Scroll over this: Dead Sea Scrolls now online - and your mouse pointer instantly translates into English



The Dead Sea Scrolls, the world's oldest known biblical documents, are now available to read online - and simply scrolling over phrases from one of the 2000-year-old scrolls instantly translates them into English.

'It’s taken 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians, and the Internet to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone in the world,' said a post on the official Google blog today. A Google video of the hi-tech process is below.



The Great Isaiah Scroll - the most famous of the Dead Sea Scrolls - can be translated instantly, simply by moving your mouse over the text

The pictures of the scrolls appear at a resolution of 1,200 megapixels - hundreds of times sharper than even the most expensive professional cameras, created using a 'one-shot' technique where a camera 'scans' for up to 50 minutes to absorb huge amounts of information from artefacts.



It's so sharp it's possible to see the thinness and fragility of the parchment and animal skin the original scrolls were written on - evidence, if any were needed, of why people are only able to pore over them online.

Shai Halevi, a photographer working for the Israel Antiquities Authority, IAA, photographs fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, at the IAA offices at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

The Google tool on the Israel Museum website makes entire scrolls accessible and allows browsers to zoom into the text of the Great Isaiah Scroll as well as read its translation in English.

Dr Adolfo Roitman unveils the Israel Museum's partnership with Google this week

A fragment of the Isaiah scroll - the most famous of the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the mid-twentieth by shepherds

The first fragments of the scrolls - seen inside the vault of the Shrine of the Book building at the Israel Museum - were reportedly sold for under £10 by the shepherds who found them. Their value to scholars is incalculable





Scholars believe the 2,000-year-old scrolls were written by a Jewish sect from Qumran in the Judean Desert and were hidden in the caves around 70AD, when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

A visitor looks at a facsimile of the Isaiah Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, displayed inside the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. From today, though, the scrolls are accessible online

They were discovered by Bedouin shepherds between 1947 and 1956 in caves on the shore of the lake. The online project is a joint venture by Google and the Israel Museum.



'Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful,' said Yossi Matias, Google's research and development chief in Israel.

Analysis: Orit Shamir and Naama Sukenik looked at the materials of the scrolls discovered in Qumran

The scrolls, a collection of 972 holy texts, are extremely fragile. They are on display in sections and rotated every three to four months to minimise exposure to light.



They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, some on parchment, others on papyrus.



Detail: The scholars examined scrolls, similar to the one pictured, and say the plain material is the clue which gives away the authors of the documents

'This gives you a way to understand the beginning of biblical history,' said museum director James Snyder. 'Nothing could be more important.'



'For us, the Dead Sea Scrolls couldn't be a more important iconic cultural artifact.



'Any opportunity for us to bring them to the widest possible public audience and offer the opportunity to really begin to understand what these amazing documents are all about is something that we embrace. '

Mr Matias added: 'The opportunity is amazing here for culture and heritage information.



'We are trying to expand this and address these historical and heritage archives and there are great things that can be done here.'

Yossi Matias, the director of Google R&D Center in Israel, holds up a reproduction of the Psalms Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection

Five of the eight scrolls housed at Israel Museum have been digitised, including the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the War Scroll.



The Great Isaiah Scroll includes the famous quote, 'and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb.'

