[Archport] NASA Technology Illuminates Dead Sea Scrolls

[Graca Cravinho <fcsilva@ptmat.fc.ul.pt>]

Title: NASA Technology Illuminates Dead Sea Scrolls

>
> 29 Av 5768, August 30, '08
> NASA Technology Illuminates Dead Sea
> Scrolls
>  
> by Hana Levi Julian
> (IsraelNN.com) Scientists are using American space-age technology to
> bring to light the faded script on thousands of fragments of the Dead
> Sea Scrolls, the oldest existing record of the Old Testament. Israeli
> authorities said experts will digitally photograph the scrolls and
> post them on the internet for the entire world to see.

> In the laboratory, before the IR
> imaging
> Tom Lianza, Courtesy of IAA
> The Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled
> the project Wednesday at a news conference in Jerusalem to mark the
> 60th anniversary of the discovery of the first Dead Sea scrolls. The
> scrolls were found in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd near the ancient
> ascetic community of Qumran; some 2,000 years had elapsed from
> the time the pottery jugs containing the scrolls were placed in
> cool Judean Desert caves, until their chance rediscovery.
>
> The technology developed by retired NASA scientist Dr. Greg Bearman,
> will also be used to monitor the scroll fragments on an ongoing basis
> for conservation purposes. But even more exciting is the expectation
> that it will reveal portions of the text that were invisible until
> now.
> High-tech cameras using infrared photography are now being used to
> uncover sections of the 2,000-year-old scrolls that have faded over
> the centuries and become indecipherable, the Israeli Antiquities
> Authority said.

> Scroll fragments during the IR imaging
> process
> Tom Lianza, Courtesy of IAA
> The project is expected to take about
> five years and the goal is to make the scrolls accessible to
> scientists and the general public, Antiquities Authority official
> Pnina Shor said.
> "Now for the first time the scrolls will be a computer click
> away," said Shor, who heads the authority's department
> responsible for the conservation of artifacts. "This will ensure
> that the scrolls are preserved for another 2,000 years."

> Working on the scroll fragments in the
> imaging laboratory
> Tom Lianza, Courtesy of IAA
> Experts have complained for years that
> only a small number of scholars have been allowed access to the
> scrolls and the thousands of fragments that were found in the caves
> near the Dead Sea. In recent years, steps have been taken to widen
> access, but many of the findings are still not properly identified and
> categorized.

> The scroll fragments after the IR
> imaging
> Tom Lianza, Courtesy of IAA
> Conservators have long been concerned
> with the scrolls' preservation and documentation. In 1991 the Israel
> Antiquities Authority (IAA), advised by leading experts in the
> conservation of manuscripts, parchment and papyrus, established a
> laboratory dedicated solely to the conservation of the Dead Sea
> Scrolls