Digital Latin Library

I recently learned from Hugh Cayless about the Digital Latin Library, a very useful resource for accessing digital editions of Latin literature. They also provide a number of helpful videos reflecting on the work of textual criticism in Latin literature.

Radiocarbon Dating, AI, and Paleography

Mladen Popovic et al. have published their long-anticipated article from the ERC project at the University of Groningen entitled The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The article describes the process of extracting new radiocarbon dates from a selection of Dead Sea Scrolls, digitally extracting quantifiable features of their scripts, and building an automated date estimation system called "Enoch." Roughly 80% of the resulting estimates agree with traditional, qualitative paleographical datings, but the results of both the radiocarbon dating and Enoch predictions suggests that several manuscripts throughout the series may well have been earlier than commonly supposed. This research moves the field forward considerably by adding quantitative, computational tools to aid paleographers that are not dependent upon conventional models for script development. In many cases, these new tools support previous approaches by grounding them in more secure dates derived from scientific analysis of the material remains instead of the handwriting style. But the results sometimes challenge conventional wisdom and have potential to help refine our understanding of Hebrew script development in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Congratulations to everyone involved for a job well done and a significant contribution to the field!

For a popular-level news report on the publication, see Science.

*Disclaimer: I worked with Mladen et al. on the project for several years during the foundational stages of the research, but I was not a co-author for this academic article.

Update on the Virtual Unrolling of Herculaneum Papyri

The Economist gives a useful update on progress virtually unrolling the Herculaneum scrolls, which is one of the more exciting technological advances in manuscript studies today.

Ezekiel Papyrus in Madrid

Sofia Torallas Tovar gives a good discussion of Ra 967, parts of which are on display currently in Madrid. They have compiled digital images of the entire manuscript, which will be nice to have for such an important manuscript.