Shroud of Turin Conference at Ohio State University

 

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Latina A. D. Rockhold

(614) 688-3310

rockhold.14@osu.edu

New Data at International Shroud of Turin Conference Precedes Exhibition in Turin

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 24 — An international conference on the Shroud of Turin to be held at The Ohio State University will reveal new information regarding the controversial 1988 Carbon-14 (C-14) dating of the cloth believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. The 1988 test gave the putative results at A.D. 1260–1390, but they were immediately questioned by many scientists as being inconsistent with other accumulated data on the Shroud. The Vatican recently announced that the Shroud will be exhibited in Turin in the spring of 2010, when millions are expected to see it. New evidence will be presented at the conference summarizing recent work by seven independent scientists of a world-renowned American research facility on Shroud samples adjacent to ones used in the 1988 dating. The research indicates that the area from which the C-14 samples were taken is chemically different from the main part of the Shroud, confirming research published in 2005 by a scientist who had studied actual C-14 samples. Due to the sensitive nature of the research and of the work of the research facility, the speaker and paper will only be announced at the conference.

“The Shroud of Turin:  Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma” will be held Aug. 14–17, 2008, at The Blackwell Hotel, 2110 Tuttle Park Place, on the grounds of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.  The conference, which is open to the public, is being organized by the Shroud Science Internet Group, composed of about 100 scientists, scholars, and researchers from around the world.

The conference will also include presentations from five members of The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), which had studied the most intensely-studied artifact in human history for five days in 1978. None of the data collected by the group suggested the Shroud could be a forgery.  If the 1988 C-14 test results were accurate, the Shroud could not be the actual burial cloth of Jesus.

However, in 2005, a member of STURP, the late Raymond Rogers, who was given access to leftover samples from the 1988 testing, authored a paper published in Thermochimica Acta in which he presented evidence that the sample used in the testing was not part of the original cloth possibly due to the area having been repaired.  Rogers believed his evidence invalidated the C-14 test.  While some researchers have challenged Rogers findings, there have been no rebuttals in peer-reviewed scientific literature.  Several new papers are being presented at the conference that will provide corroborating evidence for the repair theory, including two by M. Sue Benford (43016) and Joseph Marino (43016) whose paper at an international conference in Orvieto, Italy, in August 2000 prompted Rogers to undertake the research that led to his 2005 paper. One of the two papers by Benford and Marino will be published in Chemistry Today shortly after the conference.

Furthermore, speakers will present the findings of scientific analysis of dusts and particles collected during the 1988 C-14 testing.   In addition, there will be a paper by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology Professor of Botany, Avinoam Danin, Ph.D., who presented evidence at the 16^th International Botanical Congress in St. Louis in 1999 that suggested that the C-14 test in 1988 had been invalid.  Dr. Danin, whose research places the Shroud's geographical origin in the Middle East. will present new botanical evidence that raises new questions about the Shroud's image-formation process.

For more information regarding the conference, which commemorates the 30^th anniversary of the 1978 STURP study and the 20^th anniversary of the C-14 dating of the Shroud, or to register, visit ohioshroudconference.com. Registration is also available by visiting ced.osu.edu/CED_conference.html or calling the Office of Continuing Education at (614) 292-8571.

The Department of Conference Management in The Ohio State University Office of Continuing

Education (CEd) specializes in providing meeting and conference management services — from pre-conference concept to post-conference follow-up — on a cost-effective basis to the university community as well as to private and public businesses and associations. For more information on CEd’s Conference Management services, visit ced.osu.edu and click on “Conference Management,” or contact Sarah Sieling in the Office of Continuing Education at (614) 292-8571.

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