Scripta Qumranica Electronica: Dead Sea scrolls aggregated database and virtual research environment

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The proposed project is a collaboration of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars with computer scientists for the digitalization of the Dead Sea Scrolls (henceforth: DSS). This is to be achieved by enhancing and linking the robust databases administered by the participating institutions, by developing advanced digital tools for linking texts and images, and by developing new end-user applications for the publication of critical digital editions.The main aims of the project are:(1) Creating a standardized environment for collaborative production of Scrolls editions, based on a robust interlinked dynamic database of texts, images and annotations. This environment will be mediated to the end user by means of a groundbreaking interface for textual editions, supplying flexible user-defined views of the edition.(2) Producing several exemplary editions utilizing and testing this environment. These will serve the scholarly community in producing other editions.(3) Enhancing the usability of the huge repository of spectral images in the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), by means of a suite of algorithmic tools. These tools will enable mining data from the images and discovering connections between images and/or texts.(4) Enhancing the Göttingen Qumran-Wörterbuch database, a powerful lexical database collected over the past 12 years, by means of various innovative query mechanisms and statistical data evaluation tools for extracting information from it.The main outcome of the suggested project will be in the form of the following products:a. An enhanced hands-on workspace for scholars examining fragments, inspired by the successful similar environment in the Cairo Genizah (Friedberg) Website. This environment will be hosted in the IAA website. It will feature advanced tools for clustering fragments, suggesting joins and jigsaw-puzzling them, as well as monitoring the material reconstructions of scrolls. The environment will also offer paleographic tools and an alignment tool connecting text and image.b. A standardized environment for collaborative production and presentation of DSS editions, which will allow the reader not only access to the 'text' of a given composition, but also access to its distinct copies, to high-res images of the fragments (by means of API linking to the IAA website), to dictionary entries and to parallel texts.c. New editions of the following scrolls and compositions: Damascus Document (Göttingen); The Book of Samuel (Göttingen); Serekh Ha'Edah (Haifa); 4QInstruction (Haifa); Serekh HaYahad (Haifa in collaboration with Paris).d. An inventory collecting and recording all variants of biblical texts in the DSS according to a multi-dimensional classification scheme. Scholars will be able to access this database by searching a given word and/or searching for any of the multiple elements recorded in the system.