Technology has given a chance to researchers to gain new insight into Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts which are believed to be from the time period between the 8th century BCE and the 11th century CE. 

Since its discovery 70 years earlier, in Israel, researchers have done various researches on the Scrolls. Part of the SCrolls, the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls and also the largest and best-preserved scroll, was previously believed to be the work of one scribe. However, researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have discovered that this is not the case. 

By using artificial intelligence (AI), the researchers have analysed the Great Isaiah Scroll, running at 24 feet long and consuming 17 pieces of parchment. According to the newly published research, was actually written by two scribes with very similar handwriting! The study also revealed the key junctures where the one scribe transitioned into the work of the second scribe. The researchers noticed this instant most in the second half. 

“We will never know their names,” Mladen Popovic, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement. “But after 70 years of study, this feels as if we can finally shake hands with them through their handwriting.”

The AI pattern-recognition technology first singled out the Hebrew letter "aleph" or “a”, which appears in the scroll more than 5,000 times, to identify the unique calligraphy of the two writers. Then, the researchers trained the algorithm using deep learning, to separate the ink of the text from its background, the leather or the papyrus, from the document which is at least 2,000 years ago and then study the characters at the micro-level, such as measuring curvature (called textural), as well as whole characters (called allographic).

The new study was conducted through a project funded by the European Research Council, and the findings were first published in the prestigious scientific journal, PLOS ONE on April 21.

Popović said, "This is very exciting because this opens a new window on the ancient world that can reveal much more intricate connections between the scribes that produced the scrolls. In this study, we found evidence for a very similar writing style shared by the two Great Isaiah Scroll scribes, which suggests a common training or origin. Our next step is to investigate other scrolls, where we may find different origins or training for the scribes.’

"In this way, it will be possible to learn more about the communities who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls since now, we are now able to identify different scribes", Popović concludes.