3D technology supports reading content of charred Bible copy

With digital mapping techniques in three-dimensional space, scientists were able to read the content inside En-Gedi - a memoir of the Leviticus in the Bible dating back nearly 2000 years. There is no need to remove the roll of paper, to preserve the priceless antiquated object that has not been destroyed. This is not only a religiously significant study but this approach can also be applied in many other areas, such as forensic medicine, .

En-Gedi is the oldest paper roll ever discovered in the Jewish Bible . En-Gedi was found in the 1940s and dates back to more than 2000 years. The ancient self-analysis analysis data showed that the En-Gedi paper roll was written about the second half of the 1st century or the beginning of the 2nd century. Meanwhile, the results of carbon analysis showed that the scroll could be written into that amount 3rd or 4th century AD In 1970, En-Gedi was found near the Dead Sea, Israel. At that time, the roll was placed in the Holy chest at a synagogue. However, the building was burnt, turned the sacred box and the scroll into a pardon that could be crushed at any time.

The scroll of the Bible was burned into charcoal.

For decades, researchers have not been able to find a viable way to read the contents of a scroll by simply touching it, which will be destroyed. And this time by the technique called "volume cartography" , American and Israeli researchers were able to discover the contents of the scroll. As a result, the scroll recorded the opening verses of the Levi, the third volume of the Hebrew Bible.

Brent Seales, a University of Kentucky computer scientist who participated in the development of mass mapping and measurement techniques, said: "We are reading an unprecedented roll of paper in the celestial row. Many people think that it is impossible to read the scroll, but their technique has done so without having to physically reach the paper roll. "

The scripture of the Bible dating back more than 2,000 years has been burnt to charcoal, just touching is decaying, so how can one read its contents?

Basically, the team's work is to recreate the virtual version of the scroll and then "open the virtual" it to read. To do that, the team scanned the entire remnants of En-Gedi to form a 3D model on a computer. Next, the model will be divided into sections, expressed in the form of "paper pages" containing writing. In this process, in addition to combining hundreds of 3D scans together, the team also used structural extraction (texture) techniques to extract traces of ink from the data, then determine the degree of Brightness of pixels, density of materials to reconstruct traces of ink writing in the past.

Finally, the entire structure after each segment analysis will be flattened out and then, they will have a "piece of paper" in 3D space, including pen strokes, words, characters and gaps. So in the end, the 5-roll scrolls written in Hebrew 2000 years ago were "virtualized" to read the contents. Michael Segal, who led the team, said En-Gedi scrolls are "the largest Bible record written in the past decade".

The content recorded in the paper roll has been exposed after "virtual opening" it out with computer software.

Researcher Pnina Shor said: "It looks like a piece of charcoal. We can only fumble around in the dark night. The gain is a handwritten piece on a flat material, looking like a scroll. You can't imagine the fun in the lab. " And reading this record has filled a gap that has lasted for centuries in biblical history.

It is known that some copies of the Hebrew Bible have been discovered dating back to the beginning of the Cen- ture until the beginning of the Middle Ages, ie around the 5th century AD. En-Gedi scrolls are almost 100% identified as medieval texts , both in terms of both consonant and segmental characteristics, suggesting that the copies of Levi are not different in thousands of years. .