The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library: The Digitization Project of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The digitization project of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) was first conceived as yet another conservation effort to preserve the scrolls. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) set out to develop a non-invasive monitoring methodology of their physical state, based on multi-spectral images. Once the IAA realized that they were going to create the best possible images to date and since all of the scrolls have been formally published, they decided to conduct a comprehensive digitization project in addition to developing a monitoring system. The IAA would image all of the DSS, including thousands of fragments, add their metadata, and put everything online, making it available to the public and the scholarly world alike in a way never before imagined.