5 ms·

Multispectral imaging reveals unnoticed biblical-period inscription

65 points by diodorus 9y ago

codewritinfool 9y ago
It says, "Get bread and milk on the way home".
- GrinningFool 9y ago
  Perhaps not so far off ... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178400.g006 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/j...
- KasianFranks 9y ago
  Context: The text details an exchange of supplies and silver between Elyashiv, the quartermaster of the Arad fortress and Ḥananyahu, possibly his peer at Beer Sheba, located one day's walk (ca. 25 km) to the west. Elyashiv and Ḥananyahu seem to be on friendly terms, with the letter possibly continuing an earlier personal communication. The letter begins with an affectionate salutation (“Your friend Ḥananyahu [hereby] sends greetings to [you] Elyashiv and to your household”) and continues with a blessing from God (“I bless [you] by Yahweh”). This is followed by the mention of a receipt sent by Ḥananyahu (“when I left your house I sent the receipt to Ge'alyahu”). Requests regarding a certain purse and an amount of silver (“in the sum of 5 Xar”), as well as oil (“if there is still any oil left at your [p]ost—send it”) are made, along with a call to avoid sending a certain commodity, the name of which is indiscernible (“[…] drop it, don't send it!“). The last part of the recto contains some decipherable signs and letters, which, however, do not amount to a coherent text.
- hcrisp 9y ago
  Is that a "Canticle for Liebowitz" reference? It should be "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels—bring home for Emma."
sigi45 9y ago
Can we just burn that stuff already? :|
- creep 9y ago
  We should burn biblical texts? What, are you a dogmatic atheist or something? There is no sense in burning historical objects of any kind. Would you rather be in ignorance of humanity's history? Destroying the past for the sake of modern western systems of belief is tyrannical and dangerous.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    "The Giver", "Fahrenheit 451", "Brave New World", "Dystopia", etc...
    - creep 9y ago
      Yes, the given suggestion is exactly parallel to a certain insidious exercise of power. Destroying and obfuscating knowledge is one of the first things a tyrant can do to control a population, and the first suggestion of anyone with a propensity to hold their belief system as unquestionable absolute truth. Knowledge and discovery are about exploration and freedom of thought, overcoming biases, and are the essence of play and human ability. Dystopian systems are often constructed and imagined on the basis of eradicating such fundamentals.
      - Xeoncross 9y ago
        I agree with you except for this > to hold their belief system as unquestionable absolute truth I believe in absolute truths. You're equating truth with a requirement to force others to believe the same... which I actually view as opposite of truth. Truth doesn't need coercion - only lies do.
        creep 9y ago
        I don't believe in absolute truth so perhaps I didn't make my statement ambiguous enough as to that topic. But I do agree that forcing others to believe is the opposite of truth, and I did not mean to equate truth with that.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
So, speaking at a larger context: How approachable are multispectral sensors to build? Is it as simple as filters on a CCD camera? Are they just notch filters, and different notches to segregate different types of light to reach the CCD? Frankly, these types of camera sensors are pretty awesome, as it shows hidden things like they weren't hidden at all. $64,000 question: how hard would it be to build one?
- knolan 9y ago
  Mostly you’re trading spatial real estate on your sensor for spectral resolution. A conmon approach is to use all vertical pixels for wavelength data. By using a diffraction grating to disperse the light vertically you get a view of the world one pixel high and n pixels wide. By scanning the scene (such as an orbiting satellite) you build up the missing spatial dimension of your data. You can make your own: https://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometry https://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometry Many other versions are variants of this that disperse light in different ways to retain a spatial image. Other approaches include building sophisticated sensors such as the foveon technology from Sigma.
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    OH, I get it. So in a way, it is like a rotating filter wheel. But instead, you're using a prism to diffract each frequency. So that you end up getting a frequency per line. You'd have to calibrate the prism for straightness WRT to the horizontal pixels. And I see a calibration needed with a two pure wavelength lightsources, to get a baseline. Seems like it could be done for fairly cheap. Thanks for the heads up, knolan :)
- nomel 9y ago
  CCDs have a great response from IR to UV [1]. Since most consumer products are color cameras, the CCD pixels are covered in color filters, leaving only RGB sensitivity. But, you can easily order greyscale cameras without any filtering at all, usually used for machine/non-human vision (including cheap "night vision" black and white webcams). Once you have a CCD that's wide-band, it's just a matter of shining monochrome light at your target. This can be done with a prism/diffraction grating and a bright white light source. The expense would come from the optics required to focus and guide everything in order to get something reasonably bright. Cheap plastic optics from Alibaba would probably be fine. Or, if you just want specific wavelengths, LEDs come in a variety of fixed wavelengths from IR to UV. 365 to 750nm are easily available. [1] http://www.andor.com/learning-academy/ccd-spectral-response-(qe)-defining-the-qe-of-a-ccd http://www.andor.com/learning-academy/ccd-spectral-response-...
modzu 9y ago
"If there is wine, send it!" haha to be alive in 600BCE

65 points by diodorus 9y ago

codewritinfool 9y ago

It says, "Get bread and milk on the way home".

GrinningFool 9y ago
Perhaps not so far off ... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178400.g006 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/j...
KasianFranks 9y ago
Context: The text details an exchange of supplies and silver between Elyashiv, the quartermaster of the Arad fortress and Ḥananyahu, possibly his peer at Beer Sheba, located one day's walk (ca. 25 km) to the west. Elyashiv and Ḥananyahu seem to be on friendly terms, with the letter possibly continuing an earlier personal communication. The letter begins with an affectionate salutation (“Your friend Ḥananyahu [hereby] sends greetings to [you] Elyashiv and to your household”) and continues with a blessing from God (“I bless [you] by Yahweh”). This is followed by the mention of a receipt sent by Ḥananyahu (“when I left your house I sent the receipt to Ge'alyahu”). Requests regarding a certain purse and an amount of silver (“in the sum of 5 Xar”), as well as oil (“if there is still any oil left at your [p]ost—send it”) are made, along with a call to avoid sending a certain commodity, the name of which is indiscernible (“[…] drop it, don't send it!“). The last part of the recto contains some decipherable signs and letters, which, however, do not amount to a coherent text.
hcrisp 9y ago
Is that a "Canticle for Liebowitz" reference? It should be "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels—bring home for Emma."

sigi45 9y ago

Can we just burn that stuff already? :|

creep 9y ago
We should burn biblical texts? What, are you a dogmatic atheist or something? There is no sense in burning historical objects of any kind. Would you rather be in ignorance of humanity's history? Destroying the past for the sake of modern western systems of belief is tyrannical and dangerous.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  "The Giver", "Fahrenheit 451", "Brave New World", "Dystopia", etc...
  - creep 9y ago
    Yes, the given suggestion is exactly parallel to a certain insidious exercise of power. Destroying and obfuscating knowledge is one of the first things a tyrant can do to control a population, and the first suggestion of anyone with a propensity to hold their belief system as unquestionable absolute truth. Knowledge and discovery are about exploration and freedom of thought, overcoming biases, and are the essence of play and human ability. Dystopian systems are often constructed and imagined on the basis of eradicating such fundamentals.
    - Xeoncross 9y ago
      I agree with you except for this > to hold their belief system as unquestionable absolute truth I believe in absolute truths. You're equating truth with a requirement to force others to believe the same... which I actually view as opposite of truth. Truth doesn't need coercion - only lies do.
      - creep 9y ago
        I don't believe in absolute truth so perhaps I didn't make my statement ambiguous enough as to that topic. But I do agree that forcing others to believe is the opposite of truth, and I did not mean to equate truth with that.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

So, speaking at a larger context: How approachable are multispectral sensors to build? Is it as simple as filters on a CCD camera? Are they just notch filters, and different notches to segregate different types of light to reach the CCD? Frankly, these types of camera sensors are pretty awesome, as it shows hidden things like they weren't hidden at all. $64,000 question: how hard would it be to build one?

knolan 9y ago
Mostly you’re trading spatial real estate on your sensor for spectral resolution. A conmon approach is to use all vertical pixels for wavelength data. By using a diffraction grating to disperse the light vertically you get a view of the world one pixel high and n pixels wide. By scanning the scene (such as an orbiting satellite) you build up the missing spatial dimension of your data. You can make your own: https://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometry https://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometry Many other versions are variants of this that disperse light in different ways to retain a spatial image. Other approaches include building sophisticated sensors such as the foveon technology from Sigma.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  OH, I get it. So in a way, it is like a rotating filter wheel. But instead, you're using a prism to diffract each frequency. So that you end up getting a frequency per line. You'd have to calibrate the prism for straightness WRT to the horizontal pixels. And I see a calibration needed with a two pure wavelength lightsources, to get a baseline. Seems like it could be done for fairly cheap. Thanks for the heads up, knolan :)
nomel 9y ago
CCDs have a great response from IR to UV [1]. Since most consumer products are color cameras, the CCD pixels are covered in color filters, leaving only RGB sensitivity. But, you can easily order greyscale cameras without any filtering at all, usually used for machine/non-human vision (including cheap "night vision" black and white webcams). Once you have a CCD that's wide-band, it's just a matter of shining monochrome light at your target. This can be done with a prism/diffraction grating and a bright white light source. The expense would come from the optics required to focus and guide everything in order to get something reasonably bright. Cheap plastic optics from Alibaba would probably be fine. Or, if you just want specific wavelengths, LEDs come in a variety of fixed wavelengths from IR to UV. 365 to 750nm are easily available. [1] http://www.andor.com/learning-academy/ccd-spectral-response-(qe)-defining-the-qe-of-a-ccd http://www.andor.com/learning-academy/ccd-spectral-response-...

modzu 9y ago

"If there is wine, send it!" haha to be alive in 600BCE