Hasn't the identification of Gundelia tournefortii been called into question?
Max Frei had identified Gundelia tournefortii pollen on the Shroud of Turin and this was later confirmed by Uri Baruch of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Baruch counted 91 spores.
However, in 2001 Thomas Litt, a leading palynologist at Bonn University, identified the same spores as part of a different genus, Carduus. It is widely believed that Litt's analysis was sent to Alan Whanger in North Carolina and well as Avinoam Danin and Uri Baruch in Israel It has never surfaced in public.
We do have a quote from Avinoam Danin's book in 2008, L’Uomo della Sindone, in which Danin quotes from a letter by Litt:
The images of light microscopy (interference contrast) and by confocal laser-scanning microscopy show clearly that waxes are preserved and cover the structure and sculpture of the pollen grains. This is the reason why I cannot make a precise identification of the pollen at the genus level, even less at the species level. However, with a high level of probablility, I can exclude that the pollen I have seen from the sticky tapes belong to Gundelia.
Because Litt's report, for whatever reasons, has been kept secret, it raises serious concerns about the validity of much of the pollen identification, in particular, Gundelia tournefortii.
Shroud researcher Stephen Jones, however, sees an upside to this:
However, this reclassification by Prof. Litt of Frei’s Gundelia tournefortii pollen to the Carduus genus may be a blessing in disguise for the authenticity of the Shroud. That is because there is a species in that genus, Carduus argentatus, which grows around Jerusalem, flowers in April-May, has a more attractive flower (see above), and is a much less thorny plant than Gundelia tournefortii.
- Is there pollen from the areas of Jerusalem, Edessa and Constantinople?
- Didn't Max Frei use a scanning electron microscope for certain identification?
- What pollens did Baruch find on the Frei sticky tapes?