by Yori Yalon and Israel Hayom Staff
Computer scientists and Dead Sea Scrolls scholars to collaborate in $1.8 million project to develop "dynamic research environment" for creating and publishing new editions • Project funded by German research body, headed by Israel Antiquities Authority.
Researchers and guests will
be able to virtually piece together the thousands of Dead Sea Scrolls
fragments
|
Photo credit: Shai Halevi / Israel Antiquities Authority  |
Computer scientists and Dead Sea Scrolls
scholars are set to embark on a new collaborative research partnership
to create a dynamic virtual work environment for the study of one of the
most important discoveries of the 20th century -- the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The conservation laboratory of the Israel
Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, which tends to thousands of the
2,000-year-old scroll fragments, is heading the endeavor.
"Almost 70 years since the initial discovery
[of the scrolls], ongoing technological developments now allow ever more
innovative analyses and insights into these ancient manuscripts," the
IAA said on its website.
The new project is being funded to the tune of
1.6 million euros ($1.8 million) by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(German-Israeli Project Cooperation, or DFG), the largest independent
research funding organization in Germany.
Through the universities of Haifa, Tel Aviv,
and Gottingen, in cooperation with the IAA, the project will develop
tools that will enable the creation and publication of a new generation
of critical digital editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rich in
information and updatable.
The "dynamic research environment for studying
the Dead Sea Scrolls will be achieved by linking the robust databases
and resources of the project: the Qumran-Lexicon-project of the
Gottingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Leon Levy Dead Sea
Scrolls Digital Library of the IAA," the IAA said.
It said the main outcomes of the project will
be an "enhanced hands-on virtual workspace that will allow scholars
around the world to work together simultaneously, as well as a new
platform for collaborative production and publication of Dead Sea
Scrolls editions."
During the 1950s and early 1960s, thousands of
scroll fragments were discovered, some in tiny pieces. Researchers have
since been working on joining the fragments to one another. Now, as
part of the project, advanced digital tools will be developed for
suggesting new ways to join them. These tools, the IAA hopes, will help
researchers identify connections between various fragments and
manuscripts.
The environment will also offer paleographic tools and
an alignment tool connecting text and image that will enable simple
transitions between the databases. The IAA says readers will be able to
access the original text of a scroll, up-to-date translations,
high-resolution images, dictionary entries and parallel texts. All these
developments will be published on the IAA Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls
Digital Library website.
Yori Yalon and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=31963
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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