Researchers have revealed the hidden contents of a fragile and damaged biblical scroll, thanks to computer scanning and imaging techniques.

Credit: Seales et al./Sci. Adv.

The En-Gedi scroll dates back to at least the fourth century AD — the oldest Hebrew scroll found, other than the Dead Sea Scrolls — and cannot be unrolled without causing further damage. William Seales at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and his colleagues used X-rays to scan the scroll, and developed software, called “virtual unwrapping”, to digitally reconstruct the 'pages' and words of the ancient artefact (pictured). They found that the ink-based text, discovered in 1970, contains fragments of the Book of Leviticus.

Sci. Adv. 2, e1601247 (2016)