Dead Sea Scrolls Put Online
This has got to be one of the biggest cultural stories of the year: Five of the main Dead Sea scrolls, containing some of the oldest-known surviving biblical texts, were on Monday put online as part of a joint project between the Israel Museum and Google.
The project gives the public access to ultra high-resolution images of the ancient scrolls in a format which is easily searchable, with the magnified text revealing details previously invisible to the naked eye, a museum statement said.
So far, five of the scrolls have been digitised as part of the $3.5-million project which uses space-age technology to produce the clearest renderings yet of the ancient texts: the Great Isaiah scroll, the Community Rule scroll, the commentary on Habbakuk, the Temple scroll and the War scroll.
By visiting http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ web users can view all of the text, as well as a translation tool and other background information on the documents, the museum said.
