The 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the oldest, historically richest and most fragile religious texts in the world, are to be made available to more than a billion internet users thanks to a plan to put digitised images of the manuscripts online from next year. One side effect is that the delicate parchment and papyrus fragments on which the text is written will not need to be exposed to the damaging effects of light and air to be read, thanks to the collaboration between Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
The Scrolls, which among much else contain every book of the Hebrew Bible apart from Esther, are currently kept in darkened, temperature-controlled rooms at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, where only four specially trained employees are permitted to handle the precious documents. No more than two scholars at a time are allowed to inspect the originals at once.
The IAA has said that the innovation – which, thanks to a new system developed by the US company MegaVision, will allow imaging in the highest resolution possible – will ensure the preservation of the texts for many generations to come. The IAA said the technologies will make it possible to "image the entire collection of 900 manuscripts comprising around 30,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments".
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