Let There Be Light
Words lost in time are revealed
Although he’s not an archaeologist, Bruce Zuckerman unearths treasures
of the past by deciphering ancient inscriptions that have been
illegible through the centuries. Using sophisticated technology,
Zuckerman is bringing words to light that have been lost to time.
For the past 20 years, Zuckerman, with his brother, photographer
Kenneth Zuckerman, has developed advanced photographic techniques for
capturing images of ancient texts from biblical times. This past
summer, for example, the Zuckermans were in Berlin photographing worn
text on the kilt of a 14-foot statue with a nine-foot-high studio
camera stand and large format camera.
The brothers gained national attention in the early 1990s, while
working with a team of scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Together they employed specialized infrared imaging cameras to uncover
a previously undeciphered phrase in a Dead Sea Scroll that made
reference to “the Book of the Words of Noah.”
More recently, a team led by Zuckerman and his colleague Marilyn
Lundberg documented the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions, written
on a cliff face in the Wadi el Hol, literally, “the Gulch of Terror” in
the Sahara desert in southern Egypt. This work was featured on the
front page of the New York Times.
The Zuckermans and Lundberg are the core members of the West Semitic
Research Project (WSRP), a photo archival project that has amassed a
collection of more than 100,000 images of ancient inscriptions
available for study by scholars around the globe.
Now, another chapter in the history of lost texts is about to begin.
Zuckerman, associate professor of religion and director of WSRP;
Lundberg, associate director of WSRP; and Leta Hunt, a software
development expert from the Information Technology Services; have
developed the logical extension to WSRP, a database of the images
collected by WSRP, digitized and organized in a user-friendly format
called InscriptiFact. Hunt serves as associate director of this image
distribution project under Zuckerman’s supervision.
The Internet database prototype became available online in May with a
test set of 840 images. By the end of the year this will be increased
to 5,000 images. Within three years, thanks to a grant from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, it is expected to house more than 20,000
high-resolution images available for use by anyone who registers and
establishes a password online.
Its creators say InscriptiFact is the first of its kind. Other
digitized databases of ancient images are available, but none with the
kind of high-resolution images and advanced search and display features
that are found in InscriptiFact.
“We are the leaders of our field in computer imaging technology,” says
Zuckerman. “We’re collecting the highest quality data we can possibly
get and digitizing them for everyone to use. This will be a tremendous
aid to scholars studying these important texts. And the educational
potential of InscriptiFact for the general public is also significant.”
With curator Lynn Swartz Dodd, Zuckerman also runs the Archaeological
Research Collection in Taper Hall, which houses more than 5,000 ancient
artifacts found in archaeological digs or donated by private
collectors. It is the only such program to allow undergraduates the
opportunity to do sophisticated, mentored, original research on the
material culture of the ancient world, says Zuckerman.
“Our students have done so well in their undergraduate research that
for the five years since the competitive Undergraduate Research
Symposium has been in existence, our students have always won at least
one first prize and usually much more,” he adds. “It’s a record
unmatched by any other program in the university.”
Zuckerman says studying ancient texts can be challenging because in so
many cases, significant portions of the writings are either gone or
obscured so they can no longer be seen. WSRP has harnessed advanced
technologies in photography, computer imaging and enhancement to
reclaim ancient texts—in many cases making their readings available for
the first time since they were written.
“When you have these kind of clear images, you study things
differently,” he adds. “Because of the quality of data, you ask
different questions and get better answers. Because the data is so
detailed, we have to totally rethink our methodology in studying it.
It’s like working on a very big jigsaw puzzle or a crossword puzzle, or
a little of both.”
Reports from Baghdad’s pillaged national museum remind us that texts
from ancient times are highly vulnerable to the tremors of world events
and have been so for centuries. But USC, through WSRP and
InscriptiFact, is ensuring that these ancient messages will be
preserved and made available for future generations.
—Karen Newell Young
|
|
|
