Two images of a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, enhanced using Reflectance Transformation Imaging. (Photo courtesy of West Semitic Research Project via USC College Magazine)
When fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls recently turned up in a New Jersey church, officials called USC religion and linguistics professor Bruce Zuckerman to analyze and document them. An article by Pamela J. Johnson in USC College Magazine tells how Zuckerman used imaging software developed by the USC Libraries' Leta Hunt to discover hidden details about the text, including a correction made by a scribe over 2,000 years ago. Hunt's software enhances photographs of ancient texts by using scans made at multiple angles. The enhanced images unmask secrets invisible to conventional photography.
Johnson describes how Zuckerman and his research partner inspected part of a liturgical prayer:
Shining their virtual “flashlight” on the character, examining the texture of the skin, they concluded that a tiny bit of ink had flecked off the surface. At closer inspection, it also appeared the scribe had slightly messed up the ink stroke and made a correction.
“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. “The information about the skin and the ink was unexpected. This gives us great hope for research of the future.”
Leta Hunt of USC Libraries and her engineers developed the viewer software, based on work by Hewlett-Packard and other universities. [The West Semitic Research Project's] more than 35,000 images can be accessed through the InscriptiFact Database Application (InscriptiFact.com).