Powerful X-Ray found to Read Dead Sea Scrolls

Scientists are now using powerful x-rays to read the ancient writings from Dead Sea Scrolls. This is done for the first time by scientific team Cardiff University, Wales. This effective team will examine unusual and unread fragments of those scrolls that are actually believed to shed light on how the texts appear to be written in caverns along the north-west coast of sea, which is about 2,000 years ago. The x-ray method is going to give the team a chance to read ancient texts that considered too delicate to open.

They would see the texts using x-rays produced at GBP360m diamond light source available in Didcot, England. This machine works by driving electrons at high speeds around a massive tunnel. As they bend, it produce x-rays 100 billion times superior than a normal medical x-ray. Researchers have developed computer software, which could ‘unravel’ x-ray images of real rolled up parchment texts to expose the writing, even if the parchment has text on other side. This x-ray machine helps scientists could examine sheets of parchment in such detail, which they could determine how badly degraded they are over distances of about one thousand of a millimeter. In case, they are poorly degraded then the researchers need to use another new technique to read them without taking any risk of destroying them.