More on the rephotographing of the DSS in Minnesota

MORE ON THE REPHOTOGRAPHING OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS in Minnesota:

Megavision's website describes the technology used:

High- resolution photography and multi-spectral imaging [capture] high resolution images over 12 or more spectral bands from the near UV to the near IR. The spectral bands are created not by using band pass filters to filter reflected light, but by using narrow-band LED illumination which subjects the treasure to only the light energy that is required to expose a highly sensitive monochrome sensor.

The photographic images displayed on a wide computer screen are brown-gold, with black Hebrew script, just the way they look on the black background beneath the camera. All of the images produced with different parts of the light spectrum have been digitally combined, explains Ken Boydston, president of MegaVision, who is demonstrating the photography along with Greg Bearman of SnapShot Spectra. On the screen, many times larger than life, we can see faint lines, and the script marching along beneath them. Boydston zooms in on the edge of one fragment, where we see a tiny, illegible blotch.

The next image is black-and-white, the infra-red version of the same scroll fragments. The computer zooms in on the same blotch at the edge of the fragment of scroll. Under the infrared imaging, the blotch resolves into a shin, a Hebrew letter. From the discovery of the scrolls in 1947 until now, this shin has been hidden, invisible to the eyes of scholars.

Background here.