Two cryptic A fragments of Serekh haEdah from cave 4 are hereby physically joined, and a third one constitutes a distant join. The composite text parallels 1QSa 1: 8–12 albeit with significant variants. The join is proven here in terms of the continuity of papyrus fibers and partial letters, as well as by the coherent composite text. The join requires separating a fragment that had been assembled by Milik. Substantially, although the joined fragments had been assigned in djd 36 to different copies, they evidently constitute one and the same fragment. This join thus calls into question the classification of 8–9 different copies of the Serekh in cryptic script.

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This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. chapter 6 Finding Information on the VersoThe task of editing fragments is not complete without examining their verso, where important clues may be found for the reading and restoration: folded parts of the recto, additional ink marks, unnoticed layers, imprints of seams from adjacent layers, etc. The LLDSSDL provides images of the verso upon request for the entire DSS corpus, and the SQE platform now provides them for the entire corpus. Such images were carried out for only a few scrolls in the PAM collection, when ink signs were evident or in the case of an opisthograph.Since the marks on the verso are frequently difficult to spot, and are sometimes also covered with Japanese paper as part of the restoration process, it is essential to enhance the verso images with digital filters in order to extract maximum visual information from them (for the correct way to perform this process, see chapter 3). It is also important to compare these finds with the signs on the recto. This chapter surveys the types of signs that can be found on the verso, most of which have been discussed in previous scholarship. However, here we concentrate much of the information in one place, treating the fragment as a three-dimensional artifact rather than a two-dimensional text. In addition, we offer new methods for distinguishing the origins of textual information that was found on the verso, which bears consequences for the material and textual reconstruction.

Introduction 92 2 Materials: The Examined Scrolls 93 3 Method 95 4 Results 97 5 Discussion 110 Appendix 2: Automated Font Generation 112 Bronson Brown-deVost 1 Glyph Shape 112 2 Glyph Size 114 3 Vertical Glyph Position 114 4 Glyph Kerning 115 5 Word and Line Spacing 116 Damage Patterns 117 1 The Direction in which the Scroll Was Rolled 119 2 Wads 121 3 Establishing the Order of Scattered Fragments 126

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