This isn’t super surprising to me….I think modern humans were most definitely out of Africa 100,000 years ago. There was recently a tooth from a Homo sapien discovered at a cave in China that dated over 100,000 years. I tend to think that would also make more sense at the amount of time given for the first people to arrive in Australia. Very very cool stuff! 

Two years ago or so, I would have agreed with you Stuart that the image on the TS was NOT that of the crucified Jesus, but an artist's portrayal of the barbecued Jacques de Molay.

But it was necessary to account for the crucifixion paraphernalia (yes, clearly visible have to say, as do others) on the Lirey medallion, despite its small size (6cm x 4cm). I got round that by supposing that the body image was imprinted first, using a hot metal template - the so-called "scorch hypothesis" - target I might add for much ill-informed and frankly hostile, mainly pseudoscientific criticism- and displayed secretivelly in Templar initiation rites etc as described in somewhat vague terms by Barbara Frale.

Later, maybe a few decades, the potential of the image was realized as a lucrative draw for pilgrims to de Charny's 'private' chapel at his Lirey country seat, read cash cow for a chivalrous knight with a predilection for getting captured and ransomed by the English foe (twice!). Yes, It may have been displayed initially by de Charny himself, maybe without deception as a 'liturgical prop' in conjunction with something else - like a wooden statue of the crucified Jesus, as suggested recently on the lapsed shroudstory site by BSTS Editor Hugh Farey OR maybe by his widow, immediately following her hubby's death at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.

The re-invention required addition of blood including those 372 scourge marks in all the right places - while noting the Adler/Heller claim that blood was imprinted BEFORE body image - but there's a possible flaw in their interpretation of the experimental observations under the microscope that can wait for now.

In other words, I was suggesting that a Mark 1 Templar exhibit was re-invented and Christianized so to speak, it being handy that Jacques de Molay and Jesus were both reputed to have facial hair (we'll gloss over the age difference, and/or whether the faint negative image allows one to estimate age at time of death).

So what suddenly caused me to drop the Templar connection altogether, and with it the idea that the image was a simple contact scorch from a hot metal template? Answer: the Machy mould for a Lirey medallion that followed ( or possibly preceded) the one that is in the Cluny Museum in Paris.

Are you au fait with Ian Wilson's two monograph (pdf) articles in BSTS newsletters on the Machy mould? I expect you are, being well-informed, but I'd be happy to provide a short summary and overview on my previous postings on the subjec if you wish.

The key feature, replacing the crucifixion paraphernalia on the Cluny badge is the addition of what Wilson describes as a "disembodied face" above the word SUAIRE ("shroud"). Curiously he fails to link the two, despite being next to each other, but I think I know why they were added.

Think another contact imprint, arguably more legend than history, a supposed "holy relic", immediate smaller-scale antecedent of the TS, one that was drawing huge numbers of cure-seeking, indulgence-paying pilgrims to Rome in the 1350s, the subject of a posting on this very site in December last year, one to which I'm presently composing a belated response!

Best stop here. Now back to that other 'holy relic'.

This page doesn't say how Ramses ll died.

Hi Mike,

Myth is related to the greek word root MN (Mystic, Mystery, etc). So Myth initially meant ‘word’, ‘advice’, ‘command’ but also ‘opinion’ , ‘suggestion’. Initially ‘Myth’ was anything that was said through speech and wasn’t writen. But later on ‘Logos’ or ‘Speech’ replaced the word ‘Myth’.

After that , Herodotus and others, used myth as a religious story that existed before History – just because it wasn't writen probably.

Here is a site in Greek that gives a very good history of the word:

http://www.diadrastika.com/2013/06/blog-post_721-6.html

John

This! So true.

The word ‘ Myth’ originates from the Greek word mythos, meaning ‘word’ or ‘tale’ or ‘true narrative’, referring not only to the means by which it was transmitted but also to its being rooted in truth. Mythos was also closely related to the word myo, meaning ‘to teach’, or ‘to initiate into the mysteries’.

John,
Can you provide more info on mythos=myo=teach. Myo, from what I can find is muscle. Can you pls tell me your source. I need if for a myth presentation of my own. Thanks, Mike

The reason for Leiv Erikson to name Amerika vinland was not that he discovered winegrapes.
"Vin" in ancient norwegian means "open spaces"
Like the city of Bergen. In the viking Age the name was "bjørgvin" its many other examples to.

On the Atlantic coast, the Spanish had seen the Chesapeake Bay in the early 1500s which they named Bahia de Santa Maria. North of St. Augustine, they tried settlements in the Carolinas. In 1561 the Spanish captured a Virginia Indian, took to him Spain and baptised him as Don Luis de Velasco. In 1570 the Spanish attempted a colony in Virginia, called Ajacán in "North Florida." All the colonists were killed but one, who was rescued the following year.

PS: For the sake of completeness, I ought perhaps to say there's another means available, at least in principle, to imprint off a 3D template with minimal 2D image distortion, at least one without 'sticky-out' bits (like that problematical nose we all come equipped with).

What one does is to invert the geometry. Instead of laying the subject down and spreading linen on top, one spreads the linen over some kind of underlay with plenty of 'give' (but not too much) and presses the template DOWN into the linen.

Now you might think that would cause too much wrap-around effect, giving rise to the dreaded lateral distortion. But if you take, say, a Cola bottle as your model template, and press it down sideways into linen spread over several layers of woollen jerseys, you may get a surprise. Such is the resistance of wool to being compressed that one can only "bury" about a third of the bottle's circumference, such that any attempt to capture raised relief (like one has on a coke bottle) results in a partial imprinting only.

Now here's the interesting part: recalling school maths, with circumference = 2pi times r, an imprint from just 1/3rd (approx) of a circumference when opened out and laid flat has a width that is the full diameter of the bottle! So the imprint looks like one that is the full- width of bottle when in fact it's captured just a third of the relief. In the case of the human face, admittedly not perfectly cylindrical, the result is a passable imitation of the face with "correct" width, but the eyes a bit further apart than they should be (easily overlooked) but - the giveaway) - severe image cutoffs at both sides of the face, approx at cheekbone level, with no prospect of imprinting the ears.

Ring any bells? Yup, that's precisely what one sees with the TS face - sharp cut-offs left and right to give a mask-like appearance, with missing ears! So that mean ol' wrap-around effect can actually be made to work to one's advantage - whether TS modeller Mark 1 (mid 14th century) or internet-modeller Mk2 (early 21st century).

There's a caveat if adopting the above routine, ie. inverted press-down imprinting, with a real human face. One needs to choose someone with a snub-nose. If the nose is too pointy, one's imprint is likely to have some tell-tale creases radiating diuagonally-downwards from the tip of the nose. The linen gets rucked, and it happens 'out-of-sight'.

That's why I went for the original "face-up" mode of imprinting, but using the imprinting medium (flour sprinkled onto an oil-coated face) to keep the imprinting restricted to the highest relief only (i.e. by carefully wiping the medium off the extremities of the face where the frontal plane curves round to each side i.e.receding plane, which is where one wants the imprinting to stop). The linen can be stretched in upright mode around and beneath the chin, avoiding those diagonal creases, but introducing a new one - approx horizontal at chin level, maybe with a kink in the middle. Again, ring any bells?