Moscow. April 23. INTERFAX.RU – Scientists from the University of Groningen, thanks to the method of handwriting analysis based on artificial intelligence (AI), came to the conclusion that the Dead Sea scrolls were written by two people, according to ABC News.
Originally in the Isaiah scroll, as noted by scholars, the scribe's handwriting was the same throughout, and most assumed that it was written by the same person. But the latest analysis using computers and artificial intelligence showed that two people wrote the manuscript on parchment.
“We were quite surprised to see such clear evidence that the work on the manuscript was split in half,” said study co-author and theological historian Mladen Popovic. According to him, the find may shed light on the “culture of scribes.” The fact that the two scribes repeated each other's handwriting may indicate that they studied together. At the same time, the authors are unknown, since there are no dates or signatures in the ancient manuscripts.
The team of scholars hopes to create profiles of individual scribes as the study of Qumran written sources progresses to identify those who wrote them.
The scrolls were first discovered in 11 Qumran caves in the Judean Desert in 1947. The find includes about 972 ancient manuscripts in thousands of fragments. They date back to the period from the 3rd century BC. e. to the 1st century A.D. e.
