European-Funded Project Uses AI and Chemistry to Trace Origins of Dead Sea Scrolls

A new international research project funded by a prestigious 2.5 million euro grant from the European Research Council (ERC) aims to uncover where the Dead Sea Scrolls were written and produced. The project, named Tracing Scribes and Scrolls, is led by Professor Malden Popović from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, a leading expert on the scrolls. Over the next five years, a multidisciplinary team of humanities scholars, chemists, material scientists, and artificial intelligence specialists will analyze the scrolls using innovative methods.

Unlike previous studies that focused mainly on the scrolls' content and handwriting, this research will examine the chemical composition of the ink, parchment, and papyrus, alongside codicological and paleographical analyses. By integrating these data with AI tools, the team hopes to identify material and stylistic "fingerprints" to determine whether the scrolls were produced at a single site, multiple writing centers in Judea including Jerusalem, or brought from other regions and hidden in the Judean Desert caves.

The project will analyze approximately 250 samples of parchment and papyrus from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection held by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). For the first time, papyrus samples from Egypt will also be studied and compared to those from Qumran and other Judean Desert sites. This chemical comparison may reveal the origin of raw materials, production routes, and connections between different writing centers.

Data collected in the laboratory will be processed using AI systems to detect complex chemical patterns. These findings will be combined with handwriting and codicological studies, including the scrolls' structure, column arrangement, margins, and assembly. Linguistic and literary analyses will also contribute. Ultimately, the researchers aim to build a comprehensive model to map the scrolls in time and space, identify centers of writing, study, and knowledge dissemination in ancient Judea, and shed new light on cultural and educational networks active over two millennia ago.

Dr. Ilit Cohen-Ofri from the IAA, a partner in the research, emphasized the project's significance: "This study will create an unprecedented database on the chemical composition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The IAA is committed to preserving, documenting, and sharing knowledge about the scrolls and recognizes the importance of understanding the materials, parchment, papyrus, and ink, that may reveal secrets hidden within fragments that survived for centuries. Participating in such a large-scale international project allows us to apply our expertise to answer key questions that intrigue scholars and the public worldwide."