Sharing the Knowledge of the
Ancient World
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| Dr. E. Jan
Wilson, CPART Associate Director, digging at Tel Migne, Israel |
In the summer of 1996, after a chain of events involving Emanuel Tov, the
director of the international team of Dead Sea Scroll scholars and editors, and Noel B.
Reynolds, then president of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies
(FARMS), an international conference on the scrolls was convened on the campus of Brigham
Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. A major event at that conference was the
demonstration of an electronic database that could make the scrolls searchable on CDs. So
well received was the database that scholars and custodians of other ancient documents
inquired whether the same technology could be used for their records as well.
The demand for this technology and the unique skills of the FARMS organization prompted
the formation of a subsidiary, the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts,
or CPART, which operates under the auspices of BYU.
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| Steven W.
Booras, CPART Technical Operations Manager |
CPART is assigned the role of aiding scholars, clergy, governments and others in
the preserving, imaging, and distribution of ancient writings. It offers three important
services: (1) the preservation of significant religious manuscripts by microfilm,
photography, and/or electronic scanning, (2) the digitization and incorporation of
selected manuscripts into searchable electronic databases at minimal cost, and (3) the
translation and publication of selected ancient and medieval texts.
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