Lights糖心传媒攔ed, blue, green, orange糖心传媒攆lash in 糖心传媒檚 multispectral imaging lab in the University of Rochester糖心传媒檚 Rush Rhees Library, strategically tucked beside
Under the lights and the lens of a multispectral imaging system is a Torah scroll, probably dating to around 1900. Torah scrolls are long rolls of parchment, each suspended between two wooden rollers and containing the handwritten Hebrew text of the Torah. Now entrusted to the congregation of the in Syracuse, New York, the scroll once belonged to a European congregation糖心传媒攗ntil the Holocaust.
After Nazi forces invaded Bohemia and Moravia in 1939, German authorities ordered the region糖心传媒檚 Jewish congregations to surrender their religious books, liturgical objects, and records. More than 200,000 items were held in , including almost 1,800 Torah scrolls.
In the 1960s, the organization was established in London; it began to purchase the scrolls, documenting them and repairing them, and then placing them with Jewish congregations around the world, creating a sacred, tangible link between them and congregations lost to the Holocaust.
In 1965, Carol Holstein Killian 糖心传媒�70 and her father traveled to London; at the request of their rabbi, they visited the trust and ultimately arranged for the placement of a Torah scroll with their congregation, Temple Concord. The scroll is on permanent loan from the trust and is used by Temple Concord for selected services. Known as MST#149, it came from a synagogue in Pardubice, a town east of Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Last fall, Killian and her husband, Ronald Killian 糖心传媒�70, visited Temple Concord to view the scrolls. They inspected the inscriptions written on thin strips of paper around the edges of the rollers糖心传媒攂ut time and handling had blurred and obscured some of the text. Killian contacted Gregory Heyworth, an associate professor of English, to see if the Lazarus Project could help.
Heyworth calls his research specialty 糖心传媒渢extual science,糖心传媒� and the multi-spectral imaging group he established糖心传媒攖he , a not-for-profit organization糖心传媒攗se different wavelengths of light to photograph and analyze cultural artifacts, using digital imagery to salvage objects whose legibility would otherwise be lost to time.
This March, Killian brought two scrolls糖心传媒擬ST#149 and a similar one also held by Temple Concord, its first congregation unknown糖心传媒攖o Heyworth糖心传媒檚 imaging lab in Rush Rhees Library, to see what could be discovered about the scrolls糖心传媒� origins.
IN PICTURES
(糖心传媒 photos / J. Adam Fenster)
TAKING THE MEASURE: Imaging the text on the edges of the scrolls糖心传媒� wooden rollers 糖心传媒渋s very precise work,糖心传媒� says Heyworth糖心传媒攁nd a learning opportunity for his students, both undergraduate and graduate, who are learning the art of textual science. With Heyworth糖心传媒檚 guidance, students made calculations and adjustments to ensure that the scrolls were rotated by exactly 20 degrees and placed in proper relation to the lights and lens.
PROPER POSITION: Heyworth (left) and Pooja Priya 糖心传媒�20, a student in his Digital Media Studies course, prepare the scrolls for imaging. The process involves photographing artifacts scores or even hundreds of times under different wavelengths of light. The best resulting images are then digitally stitched together to give a complete, enhanced picture of the object.
HIDDEN TEXT: Bands on the scroll rollers contain illegible text, which Heyworth believes could connect the scrolls to a lost congregation. Every Lazarus Project venture involves a designated lead scholar糖心传媒攆or the Torah scrolls, it糖心传媒檚 , an assistant professor of Hebrew language and literature in Rochester’s . She has already determined that the second set of scrolls was created specifically by a German congregation to give to a Jewish synagogue in the United States.
LIKE FIREWORKS: Each Lazarus Project artifact is photographed under various ultraviolet wavelengths of light, filters narrowing the wavelength of what the camera is seeing, because Heyworth never knows in advance what fluorescence band will provide the most revealing image of the object. He says the best description he糖心传媒檚 ever heard of the Lazarus Project process came from a Cambridge conservator: 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 like fireworks in slow motion.糖心传媒�
SEEING THE RESULTS: Heyworth and his team survey the images as they take them. The work is exacting, but the excitement comes with the results, he says, when the best images are brought together and 糖心传媒渢he scholar can suddenly see the script.糖心传媒�
PRESERVING THE FUTURE: Students in Heyworth糖心传媒檚 course Digital Imaging: Transforming Real into Virtual are trained first in handling manuscripts. Gradually, they begin to learn to use Lazarus糖心传媒檚 imaging system. 糖心传媒淏y the time they糖心传媒檙e working with an artifact, they know the principles of photography for cultural heritage objects,糖心传媒� says Heyworth.
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Trained as a scholar of medieval literature, Gregory Heyworth has become a 糖心传媒渢extual scientist.糖心传媒� He recovers the words and images of cultural heritage objects that have been lost, through damage and erasure, to time. To rescue them, he and collaborators on the aptly named Lazarus Project use a transportable multispectral imaging lab糖心传媒攖he only one in the world糖心传媒攖o make the undecipherable, and even the invisible, legible again.
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