In 1997, Remi Van Haelst, a Belgium chemist, performed a statistical analyses that challenged the veracity of the conclusions of the C14 dating.
Van Haelst found serious disparities in measurements between the three laboratories and between the various tests and observations performed by the labs.
Bryan Walsh, a statistician and physicist, evaluated Van HaelstÂ’s analysis and further studied the measurements.
The essential conclusions are that the samples, and indeed the divided samples used in multiple tests, contained different levels of the C14 isotope. The differences were sufficient to conclude that the sample were non-homogeneous and thus of questionable validity. Walsh found a significant relationship between various sub-samples and their distance from the edge of the cloth.
If indeed a patch was rewoven into the cloth and if the joining of old and new material ran at an angle through the sample cuttings (as it appears to do so) then all this makes sense.
