AI Program Rewrites Timeline of Dead Sea Scrolls
A newly developed AI model has allowed researchers to re-date many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which now appear to be much older than previously thought. The University of Groningen announced the news in a June 4 press release.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Caves of Qumran, and in the decades since have recontextualized modern understandings of ancient Jewish practices as well as the Bible. Accurately dating the manuscripts is vital to understanding their influence, as well as the time at which they were written.The AI model, known as Enoch, combined carbon-14 dating from 24 separate samples of Dead Sea Scrolls with an AI-driven handwriting analysis to examine micro-level ink-trace patterns on the scrolls. The model then compares known handwriting features with known radiocarbon dates, allowing the AI to understand how handwriting styles evolved throughout time. The AI model can predict the creation date of a given manuscript within 30 years, researchers say.The results astounded scientists. Some scrolls, which were thought to have originated in the Hasmonaean period (150-50 B.C.) are now believed to be from several centuries earlier. Likewise, the Herodian script, which was believed to have been written in the mid-first century B.C., now appears to have been authored in the late second century B.C.
"Enoch is the first complete machine-learning-based model that uses raw image inputs to produce probabilistic date predictions for ancient manuscripts," said Maruf Dali, the research team leader. They hope the technology can add similar context to other ancient manuscripts, which might help to understand the political and religious climates of the time.AI Program Rewrites Timeline of Dead Sea Scrolls first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2025
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
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
6 hours ago
- UPI
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.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI Program Rewrites Timeline of Dead Sea Scrolls
A newly developed AI model has allowed researchers to re-date many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which now appear to be much older than previously thought. The University of Groningen announced the news in a June 4 press release. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Caves of Qumran, and in the decades since have recontextualized modern understandings of ancient Jewish practices as well as the Bible. Accurately dating the manuscripts is vital to understanding their influence, as well as the time at which they were AI model, known as Enoch, combined carbon-14 dating from 24 separate samples of Dead Sea Scrolls with an AI-driven handwriting analysis to examine micro-level ink-trace patterns on the scrolls. The model then compares known handwriting features with known radiocarbon dates, allowing the AI to understand how handwriting styles evolved throughout time. The AI model can predict the creation date of a given manuscript within 30 years, researchers results astounded scientists. Some scrolls, which were thought to have originated in the Hasmonaean period (150-50 B.C.) are now believed to be from several centuries earlier. Likewise, the Herodian script, which was believed to have been written in the mid-first century B.C., now appears to have been authored in the late second century B.C. "Enoch is the first complete machine-learning-based model that uses raw image inputs to produce probabilistic date predictions for ancient manuscripts," said Maruf Dali, the research team leader. They hope the technology can add similar context to other ancient manuscripts, which might help to understand the political and religious climates of the Program Rewrites Timeline of Dead Sea Scrolls first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2025
