Five of the most important Dead Sea Scrolls are now
available to view online - some 2,000 years after they were written.
In a project launched by Israel's national museum and
Google, the scrolls can now be viewed in ultra-high resolution on the internet,
decades after they were discovered.
The scrolls now online include the biblical Book of Isaiah
and the manuscript known as the Temple Scroll.
Web users can search high-resolution images of the scrolls
for specific passages, zoom in and out, and translate verses into English.
The originals are kept in a secured vault in a Jerusalem
building constructed specifically to house the scrolls.
Web users can search high-res images of the scrolls for
specific passages
Access requires at least three different keys, a magnetic
card and a secret code.
The texts are written mainly on papyrus or parchment and in
some cases only small fragments remain.
The five scrolls are among those purchased by Israeli
researchers between 1947 and 1967 from antiquities dealers, having first been
found by Bedouin shepherds in the Judean Desert.
The scrolls are considered by many to be the most
significant archaeological find of the 20th century.
Scroll custodians are criticised for allowing monopoly by
small circle of scholars
It is widely believed they were written or collected by a
Jewish sect that fled Jerusalem for the desert 2,000 years ago and settled at
Qumran, on the banks of the Dead Sea.
The hundreds of manuscripts that survived, partially or in
full, in caves near the site, have shed light on the development of the Hebrew
Bible and the origins of Christianity.
The most complete scrolls are held by the Israel Museum, with
more pieces and smaller fragments found in other institutions and private
collections.
Tens of thousands of fragments from 900 Dead Sea manuscripts
are held by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which has separately begun its
own project to put them online in conjunction with Google.
Photography work on the project began earlier this month in
conjunction with a former Nasa scientist.
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