Inscriptifact updates

INSCRIPTIFACT UPDATES – Bruce Zuckerman e-mails:

Thought everyone might be interested in an article I just posted and which can be downloaded at:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/DynamicsDSS/

The reason the article needs to be downloaded is that it contains a lot of animated illustrations and is therefore too big simply to send as an attachment.

It is written in In-Design and readable through Adobe Reader 9 or higher (which, if you don't have it, is a free download, as is explained in the cover note on the site).

There are distinct limitations to what one can do in this format, but it was, to date, the best one I could find for an article of this nature.

This article (expanded from a print version in the recently published Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls [Eerdmans 2010] edited by Maxine Grossman) summarizes my perspective on the methodological issues involved with the study of DSS in a digital environment using the currently available imaging tools.

Featured in the article (toward the end) are "reflectance transformation images" of the Dead Sea Scrolls we photographed in the Syrian Orthodox Church collection in Teaneck NJ. As far as I am aware, these images are the first RTI images ever done of DSS. The impact of RTI imaging—especially for the paleography of DSS—is preliminarily assessed in the article.

At the same time, InscriptiFact (8.6) has just been released and this contains a comprehensive set of ALL the images we did in NJ, including RTI images.

InscriptiFact 8.6 is a major upgrade that has been moved to a new server with new hardware. So it needs to be reinstalled by ALL users. It also contains a full set of images of the "Vision of Gabriel" inscription, more images of the Persepolis Fortification Archive and many other things as well.

For current InscriptiFact users, it will be necessary to go to

http://ruth.usc.edu:7060/index.jsp

and click on the "InscriptiFact Banner" to reinstall the database. It should take less than a minute.

Those who wish to register for InscriptiFact for the first time, should go to www.inscriptifact.com and download and send in a signed "Use Agreement" (either as a PDF attachment, a fax, or even by conventional mail) as instructed. They will be assigned a user name and password which will be sent to them by email. Use of InscriptiFact is free of charge.

Anyone who encounters difficulty downloading or using my article, should contact me at bzuckerm@usc.edu.

Should anyone run into technical glitches reinstalling InscriptiFact they should contact Li Hunt at lihunt@usc.edu.

For more on Professor Zuckerman's work, go here and here and follow the links.