Ancient scrolls to be digitized in ambitious new project

Computer scientists and Dead Sea Scrolls scholars are set to embark on a new collaborative research partnership to create a dynamic virtual work environment for the study of one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century -- the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The conservation laboratory of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, which tends to thousands of the 2,000-year-old scroll fragments, is heading the endeavor.

"Almost 70 years since the initial discovery [of the scrolls], ongoing technological developments now allow ever more innovative analyses and insights into these ancient manuscripts," the IAA said on its website.

The new project is being funded to the tune of 1.6 million euros ($1.8 million) by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German-Israeli Project Cooperation, or DFG), the largest independent research funding organization in Germany.

Through the universities of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Gottingen, in cooperation with the IAA, the project will develop tools that will enable the creation and publication of a new generation of critical digital editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rich in information and updatable.

The "dynamic research environment for studying the Dead Sea Scrolls will be achieved by linking the robust databases and resources of the project: the Qumran-Lexicon-project of the Gottingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library of the IAA," the IAA said.

It said the main outcomes of the project will be an "enhanced hands-on virtual workspace that will allow scholars around the world to work together simultaneously, as well as a new platform for collaborative production and publication of Dead Sea Scrolls editions."

During the 1950s and early 1960s, thousands of scroll fragments were discovered, some in tiny pieces. Researchers have since been working on joining the fragments to one another. Now, as part of the project, advanced digital tools will be developed for suggesting new ways to join them. These tools, the IAA hopes, will help researchers identify connections between various fragments and manuscripts.

The environment will also offer paleographic tools and an alignment tool connecting text and image that will enable simple transitions between the databases. The IAA says readers will be able to access the original text of a scroll, up-to-date translations, high-resolution images, dictionary entries and parallel texts. All these developments will be published on the IAA Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library website.

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