Researchers at Tel Aviv University’s School of Science in Israel have created a computer tool that could revolutionize the study of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls.
“Scholars have been studying the Dead Sea Scrolls for 70 years,” Prof. Nachum Dershowitz, one of the developers of the new tool, told The Times of Israel.
“One of the great unsolved challenges has been comparing and matching handwriting across different fragments or scrolls. This remains one of the field’s giant questions,” he added.
Although still in the early stages of development, the software combines multispectral imaging with traditional computer vision techniques to enable more precise analysis and comparison of ancient handwritten texts.
Experts estimate that the Dead Sea Scrolls comprise thousands of fragments from approximately 950 different manuscripts, which are carefully safeguarded by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
“In the 1950s, a skilled photographer at the Rockefeller Museum, where the scrolls were then kept, documented them extensively,” Dershowitz stated. “In recent years, the Israel Antiquities Authority has also been photographing the scrolls.”
To preserve these ancient artifacts, the IAA currently uses multispectral imaging, which reveals details at various light wavelengths. These tiny details are invisible to the naked eye, but the computerized technology can map and measure what is captured.
Dershowitz and his colleague Kurar-Barakat set out to develop a computer tool that focuses on both the parchment and the handwriting within each fragment.
“Multispectral images reveal more than just color,” Dershowitz noted. “Light reflects differently depending on the material — ink, parchment, background — and the computer can use those reflections, rather than color alone, to identify each element.”
He announced that the project has already been successfully tested on roughly 20 ancient fragments.
The approximately 2,000-year-old scrolls, inscribed in Hebrew, were discovered by chance in 1947 in caves near the Dead Sea.
Scholars have historically dated these texts to between the fourth and second centuries BCE, but recent AI-driven research in June suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls could be even older.
