Posted on 07/21/2015 8:17:21 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Virtual unwrapping software has revealed verses from the Book of Leviticus in a charred parchment scroll, making it the oldest biblical text after the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday.
Found 45 years ago inside the Holy Ark of the synagogue at Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, the 2.7-inch scroll was dated by C14 analysis to about 500 AD.
“This is the first time in any archaeological excavation that a Torah scroll was found in a synagogue, particularly inside a Holy Ark,” the IAA said in a statement.
...
To decipher the 1,500-year-old charred remains, the IAA, working with Merkel Technologies Company, Ltd. Israel, first scanned it with a micro-computed tomography machine.
The results of the CT scans were sent to Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky, author of a digital-imaging software capable of virtually unrolling the scroll.
Indeed, Seales’s software produced a flattened readable text from the micro-computed tomography, discerning the first eight verses of the Book of Leviticus.
“The page actually comes from a layer buried deep within the many wraps of the scroll body, and is possible to view it only through the remarkable results of our software,” Seales said.
Pnina Shor, curator and director of IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls Projects, admitted there was little hope to make the scroll readable.
“We were certain it was just a shot in the dark but decided to try and scan the burnt scroll anyway,” Shor said.
“Now, not only can we bequeath the Dead Sea Scrolls to future generations, but also a part of the Bible from a Holy Ark of a 1,500-year old synagogue,” she added.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Patience and painstaking work indeed.
I collect old documents. One of the items that I have is an unopened Coptic scroll from Ethiopia. It probably dates from somewhere between the 1400’s and the 1800’s—most likely toward the latter end of that period. Once I retire (which won’t be long) I intend to unroll it, perhaps using a similar technique that I once used in softening dried insects for mounting. Since it is papyrus, not silver, I’m hoping that a couple of months will be a sufficient amount of time. It could take more time, since I intend to sleep late once I retire.
“For a man to lie with another man is a celebration”
Wait....what?
I retired a year ago from a job where I arose at 4:15 for 43 years. Now I sleep in all the way until 6:00 (a.m.), whence my alarm summons me to another blessed day.
Excellent!
Once again, the best approach to a damaged artifact that can't be researched without further damages is leave it alone until the technology comes along to allow it to be researched.
I wholeheartedly agree. Of course, the same general argument is made for not digging out more of Pompeii until there’s money to re-restore, conserve, and protect the parts already uncovered, which means, we’ll die before anything else gets dug. ;’)
It’s also a window on just how human beings solve scarcity issues. In this case the ‘scarcity’ was the ability to read this and other scrolls/writings like it. Problem solved, again.
...the mudduh of invention...
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