October 26th, 2010 
admin Jerusalem, Israel (TML) – The Israel Antiquities Authority is combining the enigmatic Dead Sea Scrolls, NASA technology and Google to make what may be the greatest manuscript discovery of all times available to the world on the internet.
“We are talking of the discovery of the 20th century,” said Pnina Shor, Curator of the scrolls at the Israel Antiquities Authority. “We are very excited that Google had decided to collaborate with us and Google is going to enable us to share these treasures.”
For the first 40 years after the scrolls were discovered only a select group of scholars were allowed to view them. Preservation techniques, while well-intentioned, included binding them with Cellotape, rice paper and Perspex glue.
“The consequences were pretty catastrophic,” said Shor, who is responsible for managing the $3.5 million digitization project for the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on Judaism at the time of the Second Temple 2,000 years ago and on the formation of early Christianity. The scrolls have excited scholars around the world since they were discovered on the shores of the Dead Sea in the late 1940s.
Some scrolls are on display and a few have been allowed on world tour, but most of the 900 manuscripts, consisting of some 30,000 separate fragments, have been kept under lock and key in the vaults of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The scrolls include the oldest copies of the Hebrew bible and religious writings from the time of Jesus.
In the past decade all the scrolls were published, but in the old-fashioned way – through huge books made available to university libraries.
Hauling one of the 40 heavy volumes off a shelf, Shor struggled to put it on the table.
“This is how it is all arranged,” Shor told The Media Line. “It is from the Oxford University Press and you have to be really rich to buy such an amount. Every library has them. This is scholarly so we want this online.”
“But what we really like to do is for every image to be able to [be] put online [with] the transcriptions, the translations, the commentaries and bibliography and attach them to the image. And so with a click of the button you will be able to see not only the scroll itself but also what it means,” she said.
During a rare visit to the laboratories Shor asked one of the four highly-trained preservationists to display some of the authentic fragile scrolls. Written over 2,000 years ago, the Hebrew one is particularly well-preserved and the scroll is immediately legible. But others have deteriorated and turned color, making them almost black.
Using technology developed for NASA, scientists have been photographing fragments of the 900 manuscripts using infrared light and multi-spectrum imaging. The images show text in sections of the scroll that would be invisible to the naked eye.
For Shor and other scholars, the most exciting aspect of putting the Dead Sea Scrolls online is the hope that the exposure will lead to new interpretations, cross-references and discoveries.
“As far as the scholarly world is concerned, it is also going to open, you know, an incredible new possibilities for new interpretations, new readings, puzzling and whatever,” Shor said.
Google said it was involved in the project as part of its philosophy to use the web to share knowledge across the globe and help preserve world heritage.
“When taking this information or content online it is no longer only… giving the experience of looking at the material itself, but now with technology you get even better,” said Yossi Matias, Director of R&D at Google Israel. “You can examine this material in its digital form [more] than you would be able to do if you had physical access to the material.”
“We shall continue with this historical effort to make all existing knowledge in archives and storages available to all,” Matias said.
Shor believed that the interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls would grow exponentially.
“After they were discovered, hundreds of books were written about the scrolls. Once they were formally published, thousands of books have been written about the scrolls. Now with them online, we will see what happens. It will be available not only to the scholarly communities but to you and me alike.”
Officials expect the data to go online in early 2011.
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