S&V - Pages 118-120
Is it possible to copy, the shroud with the techniques of a medieval forger? Taking as a starting point the tests carried out by Joe Nickell and Henri Broch, American and French zeteticians, Jacques di Costanzo used ferric oxide mixed with gelatin (rich in collagen), a binder usually used at the Middle Ages to fix the colors.

A wet cloth is applied to the low-relief. After drying, it is dabbed with the colored solution. In the presence of our journalist, superficial imprints in "negative" of the face are thus obtained and their equivalent in "positive" provides images very close to those of the shroud. The low-relief was essential to avoid the panoramic deformation of the imprint after spreading out of fabric.

The imprint was irreversibly fixed at fibers. The fabric resisted washing and 250°C heating. It was also soaked in citric acid and bisulphite (which reduces ferric oxide in ferrous oxide), and finally immersed during twenty-four hours in oxalic acid (an anti-rust pickling solution). However, the image was not faded.

Collagen is well the binder. Indeed, a sample of same fabric, impregnated of pure iron oxide, free from gelatin, does not resist the immersion in water or the oxalic acid. Its pigments are diluted and deteriorate the colored stains. Proof that if the ferric oxide bound in an irreversible way to fibers of fabric of our "shroud", it is because it was fixed by the gelatin.

To simulate the presence of a tortured victim, the vaporography is used. This technique reproduces the effects of a chemical reaction taking place on the surface of the body of the tortured victim. Jacques di Costanzo applied, to the low-relief, an ammonia solution with concentration rates from 3 to 5 times versus human sweat, then the aloe tincture.

However, no impression was obtained by this process, for different sequences of application of the various products, nor after heating of the solution of ammonia and exposure of fabric to the vapors.

The shroud obtained was to answer several criteria established according to the original: its image, monochromic, was to present many nuances, i.e. a gradation of intensity of the color; the impression being superficial and invisible on the back of fabric (except for the « bloodstains ») without appearing directional, i.e. without presenting traces of brush; moreover, it was to resist at the same time heat and acids watering the colors; finally, it was to arise into positive on a negative photo.

The result? It is extremely surprising and very, very convincing. In addition, Dr. di Costanzo also tested the vaporography, simulating the reactions taking place on the body of a tortured victim. But this time without success. He is obviously easier to make a forgery than a true shroud...

VSD - Page 29
One does not understand what physical phenomenon is at the base of the formation of this image and, until now, it was not possible to reproduce in laboratory a similar image, even using the most sophisticated techniques.

For that reason, the crude and well-known technique of the low-relief to which one applies a wet cloth that one then lets dry, then that one dabs a dye, is not an exception to the rule and produces deformed images, made up of pigments which are spread on all coated surface. These images are not three-dimensional and, naturally, not screened.

Although dating back to about thirty years, this process however has been just updated with current tastes and presented like a "scoop" by the magazine Science et Vie n° 1054 (July 2005)...