Editing Dead Sea Scrolls (section)

===Infrared photography and plate assembly (1952–1967)===
A majority of the collection from the Qumran caves was acquired by the Palestine Archaeological Museum. The museum had the scrolls photographed by [[Najib Albina]], a local Arab photographer trained by [[Lewis Larsson]] of the [[American Colony, Jerusalem|American Colony]] in Jerusalem,<ref>Israel Antiquities Authority Personnel Records. Dated 1952 and 1960.</ref> Between 1952 and 1967, Albina documented the five-stage process of the sorting and assembly of the scrolls, done by the curator and staff of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, using [[infrared photography]]. Using a process known today as broadband fluorescence infrared photography, or NIR photography, Najib and the team at the museum produced over 1,750 photographic plates of the scrolls and fragments.{{r|VanderKamFlint2005}}{{rp|68}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Verhoeven |first=G. |title=Imaging the invisible using modified digital still cameras for straightforward and low-cost archaeological near-infrared photography |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=35 |issue=12 |pages=3087–3100 |year=2008 |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2008.06.012|bibcode=2008JArSc..35.3087V }}</ref><ref>Dorrell, Peter G. ''Photography in Archaeology and Conservation'' 2nd Edition. 1994.</ref><ref>American Schools of Oriental Research. ''The Biblical Archaeologist''. Volumes 55–56. 1992.</ref> The photographs were taken with the scrolls laid out on animal skin using large format film, which caused the text to stand out, making the plates especially useful for assembling fragments.{{r|VanderKamFlint2005}}{{rp|68}} These are the earliest photographs of the museum's collection, which was the most complete in the world at the time, and they recorded the fragments and scrolls before their further decay in storage, so they are often considered the best recorded copies of the scrolls.<ref>Shanks, Hershel. ''Freeing the Dead Sea Scrolls: And Other Adventures of an Archaeology Outsider'' (2010).</ref>