Interfaith Group

using fibers from an uncontestedly original part of the cloth, to settle the date with certainty.

Beyond that, I would like to see a test for the presence of silver salts. The image has all the characteristics of a photographic negative, with lights and shadow reversed. When it is photographed (the old-fashioned way, with a film or plate camera) the developed film presents a positive image. It is extremely unlikely that a medieval artist who had never seen a negative image in his life--who in fact would not know what a negative image is--would be able to produce this effect in paint with the kind of detail and anatomical accuracy seen on the shroud.

So my questions would be:

1. How was this image made? and

2. Who was the artistic genius who effectively invented photography centuries before it became a routinely available medium?