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Here's the thing, man, and I'll be blunt about it. There is an actual asymmetry in evidential quality. There are more "mature" and well established methods like radiocarbon dating or textile analysis which have been independently validated for decades. There are also samples whose chain of custody is better documented. Things like WAXS, vanillin and mechanical dating are largely methodologically novel and, most importantly, very temperature sensitive. WAXS is essentially a thermal free parameter and Fanti assumes conditons that contradict KNOWN history and vanillin is even more sensitive to temperature and humidity. They are in fact thinner sampled, like I said Fanti is working off a sub millimeter thread. That's not to say that I won't entertain some alternative methods, but they do suffer from methodological flaws. I think it's reasonable to scrutinize a novel, single lab method more than an established one. Everybody knows that radiocarbon dating works, the only point of contention is representativeness of the sample, and I think that proponents of authenticity lost their argument there. The core of my argument has always been the following: trace contamination does not push the date 1200+ years if you're using radiocarbon dating. Let's apply a formula for radiocarbon dating using dates that would be the most favorable for authenticists: F_measured = (1 − f)·F_ancient + f·F_modern, with F = e^(−age/8033) To move a 1st century cloth (2000 BP, F = 0.779) to the measured 690 BP (F = 0.917) needs f = 0.63, so 63% of the dated carbon (by mass) must be modern. And yes, this assumes modern carbon, not medieval. If the contaminant is older than post 1950 (eg soot from a 1532 fire is 16th century carbon), you need even more of it, because 16th century carbon is itself only 500 BP, not 0 BP. So in this case f would be around 0.8, or 80ish %. Hence my 60-80% earlier. Late medieval would push it even higher. This is nearly 2/3 of the sample in the most generous scenario. At this point we are not talking about molecular level contamination, no cleaning protocol or any other invisible phenomenon could change that. Contamination sufficient to move the date (ie 63% by mass) is far too large to be invisible or molecularly dispersed, so it'd be detectable and removable. Contamination small enough to be invisible is far too small to move the date 1200+ years into the future. Keep in mind, all 3 of these samples (subdivided into 12) tested decisively late medieval by 3 different labs. What the textile analysis study does is NOT new radiocarbon dating, it tests the repair patch and contamination hypothesis and finds it lacking. They didn't follow the C14 cleaning protocol because they're not doing radiocarbon measurements but SEM/PLM structural analysis for precisely the type of contamination that would be destroyed by C14 cleaning. The 1988 labs did address molecular level contamination, that is the purpose of the acid base acid chemical pretreatment which removes chemically bound carbonaceous contaminants. What the 2026 textile study found is that there's no coatings, no dyeing, no repair material in the actual dated fragment, sample taken from the main body, examined under UV with no match to madder dye... Another issue is that the fibers show the herringbone twill continuing (A1A shows the weave reversal) whereas a reweave patch would break weave continuity, not reproduce a herringbone reversal. So it really does dispell any theory about patching. It also goes against dye/gum/coating/cotton/splice claims that Benford-Marino made and Rogers endorsed. And yes, the type of textile does match late medieval Europe. It doesn't prove anything by itself but it's just another thing that converges towards late medieval dating. A repair using medieval thread would not shift the date toward medieval either, not only would this be a structurally detectable reweave, but it also wouldn't amount to 63% of the mass. Regarding Fanti, I don't think I used any ad hominems. My main issues with Fanti ARE that his sources overwhelmingly come from the same group, if not from Fanti himself. He's very self-referential. It is also correct that his methods are newly invented and not independently validated, AND most importantly it's also true that WAXS's date is thermal history contingent by its own admission. The fact that the Shround went through a fire essentially contradicts the benign conditions assumptions. Regarding Rogers', his estimate is 1300-3000 years so that's one massive margin of error. Thing is, just like WAXS, vanillin is also not a calibrated clock like radiocarbon, it's continged on temperature and humidity so once again we have a date that's a free function of unknown thermal history, if anything it'd be more sensitive than the former. Luckily the history isn't fully unknown, as vanillin loss would also be heavily affected by the 1532 fire, molten silver, scorching heat in a sealed reliquiary, water... This alone would produce vanillin gradients without any actual age difference. And, just like Fanti, Rogers also worked from ad hoc threads sent to him by Raes/STURP. It's also highly counterintuitive that the exposed corner had high vanillin while the main body had none.

Here's the thing, man, and I'll be blunt about it. There is an actual asymmetry in evidential quality. There are more "mature" and well established methods like radiocarbon dating or textile analysis which have been independently validated for decades. There are also samples whose chain of custody is better documented. Things like WAXS, vanillin and mechanical dating are largely methodologically novel and, most importantly, very temperature sensitive. WAXS is essentially a thermal free parameter and Fanti assumes conditons that contradict KNOWN history and vanillin is even more sensitive to temperature and humidity. They are in fact thinner sampled, like I said Fanti is working off a sub millimeter thread. That's not to say that I won't entertain some alternative methods, but they do suffer from methodological flaws. I think it's reasonable to scrutinize a novel, single lab method more than an established one. Everybody knows that radiocarbon dating works, the only point of contention is representativeness of the sample, and I think that proponents of authenticity lost their argument there. The core of my argument has always been the following: trace contamination does not push the date 1200+ years if you're using radiocarbon dating. Let's apply a formula for radiocarbon dating using dates that would be the most favorable for authenticists: F_measured = (1 − f)·F_ancient + f·F_modern, with F = e^(−age/8033) To move a 1st century cloth (2000 BP, F = 0.779) to the measured 690 BP (F = 0.917) needs f = 0.63, so 63% of the dated carbon (by mass) must be modern. And yes, this assumes modern carbon, not medieval. If the contaminant is older than post 1950 (eg soot from a 1532 fire is 16th century carbon), you need even more of it, because 16th century carbon is itself only 500 BP, not 0 BP. So in this case f would be around 0.8, or 80ish %. Hence my 60-80% earlier. Late medieval would push it even higher. This is nearly 2/3 of the sample in the most generous scenario. At this point we are not talking about molecular level contamination, no cleaning protocol or any other invisible phenomenon could change that. Contamination sufficient to move the date (ie 63% by mass) is far too large to be invisible or molecularly dispersed, so it'd be detectable and removable. Contamination small enough to be invisible is far too small to move the date 1200+ years into the future. Keep in mind, all 3 of these samples (subdivided into 12) tested decisively late medieval by 3 different labs. What the textile analysis study does is NOT new radiocarbon dating, it tests the repair patch and contamination hypothesis and finds it lacking. They didn't follow the C14 cleaning protocol because they're not doing radiocarbon measurements but SEM/PLM structural analysis for precisely the type of contamination that would be destroyed by C14 cleaning. The 1988 labs did address molecular level contamination, that is the purpose of the acid base acid chemical pretreatment which removes chemically bound carbonaceous contaminants. What the 2026 textile study found is that there's no coatings, no dyeing, no repair material in the actual dated fragment, sample taken from the main body, examined under UV with no match to madder dye... Another issue is that the fibers show the herringbone twill continuing (A1A shows the weave reversal) whereas a reweave patch would break weave continuity, not reproduce a herringbone reversal. So it really does dispell any theory about patching. It also goes against dye/gum/coating/cotton/splice claims that Benford-Marino made and Rogers endorsed. And yes, the type of textile does match late medieval Europe. It doesn't prove anything by itself but it's just another thing that converges towards late medieval dating. A repair using medieval thread would not shift the date toward medieval either, not only would this be a structurally detectable reweave, but it also wouldn't amount to 63% of the mass. Regarding Fanti, I don't think I used any ad hominems. My main issues with Fanti ARE that his sources overwhelmingly come from the same group, if not from Fanti himself. He's very self-referential. It is also correct that his methods are newly invented and not independently validated, AND most importantly it's also true that WAXS's date is thermal history contingent by its own admission. The fact that the Shround went through a fire essentially contradicts the benign conditions assumptions. Regarding Rogers', his estimate is 1300-3000 years so that's one massive margin of error. Thing is, just like WAXS, vanillin is also not a calibrated clock like radiocarbon, it's continged on temperature and humidity so once again we have a date that's a free function of unknown thermal history, if anything it'd be more sensitive than the former. Luckily the history isn't fully unknown, as vanillin loss would also be heavily affected by the 1532 fire, molten silver, scorching heat in a sealed reliquiary, water... This alone would produce vanillin gradients without any actual age difference. And, just like Fanti, Rogers also worked from ad hoc threads sent to him by Raes/STURP. It's also highly counterintuitive that the exposed corner had high vanillin while the main body had none.