Artificial intelligence discovers two scribes behind 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls
EDMONTON, Alberta (CTV Network) The authors behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, famous for containing the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), have long eluded historians and scientists alike. But artificial intelligence technology has now unveiled two possible scribes.
Researchers with the University of Groningen conducted palaeography – the study of old handwriting – tests on the longest text, known as the Great Isaiah Scroll.
The process, which included several painstaking steps of digitization, machine reading and statistical analysis, revealed that two scribes with near-identical handwriting were likely responsible for writing two halves of the manuscript.
Dead Sea Scroll Analyzed With Artificial Intelligence
Friday, April 23, 2021
GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDS According to a statement released by the University of Groningen, Mladen Popović, Lambert Schomaker, and Maruf Dhali used a computer algorithm to analyze the Great Isaiah Scroll, which was discovered in Qumran Cave 1 in 1947. It had been previously suggested that the document was written by at least two scribes, but scholars had not able to detect any specific, identifying traits in the handwriting. To attempt to answer this question, Popović and his colleagues developed an algorithm to separate the ink from its background so that the curves of individual letters and the shapes of whole characters could be compared. Dhali said that the 54 columns of text in the scroll could then be divided into two groups, with the division occurring about halfway through the scroll. Further analysis of the individual letters revealed the work of two scribes, Schomaker said. The second scrib
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An article in
New Scientist explains that researchers traditionally hunted for specific “traits in the styles of letters to help identify different scribes.” However, Professor Popović said this type of identification method is “somewhat subjective and often hotly debated.”
The trouble is every pair of human eyes interprets tiny twists and turns differently, and traditional methods of grouping as such have been prone to great inaccuracies and contrasting interpretations.
Greyscale image of column 15 from the Great Isaiah Scroll (left). From the red boxes (right) of the last two images one can see how the rotation and the geometric transformation is corrected to yield a better image for further processing. (Brill Publishers /
Researchers Have Uncovered Yet Another Secret of the Dead Sea Scrolls, This Time Using Artificial Intelligence artnet.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from artnet.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.