Pictures: Dead Sea Scrolls Being Digitized for Web

Divine Puzzle

Photograph courtesy IAA

This fragment of the biblical book of Deuteronomy, including a version of the Ten Commandments, is among the 30,000-odd pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls slated to be intricately imaged and posted online in 2011.

The texts form "the ultimate puzzle," said Pnina Shor, the Israel Antiquities Authority's Dead Sea Scrolls project manager. "You hear 'scrolls' and you think of something big and rolled up. But we have thousands and thousands of fragments that are some 2,000 years old. A lot of this work is puzzle work, scholars piecing things together"—both physically and philosophically.

"Now hopefully we will have a lot of new readings" by scholars worldwide who wouldn't have otherwise been able to scrutinize the Dead Sea Scrolls in detail, said Shor.

The scanning project marks the first comprehensive imaging of the scrolls since 1950.

(Related: "Oldest Hebrew Text Is Evidence for Bible Stories?")

Published October 20, 2010

Parchment to Pixels

Photograph courtesy IAA

A specialist in Israel digitizes part of the Dead Sea Scrolls in an undated picture.

"We began this project as part of our conservation efforts to preserve the scrolls for future generations," said Pnina Shor of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"A few years ago, we were looking for ways to check ourselves and to see that we were not causing any damage to the scrolls. ... It was suggested that we use multispectral imaging, which was first invented by NASA scientists for space purposes," Shor told National Geographic News.

Published October 20, 2010

Dead Sea Scrolls in Living Color

Photograph courtesy IAA

The biblical book of Psalms glows purple during multispectral imaging. "When the scrolls were first photographed in the 1950s, they were photographed in infrared, which is already beyond what the eye can see," explained Pnina Shor, the Israel Antiquities Authority's Dead Sea Scrolls project manager.

"Now with the spectral imaging, we go much further beyond what the eye can see," Shor said. "There are wavelengths that take you into an area where a lot of deciphering can be done."

Published October 20, 2010

Brush With Greatness

Photograph by Baz Ratner, Reuters

A preservationist works on a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls in an Israel Museum laboratory in Jerusalem (file photo).

The new, high-resolution images will eliminate the need for scholars to actually examine the original scroll fragments in person once they are posted online, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

Even so, the IAA's Pnina Shor admits there's something about experiencing the scrolls in the "flesh."

"I would always want to see the original," Shor said. "If you are working on a text, you want to see the original. But in principle, these images will be much better than the original."

Published October 20, 2010