Tag Archives: Dead Sea Scrolls

New piece of Dead Sea Scrolls jigsaw discovered after 60 years

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists racing against treasure hunters to search caves near the Dead Sea have discovered a trove of artifacts, including fragments of a biblical text, the like of which has not been seen for decades.

The finds, preserved by the hot, dry air of the Judean desert, also include the 6,000-year-old partly mummified skeleton of a child, and a perfectly intact, finely woven basket dating back 10,500 years that the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Tuesday was likely to be the oldest in the world.

The Authority has overseen a survey of more than 100 km (65 miles) of cliffs and the caves carved or eroded into them.

The fragments of parchment, about 2,000 years old, bear biblical verse, written in Greek, and match a scroll discovered about 60 years ago called the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets.”

That scroll is one of a trove of ancient Jewish texts called the Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in 1947 by local Bedouin in the caves of Qumran, about 20 km east of Jerusalem.

The collection, which has come to include texts discovered elsewhere along the western shore of the Dead Sea, provided a window into Jewish society and religion before and after the time of Jesus.

A flurry of exploration followed their discovery but the search eventually petered out – until recently, when new pieces of scrolls and parchment appeared on the black market.

The likelihood that antiquities robbers had found a new trove spurred the Authority into action.

Since 2017, crews have been abseiling down marl and limestone cliffs and using drones to map hundreds of caves and hollows.

Many were filled with centuries of sand and debris, and about a dozen thought to be likely hiding places were excavated fully.

The new fragments of manuscript were found in the “Cave of Horror,” which years ago yielded up the 1,900-year-old skeletons of Jewish rebels who had fought against the Roman Empire.

“These are new pieces of the puzzle and we can add them to our greater picture of the period and of the text,” said Oren Ableman of the Antiquities Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls Unit.

“Even though these pieces are small, they did give us some new information that we did not know before.”

The fragments allowed the reconstruction of 11 lines of text, and provided insight into the parchment the text is written on.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

U.S. Bible museum says five Dead Sea Scrolls fragments fake

FILE PHOTO: A visitor enters an exhibit room during a preview at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, U.S., November 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

(Reuters) – The Museum of the Bible in Washington on Monday said five of its artifacts thought to be part of the Dead Sea Scrolls were fake and would not be displayed anymore.

German-based researchers tested the fragments and found five “show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin and therefore will no longer be displayed,” the museum said in a statement.

Academics have long questioned the authenticity of Dead Sea Scroll fragments sold by antiquities dealers. The museum established by the Green family of Oklahoma, who own U.S. craft-store chain Hobby Lobby, funded research over the past two years into whether its 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments were genuine.

“Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts,” Jeffrey Kloha, chief curatorial officer for the Museum of the Bible, said in the statement.

Scholars and media reports raised questions about the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments last year in the run up to the Green family’s November opening of the $500 million museum.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, composed of hundreds of manuscripts and thousands of fragments of ancient Jewish religious texts, were discovered in the West Bank by Bedouin shepherds in the 1940s. The nearly 2,000-year-old scrolls gave religious scholars a new trove of information on the Hebrew Bible.

Kipp Davis, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls at Trinity Western University in Canada, was one of several academics who studied the Museum of the Bible’s scroll fragments, prompting the museum to send five for testing.

“My studies to date have managed to confirm upon a preponderance of different streams of evidence the high probability that at least seven fragments in the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls collection are modern forgeries, but conclusions on the status of the remaining fragments are still forthcoming,” Davis said in the statement.

The museum sent the five fragments to Germany’s BAM institute for analysis of their ink.

Forgers typically write on top of ancient scraps of parchment or leather, making fragments appear authentic until their ink is tested.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; editing by Bill Tarrant and Tom Brown)

Archaeologists vs robbers, Israel’s race to find ancient scrolls

The Wider Image: Searching for remains of the Dead Sea Scrolls

By Ari Rabinovitch

TZEELIM VALLEY, Israel (Reuters) – The disposable paper face masks offer little protection from the clouds of dust that fill the cliffside cave where Israeli archaeologists are wrapping up the largest excavation in the Judean desert of the past half-century.

Clipped into safety harnesses, volunteers stand at the cave opening, 250 meters (820 feet) above a dry river bed that leads to the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea.

They sift through an endless supply of dirt-filled buckets, and the dust they throw in the air reaches the far corners of the cave where a dozen workers crawling on hands and knees can’t help but cough.

The three-week excavation was the first part of a national campaign to recover as many artefacts as possible, particularly scrolls, left behind by Jewish rebels who hid in the desert some 2,000 years ago, before they are snatched up by antiquity robbers.

“These looters that operate in the area are experts at finding scrolls. We go after them, look for what they are looking for and try to catch them,” said Guy Fitoussi, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority robbery prevention unit in southern Israel. “This is the game. Like cat and mouse.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient texts written on papyrus and parchment, have already been rescued by scholars. They are among the earliest texts written in the Hebrew language and are on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem as a national treasure.

Now Israel wants to uncover whatever may remain in the desert hideouts before it is destroyed or ends up on the black market.

For a Wider Image photo essay on the excavation click: http://reut.rs/25zc4ZK

PISTOL-PACKING ARCHAEOLOGIST

According to Israeli law, all relics found on land or at sea belong to the state. Fitoussi, a pistol-packing archaeologist with authority to arrest looters, and his team catch about 100 of them each year. Most are fined; some are sent to jail.

In 2014, they arrested six people who were plundering this particular cavern, known as the Cave of Skulls, where seven skulls had been found from Jews of the Bar Kokhba rebellion against Rome in the 2nd century.

That raid, Fitoussi said, helped spur the multi-year government-backed excavation program and focused their initial efforts at this site, about a two-hour drive southeast from Jerusalem.

To access the cave, diggers don climbing gear and descend 20 minutes from their campsite along a steep path that hugs the rocky cliff. Inside, the grotto expands 160 square meters (1,720 square feet), including a number of cramped tunnels that extend deep into the mountain.

The limestone walls of the dry desert cave are perfect for preservation, said Uri Davidovich, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University who was one of the dig’s directors.

One 19-year-old volunteer, working flat on her belly in a dark crawl space, dirt mixed with sweat covering her face and digging with her fingers, unearthed a thin, 25 centimeter (10 inch)-long rope that most likely was used by the Bar Kokhba rebels. A rope this length was a rare discovery, Davidovich said.

They haven’t found any scrolls yet, he said, but the artefacts found in this cave, and countless others nearby, will provide historians rare insight into how people lived 2,000 to 8,000 years ago.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Jeremy Gaunt)