Old face for new

Many people observe how the face on the shroud appears to be of a much older man.

When the image is reversed to become a positive 'normal' image the hair appears white or grey. The book Follow the Light by T C Newman goes into great detail of his experimentation with models, light boxes and photo-copiers, and concludes that the image was made by an inexplicable process with light emanating from the top of the head and reflecting on something there - such as the shroud - held slightly away from the body - in a similar fashion to how the earlier photocopy machines worked, as that is how he got his best images from his clay models. But that conflicts with indications that the shroud was against the body with folds - unless the light was similar to a laser copier but with the light emanating from within the body - starting at the top and moving down like a CAT scanner in a hospital.

It does not conflict with the blood marks however - as they were made before the light image - by direct contact.

 

On the left - the positive image taken from the Turin Shroud. On the right, a photocopy scan of the clay model made by T C Newman. 

Newman observed that the image intensity fades as it gets further from the glass, just as it does on the shroud. This he suggests is why the hair appears white - because it is closer to the shroud and reflecting more light. This implies of course an external light source - as indeed do most of the other details of the shroud image. 

As to why the hair seems to hang straight down; this can be explained by A the head was in fact tilted up - (as it was hanging down on the cross and rigamortis had set it) and B it was covered by blood, sweat, and the aloes that had been applied by those caring for his body.

 

 

This photocopy image is still the most penetrating of all images of Christ that I have seen.

A personal story

In approximately 1999 at the end of a difficult three years attempting to pull together an intentional spiritual community in South Africa, I had concluded that I had failed and was very discouraged and depressed on returning from 2 months visit to UK. I had even received an email saying they were not looking forward to me returning! 

I spent 3 days in my room. The window was boarded up as I had left it. On a low book shelf I had propped a framed picture of Jesus as above. The photocopy that I had sychronistically been given 14 or more years previously in Tanzania. I wanted to  go for a ride on my bicycle, but it was locked, and I thought perhaps I had hidden the key behind this face.

As I reached forward across an obstructing piece of equipment I tripped and fell. Putting my hands out to break my fall they reached out either side of this face - the right one onto a metal spike for my receipts, and the left one onto a sharp pointed wooden pyramid! 

The right hand was pierced right through and I lifted it up with the spike and receipts attached and had to pull it out! The left hand was punctured and now bleeding slightly.

As it happened, the week before I had spent in Capetown, where it has been very hot and I had only boots with me, so I had bought a cheap pair of rubber flipflops. These had rubbed red sores between and above the joint between my big toe and the next one.

I now smiled at my three days in the tomb and the stigmata effect! 

 Faximili image of my hands and feet at that time when I felt 'crucified'. 

That year being 1999, it was also the year of the total solar eclipse in the northern hemisphere and I had gone to Tintagel to view it. After the eclipse I visited so called King Arthur's Castle right on the coast and there I beheld the sword Excalibur. I was So drawn to it. I wanted to own one. I discovered they were available for sale, were real swords made by a Spanish family that had been making them since the 17th Century. But they were expensive! 

I investigated sword shops in the town, and then a toy shop where I spotted a shiny sword. But that didn't quite 'do it' for me.

About to give up and let it go I returned to me car and as I was about to unlock it a voice called out my name. It was John Kurk - the first Emissary I had met way back in 1979 and who had become a good friend over the subsequent years, living in community together in UK. He was just passing through en route back from Cornwall where he'd been to see the eclipse there at a Ken keys magic bus reunion. He just 'happened' to decided to do a detour and visit Tintagel. 

Of course there's more to this story, but that is sufficient for this blog as it is already well off topic! I'll just close with two pictures of magic buses. key Keys rebuilt bus 1999 and the paint job envisioned for my Bedford bus which at that time was sitting on that community farm.

Collar and Cape

Was Yeshua still wearing the Roman soldier's purple cape?

Different eyes 'see' different things in the shroud image. I see a collar around the man's neck and one or two clasps and possible signs of cloth gathered like a cape would be at the left clasp. 

The feint horizontal dotted lines are where I believe folds in the cloth occurred due to the shroud wrapping the body and the head being tilted up. Also I see two possible stars - although these could also be flowers.

In this painting of the shroud I see a star at the bottom of the hair

The Commodilla fresco painting shows similar stars and a tunic top, gathered in the same two places.

It is only at the beginning of the fourth century that the Shroud could be finally unveiled safely. Helena went to Palestine in 326 to contemplate the relics of Jesus of Nazareth. The fresco of Jesus of Nazareth in the catacombs of Commodilla in Rome dates of the end of the fourth century. He bears both a long hair and a beard, with an aureole. (Aura)

[also note that this painting faithfully copies the indication of a collar and positions of cape fastening.

"After Jesus had been brought before Pontius Pilate, Pilate gave the people a choice: he would release either Jesus or Barabbas. The crowd chose Barabbas, and the soldiers then mocked Jesus by dressing him as a king and flogging him before he was taken away to be crucified."
According to Matthew, the soldiers dressed Jesus in a scarlet robe as part of this humiliation:

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, say, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him." [Matthew 27:27-31 (NRSV)]

According to Mark, though, the robe was purple:
"Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple clock and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him." [Mark 15:16-20 (NRSV)]

In John, too, the robe is purple:
"Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face." [John 19:1-3 (NRSV)]

So what colour was the robe that the soldiers put on Jesus, scarlet or purple?
It doesn't really matter, but one commentator says...

"Although we think of both purple and scarlet as colours, the Greek word translated "purple" actually refers to a type of dye. Mark and John's descriptions of the robe as purple are thus descriptions of the way that the robe was given its colour, not of what colour it was.
Matthew's description of the robe as scarlet, on the other hand, is a description of the robe's colour. Purple dye was used to dye garments scarlet (among other colours), so Matthew's account is perfectly consistent with those of Mark and John."

Other pictures of Roman and other icon Cape and tunic tops for comparison:

 

 

END of post

Crosses on the Shroud

The Red Cross

Why does this image show the bottom cloth covered with red crosses? 

Crosses accurately depict the back appearance of the weave (compared to the front) From an extensive article on the weaving techniques, sizes of cloths produced and types of fibres used in 1st century in the book 

"The Mysteries of The Shroud" by Caspar von Uffhofen -

 http://editionsassailly.com/books/The%20Shroud%20htm.htm

My first thought was that the artist only saw the shroud briefly and/or did not have it in front of him and so drew from memory and impressions. The apparent lash wounds on the body did in fact leave many bloody marks on the shroud. (how the dried blood left marks and how it stayed red are all covered very well on other web sites if you care to do the research. I am not trying to cover every angle in this blog)

Red Cross Waskatenau Quilt 1917 (Royal Alberta Museum, 

Military and Political History Collection

Slash wounds all over the back (legs also, not shown here) could have
appeared 'cross-like' in the memory of the artist and were likely more red
initially, but still had more red in them than the browner body image. 

The banner of the Christian soldiers in the First Crusade was a red cross on a white field, the St. George's Cross. According to Christian tradition, Saint George was a Roman soldier who was a member of the guards of the Emperor Diocletian, who refused to renounce his Christian faith and was martyred. The Saint George's Cross became the Flag of England in the 16th century, and now is part of the Union Flag of the United Kingdom, as well as the Flag of the Republic of Georgia

Soldiers of the Cross

So, with Cuthbert seen as the patron saint of the of early Saxon kingdoms, how and why did the English come to pick as their patron saint an Armenian who gives his name and his flag to Georgia, and is also the patron saint of Portugal? The little that we know about him comes from a Byzantine named Metaphrates who tells us that George was born in Cappadocia, sometime in the third century, of noble parents who gave him a strict training in the Christian faith, that he rose to high military rank in the Roman Army in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. He organised a Christian community at Urmi in Persian Armenia and one report suggests that he visited Britain on an imperial expedition. 

The Emperor turned against the Christians, instituting a persecution of them. George sought an audience with him on their behalf, but was arrested, tortured and executed on 23rd April in A.D. 303. This was also a difficult period in the history of Christianity in Roman Britain.

George was canonised by the Church and became St George, but was not known in England until at least the time of the Crusades when his story became more widely known. 

In 1098, when English and Norman soldiers were under the walls of Antioch, there was a story that when Richard 1st was leading his troops into battle with the Saracens, George is said to have appeared to lead them to victory. These stories were brought back to England, but George was not adopted as England’s patron saint until 1222 when it was declared a public holiday. It was about this time that the upright red cross on the white background, which had  first became the flag of the Italian city-state of Genoa, became the flag of England. It also became the flag of Georgia (see below).

 

However, the ‘Lamb and flag’ is also a very old Christian symbol, appearing as it does in Medieval stained glass and on many old public houses and inns throughout Britain. This suggests an even earlier origin, which I refer to below. So, the upright red cross on a white background, became ‘the cross of St George‘ and was adopted as the national flag of England, later to be integrated with the crosses of St Andrew and St Patrick into the flag of the United Kingdom. The chivalric stories of George inspired the founding of the Order of the Garter by Edward III  in 1348 and St George’s Chapel at Windsor. This is the noblest of the knightly orders in Europe. 
Whether Yeshua (Jesus) was actually crucified on a 'Cross', 'T', or single stake is unclear. All were used at that time, though the Romans tended to use the single stake, hands nailed above the head with a single nail through the wrists.

If it was a cross, then this could be another reason to symbolically depict the whole torture procedure by painting the scourge-marks as blood red crosses.

from: https://chandlerozconsultants.wordpress.com/tag/roman/


In my next chapter I will address what I see as a neck-band and a cape with one or two clasps on the image on the shroud.....

Diving Deep

Thanks for coming to see what I have to say about the Turin Shroud. Welcome!

I have an interest in the shroud going back to the late 70's when I first saw the face on the shroud in a book such as this one.

    

In 1985 I was (mysteriously or synchronistically) given a photo-copy of the shroud face, but with eyes, and other features that clearly were not on the shroud cloth image and which had a deeply soul penetrating effect to behold. I framed this picture and it was displayed in my home wherever I lived, until 2010 when I moved back from South Africa to UK and at present (2016) it is still packed in a box somewhere!

I will add the rest of my story later as right now I want to share with you my current main points of interest. 

Firstly I will  address the claims that the image was created by an artist in the 14th century. There are a few visible details that would need to be explained if that were the case.

I'll start with my no.1 evidence that the exact shroud image was known of in at least 695AD. Here are a few coins minted between 695 and 976AD - there are more versions. All of them show many details that can only have been included because at least the first artist had direct access to the shroud, and copied it as faithfully as he could.

The last one has the shroud image next to it is know as the Tremissis coin (692 – 695) minted during the reign of Justinian II and has, it is claimed, 188 points of congruence with the Shroud face. That probably includes the neckline non shown here, but I can see at least 10 points of congruence in these pictures and such details at the eyes/eye sockets have such similarities that to me, could only have been made by the artist making the coin image and not the other way around - by a 14 c artists making a copy of the coin!

This painting, called The Pray Codex from 1192, also shows many details that can only have come from seeing the same actual shroud cloth and image that we know today. 

The weave of the cloth is indicated (though not 100% accurate) and 2 sets of 'L-shaped' holes, caused, it is thought, by several drops of molten lead or silver from a fire - as these holes are repeated on the cloth in a progression from large to small, showing how the cloth was folded at the time.

 

An EXTREMELY detailed analysis of the shroud material weave and yarns and even looms used, plus pictures of the samples used for carbon dating, where from on the shroud, methods etc. can be found here:

http://editionsassailly.com/books/The%20Shroud%20htm.htm

Artists copy of the shroud from 1516 made before the second fire damage of 1532 showing the four sets of small burn holes

For me, the coins and the above painting are enough to prove that the shroud was NOT created in the 14th Century. Some have suggested it could have been created photographically by Leonardo da Vinci - but he lived from 1452 - 1519. 

However, there are lighting effects on the shroud image which do indicate an external light-source and a photographic process of 'some sort'. I noticed these myself a week ago, and yesterday I found a whole book written on a very detailed analysis of this lighting effect and proposing a method whereby the image came to be formed. (however, I do not as yet, necessarily agree with the authors conclusions).

Regarding the red crosses on the back of the shroud in the painting, I am suggesting at this point that these symbolise the scourge marks, blood and sacrifice, but I have yet to expand my research on this for more evidence. For now, this theory is good enough for me.