Dead Sea Scrolls older than previously thought says AI – DW – 06/04/2025
An AI trained on radiocarbon dating suggests some Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought. The findings could reshape our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity.
An AI program trained to study the handwriting styles of ancient manuscripts suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought, as reported in a study published in the journal Plos One on Wednesday .
The study is the latest entry in a new era of antiquity studies that has researchers use AI to reveal the secrets written on frayed and crumbling scrolls.
The new method combines AI, radiocarbon dating, and handwriting analysis to more accurately estimate an ancient text's age.
The now proposed redating could reshape our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and of Judaism and early Christianity, the authors of the study say.
"It is very exciting to set a significant step into solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscript collections from history," said study author Mladen Popovic from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Radiocarbon dating and AI analysis of handwriting
The Dead Sea Scrolls, the first of which were discovered in a cave in Israel in 1947, are the most momentous manuscript discovery of the past hundred years.
There are around 1,000 manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among them are some of the oldest known copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible. Studies of these manuscripts have profoundly changed understanding of the origins of Christianity and the formation of post-biblical Judaism
Dating these manuscripts with paleography — the study of ancient handwriting — reveals them to have been written over several hundred years between 250 B.C.E. and 100 C.E.
However, scholars have struggled to analyze ancient texts, particularly with distinguishing one writer's style from another, meaning dating isn't very reliable.
The researchers aimed to improve analytical methods by using AI to study handwriting and cross-reference this data with radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of materials by measuring carbon-14 isotopes that slowly disappear over time.
"The advantage of the [AI] model is that it provides quantified objectivity to palaeography, reducing the method's subjectivity," the authors write.
An AI model was first trained on 24 manuscripts with reliable radiocarbon dating. The authors then used this AI model to analyze the handwriting style of 135 scrolls with unknown dates spanning three centuries from around 200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E.
This created a better way of dating written manuscripts with 79% accuracy, according to the analysis.
"This novel approach allowed [the researchers] to combine historical expertise with technical precision," said Thea Sommerschield and Yannis Assael, who previously developed AI tools for the study of ancient texts at the University of Oxford, UK, in a joint email to DW. Sommerschield and Assael were not involved in the study.
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New Dead Sea Scroll chronology
The authors of the study believe their analysis could lead to a new chronology of the scrolls. If verified, it would change understanding of the history of ancient Judea and the people who wrote the texts.
The AI analysis found the manuscripts are older than previous estimates overall, suggesting dates in the early second century B.C.E., and sometimes slightly earlier.
Scholars often assume that the rise and expansion of the Hasmonaean kingdom from the mid-second century B.C.E. onward caused a rise in "literacy scribal intellectual culture." The authors say their findings suggest that scribes were copying multiple literary manuscripts before this period.
Sommerschield and Assael say the new study shows AI could be used to provide more accurate dating of other ancient texts.
"This new study shows that computational tools don't diminish the role of human expertise, they enhance it, opening new paths for discovery in even the most well-studied texts," they said in their email.
Antiquity scholars believe they are on the brink of a new era of because of AI. Researchers have also, for example, been using AI to translate ancient texts that have been vexing ancient scholars for decades.
Edited by: Matthew Ward Agius
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3 days ago
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Dead Sea Scrolls older than previously thought says AI – DW – 06/04/2025
An AI trained on radiocarbon dating suggests some Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought. The findings could reshape our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity. An AI program trained to study the handwriting styles of ancient manuscripts suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought, as reported in a study published in the journal Plos One on Wednesday . The study is the latest entry in a new era of antiquity studies that has researchers use AI to reveal the secrets written on frayed and crumbling scrolls. The new method combines AI, radiocarbon dating, and handwriting analysis to more accurately estimate an ancient text's age. The now proposed redating could reshape our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and of Judaism and early Christianity, the authors of the study say. "It is very exciting to set a significant step into solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscript collections from history," said study author Mladen Popovic from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Radiocarbon dating and AI analysis of handwriting The Dead Sea Scrolls, the first of which were discovered in a cave in Israel in 1947, are the most momentous manuscript discovery of the past hundred years. There are around 1,000 manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among them are some of the oldest known copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible. Studies of these manuscripts have profoundly changed understanding of the origins of Christianity and the formation of post-biblical Judaism Dating these manuscripts with paleography — the study of ancient handwriting — reveals them to have been written over several hundred years between 250 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. However, scholars have struggled to analyze ancient texts, particularly with distinguishing one writer's style from another, meaning dating isn't very reliable. The researchers aimed to improve analytical methods by using AI to study handwriting and cross-reference this data with radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of materials by measuring carbon-14 isotopes that slowly disappear over time. "The advantage of the [AI] model is that it provides quantified objectivity to palaeography, reducing the method's subjectivity," the authors write. An AI model was first trained on 24 manuscripts with reliable radiocarbon dating. The authors then used this AI model to analyze the handwriting style of 135 scrolls with unknown dates spanning three centuries from around 200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. This created a better way of dating written manuscripts with 79% accuracy, according to the analysis. "This novel approach allowed [the researchers] to combine historical expertise with technical precision," said Thea Sommerschield and Yannis Assael, who previously developed AI tools for the study of ancient texts at the University of Oxford, UK, in a joint email to DW. Sommerschield and Assael were not involved in the study. Tomorrow Today — The Science Show To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video New Dead Sea Scroll chronology The authors of the study believe their analysis could lead to a new chronology of the scrolls. If verified, it would change understanding of the history of ancient Judea and the people who wrote the texts. The AI analysis found the manuscripts are older than previous estimates overall, suggesting dates in the early second century B.C.E., and sometimes slightly earlier. Scholars often assume that the rise and expansion of the Hasmonaean kingdom from the mid-second century B.C.E. onward caused a rise in "literacy scribal intellectual culture." The authors say their findings suggest that scribes were copying multiple literary manuscripts before this period. Sommerschield and Assael say the new study shows AI could be used to provide more accurate dating of other ancient texts. "This new study shows that computational tools don't diminish the role of human expertise, they enhance it, opening new paths for discovery in even the most well-studied texts," they said in their email. Antiquity scholars believe they are on the brink of a new era of because of AI. Researchers have also, for example, been using AI to translate ancient texts that have been vexing ancient scholars for decades. Edited by: Matthew Ward Agius
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3 days ago
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AI finds Dead Sea Scrolls are older than first thought – DW – 06/04/2025
An AI trained on radiocarbon dating suggests some Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought. The findings could reshape our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity. An AI program trained to study the handwriting styles of ancient manuscripts suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought. The study is the latest in a new era of antiquity studies which use AI to reveal the secrets written on frayed and crumbling scrolls. The new method combines AI, radiocarbon dating, and handwriting analysis to more accurately estimate an ancient text's age. The proposed redating of some scrolls could reshape our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and of Judaism and early Christianity, the authors say. "It is very exciting to set a significant step into solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscript collections from history," said study author Mladen Popović from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. The study appeared today in the journal Plos One. Radiocarbon dating and AI analysis of handwriting The Dead Sea Scrolls, the first of which were discovered in a cave in Israel in 1947, are the most momentous manuscript discovery of the past hundred years. There are around 1,000 manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among them are some of the oldest known copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible. Studies of these manuscripts have profoundly changed understanding of the origins of Christianity and the formation of post-biblical Judaism Dating these manuscripts with paleography — the study of ancient handwriting — reveals them to have been written over several hundred years between 250BCE and 100CE. However, scholars have struggled to analyze ancient texts, particularly distinguishing one writer's style from another, meaning dating isn't very reliable. The researchers aimed to improve analytical methods by using AI to study handwriting and cross reference this data with radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of materials by measuring carbon-14 isotopes that slowly disappear over time. "The advantage of the [AI] model is that it provides quantified objectivity to palaeography, reducing the method's subjectivity," the authors write. An AI model was first trained on 24 manuscripts with reliable radiocarbon dating. The authors then used this AI model to analyze the handwriting style of 135 scrolls with unknown dates spanning three centuries from around 200BCE to 100CE. This created a better way of dating written manuscripts with 79% accuracy, according to the analysis. "This novel approach allowed [the researchers] to combine historical expertise with technical precision," said Thea Sommerschield and Yannis Assael, who previously developed AI tools for the study of ancient texts at the University of Oxford, UK. Sommerschield and Assael were not involved in the study. Tomorrow Today — The Science Show To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video New Dead Sea Scroll chronology The authors believe their analysis could lead to a new chronology of the scrolls. If verified, it would change understanding of the history of ancient Judea and the people who wrote the texts. The AI analysis found the manuscripts are older than previous estimates overall, suggesting dates in the early second century BCE, and sometimes slightly earlier. Scholars often assume that the rise and expansion of the Hasmonaean kingdom from the mid-second century BCE onward caused a rise in "literacy scribal intellectual culture." The authors say their findings suggest that scribes were copying multiple literary manuscripts before this period. Sommerschield and Assael say the new study shows AI could be used to provide more accurate dating of other ancient texts. "This new study shows that computational tools don't diminish the role of human expertise, they enhance it, opening new paths for discovery in even the most well-studied texts," they said in a joint email to DW. Antiquity scholars believe they are on the brink of a new era of because of AI. Other researchers have been using AI to translate ancient texts that have been vexing ancient scholars for decades. Edited by: Matthew Ward Agius
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Cats can sniff out owners, study finds – DW – 05/28/2025
Cats use scent to tell their owners apart from strangers. But a cat's disposition also plays a part, according to a Japanese study. A new study by researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture in Japan has identified patterns of behavior shown by cats toward humans they know, such as their owners, and strangers. Previous research suggested that cats rely on their sensitive noses to identify other cats as friend or foe. But whether that same function applies to detecting humans was not fully understood. So, the researchers in Japan took 30 domestic cats and tested their responses to a range of special scents. The cats' owners provided samples of their scents by swabbing their underarms, behind their ears and between their toes. These swabs were then presented to the cats in a tube. And the researchers monitored the behavior shown by each cat and the time they spent sniffing the scent samples. They repeated the process with swabs from humans the cats did not know, and also with a blank swab, or placebo, as a measure to control or verify the test. Their results appear to show that the cats spent twice as long smelling samples from strangers than samples from their owners, and that they favored their right nostrils over their left nostrils when sniffing the swabs from strangers. Spanish lab clones dogs, cats for grieving owners To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The research team thinks the choice of nostril may correspond to the way in which many animals process new information. "Dogs, but also fish, birds, and other vertebrates process novel information using the right brain hemisphere," they wrote in a study paper published May 28, 2025, in the journal PLOS One . "The left brain is responsible [...] when a routine response emerges." The researchers said that while their findings suggested a cat's sense of smell was a tool for their recognizing humans, they could not conclude that smell was the most important mechanism for cats to do that. A cat's personality influences how they interact with humans Personality traits may also play a role in how cats interact with odors — human or otherwise. The researchers asked the cat owners to complete a survey about their cats' personalities. They then tried to match those personality traits with the behaviors they observed during the smelling test, in a hope that this would enable them to identify behavioral differences among cats in responding to smells. They observed that among male cats, the more "neurotic" ones repeatedly returned to the smell tubes, while those described as being more "agreeable" rarely returned to a scent. No behavioral differences were identified among female cats. A Japanese research group found cats use their right nostril when exposed to the scent of an unknown human, rather than their left nostril, which they tend to use when smelling the scent of someone they know Image: IMAGO/ingimage The personality traits were quantified using a test known as "the Feline Five ." That test was developed by another research team for a study of about 3,000 cats in Australia and New Zealand. In that study, published in 2017, highly neurotic cats were described as "insecure, anxious, fearful [of people], suspicious and shy." More agreeable cats were described as "affectionate, friendly to people and gentle." The test was originally pitched as a tool to support animal welfare in the home, by helping owners create safe environments for their cats. Another attempt to understand mysterious 'moggies' While dogs are often called "man's best friend," cats have a reputation for being mercurial, wayward, untamed domestic cohabitants. For example, one study from the University of Leeds found that cats don't bond with humans in the same way as dogs do. "Adult cats are typically quite autonomous, even in their social relationships, and not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety," said the authors of that study when it was published in 2015. So, although this latest study from Japan may suggest cats are able to recognize their human companions, they may still think very little of them. Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany
