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The podcast that takes archaeology exactly as seriously as it deserves.
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Monday Jun 23, 2025
Monday Jun 23, 2025
New research combines radiocarbon dating and artificial intelligence to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which turn out to be a bit older than expected. Is this a big rewrite of history or small rejiggering? Anyway, one of us harbors grave doubts, the other is excited about 1 Maccabees, and the third just keeps shouting the word ‘disaggregation!’
15 days ago
It’s early days for evaluating the new report. That some text copies might be earlier than previously thought occasions no surprise, though late-daters (e,g., Gmirkin, Lemche, formerly Nodet) may not approve. 134 as a Qumran start date is out of date, Check Magness and Mizzi. The Larry Schiffman characterization, imo, also out of date. Dismissing Qumran’s many inkwells--by an archaeologist?! Some cave deposits were carefully made, not quick wartime stash.
16 days ago
Thanks!
17 days ago
Unfortunately the paper referenced at 4m40s doesn’t have a link in the programme notes, nor does the platform allow links in comments. Here’s the title and lead author, anyway, which locates it pretty quickly in a websearch: “Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis”, by Mladen Popović et al. DOI is `10 . 1371 / journal . pone . 0323185` but remove the spaces.