From damage to discovery via virtual unwrapping: Reading the scroll from En-Gedi.
Computer imaging techniques are commonly used to preserve and share readable manuscripts, but capturing writing locked away in ancient, deteriorated documents poses an entirely different challenge. This software pipeline-referred to as "virtual unwrapping"-allows textual artifacts to be read completely and noninvasively. The systematic digital analysis of the extremely fragile En-Gedi scroll (the oldest Pentateuchal scroll in Hebrew outside of the Dead Sea Scrolls) reveals the writing hidden on its untouchable, disintegrating sheets. Our approach for recovering substantial ink-based text from a damaged object results in readable columns at such high quality that serious critical textual analysis can occur. Hence, this work creates a new pathway for subsequent textual discoveries buried within the confines of damaged materials.
Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA.
William Brent
0000-0002-5729-6047
WB
Seales
Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA.
Clifford Seth
0000-0002-3887-1237
CS
Parker
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Michael
M
Segal
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Emanuel
E
Tov
Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem, Israel.
Pnina
0000-0003-1245-9874
P
Shor
Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem, Israel.
Yosef
Y
Porath
Micro-CT; digital flattening; digital restoration; segmentation; virtual unwrapping; visualization
IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2004 Oct;26(10):1295-306
15641717
IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2007 Nov;29(11):1904-16
17848773
Nat Commun. 2015 Jan 20;6:5895
25603114
Sci Rep. 2015 Dec 09;5:17765
26648504