Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis

Abstract

Determining by means of palaeography the chronology of ancient handwritten manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls is essential for reconstructing the evolution of ideas, but there is an almost complete lack of date-bearing manuscripts. To overcome this problem, we present Enoch, an AI-based date-prediction model, trained on the basis of 24 14C-dated scroll samples. By applying Bayesian ridge regression on angular and allographic writing style feature vectors, Enoch could predict 14C-based dates with varied mean absolute errors (MAEs) of 27.9 to 30.7 years. In order to explore the viability of the character-shape based dating approach, the trained Enoch model then computed date predictions for 135 non-dated scrolls, aligning with 79% in palaeographic post-hoc evaluation. The 14C ranges and Enoch’s style-based predictions are often older than traditionally assumed palaeographic estimates, leading to a new chronology of the scrolls and the re-dating of ancient Jewish key texts that contribute to current debates on Jewish and Christian origins.