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Dating ancient artifacts is very difficult. Experts have a number of techniques they can use to get close, but there are limitations that often can’t be overcome without additional information. That said, sometimes you get lucky, like the researchers investigating the famousDead Sea Scrollsdid when they realized that the author wrote the dates of creation directly on several of the pages.
However, not every scroll was labeled, and as a result, the undated Dead Sea Scrolls have been much harder for scientists to pin down. But when newtechnologiesarise, things can change.
According to a new study—in which scientists used AI modeling to study handwriting styles across ancientmanuscriptswith known dates—some of the undated Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed. Mladen Popovic (from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands) and his research team claim that their work not only re-dates some Dead Sea Scrolls, but could open a new way to place undated manuscripts on the timeline of ancient history. The teampublishedtheir findings in the open-access journalPLOS One.
“It is very exciting to set a significant step in solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a newtoolthat could be used to study other partially dated manuscripts from history,” the authors wrote in astatement. “This would not have been possible without the collaboration between so many different scientific disciplines.”
The process started with a bounty of ancient texts used to help build datasets. The team parsed through historic manuscripts from various sites in modern-day Israel and the West Bank and used radiocarbon dating to estimate the ages of thedocuments. The team then trained a machine-learning model to understand the handwriting styles of each document in direct relation to the historic date of the manuscript.
The AI model—dubbed Enoch, after the prominent biblical figure—then merged the two datasets. The goal of the work is to be able to “objectively determine an approximate age range” of a manuscript based solely on thehandwritingstyle on the document.
During testing, the scholars said that Enoch’s age estimates for the 135 Dead Sea Scrolls were “realistic” 79 percent of the time, and non-realistic 21 percent of the time (non-realistic here meaning significantly too old, significantly too young, or indecisive).
The Enoch model, paired withradiocarbon dating, estimates older ages for “many of the Dead Sea Scrolls” than traditional handwriting analysis methods. The authors said that more data and further research could help pinpoint the timelines.
“With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like atime machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible,” the authors wrote in the statement, “especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors.”
Dating ancient artifacts is very difficult. Experts have a number of techniques they can use to get close, but there are limitations that often can’t be overcome without additional information. That said, sometimes you get lucky, like the researchers investigating the famousDead Sea Scrollsdid when they realized that the author wrote the dates of creation directly on several of the pages.
However, not every scroll was labeled, and as a result, the undated Dead Sea Scrolls have been much harder for scientists to pin down. But when newtechnologiesarise, things can change.
According to a new study—in which scientists used AI modeling to study handwriting styles across ancientmanuscriptswith known dates—some of the undated Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than previously believed. Mladen Popovic (from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands) and his research team claim that their work not only re-dates some Dead Sea Scrolls, but could open a new way to place undated manuscripts on the timeline of ancient history. The teampublishedtheir findings in the open-access journalPLOS One.
“It is very exciting to set a significant step in solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a newtoolthat could be used to study other partially dated manuscripts from history,” the authors wrote in astatement. “This would not have been possible without the collaboration between so many different scientific disciplines.”
The process started with a bounty of ancient texts used to help build datasets. The team parsed through historic manuscripts from various sites in modern-day Israel and the West Bank and used radiocarbon dating to estimate the ages of thedocuments. The team then trained a machine-learning model to understand the handwriting styles of each document in direct relation to the historic date of the manuscript.
The AI model—dubbed Enoch, after the prominent biblical figure—then merged the two datasets. The goal of the work is to be able to “objectively determine an approximate age range” of a manuscript based solely on thehandwritingstyle on the document.
During testing, the scholars said that Enoch’s age estimates for the 135 Dead Sea Scrolls were “realistic” 79 percent of the time, and non-realistic 21 percent of the time (non-realistic here meaning significantly too old, significantly too young, or indecisive).
The Enoch model, paired withradiocarbon dating, estimates older ages for “many of the Dead Sea Scrolls” than traditional handwriting analysis methods. The authors said that more data and further research could help pinpoint the timelines.
“With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like atime machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible,” the authors wrote in the statement, “especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors.”
