The Dead Sea Scrolls Examined with NASA Technology

A small fragment of the Genesis Apocryphon, 1QapGen, a Dead Sea Scroll that is a popular telling of the stories of Genesis from the characters' point of view. This fragment, about the size of half a postage stamp, has been imaged in visible light. As shown, the fragment does not contain any text. Note that on the left hand third there is a second flap of parchment that stuck to the fragment from the next inner turn during unrolling. For reasons unknown, the Genesis Apocryphon has deteriorated rapidly from the 1950's and is generally recognized as the text in the worse shape.

The same fragment imaged with a digital camera at 970 nm. Note the appearance of two words of text which can be translated as either "the words of" or "he wrote the words of." If you look closely at the area that is covered by the flap, it appears that there are one or two vertical strokes that may be part of additional letters.

This is the area under the flap imaged with another infrared camera, one that is sensitive in the 1-3 micron region of the spectrum. The text is tilted clockwise a bit, but reads Noah. Since these are stories from Genesis, it would not be unexpected to find Noah's name in the text. So, the complete text may be a chapter heading such as "this is the writing/words/book of Noah."