IT and Culture: Dead Sea Scrolls go online

On September 26 2011 Google announced that the collection of Dead Sea Scrolls had become accessible online. This has become possible due to the project of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem powered by Google technology.

Written between the third and first centuries BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. In 68 BCE, they were hidden in 11 caves in the Judean desert on the shores of the Dead Sea to protect them from the approaching Roman armies. They weren’t discovered again until 1947. Since 1965, the scrolls have been on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among other topics, the scrolls offer critical insights into life and religion in ancient Jerusalem, including the birth of Christianity.

Now, anyone around the world can study five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera. You can click directly on the Hebrew text and get an English translation. What is more, while you’re there you may leave a comment.

“This partnership with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem is part of our larger effort to bring important cultural and historical collections online. We are thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, helping design the web experience and making it searchable and accessible to the world. We’ve been involved in similar projects in the past, including the Google Art Project and the Prado Museum in Madrid. We encourage organizations interested in partnering with us in our effort to archive historical collections to enter their information in the form available on the website”, reads the message of Internet giant.