Dead Sea Scrolls goes digital on the Internet

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Israel Antiquities Authority is the custodian of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which shows the history of Jews and early Christians during the time period of Jesus. The authorities are planning this digitization to safeguard the sensitive scroll documents instead of shipping the documents from one country to another.

Until now only a small number of scholars have seen the actual scrolls, though the documents were published seven years ago. Many preferred to see the real scrolls instead.

A few large pieces of scroll are on display at the Israel Museum.

The scrolls written on parchment are considered to be the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible and include text dating from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

The scientists will use powerful cameras and lights that emit no damaging heat or ultraviolet beams, so they won’t damage the scrolls. Using this technique, they were able to decipher letters and sections in the scrolls invisible to the naked eye.

The team will take 4,000 photographs of about 9,000 fragments of the 900 scrolls.

The project will take five years and million dollars in cost according to Guardian. The digital process is done as follows:

The fragments will be photographed first by a 39-megapixel color digital camera, then by another digital camera in infra-red light and finally some will be photographed using a sophisticated multi-spectral imaging camera, which can distinguish the ink from the parchment and papyrus on which the scrolls were written.

Simon Tanner, a digital expert from King's College London, who is in charge of data collection told Reuters:

We are able to see the scrolls in such detail that no one has before.

It is a good thinking by the scientists because now any one can see the scrolls. They should also digitize all the sacred texts, literature, philosophy and modern books, so that mankind won’t see another Alexandria library disaster.