Iron Age Hebrew Ostraca in the Silicon Age: Computerized Paleography

The field of Hebrew Iron Age epigraphy is important for the domains of Biblical archaeology, the history of ancient Israel, and Biblical studies. In the course of our interdisciplinary project, we developed methods that pertain to the fields of applied mathematics, computer science, statistics, and physics, to advance the fields of epigraphy and palaeography. Our study started with building a multispectral system that acquires better images of the inscriptions. A particularly striking product of our methodology is the discovery of a hitherto invisible text on the verso of the thoroughly studied Arad 16 ostracon, unnoticed for half a century. It continued with the development of algorithms for character restoration, facsimile creation, and the construction of paleographic tables. Later, we proposed a method for ancient handwriting comparison and compared between 18 texts of the Arad corpus. The newly devised algorithm reconstructs the ancient letters, extracts their features, and performs a handwriting comparison. The results (published in PNAS) indicate at least six different authors across the Judahite military chain of command ca. 600 BCE. This implies a high level ofliteracy rate within Judah’s administrative apparatus before the kingdom`s destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE.