I'd also be interested to know how this artist got everything so correct, anatomically and pathologically speaking. Why did he go to the trouble of painting so many small drops of a postmortem serous fluid on the body when there weren't any microscopes in his day to check the work? How did he manage to paint this man with arms folded in front of him yet at the same time paint it in such a way that forensic pathologists have determined that the rigor mortis position was with arms extended above his head? How did he manage to paint -- ***in negative, let us remember*** -- an abnormally-expanded rib cage, large pectoral muscles in an attitude of extreme inspiration, the distention of the lower abdomen, and a severely contracted epigastric hollow, all of which he managed to represent in the state of rigor mortis, and all of which point to the fact of rest by crucifixion, as corroborated by those forensic pathologists who have actually studied the shroud?

And so onto the blood.

How did Leonardo da Vinci know that the chemical composition of blood which flows from the wounds of a living victim of extreme and brutal torture is high in bilirubin, with a concentration of red corpuscles around the edge and a tiny area of serum inside? Where did he manage to get this blood for his painting? Did he have a freshly scourged and crucified man beside him dripping blood onto his easel? How did da Vinci know that the blood seeping from a postmortem wound -- such as that on the chest -- is chemically different, constituted as it is of a separate blood and serum mixture? How did he manage to portray in negative the swelling around the wounds inflicted while alive and the lack of swelling around that chest wound inflicted postmortem? Why did Leonardo depict swelling of the eyebrows, a torn eyelid, a swelling of the cheek, a swollen nose, a bruise on the right cheek and swelling on the chin when nobody had a microscope to examine his work? Why bother going to such trouble??? Again, why bother doing it all in negative when there was nobody around with the equipment to appreciate his efforts?

Why did Leonardo depict the scourge marks inflicted from the right and those inflicted from the left differently, as though one of the scourgers were taller? Why did he go to that trouble? And how did this artist, genius though he was, manage to superimpose on the scourge marks of the shoulders two broad excoriated areas where chafing occurred, as though something heavy were carried after the scourging? Why depict contusions on the knees and a cut on the left kneecap if there was nobody with the technology around to see or check his work? Why put dirt into these wounds on the knees, as though the man in the shroud had fallen at some point? Did Leonardo actually go to the trouble of peppering dirt onto his painting afterwards, just around the knee and soles of the feet areas?? How did he know that the blood flow from the nail wound in the wrists should be differently constituted, chemically speaking, depending on whether he was depicting the blood flow occurring while the victim was alive (blood high in bilirubin) or the blood seepage occurring after rest, (clot and serum separation, deeper colour and more viscous consistency) presumably when the nails were pulled out? How did he manage to distinguish venous and arterial blood, as seen in the density, uniformity and modality of coagulation? Can you please explain that to me so that I can start art clbuttes and tell my students how to do it, without the benefit of medical or electron microscopy? Did he brush it on? Funny, no traces of a brush have been found. Did he daub it on? With such precision I with my limited knowledge of the fine arts would have to say no. Did he pour it on? LOL! I think you know the answer to that one.

To put it simply, where did Leonardo get the blood from, and how did he know that it should differ in its chemical composition depending on whether the blood flowed before or after rest, and also depending on where the blood flowed from? How did he know the blood from a trauma victim has different properties from that of a person in a normal state? How did he know that one day forensic pathologists would study all of this and give him the posthumous credit he deserved, considering his contemporaries would never give him this credit since they simply didn't have the resources to know what lengths the genius was going to for the sake of art? How did he apply it to the cloth? Why are there no traces of paint or any other chemically known substance which could otherwise explain the transmission of the image to the cloth, other than some isolated instances of iron oxide and other matter which can be accounted for by the environment in which the shroud was held and exposed for centuries?

When you've answered these questions we'll be in a better position to judge who is the reasonable one and who the superstitious? We can then move on to the question of how the Shroud-image came to be on the cloth, which to date no scientist has been able to answer, and we can discuss the implications of such an image, of a man in rigor mortis who obviously does not remain in the cloth long enough for decomposition to set in.

I look forward to your reply. -- + His Holiness Pope Pompous XVIII

"This is all Blarney!" -- Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth I