Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
An eye for detail: Zoom through 1,000 artworks thanks to the new Art Camera from the Google Cultural Institute
May 17, 2016
So much of the beauty and power of art lives in the details. You can only fully appreciate the genius of artists like Monet or Van Gogh when you stand so close to a masterpiece that your nose almost touches it. As you step back from the brush strokes, you wonder how it all comes together. At the Google Cultural Institute, we know that people love experiencing art in close detail. Millions of people spend time exploring our ultra-high resolution “gigapixel” images, inch by inch—spotting something new every time, like a
hidden signature
or the
individual dabs of paint
that give the impression of shimmering, turbulent waters.
Zooming into these images is the closest thing to walking up to the real thing with a magnifying glass. This is why we’re so excited about our new Art Camera—a custom-built camera ready to travel around the world to bring people more of these ultra-high-resolution images than ever possible before.
The Port of Rotterdam by Paul Signac, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
A gigapixel image is made of over one billion pixels, and can bring out details invisible to the naked eye. So creating digital images in such high resolution is a complex technical challenge. You need time, highly specialized and expensive equipment, and only a few people in the world can do the job. In the first five years of the Google Cultural Institute, we’ve been able to share about 200 gigapixel images. But we want to do much more. That’s why we developed the Art Camera.
The Art Camera is a robotic camera, custom-built to create gigapixel images faster and more easily. A robotic system steers the camera automatically from detail to detail, taking hundreds of high resolution close-ups of the painting. To make sure the focus is right on each brush stroke, it’s equipped with a laser and a sonar that—much like a bat—uses high frequency sound to measure the distance of the artwork. Once each detail is captured, our software takes the thousands of close-up shots and, like a jigsaw, stitches the pieces together into one single image.
Many of the works of our greatest artists are fragile and sensitive to light and humidity. With the Art Camera, museums can share these priceless works with the global public while ensuring they're preserved for future generations. We want to give museums the tools they need to do this important work, so we're sending a fleet of these cameras from museum to museum around the world—for free.
The Art Camera will dramatically increase the scale and depth at which museums are able to provide access to our shared cultural heritage to anyone around the world. For example, if you wanted to see Van Gogh’s six famous portraits of the Roulin family up close, you’d need to travel across the Netherlands then over to LA and New York. Now the Art Camera can travel for you. It’s already captured the
Portrait of Armand Roulin
, which you can explore alongside
the rest of the family
, all in one place.
Today, we’re sharing the first thousand ultra-high resolution images of artworks from artists including
Pissarro
,
Signac
,
Rembrandt
,
Van Gogh
,
Monet
and many more from museums across Australia, India, the Netherlands, Brazil and everywhere in between. As we prepare to celebrate
International Museum Day
and welcome more than 25 new museums on the Google Cultural Institute, we want to thank everyone who worked with us to test the new camera in the recent months. Thanks to their work, today you can start zooming and
explore more art in the details than ever before
!
Posted by Ben St. John, Engineer, Google Cultural Institute
Ben St. John
Engineer
Google Cultural Institute
What makes us Human?
September 11, 2015
Over the past three years, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand travelled to 60 countries, interviewing more than 2,000 people in dozens of languages, in an attempt to answer the question: What is it that makes us human? The result is
HUMAN
, a documentary film that weaves together a rich collection of stories from freedom fighters in Ukraine, farmers in Mali, death row inmates in the United States, and more—on topics that unite us all: love, justice, family, and the future of our planet.
Now we’re partnering with Arthus-Bertrand, the Goodplanet Foundation and Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, to bring HUMAN to you on Google Play, YouTube and the Google Cultural Institute so we can share this project with the widest audience throughout the world.
Watch an extended version of the film on YouTube and Google Play
We’re making HUMAN available on YouTube starting September 12, and later on Google Play. This “director’s cut”of three 90-minute films will be available in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. On YouTube, you can also watch extra footage including interviews with figures like United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, animal rights activist Jane Goodall and actress Cameron Diaz, all of whom participated in the film.
Explore HUMAN with the Google Cultural Institute
Over at the
Google Cultural Institute
, you can learn about the origin of the film and listen to anecdotes from the people who brought it to life. You can also meet the characters in and around the movie in their daily lives, with six exhibits of behind the scenes photos and videos that let you explore how HUMAN was made over three years. This includes a collection highlighting how the director shot the aerial views that are a signature of Arthus-Bertrand’s filmmaking.
Exhibitions on Google the Cultural Institute platform
Learn more about this project at
g.co/humanthemovie
or on the
HUMAN Behind The Scenes mobile app
, available on Google Play. With HUMAN, we want to help citizens around the world connect together. So we’d like to hear your answer to the question of what makes us human. Add your voice to the conversation with #WhatMakesUsHUMAN.
Posted by Raphael Goumain, Head of Consumer Marketing, France
Bringing street art to your daily life
March 17, 2015
For more than 20 years, New Yorkers and street art lovers worldwide made the pilgrimage to 5Pointz, a building in Long Island City called the "Graffiti Mecca" because of its brightly colored, ever-changing walls. Artists from around the world covered every inch of the 200,000-square foot exterior with more than 350 technicolor murals. But last summer, this building on Davis Street was whitewashed over by developers, then demolished.
Street art like that at 5Pointz transforms public spaces into open-air galleries, adding vibrancy to urban landscapes. But using the city as a canvas often means these artworks are here today, gone tomorrow. With the Google Art Project, we’re working to preserve this ephemeral art form and make it available to fans around the world, anywhere and anytime.
Last June,
we added
street art from all over the globe—
including 5Pointz
—to the Google Art Project. Today, we’re
doubling
the number of public artworks to more than 10,000 high-resolution images. Eighty-five art organizations from 34 countries are sharing pieces, ranging from Sweden’s most famous
street festival
, to
water tanks wrapped with art
among New York city’s rooftops, to the abandoned walls of
Buenos Aires
that are a source of inspiration for street artists from all over the world.
A water tank in New York City. Photo by TF Cornerstone
You don’t need to be tied to your desktop to enjoy these fantastic collections. All these images are now available on a device near you with Chrome, Chromecast, Android Wear and your mobile devices. Turn your TV screen into a vibrant backdrop and add some color to your smartwatch with our new
Street Art Watch Faces
. On your phone or tablet, browse through
our partners' new apps
to take a tour of Melbourne's famous
laneways
or visit the multicolored murals in
Delhi
,
Lima
and
Honolulu
.
Wall by Brendan Monroe and Candybird. Photo by Pow! Wow! Hawaii
Street artists have also been using technology to play with their medium. Our collection includes animated “GIF-iti” images by artists like
INSA and Cheko
. The walls come to life with murals that are painted, filmed, and re-painted to create captivating moving images.
GIF-iti by Cheko
So much goes into making a piece of street art. Yet its transient nature puts it at risk of being scrubbed out and lost forever. The Google Art Project allows these works of art to transcend the walls, be transported to your screen and live on. Follow
@googleart
to discover more.
Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
The world is a canvas: introducing the street art project
June 10, 2014
Here today, gone tomorrow. The transient nature of street art means it can be at risk of being scrubbed out and lost forever to its legions of fans. But long after the paint has faded from the walls, technology can help preserve street art, so people can discover it wherever and whenever they like. In a new project launching today, we’ve partnered with street art experts to bring you 5,000+ images and around 100 exhibitions in the Google Art Project—telling a story of street art around the world.
Starting today, you can immerse yourself in a world of
prowling foxes on lonely walls
,
supernatural symbolism
,
murals
on a grand scale,
tiny hard-to-spot icons
, or
trompe l’oeil
techniques that use physical details of the wall itself to trick the eye.
Some of this work was created as a means of expression and activism, like the Chilean open-sky museums of
La Pincoya
and
San Miguel
, which were born as community projects to transform poverty-stricken neighborhoods, or to make a political statement like in
London
and
Atlanta
.
It’s not just about spraypaint either—other exhibits demonstrate the signature style of the artist, like
JR’s large-scale and evocative photo-portraits
,
Roa’s animals
,
Vhils’ etching
or
Os Gemeos surrealism
.
Regg and Violant, Centro Comercial Alegro, Setúbal,
Galeria de Arte Urbana
Vhils using the texture of the wall as a canvas
Using Street View, you can also explore buildings with street art that are closed to the public, or that have already been demolished—such as the famed Paris 13 tower:
Agrandir le plan
Explore all nine floors and 450 square meters of painted ceilings and walls of the now-demolished Tour Paris 13 building with Street View.
In a series of fascinating exhibitions by our partners, you can also learn about
origins of the street art movement
or see how Street Art is being used in
Poland to revitalize its cities
. Take a tour through the origins of New York’s original graffiti movement of the
90’s
, or see top highlights from the city’s
5 Pointz project
. Compare the global nature of the Street Art produced in
Mexico
, which has a long and vibrant history of muralism, to the scene in the
Philippines
, which is just developing.
Street art may be temporary on our walls and sidewalks, but its beauty and vibrancy live on, on the web. Take a look— you’re sure to be bowled over by the variety of the urban canvas.
Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Programme Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Feast your eyes on new works added today to the Cultural Institute
December 10, 2013
At the
Cultural Institute
we’ve been taking a break from our holiday shopping to feast our eyes on a different kind of gift—the gift of ingenious art that plays tricks on our eyes.
Called
Trompe l'oeil
, which means “fool the eye” in French, these techniques require complete control over every detail of size, color, light and gradation of color so that a two-dimensional work appears to be three-dimensional. You can see several examples amongst the
new content being launched by 34 global partners
today on the Cultural Institute and across our entire collection of more than
57,000 artworks
.
Enter the wonderful world of Adriana Varejão—or not, it’s hard to tell. Varejão’s
O Colecionador
(Inhotim, Brazil)
Trompe l'oeil has been used on things as large as a ceiling—like this fresco at the National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara which uses clever architectural form to momentarily confuse:
Don’t drop that lute!
Treasure Room Fresco
, 1503-1506 (National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara, Italy)
And as small as a vase:
Manufacture royale de Sèvres:
Vase "ferré" en première grandeur
, Vers 1765-1770 (Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa & Gardens, Italy)
Sometimes the trickery lies in the deft organization of the elements in the picture, like this one. Can you find the secret image lurking within this seemingly innocent painting of a young man and woman?
Bernardino Montañés Pérez:
Caprice
, 1891 (Museo de Huesca, Spain)
Other new works exhibit a similar visual trickery. This relic from the Qing dynasty comes from the National Palace Museum of Taiwan—does the cabbage look good enough to eat?
Unknown:
Jadeite Cabbage
, Qing Dynasty (National Palace Museum, Taiwan)
Or take a look at the
Musée
d’Orsay’s exhibition
of its unusual history, and then c
ompare the details of the former station to the indoor Street View imagery of today's modern museum:
The station d'Orsay in its heyday
. (
Musée
d’Orsay
)
The Musée
d’Orsay on Street View
From
Trompe l'oeil
to
archaeological artifacts
,
royal portraits
and
famous scientists
, there’s a lot to discover in the latest collection, which comes from all over the world. Enjoyed the visual trickery? See what else can you spot and tell us your favorite examples on our
Google+ page
.
Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Cultural Institute
Learn about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Google Cultural Institute
August 19, 2013
This August marks the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Working together with the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
and the
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
, we’ve launched seven new online exhibits on the
Google Cultural Institute
that help tell the story of the two cities and their tragic fate.
Explore four collections from the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
that illustrate the bombing from different perspectives: a pocketwatch stopped at the exact time of the detonation, diaries of young women cut off abruptly on August 6, and panoramic photos of the hauntingly barren city center days after. While most of the materials document the harrowing devastation of the bomb and its aftermath, the gallery “Recalling the Lost Neighborhoods” helps archive the old Hiroshima that vanished off the map.
Pocketwatch showing 8:15, the time of the atomic bomb drop (from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)
The
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
meanwhile curated photos, videos, and drawings in three exhibitions. One collection focuses on the famed Urakami Cathedral—the largest cathedral in East Asia where 15,000 Japanese Catholics once worshipped. The church completely collapsed after the bombing, but thanks to a post-war reconstruction effort, the Urakami Cathedral now stands triumphant as a symbol of the city’s rebirth.
Urakami Cathedral exhibition (from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum)
Speaking at an unveiling ceremony for the exhibits in Hiroshima today, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said, “Through the Google Cultural Institute exhibitions, we hope that people around the world would learn about the terrible experiences of the
Hibakusha
, or A-bomb survivors, and wish for peace.”
The Cultural Institute was created to help preserve the world's history and heritage. Given the average age of the
Hibakusha
is now past 78, we're honored that our digital exhibit can help keep the memories from both cities alive for the future.
Posted by Toru Kawamura, New Business Development Senior Manager, Google Japan
From Sutton Hoo to the soccer pitch: culture with a click
June 25, 2013
Museums, libraries and galleries are a tourist staple of the summer holiday season. Often they’re the first place we head to when visiting a new city or town in order to learn about the heritage of that country. Though only a lucky few have the chance to travel to see these treasures first-hand, the Internet is helping to bring access to culture even when you can’t visit in person.
At the
Google Cultural Institute
, we’ve been busy working with our
partners
to add a range of new online exhibitions to our existing collection. With more than 6 million photos, videos and documents, the diversity and range of subject matter is large—a reflection of the fact that culture means different things to different people. What the exhibitions have in common is that they tell stories; objects are one thing but it’s the people and places they link to that make them fascinating.
The British Museum
is the U.K.’s most popular visitor attraction and the 4th most visited museum in the world. It’s well known for housing one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made—the 1,400 year old Anglo-Saxon burial from Sutton Hoo, untouched until its discovery in 1939. Their online exhibition “
Sutton Hoo: Anglo-Saxon ship burial
” explores the discovery of the ship, featuring videos of the excavation and photos of the
iconic helmet
and a solid gold
belt buckle
. All this tells the story of how the burial and its contents changed our understanding of what Anglo-Saxon society was like.
From archaeology we take you to sport, which is integral to the culture of many nations, including Brazil. In the lead-up to Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, the
Museu do Futebol
has told the story of how the “beautiful game” came to Brazil. The photos, videos and posters in “
The Game and the People
” track the social impact of the sport and its transition from a past time for the wealthy (with their pleated pants and satin belts) to the modern game.
Science remains a perennially fascinating topic and the
Museo Galileo
in Italy has put together a series of three exhibitions looking at the link between art and science.
The Medici Collections
,
the Lorraine Collections
and the
Library Collections
examine the beginnings of science and technology 500 years ago and chart developments from the discovery of the sun dial to the Google Maps of today. As well as being informative, the exhibitions include beautiful objects such as the
Jovilabe
, which was used to calculate the periods of Jupiter’s moons.
So if broadening your cultural horizons through travel isn’t in the cards this summer, settle down in your armchair and browse through through some of the world’s heritage and history online. Keep up to date with new material on the
Cultural Institute Google+ page
.
Posted by James Davis, program manager, Google Cultural Institute
Mario Testino to "The Scream" via Mark Rothko
May 21, 2013
Every day on the Art Project
Google+ page
we post a snippet of information about a painting, an artist or a talk—and every day, at least one of our 4 million followers has something to say in response. We’re constantly delighted by how the appetite for art online is growing and today we have a veritable feast in store with a swathe of fresh
artworks
,
gigapixel
paintings and museums on
Street View
.
New artworks from the famous to the unusual
Mario Testino
is a world-famous photographer, known for his work in the fashion industry. Fewer people are aware of his photographs focusing on the culture of his native Peru. A new body of photographs called “
Alta Moda
” (high fashion), featuring Andean people in traditional and festive dress, is currently on display in Testino’s cultural institution,
MATE
. And for those of you not lucky enough to visit Lima, you can now see this collection of 27 photos online on the
Google Art Project
.
In total, we have more than 1,500 new high-resolution artworks including masterpieces such as Monet’s “
Waterlilies
,” Rembrandt’s “
Portrait of a Man in a Broad-Brimmed Hat
” and Johannes Vermeer’s “
The Geographer
” (meaning Art Project now houses 15 of his 34 total works, all contributed by different museums). However, the diversity goes well beyond paintings; from
ancestral relics
used to worship the dead to an ancient Jinsha
gold mask
from China thought to have been worn by sorcerers. Often the old contrasts with the new, with inscribed Arabic gemstones existing alongside contemporary glass structures from Germany as you can see in this “Compare” image below.
Zoom in to “gigapixel” paintings
Gigapixel paintings—very high-resolution works which enable you to zoom in at brushstroke level—have long been at the heart of the Art Project. They’re a great example of the magic that can happen when technology meets art—and today we have 16 new ones to add, ranging from famous pieces like “
The Scream
” by Edvard Munch to those chosen by public vote such as “
Whitewashing the Old House
” by L.A. Ring.
The beauty of gigapixels is their ability to surprise. Look at the painting “
Fra Stalheim
” by Johan Christian Dahl, shown in full on the left below. You’ll see a beautiful landscape. Zoom in, however, and you discover scenes within a scene—a village with smoking chimneys, a woman tending to her child, and cows grazing on the hillside. Details that can’t always be fully appreciated by the naked eye are brought to life online.
Immerse yourself in Street View
Through Street View and the Google Art Project, many museums have opened their galleries to the world the past few years, and today we’re launching 20 more. For example,
Fondation Beyeler
Museum in Switzerland houses a collection of seven Mark Rothko paintings. Now anyone in the world can virtually explore the collection.
Of course art collections are not exclusively found in museums—we’re delighted to have our first monastery on Street View in the Art Project. The
Monastery of St. John the Theologian
on the Greek island of Patmos was founded in 1088 and is a World Heritage Site. In addition to their 116 contributed artworks, you can also explore the architectural splendors of this ancient building.
Jump inside a whole range of beautiful buildings and
corridors
here by clicking on the orange pegman
where it appears
.
In a week that celebrates International Museum Day, we’re glad to be able to showcase some of the great treasures held by museums and cultural institutions the world over. There are so many benefits to bringing more content online, be it discovering a new style of art or artist,
creating your own gallery
, stumbling across a hidden detail of a painting you thought you knew or simply being inspired by something beautiful. With more than 40,000 total works and 250+ cultural organisations around the globe, we hope the experience will be more enriching than ever.
Posted by Marzia Niccolai, Google Art Project
Urban art, zoomorphic whistles and Hungarian poetry
March 21, 2013
There are few places (if any) in the world where you could find urban art, zoomorphic whistles* and Hungarian poetry in a single place—except, of course, on the Internet.
Today 30 new partners are joining the
Google Art Project
, contributing nearly 2,000 diverse works including contemporary art from
Latin America
, ancient art from
China
, rare
Japanese
paintings and Palaeolithic flint heads from
Spain
.
One highlight of the new collection is a
project
to capture the growing trend of urban art and graffiti in Brazil. More than 100 works from walls, doors and galleries in São Paulo have been photographed and will be included in the Art Project. The pieces were chosen by a group of journalists, artists and graffiti experts and include artists such as
Speto
,
Kobra
and
Space Invader
, as well as images of São Paulo’s most famous building-size murals. You can see the contrast in styles in the
Compare
tool and image below.
Photography features strongly in the works our partners are bringing online this time around. The
Fundacion MAPFRE
in Spain showcases one of the largest collections with more than 300 photos from a number of renowned photographers. For example, you can explore Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide’s black and white
images
of indigenous Mexican culture inspired by themes of ritual, death and feminism.
The Art Project is also becoming a home to rare and precious items which move beyond paintings.
Petőfi Literary Museum
in Hungary has contributed the Nemzeti Dal or “
National Song
,” a Hungarian poem which is said to have been the inspiration for the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The original document has rarely been seen in public to prevent humidity and light fading the script further. Online now for the first time, it can be explored by anyone in the world.
With 40,000+ artworks to explore from more than 200 museums in more than 40 countries, we look forward to seeing these new works feature in hundreds of thousands of user galleries you have created to date. Keep an eye on our
Google+ page
for more details about the new collections.
*ceramic whistles in the shape of animals!
Posted by Shahina Rahman, Google Art Project
Introducing Art Talks on Google+
March 4, 2013
An excellent guide often best brings an art gallery or museum’s collections to life. Starting this week, we’re hoping to bring this experience online with “Art Talks,” a series of Hangouts on Air on our Google Art Project
Google+ page
. Each month, curators, museum directors, historians and educators from some of the world’s most renowned cultural institutions will reveal the hidden stories behind particular works, examine the curation process and provide insights into particular masterpieces or artists.
The first guided visit will be held this Wednesday, March 6 at 8pm ET from
The Museum of Modern Art
. Deborah Howes, Director of Digital Learning, along with a panel of artists and students, will discuss how to teach art online. To post a question, visit the
event page
. If this talk falls too late for you to tune in live, you can watch afterward on our Google Art Project
YouTube channel
.
The next talk is from London. On March 20, Caroline Campbell and Arnika Schmidt from the
National Gallery
will discuss depictions of the female nude. Details are available on the Art Project’s
event page
. In April we’ll host a panel examining one of the Google Art Project’s popular gigapixel works,
Bruegel’s “Tower of Babel,”
featuring Peter Parshall, curator at the
National Gallery of Art
in Washington.
Additional talks are planned by curators from high-profile institutions such as
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
, the
Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles, the
Museo Nacional de Arte
in Mexico and the
Museum of Islamic Art
in Qatar.
Google Art Project aims to make art more accessible to all. We hope that Art Talks is the next step in bringing art to your armchair, wherever you are in the world, with just a click of a button. Stay tuned to the
Art Project
and
Cultural Institute
Google+ pages for more information on dates and times of these online lectures.
Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Google Cultural Institute
Explore Spain's Jewish heritage online
December 19, 2012
You can now discover Spain’s Jewish heritage on a new site powered by comprehensive and accurate Google Maps:
www.redjuderias.org/google
.
Using the Google Maps API,
Red de Juderías de España
has built a site where you can explore more than 500 landmarks that shed light on Spain’s Jewish population throughout history. By clicking on a landmark, you can get historical information, pictures or texts, and a 360º view of the location, thanks to Street View technology. You can also use the search panel on the top of the page to filter the locations by category, type, geographic zone or date.
Toledo, Synagogue Santamaría la Blanca
Information is included on each landmark
This project is just one of our efforts to bring important cultural content online. This week, we worked with the Israel Antiquities Authority to
launch
the
Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
, an online collection of more than 5,000 scroll fragments, and last year we announced a
project
to digitize and make available the Yad Vashem Museum’s Holocaust archives. With the
Google Art Project
, people around the world can also view and explore more than 35,000 works of art in 180 museums.
Read more about this project on the
Europe Blog
. We hope this new site will inspire you to learn more about Spain’s Jewish history, and perhaps to visit these cities in person.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
“In the beginning”...bringing the scrolls of Genesis and the Ten Commandments online
December 18, 2012
A little over a year ago, we
helped put online
five manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls—ancient documents that include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. Written more than 2,000 years ago on pieces of parchment and papyrus, they were preserved by the hot, dry desert climate and the darkness of the caves in which they were hidden. The Scrolls are possibly the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century.
Today, we’re helping put more of these ancient treasures online. The Israel Antiquities Authority is launching the
Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
, an online collection of some 5,000 images of scroll fragments, at a quality never seen before. The texts include one of the earliest known copies of the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the
Ten Commandments
; part of Chapter 1 of the
Book of Genesis
, which describes the creation of the world; and hundreds more 2,000-year-old texts, shedding light on the time when Jesus lived and preached, and on the history of Judaism.
The Ten Commandments. Photo by Shai Halevi, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority
Part of the Book of Genesis. Photo by Shai Halevi, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority
Millions of users and scholars can discover and decipher details invisible to the naked eye, at 1215 dpi resolution. The site displays infrared and color images that are equal in quality to the Scrolls themselves. There’s a database containing information for about 900 of the manuscripts, as well as interactive content pages. We’re thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, and use of Maps, YouTube and Google image technology.
This partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority is part of our ongoing work to bring important cultural and historical materials online, to make them accessible and help preserve them for future generations. Other examples include the
Yad Vashem Holocaust photo collection
,
Google Art Project
,
World Wonders
and the
Google Cultural Institute
.
We hope you enjoy visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, or any of these other projects, and interacting with history.
Posted by Eyal Miller, New Business Development, and Yossi Matias, Head of Israel Research and Development Center
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