Dead Sea Scrolls to get online makeover

Scientists are currently photographing the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the manuscripts available to researchers and the general public over the internet.

We’ve all heard about old media trying to cash in on the internet age, but this just about takes the cake.

Scientists are currently photographing the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the manuscripts available to researchers and the general public over the internet.

The scrolls constitute the earliest copy of the Hebrew bible and also contain information of Jewish life at the time.

For many years access to the scrolls, which were discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947, was limited to a handful of biblical scholars. Access has widened since they were published in 2001, but putting the scrolls on the internet would allow a much wider audience to read them.

A team of specialists has taken 4000 pictures of some 9000 fragments that make up the scrolls, and have even been able to decipher new markings by examining the parchment using powerful cameras and lights that emit no damaging heat or ultraviolet beams.