#Old manuscript mark skin
#Old manuscript mark software

“But I’ll bet most of the public has no idea that the 20th century’s greatest manuscript discovery is also in New Jersey.” “Most people know the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem,” Zuckerman said.

In February, Zuckerman traveled to Milwaukee to deliver a lecture about the New Jersey Dead Sea Scrolls and the project’s advanced technology. More than 35,000 images gathered by the West Semitic Research Project can be accessed through the InscriptiFact Database Application (). Leta Hunt of USC Libraries and her engineers developed the viewer software, based on work by Hewlett-Packard and other universities. This gives us great hope for research of the future.”

#Old manuscript mark skin

“The information about the skin and the ink was unexpected. “This technology gives us more information than we ever thought was possible,” Zuckerman said, adding that his students are also using the method to analyze the scrolls. On closer inspection, it also appeared the scribe had slightly messed up the ink stroke and made a correction. Shining their light on the character and examining the texture of the skin, they concluded that a tiny bit of ink had flecked off the surface. A click of the mouse on an image acted like a flashlight, revealing the tiniest of details.

#Old manuscript mark software

Because the image had been photographed from every conceivable angle, the computer software program allowed them to see the fragment in many combinations of light and shadow. They wondered whether the dot was parchment over the character or a tiny hole scraped off the ink. “This New Jersey project was the first we were able to apply our method to such large fragments.”Įxamining one fragment, part of a liturgical prayer, the pair spotted a tiny fleck on the first character in the word Adonai (Lord). “Technology like this has never been used on the Dead Sea Scrolls until now,” Bruce Zuckerman said. Lundberg’s husband, John Melzian, along with Kenneth Zuckerman, built the equipment enabling them to apply the innovative photographic methods originally developed by the Hewlett-Packard Co. The technology uses the data from images taken at many different light angles to show the texture of the fragments’ surface.Īt his computer, Zuckerman examined a high-resolution image with Marilyn Lundberg, associate director of the project. Written in carbon-based ink on parchment (possibly from a goat), many of the ancient Hebrew letters were indecipherable in conventional photos.įounded in the early 1980s by Zuckerman and his brother Kenneth, the West Semitic Research Project was the first to use polynomial texture mapping (PTM) to photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, in addition to the standard practice of taking color and infrared images. In his office at USC, Zuckerman, professor of religion and linguistics, pulled up some of the New Jersey Dead Sea Scrolls images on his computer screen. “He’s definitely the first person anyone would think to call within Western scholarship.” “Bruce Zuckerman’s team is the best and the most experienced in photographing ancient texts,” said Weston Fields, executive director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, from Jerusalem. Steven Fine of Yeshiva University in New York collaborated with the group as part of an ongoing partnership between USC and Yeshiva. In August 2009, he and other West Semitic Research Project members took their advanced imaging methods to the church and photographed the scrolls. A leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, Zuckerman was the first to record the New Jersey fragments dating around 100 B.C. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral and Dead Sea Scrolls officials knew it was time to call in the heavy hitters to document the 2,000-year-old manuscript.Ībout 2,450 miles west, USC College researcher Bruce Zuckerman got the call. In 1949 - two years after their discovery in a Judaean desert cave - fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls found their way to New Jersey and eventually to a red brick with white trim church in Teaneck.įor six decades, the fragments had been locked in the church’s vault. The Garden State is home to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times. The birthplace of Ol’ Blue Eyes? Where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb? Or, heaven help us, Jersey Shore? Let’s consider what New Jersey is famous for. Mark�s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Teaneck, N.J.

Bruce Zuckerman, professor of religion and linguistics, with Dead Sea Scrolls fragments at St.