The researchers say that many Dead Sea manuscripts may be older than what was previously thought, with some biblical texts dating back to the time of their original authors.
The first ancient manuscripts were discovered in the caves of Qumran in the Judea desert by Badwin shepherds in the mid -twentieth century. The manuscripts range from legal documents to parts of the Hebrew Bible, and are believed to date from the third century BC to the second century.
Researchers have now used artificial intelligence to stimulate new visions on the dates of individual coils – experts suggest that experts can unite ideas about when and where they were produced.
“It is like a time machine. So we can shake hands with these people 2000 years ago, and we can put them in time now,” said Professor Mladen Pubovic, the first author of a research from the University of Grenneenn in the Netherlands.
While some manuscripts were dated radioactive carbon in the 1990s, Bubovic said that scientists did not address the problem of castor oil pollution – a substance applied in the fifties to help experts read the manuscripts, but the results can be tilt.
In addition, only many rolls were dated by handwriting analysis.
Writing in Plos One magazineThe team reported how the number of radioactive carbon dating back to 30 samples of different manuscripts are at four sites and thought about an extension of five centuries. Decally, the team first cleaned samples to remove castor oil pollution.
The researchers succeeded in 27 radio -carbon samples, while two were smaller than handwriting analysis, many were older.
Among the other results, the researchers discovered the various writing development, known as the Al -Hamiman and Hymonan textual programs, coexisted for a long time than previously thought, while a sample of a manuscript called 4Q114 – which contains verses from Daniel’s book – was older than traditional old photography.
“It was a former historian until the end of the second century BC, after a generation after the author of Daniel’s book. Now, with our study we return in time for this author,” said Bubovic.
Then the team used a kind of artificial intelligence known as machine learning to build a model called ENOC – a reference to a biblical figure associated with scientific knowledge.
The team trained ENOCH by feeding 62 digital photos of the effects of ink from 24 radioactive carbon historian manuscripts, with carbon -14 dates.
Then check the model by showing Enoch 13 other photos of the same manuscripts. In 85 % of cases, the model produced the ages that were developed with radioactive carbon dates, and in many cases I produced a smaller group of possible dates from obtaining it from the radioactive Crohn that dates back alone.
“What we created is a very powerful tool that depends experimentally – based on physics and engineering,” said Bubovic.
When pictures of 135 non -historical manuscripts have not seen before, it was realisticly dated 79 % of them – as ruled by photographers experts. Popovich added those who are considered unrealistic who may have problematic data, such as poor quality images.
The regime has already produced new visions, including that a copy of the Bible book dates back to the time of the supposed author.
Bubovic said that INOC means that the age of more blows can now be discovered without radioactive carbon dating – a process that requires the destruction of small samples.
He said: “There are more than 1000 manuscripts of the dead sea manuscripts, so our study is a first but important step, and the door opens to history with new possibilities for research.”
The results will have a significant impact on moon studies.
She said: “These results mean that most of the manuscripts in the caves near Qumran were not written on the Qumran site, which has not been occupied until later.”
However, Dr. Matthew Collins warned of the University of Chester that radioactive carbon that is only light on the era of slavery, not when writing it, while there were also questions about the extent of representation of the small number of training samples for different periods.
“In general, this is an important and welcome study, which may provide us with an important new tool in our warehouse of the history of these texts,” he said. “However, it is that we should adopt it with caution, and with careful communication with other evidence.”
