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Israeli scientists decipher 1,500-year-old biblical scroll

Xinhua, July 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Advanced digital technology has for the first time enabled scientists to read a 1,500-year-old biblical scroll, Israel Antiques Authority (IAA) said Monday.

Parts of parchment from the 6th century A.D. were uncovered in 1970 inside the remains of a Holy Ark at an ancient synagogue in Ein Gedi, near the Dead Sea in southern Israel. However, the researchers couldn't read it until recently because the parchment was completely burnt.

The relics remained locked inside a vault in the Israel Antiquities Authority offices, until last year Israeli Merkel Technologies Company offered their help in performing high resolution 3D scanning of a fragment of the scroll by means of a Micro-CT scanner.

The results of the scans were sent to Prof. Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky, who developed digital imaging software which allowed virtually unrolling the scroll and visualizing the text.

It turned out that the fragment contained the first eight verses of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, the researchers said.

"This discovery absolutely astonished us," Pnina Shor, curator and director of IAA's Dead Sea Scrolls Projects, said in a statement. "We were certain it was just a shot in the dark but decided to try and scan the burnt scroll anyway," she added.

The researchers said the find is the most ancient Hebrew scroll found since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered in the late 1940s.

The Dead Sea scrolls were found in a cave near the shore of the salty lake, after which the scrolls were named. Dated to between the third century B.C. and 70 A.D., the Dead Sea Scrolls are widely considered by scientists as the oldest written biblical fragment ever found.

The scroll presented on Monday was unearthed some 40 km south to Qumran, the cave were the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

Shor said she believes the full scroll contains the entire Tora, the Jewish bible, but more research is needed to determine if the full scroll could be deciphered.

She added that the scroll represents an important "missing link" between the old Dead Sea Scrolls and the 10th century Aleppo Codex. Enditem