Dismiss the Carbon-14 dating of the Shroud of Turin

The 1988 Carbon-14 date of the Shroud of Turin is unreliable because the cloth was not autoclaved.

The Shroud was contaminated by water twice: at some point by flood water and by douse water from the 1532 fire.

This led to bacterial contamination. Some of the bacteria have become endospores: please see www.shroudofturinexhibition.com.

Endospores have been found on ancient linen such as Egyptian mummy linen. Endospores are very difficult to destroy and they are only killed by autoclaving (at 121 °C for around 15–20 minutes) or by the use of chemicals that are so heavy duty they would have probably have destroyed the samples from the Shroud in 1988.

The 1988 pre-cleaning of the Shroud of Turin did not include autoclaving. This is an astonishing omission. Any bacterial spores present on the cloth were consequently not removed. They would have been dated along with the linen, adding additional carbon.