New Evidence Rewrites the Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls, One of Judaism's Ancient Texts
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A scholar from the Netherlands used AI to determine that the Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed.
The new AI model pairs handwriting data with radiocarbon dating information to date ancient manuscripts.
In the future, scientists hope the model will be useful in dating other mysterious ancient texts
Dating ancient artifacts is very difficult. Experts have a number of techniques they can use to get close, but there are limitations that often can't be overcome without additional information. That said, sometimes you get lucky, like the researchers investigating the famous Dead Sea Scrolls did when they realized that the author wrote the dates of creation directly on several of the pages.
However, not every scroll was labeled, and as a result, the undated Dead Sea Scrolls have been much harder for scientists to pin down. But when new technologies arise, things can change.
According to a new study—in which scientists used AI modeling to study handwriting styles across ancient manuscripts with known dates—some of the undated Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed. Mladen Popovic (from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands) and his research team claim that their work not only re-dates some Dead Sea Scrolls, but could open a new way to place undated manuscripts on the timeline of ancient history. The team published their findings in the open-access journal PLOS One.
'It is very exciting to set a significant step in solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscripts from history,' the authors wrote in a statement. 'This would not have been possible without the collaboration between so many different scientific disciplines.'
The process started with a bounty of ancient texts used to help build datasets. The team parsed through historic manuscripts from various sites in modern-day Israel and the West Bank and used radiocarbon dating to estimate the ages of the documents. The team then trained a machine-learning model to understand the handwriting styles of each document in direct relation to the historic date of the manuscript.
The AI model—dubbed Enoch, after the prominent biblical figure—then merged the two datasets. The goal of the work is to be able to 'objectively determine an approximate age range' of a manuscript based solely on the handwriting style on the document.
During testing, the scholars said that Enoch's age estimates for the 135 Dead Sea Scrolls were 'realistic' 79 percent of the time, and non-realistic 21 percent of the time (non-realistic here meaning significantly too old, significantly too young, or indecisive).
The Enoch model, paired with radiocarbon dating, estimates older ages for 'many of the Dead Sea Scrolls' than traditional handwriting analysis methods. The authors said that more data and further research could help pinpoint the timelines.
'With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like a time machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible,' the authors wrote in the statement, 'especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors.'
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Yahoo
18 hours ago
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New Evidence Rewrites the Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: A scholar from the Netherlands used AI to determine that the Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed. The new AI model pairs handwriting data with radiocarbon dating information to date ancient manuscripts. In the future, scientists hope the model will be useful in dating other mysterious ancient texts Dating ancient artifacts is very difficult. Experts have a number of techniques they can use to get close, but there are limitations that often can't be overcome without additional information. That said, sometimes you get lucky, like the researchers investigating the famous Dead Sea Scrolls did when they realized that the author wrote the dates of creation directly on several of the pages. However, not every scroll was labeled, and as a result, the undated Dead Sea Scrolls have been much harder for scientists to pin down. But when new technologies arise, things can change. According to a new study—in which scientists used AI modeling to study handwriting styles across ancient manuscripts with known dates—some of the undated Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed. Mladen Popovic (from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands) and his research team claim that their work not only re-dates some Dead Sea Scrolls, but could open a new way to place undated manuscripts on the timeline of ancient history. The team published their findings in the open-access journal PLOS One. 'It is very exciting to set a significant step in solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscripts from history,' the authors wrote in a statement. 'This would not have been possible without the collaboration between so many different scientific disciplines.' The process started with a bounty of ancient texts used to help build datasets. The team parsed through historic manuscripts from various sites in modern-day Israel and the West Bank and used radiocarbon dating to estimate the ages of the documents. The team then trained a machine-learning model to understand the handwriting styles of each document in direct relation to the historic date of the manuscript. The AI model—dubbed Enoch, after the prominent biblical figure—then merged the two datasets. The goal of the work is to be able to 'objectively determine an approximate age range' of a manuscript based solely on the handwriting style on the document. During testing, the scholars said that Enoch's age estimates for the 135 Dead Sea Scrolls were 'realistic' 79 percent of the time, and non-realistic 21 percent of the time (non-realistic here meaning significantly too old, significantly too young, or indecisive). The Enoch model, paired with radiocarbon dating, estimates older ages for 'many of the Dead Sea Scrolls' than traditional handwriting analysis methods. The authors said that more data and further research could help pinpoint the timelines. 'With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like a time machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible,' the authors wrote in the statement, 'especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors.' You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
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AI analysis says Dead Sea Scrolls are older than thought
June 7 (UPI) -- The ancient Dead Sea Scrolls likely are much older than originally thought, a new artificial intelligence analysis suggests. The scrolls could be centuries older than initially thought, according to a study that combined radiocarbon dating with AI to better analyze the remnants of ancient documents, The Times of Israel reported. "The Dead Sea Scrolls ... completely changed the way we think about ancient Judaism and early Christianity," said Mladen Popovic, lead author of the study that was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. "Out of 1,000 manuscripts, a bit more than 200 are what we call biblical Old Testament," Popovic told CNN. "They are the oldest copies we have of the Hebrew Bible." Popovic is the dean of the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Archaeologists recovered thousands of remnants of scrolls that were first discovered in 1947 in the Judean Desert by Bedouin shepherds in an area that has become the West Bank. Instead of dating the scrolls based on the form of their lettering, researchers used carbon dating to analyze samples from 30 of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority. They also created high-resolution copies of the scripts and used an AI-powered model called "Enoch" to analyze the textual characters contained in 135 scrolls. The study revealed the scrolls are older than initially thought, which is from the 3rd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. A paleographic study of the text within the scrolls narrowed their origin to that timeframe in 1961, but little else was done to analyze their origin until now. The new study pretreated pieces of parchment to remove any chemical traces from prior studies before undertaking carbon dating, and AI analysis corroborates the results. It suggests some of the scrolls were one or two centuries older than originally thought, including Old Testament books like Ecclesiastes. The study also suggests literacy was much more widespread in the region. "These manuscripts are not just the earliest copy of these [Old Testament] books that survived," IAA Dead Sea Scrolls Unit leader Joe Uziel told The Times of Israel. They are "one of the oldest copies of these compositions ever written," he said. Only about 10% of the scrolls were studied, which Popovic said means there is a lot more to learn through more studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
UPI
2 days ago
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AI analysis says Dead Sea Scrolls are older than thought
Scroll conservationist Tanya Bitler displays parchment biblical fragments and a scroll section discovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Muraba'at Cove in the Judean Desert at the IAA laboratories in Jerusalem on March 16, 2021. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo June 7 (UPI) -- The ancient Dead Sea Scrolls likely are much older than originally thought, a new artificial intelligence analysis suggests. The scrolls could be centuries older than initially thought, according to a study that combined radiocarbon dating with AI to better analyze the remnants of ancient documents, The Times of Israel reported. "The Dead Sea Scrolls ... completely changed the way we think about ancient Judaism and early Christianity," said Mladen Popovic, lead author of the study that was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. "Out of 1,000 manuscripts, a bit more than 200 are what we call biblical Old Testament," Popovic told CNN. "They are the oldest copies we have of the Hebrew Bible." Popovic is the dean of the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Archaeologists recovered thousands of remnants of scrolls that were first discovered in 1947 in the Judean Desert by Bedouin shepherds in an area that has become the West Bank. Instead of dating the scrolls based on the form of their lettering, researchers used carbon dating to analyze samples from 30 of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority. They also created high-resolution copies of the scripts and used an AI-powered model called "Enoch" to analyze the textual characters contained in 135 scrolls. The study revealed the scrolls are older than initially thought, which is from the 3rd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. A paleographic study of the text within the scrolls narrowed their origin to that timeframe in 1961, but little else was done to analyze their origin until now. The new study pretreated pieces of parchment to remove any chemical traces from prior studies before undertaking carbon dating, and AI analysis corroborates the results. It suggests some of the scrolls were one or two centuries older than originally thought, including Old Testament books like Ecclesiastes. The study also suggests literacy was much more widespread in the region. "These manuscripts are not just the earliest copy of these [Old Testament] books that survived," IAA Dead Sea Scrolls Unit leader Joe Uziel told The Times of Israel. They are "one of the oldest copies of these compositions ever written," he said. Only about 10% of the scrolls were studied, which Popovic said means there is a lot more to learn through more studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
