[appguy]

Something that amazes me about The Shroud of Turin is that if it was created in the 14th century, how did they create a photographic negative 400 years before the first known photographic negative was created in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce. It’s the most studied artifact in history and still no one knows how The Shroud was created.

[InsideOutSanta]

People in the 14th century were no dumber than people living today, and painters like Duccio di Buoninsegna had a great understanding of shadows, and were capable of drawing amazing portraits.

They were absolutely capable of painting a negative of a portrait.

[d_theorist]

Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose?

And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.

[codingdave]

Why would they need the specific concept of a photo negative? A negative is just a reversal of light/dark. They knew of such things. They knew primary colors, too. Painting and mixing colors is not exactly modern -- it has been around for many centuries. Artists practice playing with light and color as basic exercises, and have done so for hundreds if not thousands of years. Switching light and dark is a fairly basic concept to artists, not an innovation that required photography to exist in order to conceptualize it.

In the same vein, why would it have to be made of paint? Paint is simply pigment inside a medium. Dyes are also pigment, in different medium, made to soak into and bind with cloth instead of being layered on top.

I'm not saying that is how it was created, but I highly doubt that the skills to do so did not exist.

[svieira]

It was not dyed - the fibers that are discolored are discolored only on one side.

[d_theorist]

Why would they have done it?

[codingdave]

I have no idea, but that seems completely orthogonal to what technique was used.

[d_theorist]

It’s extremely relevant to the question, which is what the negative nature of the image has to tell us about the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses (miraculous hypothesis vs fraud hypothesis).

In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done. At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown, and when there are no other examples of negative images, or even any mention of the idea of making such images, why would the fraudsters seize on the idea of making their fraudulent image a negative? There is no record of anybody even recognising that it is a negative until the 19th century. So, it’s not at all what you would expect given the fraud hypothesis. You would expect a straightforward image.

[exe34]

you can ask this for any non- photorealistic art.

[thordenmark]

They did not know primary colors. They weren't discovered until the 19th century, even then it took another 100 years before they figured out that red blue and yellow are not the primaries.

[Tagbert]

They were very familiar with rubbings where you place paper or canvas on a sculpture or incised surface and rub charcoal on it to capture the image. The result is very much like a negative.

[nonameiguess]

A negative is just an inversion of the intensity of visible signal. It even has a manifestation in common experience. Stare at something for a long time, then look away. A negative will superimpose on whatever you're now looking at it. I can't think of a good reason humans of the past should not have been able to reproduce this kind of effect artistically.

[InsideOutSanta]

"being capable of creating a photo negative"

You're calling it a photo negative. It's not a photo negative. It's a painting that has shadows and lights inverted.

"the image on the shroud is not made of paint"

It's made of red paint.

[Fidelix]

Not true at all. No red paint in it.

This has been conclusively, scientifically debunked multiple times.

[InsideOutSanta]

Please provide sources.

[dctoedt]

Wikipedia's recap indicates compelling evidence of medieval origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Scientific_ana...

[svieira]

Red paint that isn't visible under an electron microscope is some pretty advanced paint.

[InsideOutSanta]

It's red ochre.

[tristramb]

It could be survivorship bias. All the fake shrouds with botched images were recognised as fakes and thrown out long ago. Only this one which happens to look vaguely realistic has been kept.

[briffid]

Plus what must have been lost in 500 years, all photonegative pictures, fragments, descriptions, recipes, any references for such imagery etc. It is very strange that this is the only image that remained. And an image of a nude Jesus from the back. For which no other instance is known anywhere.

[ithkuil]

Xylography (woodcut) technique also uses negatives. The technique is ancient in China and it has been attested in 13th century Europe

[gqcwwjtg]

A photo negative in a single color is not a tough concept to stumble upon if you ever carve something to be thin enough to let light through.

[observationist]

Bas relief and the play of light and shadow have been used since humans have tried their hand at carving. Seeing the impression a wet face left on dry cloth would be sufficient to tickle artistic inspiration, but actual artists, who spend their time thinking about how things appear and how to capture them in their respective media would have all sorts of opportunities for capturing the negative of an image, even if they wouldn't have thought of it in those terms.

There are plenty of examples of engravings, carvings, intaglia, and so on that used what we consider to be a "negative." There's nothing particularly special about flipping an image, transposing light and dark, inverting the 3d characteristics, or otherwise reversing different aspects.

Specifically, the inverse image might be carved for a wax seal ring or imprint, or it might be carved for a decoration stamp used in cement, or a mold for jewelry or ceramics. There are plenty of examples of things all throughout history that provide opportunity to inspire an inverted or "negative" image; it's simply our context of photography that is novel.

[tasty_freeze]

If I had to choose between (a) an artist who decided to invert the light/dark palette to achieve a dramatic effect or (b) it actually wrapped God and the moment of His death it left pigment on the cloth, I'm going with (a) every time.

If you want to get Bayesian on it, the base rate of confirmed art forgeries and religious artifact forgeries is non-trivial, but the base rate of confirmed creators of the universe manifesting has human form is zero.

[card_zero]

It's sort of semi-3D. Reasonably good imitations have been made by molding linen to a shallow sculpture (aka a bas-relief) and dusting it with pigment, which thus picks up peaks and troughs.

[svieira]

Not only a photographic negative, a photographic negative with proper depth that was painted on individual sides of the fibers of the shroud by something (likely heat). The fibers that are colored on this shroud are colored only on one side and they themselves are colored. There is no chemical deposition upon them, at least none visible to an electron microscope.

[brentpen]

Recent research has discovered the "stroboscopic effect" in the image. The hands and feet are moving when the image was imprinted on the shroud.

Strobe lights didn't exist in the 14th century either.

[card_zero]

Which priest or other religious zealot with a vested interest found this out?

Also, is the implication that undead Jesus was twitching rapidly and flashing on and off? That is kind of cool, perhaps I should get religion.

[smeej]

Setting aside the unnecessary snide commentary, if the image were made when Jesus was coming back from the dead, starting to move, potentially fitfully, as one would who hadn't moved for several days, would seem pretty normal to me.

[bediger4000]

There's a number of weird things that knowledge of their manufacture has been lost. The lenses of Gotland, Greek Fire and the Chinese Jade burial suits all come to mind.

I don't see that as a reason to Revere any item.

[CamperBob2]

Anyone who has made the mistake of storing expensive clothing in a closet with a window (/me raises hand) can explain how the Shroud could have been created. An object that blocks sunlight from reaching a dark cloth will leave an unmistakable image of itself.

[binary132]

So the hypothesis here is that they hung a dead guy in front of a dark cloth for a few months, and also made sure that the details of his face somehow made it onto the cloth even though the light was silhouetting him? Or am I missing something here?

[CamperBob2]

If it's a forgery, it could have been done simply by using whatever sculpted or hand-formed objects were needed to create the negative image. Basically a stencil.

Point being, people are way too eager to assume supernatural causes.

[BlueTemplar]

Is there much of a controversy about it being an imprint of a body ?