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A Forensic Science CSI - Pictures of Jesus on
the Shroud of Turin
Gaius Plinius Secundus, (23
- 79) known
best as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author and
scientist who wrote Naturalis Historia or Natural
History, his primary work and his only work that survives today.
This encyclopedia used as an authority on many subject for many
centuries. It still provides useful information, particularly that
of a historical nature; for instance, how linen was manufactured
during his life or how
papyrus was made or different kinds of purple dye were used.
An entry in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia
describes his Natural History:
The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being
nothing short of an encyclopaedia of learning and of art so far as
they are connected with nature or draw their materials from it.
With a view to this work he studied the original authorities on
each subject and was most assiduous in making excerpts from their
pages. His indices auctorum are, in some cases, the
authorities which he has actually consulted (though in this respect
they are not exhaustive); in other cases, they represent the
principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed
second-hand for his immediate authorities.
A special interest attaches to how Pliny the Elder tells us linen
was made in the first century. First the fibers of the flax plant
were hand spun into yarn. Then individual hanks of yarn were
bleached and dried. When it was time to weave the yarn into
cloth, warp threads were strung vertically on a loom so that
weft threads could be passed over and under them.
The warp threads were lubricated with crude starch on the loom to
make weaving easier. Doing so reduced friction and also lessened
the chance of fraying. When a length of linen cloth was woven it
was taken from the loom and washed in the suds of the Saponaria
officinalis, the Soapwort plant. After washing out the starch, the
linen was placed across bushes or hung to dry.
Where Pliny leaves off, the modern chemist
picks up. Soapy residues and small amounts of starch would remain
in a water soaked cloth. As the cloth dried, moisture would wick
its way to the surface to evaporate into the air. As the water made
its way to the surface it carried with it dissolved starch
fractions and saccharides. As the water evaporated into the
air these chemicals were deposited as a super thin coating on the
crown fibers, the very outermost fibers of the thread. Chemists say
this superficial residue of reactive saccharides is at the
evaporation surface of the cloth.
This is important for it is the only possible
explanation for the starch and saccharide coating on the fibers
which contains the image we see on the Turin Shroud.
Pliny the Elder died near Pompei
during the
Vesuvio eruption.
For more about this, see
Pliny the Elder and the Turin
Shroud in the Shroud of Caiaphas Essay.
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