For generations, archaeologists and biblical scholars alike have struggled with how to precisely date the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps the most important trove of documents ever discovered from the ancient world. Now, however, a new source of answers may be emerging. Using artificial intelligence (AI), a team of scholars has developed a model that can apply and cross-reference close paleographic analysis (which examines the shapes of letters) and radiocarbon dating on a scale not previously achievable, in order to arrive at secure dates for individual scrolls. To train their AI model, which they named Enoch, the researchers supplied radiocarbon data […]
