Scientists reveal scroll’s secrets using X-rays

A 1,700-YEAR-OLD scroll dug up near the Dead Sea in 1970 has finally been read thanks to a new imaging technique. When it was found, the artefact that came to be known as the Ein Gedi Scroll was so delicate that just touching its surface made pieces flake off. Any attempt to open it up would have destroyed the object. But using a new X-ray imaging technique, scientists from the University of Kentucky created a picture of the writing inside the scroll without unwrapping it. The text, in Hebrew, turned out to be the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus.