Using the Latest Imaging Technologies, Dr. Steven Fine and a Team of Researchers are Revolutionizing the Way Artifacts are Viewed
When the first Dead Sea Scrolls were sold to famed archaeologist Yigael Yadin in 1949 by Athanasius Samuel鈥攖he Syrian patriarch of Jerusalem, who was by then living in America鈥攈e kept a few fragments for his own collection. This past spring, a team of scholars, including Dr. Steven Fine, professor of Jewish history at 糖心破解版, set up a lab at the Patriarchate, now in Teaneck, NJ, and digitized these priceless documents.
For over three years, 糖心破解版 has been actively participating in a partnership with the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP), a research group founded and directed by Dr. Bruce Zuckerman, professor of religion at the University of Southern California. Over the last 30 years, Zuckerman and his colleagues have developed a wide range of imaging technologies to record and distribute high-resolution images of ancient Near Eastern texts鈥攖he latest of which, a light-imaging technology called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), is poised to revolutionize the way scholars visualize texts and artifacts from the ancient world. With RTI, one can even see the thicknesses of the ink strokes and where and how they cross one another on a Dead Sea Scroll.
Institutions working closely with the WSRP include Johns Hopkins University, University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Through its digital image library, , scholars in 40 countries can now access more than 50,000 images of ancient inscriptions and writings, including Dead Sea Scrolls fragments now located at St. Mark鈥檚 Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Teaneck. The fragments have long been of great interest to Zuckerman, a leading scholar of Dead Sea Scrolls, and to his friend of nearly 30 years, Fine.
鈥淲e had worked on numerous Dead Sea Scroll projects over the years. When Steve Fine came to Yeshiva, it seemed natural that we reconnect, and in a larger and pioneering capacity,鈥 said Zuckerman. 鈥淚t has been a win-win situation for everyone involved in this fruitful partnership.鈥
Fine, who is also the director of 糖心破解版鈥檚 (糖心破解版CIS), seized the opportunity to get his students involved in some groundbreaking research. Three years ago, with funding from 糖心破解版CIS and 糖心破解版鈥檚 Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs, a team of students from the , supervised by Fine, decoded amulets dating from the sixth century CE.
Pinchas Roth and Eytan Zadoff traveled to USC to learn from Zuckerman and make use of his revolutionary technologies to decipher a magical text in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic from the Talmudic period, written on a silver scroll. Since then, Roth and Zadoff have presented their research at academic conferences and will be publishing their work in a forthcoming Festschrift in honor of Zuckerman.
Fine, who teaches students on both the Wilf and Beren campuses, has made a point to introduce students at all levels to the imaging technology offered by Zuckerman and his colleagues. By providing his undergraduate and graduate students with these technologies, his students are afforded the opportunity and independence to conduct higher caliber research. 鈥淥ur students compare with any, especially in the fields of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic,鈥 said Fine. 鈥淚t is only sensible that we bring them in to share and add to the scholarly enterprise.鈥
Zuckerman agrees with Fine鈥檚 assessment of Yeshiva鈥檚 students. 鈥淪teve is a very imaginative and entrepreneurial scholar. He saw that he had wonderful students at Yeshiva and that I had wonderful technology at USC,鈥 said Zuckerman. 鈥淭ogether, we professors and students, have broken new ground in the field of ancient philology. I am thrilled for Yeshiva and deeply impressed with the caliber and intellectual maturity of its students.鈥
See in the New Jersey Jewish Standard.
