TY - JOUR
T1 - Multispectral imaging reveals biblical-period inscription unnoticed for half a century
AU - Faigenbaum-Golovin, Shira
AU - Mendel-Geberovich, Anat
AU - Shaus, Arie
AU - Sober, Barak
AU - Cordonsky, Michael
AU - Levin, David
AU - Moinester, Murray
AU - Sass, Benjamin
AU - Turkel, Eli
AU - Piasetzky, Eli
AU - Finkelstein, Israel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Faigenbaum-Golovin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2017/6
Y1 - 2017/6
N2 - Most surviving biblical period Hebrew inscriptions are ostraca - ink-on-clay texts. They are poorly preserved and once unearthed, fade rapidly. Therefore, proper and timely documentation of ostraca is essential. Here we show a striking example of a hitherto invisible text on the back side of an ostracon revealed via multispectral imaging. This ostracon, found at the desert fortress of Arad and dated to ca. 600 BCE (the eve of Judah's destruction by Nebuchadnezzar), has been on display for half a century. Its front side has been thoroughly studied, while its back side was considered blank. Our research revealed three lines of text on the supposedly blank side and four "new" lines on the front side. Our results demonstrate the need for multispectral image acquisition for both sides of all ancient ink ostraca. Moreover, in certain cases we recommend employing multispectral techniques for screening newly unearthed ceramic potsherds prior to disposal.
AB - Most surviving biblical period Hebrew inscriptions are ostraca - ink-on-clay texts. They are poorly preserved and once unearthed, fade rapidly. Therefore, proper and timely documentation of ostraca is essential. Here we show a striking example of a hitherto invisible text on the back side of an ostracon revealed via multispectral imaging. This ostracon, found at the desert fortress of Arad and dated to ca. 600 BCE (the eve of Judah's destruction by Nebuchadnezzar), has been on display for half a century. Its front side has been thoroughly studied, while its back side was considered blank. Our research revealed three lines of text on the supposedly blank side and four "new" lines on the front side. Our results demonstrate the need for multispectral image acquisition for both sides of all ancient ink ostraca. Moreover, in certain cases we recommend employing multispectral techniques for screening newly unearthed ceramic potsherds prior to disposal.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020711353&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0178400
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0178400
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C2 - 28614416
AN - SCOPUS:85020711353
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 12
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 6
M1 - e0178400
ER -