An ancient biblical scroll called En-Gedi was found in 1970. However, archaeologists were not able to open it since the scroll was too charred. Recently, the Israel Antiquities Authority and computer scientists from the University of Kentucky have virtually unwrapped it.
It took almost half a century to unlock the En-Gedi scroll's secrets. Archaeologists, historians and biblical scholars marvel in this exciting discovery. It opens the possibility of uncovering more ancient texts.
The Virtual Unwrapping
A complex digital analysis was used to read it. The method is called virtual unwrapping. According to Live Science, experts were able to digitally scan the document. Then, it virtually flattened the scanned results. Eventually, scholars have managed to read the text.
The study has been published in the Science Advances journal. Among those who worked on it is computer scientist Brent Seales. He and his colleagues at the University of Kentucky helped the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). He shared that many thought the scroll was impossible to read. In fact, En-Gedi hasn't been read for millennia.
The head of the Dead Sea Scrolls and co-author Pnina Shor agreed. She said that they did not think anything would come of it. It's actually the first time virtual mapping was used.
First, each of the layers within the scroll was identified. There were actually five complete revolutions of parchment. Then, virtual geometric mesh for each layer was created. The mesh allowed them to make the text more visible.
Finally, they had to digitally flatten it. The layers were merged together. The final product is a flat 2D image of the scroll. More importantly, it could be easily read.
The En-Gedi Scroll
The En-Gedi scroll is now known to contain two chapters of the Book of Leviticus. The consonants in the scroll are identical to those of the Masoretic text, according to The New York Times. The said text is the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible. It is also used often as the basis for Old Testament translations in Protestant Bibles.
The consonants also indicate that the scroll was written before the ninth century A.D. Hebrew symbols for vowels were invented during this century. This was mentioned by Emmanuel Tov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is one of the authors of the study.
Furthermore, their data implies that it was written within the first few centuries of the Common Era. It means that the En-Gedi scroll is slightly younger than the original Dead Sea Scrolls. They added that it's a glimpse in 800 years of near silence of biblical text's history.
Apparently, the text has not changed in 2,000 years. It is 100 percent identical to the Book of Leviticus that has been used for centuries. Tov said that it is quite amazing for them.
