ISRAEL/FILE: Israeli Antiquities Authority and Google are to digitise the Dead Sea Scrolls and make them available online

Record ID: 395413

  • Title: ISRAEL/FILE: Israeli Antiquities Authority and Google are to digitise the Dead Sea Scrolls and make them available online
  • Date: 21st October 2010
  • Summary: (FILE) QUMRAN, JUDEAN DESERT (UNKNOWN) (REUTERS) FILE OF QUMRAN CAVES / JUDEAN DESERT / SCROLLS
  • Embargoed: 5th November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: History,Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVAAXOQG53AIRHUZQBMQ84FQ4PBV
  • Story Text: Scholars and anyone with an Internet connection will soon be able to take a new look into the Biblical past through an on-line archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls.
    Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, is collaborating with Google's research and development centre in Israel to upload digitised images of the entire collection.
    Advanced imaging technology will be installed in the IAA's laboratories early next year and high-resolution images of each of the 30,000 fragments will be freely accessible on the Internet. The IAA conducted a pilot imaging project in 2008.
    "We are now about to purchase the system, it is going to take about 2 or 3 months to build it, it will then be brought over and installed in our premises, next to the conservation lab and meanwhile we will be working with Google to allow the first version to go online," Pnina Shor, Head of Dead Sea Scrolls Projects In the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.
    Once the new high resolution cameras are installed, the new images of the scrolls, plus the thousands of fragments will be handed over to Google's research and development centre in Israel to install on the internet.
    "The timing is not fixed yet from the Google prospective, obviously our interest is to make the information, the content available online as soon as possible, as soon as we get the material, the content which obviously belongs to the Israeli Antiquities Authorities, then we will work with them to make it available online," Professor Yossi Matias, Director of Google-Israel R&D centre said.
    Since their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been extensively researched by scholars across the world. Vast amounts of information are now available on each scroll and many of the fragments, IAA and Google are looking to add the information to the images, for anyone to access.
    "Soon enough we realized that since we are going to accumulate a massive amount of data, because to the images we are going to add all of the transcriptions, translations, the commentaries and the bibliography, we decided we want to put it online for the public and scholars alike, and Google was kind enough to offer to put us online," Shor said.
    The IAA said that the new high resolution cameras would help to expose writing that has faded over the centuries and promote further research into one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century.
    "The digitisation is going to be done with the best, or the most advanced technology, and it's a system that with one exposure will be able to digitize the scrolls in 11 different bands, which will give us colour, best possible colour images and images that are beyond what the eye can see," Shor added.
    The scrolls, most of them on parchment, are the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible and include secular text dating from the third century BC to the first century AD.
    For many years after Bedouin shepherds first came upon the scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, only a small number of scholars were allowed to view the fragments.
    But access has since been widened and they were published in their entirety nine years ago.
    A few large pieces of scroll are on permanent display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
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