SHROUD SCIENCE GROUP INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY BLACKWELL HOTEL
August 14 through August 17, 2008 Abstracts of Papers
Botany of the Shroud of Turin: An Addition Concerning New Information by Avinoam Danin (). Saturday, August 16, 3:15 p.m.–3:45 p.m.
During February 2007 I was first exposed to the holograms of the Shroud. I started corresponding by e-mail with Dr. Petrus Soons who had had them made. In his visit to Jerusalem during September 2007, he explained to me some basic principles of his 3D approach, including the observation of Mr. Bernardo Galmarini, the Argentinian computer expert who deals with the conversion of 2D information into 3D. Mr. Galmarini had prepared the files needed to form the anaglyphs and the holograms displaying the 3D images of the Man of the Shroud, and he could not find on the Shroud’s photograph some 3D information which is needed for forming the complete 3D image of the head and other parts. In his 3D image of the head there are deep holes or depressions in the forehead and in the left cheek.
Dr. Soons recalled that he had seen in the Whangers’ book about the Shroud a photograph showing my drawings of flowers seen at the “depressions” areas. During our mutual visit in November 2007 in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, we looked at many of the photos of the Shroud made by the STURP team in 1978. In 1995 I had seen the plant images on photos made in 1931 by Enrie. Now I saw again the flowers on photos made in 1978 by Vernon Miller. Since I discerned the same flowers in the same places in photos obtained by two totally different methods, I can conclude that I saw real images and not artifacts interpreted as flowers through my imagination. Thomas D’Muhala assisted us in the work at his home on a few of Vernon Miller’s UV photographs that we selected in November.
I counted more than 300 flowers that resemble in size and morphology those of Matricaria sp. or Anthemis sp. Although the correct botanical term of the “flower” of a plant of the sunflower family is “a flowering head” or “capitula”, let us use “flower” to simplify. In order to place the ca. 300 flowers as they are seen in the photo, those who prepared the body of the Man of the Shroud for entombment had to remove the peduncles and stems and place them individually in order. It was not a casual distribution in this part of the Shroud.
These new observations raise some important questions about the image-formation process.
An additional progress since our previous publication (Danin et al, 1999) is the discovery by Alan and Mary Whanger and me of 4 capitulae of Carduus sp. and 3 spines of Rhamnus lycioides. These are assumed to be part of a “crown of thorns” as communicated in CSST NEWS in March 2006.
References
Danin, A. 2006a. The nature of thorny plants, the images of which are observed on the Shroud of Turin. CSST NEWS 10 (2): 1-4.
Danin, A.; Whanger, A.D.; Baruch, U.; and Whanger, M. 1999. Flora of the Shroud of Turin. Missouri Botanical Garden Press. 52 pp.
Content Hosted by Innoval Systems Solutions, Inc & Shroud Story