the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

10 DIGITAL MIRACLES
of the text columns and the distance from neighboring columns of the
scroll have pinpointed the origin of the newly revealed characters. Since
we are not biblical scholars, we will not try to define or interpret the new
information. We will restrict ourselves to describing how these characters
and their origins were discovered.
The Temple Scroll has regions where the parchment is in good condition
and regions where it has degraded. Consider figure 4, which shows
the scroll from column 15 (on the right) to column 18 (on the left). In the
degraded regions, the parchment is very dark, and the low contrast
makes the characters difficult to distinguish, let alone to read. Without
access to the actual scroll, the technique of generating images in “invisible”
infrared light cannot be used to improve the legibility of the characters.
Instead, we were able to enhance the characters in the degraded
regions by scanning and digitally enhancing the photographs of the scroll.
The key to the digital enhancement technique lies in the nature of the
degradation—it is a change in color of the parchment. Although it cannot
be seen in figure 4, the background in the degraded regions is a dark
orange, while the characters are black. It is the similarity in brightness
between the characters and the background that makes the characters difficult
to see. The key to digitally enhancing the characters is to recognize
that there may be a significant color difference between characters and
background even where there is little difference in brightness. This color
Figure 4: These four columns of the Temple Scroll were scanned from
two photographs provided by Ken and Bruce Zuckerman and electronically
combined to form one image. On the far left is column 18 and on
the right is column 15. The dashed lines indicate where new characters
were found, while the solid lines indicate their origin.