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UPI
3 days ago
- Science
- 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
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Many Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than experts thought, AI analysis suggests
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than experts thought, according to an artificial intelligence (AI) analysis. Consisting of about 1,000 ancient manuscripts etched onto animal skin, papyrus and copper, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain the earliest known versions of texts from the Hebrew Bible — including copies of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Kings and Deuteronomy — and date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. Now, scientists have used an AI program, dubbed Enoch, to analyze the handwriting patterns on the scrolls, revealing that they may be older than experts thought. The study authors say their findings, published June 4 in the journal PLOS One, are a significant step in dating some of the earliest versions of the Bible. However, not all experts are convinced. "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," lead study author Mladen Popović, director of the Qumran Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said in a statement. "Especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors." Discovered by Bedouin shepherds inside the West Bank's caves of Qumran from 1946 to 1947, the ancient manuscripts range from legal documents and calendars to sections of the Hebrew Bible and psalms, written mostly in Hebrew but also in Aramaic and Greek. Previous dating of the scrolls relied on paleography — the study of ancient writing systems — with some undergoing radiocarbon dating in the 1990s. However, castor oil had been applied to some of the manuscripts in modern times to improve their legibility. This oil is also a contaminant that can disrupt radiocarbon dating, so the results from these techniques remain a topic of debate. Related: Ancient 'curse tablet' may show earliest Hebrew name of God In an attempt to clear things up, the researchers first cleaned 30 samples from different manuscripts to remove the castor oil, before successfully radiocarbon-dating 27 of them. They found that two of these scroll fragments were younger than past analyses suggested but that other fragments were older. Then, the scientists set about creating their Enoch AI model. Enoch was trained on the handwriting of 24 of the newly dated manuscripts and their radiocarbon dates. After verifying the model with 13 further selected images from the same manuscripts, the researchers presented it with 135 undated manuscripts. They found that it agreed with the estimates made by scholars 79% of the time. Yet the results for the remaining 21% of the scrolls point to a mystery, with Enoch giving them a range of dates that could make them older, hard to determine, or even a century younger than initial estimates. They also suggest that two different writing styles, known as the Hasmonean and Herodian scripts (named after the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty and Herod, the Roman client king, respectively), could have overlapped for longer than previously thought. Nonetheless, Enoch also corroborates earlier paleography, notably for a scroll titled 4Q114, which contains three chapters from the Book of Daniel. Analysts initially estimated 4Q114's writing to have been inked during the height of the Maccabee uprising in 165 B.C. (a part of the Hanukkah story) due to its description of Antiochus IV's desecration of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The AI model's estimate also falls within this range, between 230 B.C. and 160 B.C. But for some paleographers, the results are hardly surprising. RELATED STORIES —2,700-year-old archaeological site in Jordan may be a biblical place visited by King David —20 of the most bizarre stories from the Bible —Ancient Yahweh worshipper's jar bears Hebrew script in biblical city "The results of this study are very interesting, and presumably important, but not Earth-shattering," Christopher Rollston,a professor and chair of biblical and Near Eastern languages and civilizations at The George Washington University, told Live Science in an email. "Most of the conclusions of this article also dovetail with what the great palaeographers in the field, such as the late Frank Moore Cross, had already stated more than 60 years ago." Rollston also criticized the notion that the new tool could enable researchers to "study the hands that wrote the Bible" as "at the very least, gross hyperbole." No manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible date to the First Temple period (circa 1200 to 586 B.C.), when it was originally composed, or to the early parts of the Second Temple period (538 B.C. to A.D. 70), he said. He noted that AI can be useful, but it should only be one of many techniques used to study ancient texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls. "Enoch could and should never be the only tool in the toolbox of someone wishing to determine the date for the writing of a manuscript. After all, human handwriting, and all of its variations and idiosyncratic features, is a deeply human thing," Rollston added. "Machines can be helpful in isolating features of a script, but the presence of a gifted palaeographer is at least as valuable as a machine-learning tool."
Economist
5 days ago
- Science
- Economist
How old are the Dead Sea Scrolls? An AI model can help
EVER SINCE the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Bedouin shepherds in the 1940s, debate has raged over their exact age. The scrolls, which contain the earliest surviving copies of books from the Hebrew Bible and other religious texts, mostly written in Aramaic and Hebrew, are thought to have been compiled sometime between 300BC and 200AD. Dating each of the 1,000-odd individual scrolls would help historians understand how literacy spread among ancient Jewish populations and the first Christians, and offer a valuable window into the genesis of the sacred texts. But scholars hoping to do so have had little but their own intuition to rely on.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Many of Dead Sea scrolls may be older than thought, experts say
Many of the Dead Sea scrolls could be older than previously thought, with some biblical texts dating from the time of their original authors, researchers say. The first of the ancient scrolls were discovered in the caves of Qumran in the Judean desert by Bedouin shepherds in the mid-20th century. The manuscripts range from legal documents to parts of the Hebrew Bible, and are thought to date from around the third century BCE to the second century CE. Now researchers have used artificial intelligence to glean fresh insights into the dates of individual scrolls – findings experts suggest could challenge ideas about when, where and by whom they were produced. 'It's like a time machine. So we can shake hands with these people from 2,000 years ago, and we can put them in time much better now, said Prof Mladen Popović, first author of the research from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. While some scrolls were radiocarbon dated in the 1990s, Popović said scholars did not tackle the problem of castor oil contamination – a substance applied in the 1950s to help experts read the manuscripts, but which could skew results. In addition, many of the scrolls had only been dated by handwriting analysis. Writing in the journal Plos One, the team report how they attempted radiocarbon dating of 30 samples from different manuscripts found at four sites and thought to span five centuries. Crucially, the team first cleaned the samples to remove the castor oil contamination. The researchers successfully radiocarbon-dated 27 samples, finding that while two were younger than handwriting analysis had suggested, many were older. Among other findings, the researchers discovered two different writing styles, known as Hasmonean and Herodian scripts, coexisted for a much longer period than previously thought, while a sample from a manuscript called 4Q114 – which contains verses from the book of Daniel – was older than traditional palaeography had suggested. 'It was previously dated to the late second century BCE, a generation after the author of the Book of Daniel. Now, with our study we move back in time contemporary to that author,' said Popović. The team then used a type of AI known as machine learning to build a model they called Enoch – a nod to a biblical figure associated with scientific knowledge. The team trained Enoch by feeding it 62 digital images of ink traces from 24 of the radiocarbon dated manuscripts, together with the carbon-14 dates. They then verified the model by showing Enoch a further 13 images from the same manuscripts. In 85% of cases the model produced ages that tallied with the radiocarbon dates, and in many cases produced a smaller range of probable dates than obtained from radiocarbon dating alone. 'What we have created is a very robust tool that is empirically based – based on physics and on geometry,' said Popović. When Enoch was presented with images from 135 undated manuscripts it had not previously seen, it realistically dated 79% of them – as judged by expert palaeographers. Popović added those deemed unrealistic might have had problematic data, such as poor quality images. The system has already produced new insights including that a copy of the biblical book Ecclesiastes dates from the time of the book's presumed author. Popović said Enoch meant the age of further scrolls could now be uncovered without radiocarbon dating – a process that requires the destruction of small samples. 'There are more than 1,000 Dead Sea scrolls manuscripts so our study is a first but significant step, opening a door unto history with new possibilities for research,' he said. Prof emerita Joan Taylor of King's College London, said the results would have a major impact on Qumran studies. 'These results mean that most of the manuscripts found in the caves near Qumran would not have been written at the site of Qumran, which was not occupied until later,' she said. However, Dr Matthew Collins of the University of Chester cautioned that radiocarbon dating only shed light on the age of the parchment, not when it was written on, while there were also questions about how stylistically representative the small number of training samples were for different periods in time. 'Overall, this is an important and welcome study, and one which may provide us with a significant new tool in our armoury for dating these texts,' he said. 'Nevertheless, it's one that we should adopt with caution, and in careful conjunction with other evidence.'
DW
6 days ago
- General
- DW
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
