Bruce Zuckerman holds on to humanity’s past through digital photography that captures a world of minute detail
For Bruce Zuckerman, a picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words. As an authority on ancient Semitic and biblical texts, he can tell you how a letter worn off the surface of parchment — or even the leg of a letter — can change the meaning of an entire passage and our understanding of history along with it.As I've mentioned before, I was Professor Zuckerman's research assistant back in 1983 when I was an MA student at UCLA and he was preparing for his first big photographic foray in the Louvre. This article notes the Project's training program for academic with "RTI kits customized for fieldwork" and it has new information about the recent use of his techniques in Southeast Asia and Korea. It concludes:
As a doctoral student in the 1970s, nothing was more frustrating to him than a fuzzy photo of a hard to read inscription. That’s when he had a revelation: You can’t expect scholars to produce research-quality images or photographers to know what features of an ancient language to highlight during image documentation. But what if you could combine their skills?
Our whole philosophy has been to empower scholars to use technology effectively. If scholars control the technology, they do better work.
“If you have this disconnect between the person doing the documentation and the person doing the analysis, it’s a real problem,” said Zuckerman, professor of religion and linguistics at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “You have to know what you’re looking for.”
Delicate, ancient texts
For the past 30 years, Zuckerman and his team of researchers have dedicated themselves to preserving cultural history. As director of USC’s West Semitic Research Project, he and his team have documented delicate, ancient texts and objects and distributed their images to thousands of scholars around the world
For Zuckerman, contributing to global scholarship provides more than personal satisfaction. There’s a responsibility in holding on to humanity’s past. The work of ancient scribes are monuments to civilization, Zuckerman said, capturing parts of the human story for future generations.Need I say it? Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.
He sees his work with RTI technology as the 21st-century version of the same effort.
“We’ve photographed Dead Sea Scrolls even as they slowly deteriorate before our eyes,” Zuckerman said. “The Dead Sea Scrolls were themselves at the end of a long tradition. We are an extension of that tradition as we help our colleagues reclaim the common heritage that is our ancient past.”
Background on Bruce Zuckerman and the West Semitic Research Project is here with many links.
UPDATE (24 June): Bad link now fixed. Sorry about that.
