[appguy]

Something that amazes me about The Shroud of Turin is that if it was created in the 14th century, how did they create a photographic negative 400 years before the first known photographic negative was created in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce. It’s the most studied artifact in history and still no one knows how The Shroud was created.

[InsideOutSanta]

People in the 14th century were no dumber than people living today, and painters like Duccio di Buoninsegna had a great understanding of shadows, and were capable of drawing amazing portraits.

They were absolutely capable of painting a negative of a portrait.

[d_theorist]

Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose?

And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.

[observationist]

Bas relief and the play of light and shadow have been used since humans have tried their hand at carving. Seeing the impression a wet face left on dry cloth would be sufficient to tickle artistic inspiration, but actual artists, who spend their time thinking about how things appear and how to capture them in their respective media would have all sorts of opportunities for capturing the negative of an image, even if they wouldn't have thought of it in those terms.

There are plenty of examples of engravings, carvings, intaglia, and so on that used what we consider to be a "negative." There's nothing particularly special about flipping an image, transposing light and dark, inverting the 3d characteristics, or otherwise reversing different aspects.

Specifically, the inverse image might be carved for a wax seal ring or imprint, or it might be carved for a decoration stamp used in cement, or a mold for jewelry or ceramics. There are plenty of examples of things all throughout history that provide opportunity to inspire an inverted or "negative" image; it's simply our context of photography that is novel.

[tasty_freeze]

If I had to choose between (a) an artist who decided to invert the light/dark palette to achieve a dramatic effect or (b) it actually wrapped God and the moment of His death it left pigment on the cloth, I'm going with (a) every time.

If you want to get Bayesian on it, the base rate of confirmed art forgeries and religious artifact forgeries is non-trivial, but the base rate of confirmed creators of the universe manifesting has human form is zero.

[card_zero]

It's sort of semi-3D. Reasonably good imitations have been made by molding linen to a shallow sculpture (aka a bas-relief) and dusting it with pigment, which thus picks up peaks and troughs.

[svieira]

Not only a photographic negative, a photographic negative with proper depth that was painted on individual sides of the fibers of the shroud by something (likely heat). The fibers that are colored on this shroud are colored only on one side and they themselves are colored. There is no chemical deposition upon them, at least none visible to an electron microscope.

[brentpen]

Recent research has discovered the "stroboscopic effect" in the image. The hands and feet are moving when the image was imprinted on the shroud.

Strobe lights didn't exist in the 14th century either.

[card_zero]

Which priest or other religious zealot with a vested interest found this out?

Also, is the implication that undead Jesus was twitching rapidly and flashing on and off? That is kind of cool, perhaps I should get religion.

[bediger4000]

There's a number of weird things that knowledge of their manufacture has been lost. The lenses of Gotland, Greek Fire and the Chinese Jade burial suits all come to mind.

I don't see that as a reason to Revere any item.

[CamperBob2]

Anyone who has made the mistake of storing expensive clothing in a closet with a window (/me raises hand) can explain how the Shroud could have been created. An object that blocks sunlight from reaching a dark cloth will leave an unmistakable image of itself.

[binary132]

So the hypothesis here is that they hung a dead guy in front of a dark cloth for a few months, and also made sure that the details of his face somehow made it onto the cloth even though the light was silhouetting him? Or am I missing something here?

[BlueTemplar]

Is there much of a controversy about it being an imprint of a body ?