Lost and Found
Photo/Philip Channing
Core members of the West Semitic Research Project, a photo archival project that has amassed a collection of more than 100,000 images of ancient inscriptions, have developed a logical extension known as InscriptiFact, which collects, digitizes and organizes WSRP images in a user-friendly format.
Bruce Zuckerman, associate professor of religion in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, and his colleague Marilyn Lundberg are director and associate director, respectively, of the project.
The Internet database prototype became available online in May with a test set of 840 images. By year’s end, this will be increased to 5,000 images.
Within three years, because of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the database is expected to house more than 20,000 high-resolution images available for use by anyone who registers and establishes a password online.
Its creators say InscriptiFact is the first of a kind. Other digitized databases of ancient images are available, but none with the high-resolution images and advanced search and display features found in InscriptiFact.
“We are the leaders of our field in computer imaging technology,” Zuckerman said.
“This will be a tremendous aid to scholars studying these important texts. And the educational potential of InscriptiFact for the general public is also significant.”
Studying ancient texts, Zuckerman said, can be challenging because in many cases significant portions of the writings are either gone or so obscured that they can no longer be seen.
WSRP has harnessed advanced technologies in photography, computer imaging and enhancement to reclaim ancient texts, in many cases making their readings available for the first time since they were written.
“When you have these kind of clear images, you study things differently,” he said. “Because of the quality of data, you ask different questions and get better answers. Because the data is so detailed, we have to totally rethink our methodology in studying it. It’s like working on a very big jigsaw puzzle or a crossword puzzle or a little of both.”
Other members of the project are Zuckerman’s brother, photographer Kenneth Zuckerman and Leta Hunt, a software development expert from USC’s Information Services Division who serves as associate director.
For the past 20 years, the Zuckermans, have developed advanced photographic techniques for capturing images of ancient texts from biblical times.
This past summer, for example, the brothers were in Berlin photographing worn text on the kilt of a 14-foot statue. They used a 9-foot-high studio camera stand and large-format camera.
The brothers gained national attention in the early 1990s, while working with a team of scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Together they employed specialized infrared imaging cameras to uncover a previously undeciphered phrase in a Dead Sea Scroll that made reference to “the Book of the Words of Noah.”
More recently, a team led by Zuckerman and Lundberg documented the earliest-known alphabetic inscriptions, written on a cliff face in the Wadi el Hol, literally, “the Gulch of Terror” in the Sahara desert in southern Egypt. This work was featured on the front page of the New York Times.
Visit the USC West Semitic Research Project at: http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/index.html.
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USC in the News
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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