The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Professor Mladen Popović of the University of Groningen an Advanced Grant worth €2.5 million for a five-year international research project addressing one of the most fundamental questions in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship: Where were the scrolls produced and copied, and what can their origins reveal about centers of learning, scribal culture and the transmission of knowledge in ancient Judea?
The project, “Tracing Scribes and Scrolls,” brings together researchers from the University of Groningen, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and leading laboratories and research institutions across Europe. By combining advanced chemical analysis, artificial intelligence, paleography and codicology, the research aims to reconstruct the geographical and cultural contexts in which the scrolls were created.
Qumran. Photo: Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which are held under the care of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, are among the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. They include the earliest known manuscripts of many books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as a remarkable collection of Jewish literary works from the late Second Temple period. Despite decades of research, the precise locations where many of the scrolls were produced, prepared and copied remain unknown.
Were at least some of the scrolls written at Qumran by a secluded Jewish community living there? Were others brought from additional scribal centers in Judea, perhaps from Jerusalem, and hidden in the caves during times of danger? Or did the caves also serve as a library or as a kind of ancient genizah? These questions lie at the heart of the new project.
Professor Popović, one of the world’s leading experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls, will lead a multidisciplinary team of historians, archaeologists, materials scientists, chemists and artificial intelligence specialists over the next five years. ERC Advanced Grants are among Europe’s most prestigious research awards and support internationally recognized scholars in carrying out ambitious, high-impact scientific research.
In close cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the team will analyze approximately 250 samples from the Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls collection, including parchment, papyrus and ink. For the first time, papyri from Egypt will be examined alongside papyri from Qumran and other sites in the Judean Desert, allowing researchers to compare their chemical signatures directly. These analyses are intended to help identify the scrolls’ “fingerprints,” determine the origins of their raw materials, uncover production methods and reveal connections between different centers of scribal activity.
The conservation of the scrolls from the Judean Desert in the Israel Antiquities Authority laboratories in Jerusalem. Photo: Emil Aljam.
The chemical data will be processed using advanced artificial intelligence tools capable of identifying complex patterns that are difficult to detect through conventional analysis. These findings will then be combined with paleographic studies of handwriting, codicological analysis of the scrolls’ physical construction—including sheet preparation, column layout, margins and stitching techniques—as well as linguistic and literary evidence.
Together, these complementary approaches will allow researchers to develop an unprecedented model for mapping the more than 25,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments held by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The project aims to place individual manuscripts and scribes within their geographical and chronological contexts, while also identifying centers of writing, learning, literary production and knowledge transmission in ancient Judea—and possibly beyond.
Approximately 25,000 scroll fragments are being restored in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Judean Desert Scrolls Unit in Jerusalem. Image: Israel Antiquities Authority.
According to Professor Mladen Popović of the University of Groningen, the project’s lead researcher:
“This is the largest research project to date using artificial intelligence to investigate the cultural context of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“These manuscripts offer an extraordinary window into the intellectual world of ancient Judea. By combining advanced laboratory analysis with the study of ancient handwriting and the remarkable advances in artificial intelligence made in recent years, we are now able to address questions that were previously beyond our reach: Who copied these manuscripts? Where were they produced? How was knowledge transmitted? And what role did these texts play in the society of their time?”
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