Online Anonymous Discussion

S&V - Page 124
...the conclusions of McCrone are not still accepted by the large majority of the sindonologists, who assert in particular absence of brush traces (what can be explained by the technique of the scumble, or even the use of very diluted painting), but also smoothness and accuracy of the details of the wounds of crucified man, requiring knowledge that an artist could not have at the Middle Ages.

Thus, from the 30s, Pierre Barbet undertook experiments on corpses and concludes that it was impossible to suspend a man in cross using nails driven in the palms of his hands: those would tear under the weight of the body. According to the doctor of the Saint-Joseph hospital, the only means to manage it would be to drive them in the level of the wrist, in a precise place known under the name of space of Destot. A fact that could not ignore the Roman torturers, the crucifixion then being largely spread. And, as by miracle, the man of the shroud seems to have a wound on the level of the wrist. His hands present only four visible fingers. Explanation of Barbet: the lesion would have caused to injure the median nerve and to involve the retraction of the thumb. QED ?

Not at all, because a more attentive examination of the image shows than the place of the wound is well in the palm of the hand, even if the bloodstain reaches the wrist. But this work on the localization of the nails studied by Barbet is discussed even within the community of the sindonologists. One of them, Frederick Zugibe, carried out other experiments showing that a suspension by the palm was perfectly possible. In an article published by the magazine Canadian Society Forensics Science Journal in 1984, this American pathologist mentioned that the median nerve does not pass by the space of Destot..

Other details, quite as indubitable, must be reconsidered. Traces of whip in the back, for example. On the dorsal face, one distinguishes indeed very definitely gathered by two, the marks left by twin metal balls in the shape of barbells fixed at the two leather whips of the Roman flagrum. Michael Baden, an American expert in forensic medicine, had already explained in the 80s that the wounds generated by this type of instrument could not have been so sharp. They initially would have generated haematomas, then torn the flesh. As for the crown of thorns, always according to Baden, it could not cause bleedings as observed on the shroud. Because blood would have coagulated in the hair. In other words, the image of crucified man is too perfect to be true...

VSD - Page 27
...The work of Pierre Barbet showed as from years 1930 that the image corresponded perfectly to that of a crucified man, with an anatomical and physiological surprising exactitude, requiring unknown medical knowledge in Antiquity as well in the Middle Ages :

. the nails used to fix the hands were inserted in the limit of the wrist, in a space known as the space of Destot and not in the center of the palms, contrary to the majority of the iconographic representations; therefore only this localization makes it possible to support the weight of the body, without tearing of the flesh. This technique, which was known by the Roman torturers, had to fall into disuse from IV century, after the prohibition of crucifixions by emperor Constantin;

. the lesion of the median nerve, caused by nailing, causes a reflex contraction of the thumb; therefore the hands on the image of the shroud let see only four fingers;

. the stains of liquid visible on the arms have the aspect of running blood. The later analyses of these stains by the scientists of the STURP showed that they have the characteristics of human blood, then Baïma Bollone proved that it was indeed human blood and he has even specified the group (AB);

. the shape of the bloodstains - coagulated and retracted in the shape of basins, characteristic of a recent knowledge of blood circulation - proves that they could not be added by a forger or an artist;

. the photographs in ultraviolet fluorescence highlighted multiple abrasions and lesions, in particular of running blood which surround the cranium (the crown of thorns?);

. on the body, there is very many rectilinear traces recalling the traces of flogging with marks characteristic of the whips used by the Romans;

. on the right shoulder, above the scapula, there is a broad zone of abrasion as caused by a heavy object (the cross?);

. the wound on the right side has all appearances of a wound which was made after the death and was not closed again (the Roman soldiers were accustomed to boring the right side, because they carried their shield on the left).

All these traces, in conformity with the accounts of the Gospels, the Roman habits of Antiquity and the anatomical knowledge of the XX century as well, show without ambiguity that the shroud wrapped « in the Roman way » the body of an authentic crucified man.