Analyzing Dead Sea Scrolls evolves from carbon to DNA

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (appropriate, considering that the whole region is post-intelligence) ^ | Saturday, September 23, 2006 | Tom Paulson

[SunkenCiv]

Because some of the scrolls were written on animal hide, Seidl explained, experts since the mid-1990s have been able to establish a specific "genetic fingerprint" that can identify the species and even an individual animal to further aid in matching scroll fragments. Geology played a critical if indirect role in protecting the scrolls over the millennia. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet's surface. It's also one the saltiest places on Earth, which isn't so great for living things but helps keep other things in the area -- such as papyrus or skin documents -- from deteriorating... Archaeology, paleography (the study of ancient handwriting) and carbon-14 dating were the disciplines that first convinced scholars of the scrolls' authenticity... Carbon-14 dating, which was developed around the same time the scrolls were discovered in the 1940s, can establish age by measuring how much of any organic material's carbon-14 atoms have deteriorated into carbon-12 atoms.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[sully777]

"...We were able to get information out of the scrolls that others couldn't," Zuckerman said. His imaging skills gave him the opportunity to be the first to read some of the scrolls. Did he ever, in his decades of study, run across a major finding?

"Well, I found the word 'behold' in Aramaic and that had never been seen before," he said. "It wasn't the Da Vinci Code and it didn't change anything really, but I loved it."

[SunkenCiv]

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