Outline History of Early Scroll Photography
  1. 1947—First Scrolls discovered
    1. John Trever of the American School of Oriental Research (presently the W.F. Albright Institute) took first photographs of a complete Isaiah manuscript, the Manual of Discipline and a commentary on the Book of Habakkuk.
      1. Used standard black-and-white film (later did in color)
      2. Negatives made of glass
    2. James and Helena Bieberkraut opened, cleaned and photographed all manuscripts (except Temple Scroll) that had been obtained by the Israelis
      1. Used infrared film
      2. Negatives were celluloid-based
      3. Photographs on large format (13 x 18 cm) film
  2. Scrolls from most of the caves of Qumran, Wadi Murabba’at, Khirbet Mird, Wadi ed-Daliyeh and other minor sites in the Judean wilderness of pre-1967 Jordan
    1. Photographed by Najib Albina of the Palestine Archeological Museum (PAM)
      1. Photographs on large format film
      2. Used broad-band infrared photography for all manuscripts on animal skin
  3. May 1953-June 1960: Fragments from floors of Caves 4a and 4b
    1. PAM creates five-part series
      1. Three to five negatives of each of almost 600 fragments
        1. May 1953 to June 1954: Original plates and unsorted scroll fragments
        2. June 1954 to July 1955: Plates after general sorting
        3. July 1955 to March 1956: Plates composed by assigned editors, generally in a horizontal format
        4. April 1956 to April 1959: Plates composed by editors, in a horizontal format
        5. May 1959 to June 1960: The final composition, in a vertical format
  4. 1956: Cave 11 Scrolls
    1. Najib Albina of PAM made full set of initial photographs for each scroll (11QpaleoLeva, 11QPsa, 11QtgJob, 11QApPsa, 11QShirShabb and 11QNJ; fragmentary manuscripts left unsorted and were photographed on mix plates)
    2. David Shinhav and Ruth Yakutiel of Israel Museum photographed the Temple Scroll (11QTa) (post-1967)
      1. Photographs of front and back sides, in standard black-and-white and infrared film
  5. After 1967
    1. Israel Department of Antiquities (now the Israel Antiquities Authority) photographed certain manuscripts housed in the Shrine of the Book and PAM
      1. Re-taken on 35 mm format black-and-white film 
    2. 1980s to the present: Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman of West Semitic Research photographed scrolls from Shrine of the Book, Rockefeller Museum and Amman Archeological Museum
      1. Used black lighting, digital photography, infra-red and standard black-and-white formats
      2. Negatives stored at West Semitic Research in Palos Verdes, California
      3. For their website and online digital archive, see http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/
    3. 1990’s—Tsila Sagiv re-photographed a number of manuscripts from Caves 4 and 11
      1. Used narrow-band infrared film, almost entirely muting skin tones, making the distinction between the carbon-black ink and the background clearer