The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew and Jewish religious texts. They were discovered in 1946-7 in the Qumran Caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. The scrolls are made from papyrus, parchment and copper and the writing is mostly in Hebrew, Aramic, Greek, and Nabataean-Aramic.
As is common with groundbreaking archaeological discoveries, the initial discovery of the scrolls were made by accident. A shepherd who was searching for his sheep stumbled upon a cave where he discovered seven scrolls in jars. This was near the Qumran site in what came to be known as “Cave 1”. After the initial discovery sporadic excavations of the caves have been undertaken, identifying a total of 12 caves containing scrolls. The most recent excavation took place in 2021, bringing the total number of manuscripts to 972, either whole or fragmented.
The exact origins of the scrolls are still unknown. The prevailing hypothesis used to be that they were made by the Essenes at Qumran, in the mediaeval period, but this has been proven to be false as the scrolls actually predate this. The scrolls have been carbon dated using a piece of linen from one of the caves. The test dated the scrolls to 33 CE, with an offset of 200 years, so the scrolls date to between the third century BCE to the first century CE. They’ve also been subjected to palaeography - analysis of letter form. These linguistic analyses also date the scrolls to anywhere between 225 BCE - 50 CE. These dates were a conclusion of the style, variability and size of the text.
The scrolls have also been analysed using a cyclotron, a machine that accelerates charged particles. It was concluded that the all black ink was “carbon black”, which is a material produced by an incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, and vegetable matter or petroleum products. The National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Sicily suggests that the dead sea scrolls originate from the Qumran area. They used x-ray and particle-induced X-ray emission to test the water that was used to make the parchment and compared the results with the water from around Qumran site to reach this conclusion.
Most recently, the Israeli Antiquities Authority theorised that the animal which the parchment was made from was of religious importance. Through DNA testing, they concluded that scrolls written on calf or goat skin held more religious significance than those written on ibex or gazelle skin.
It is nearly impossible to describe just how valuable the Dead Sea Scrolls are to our study of the past. As we continue to excavate and expand our collection, we are also finding new ways of getting information from them outside of just simple text. New technologies are always exciting to use, and archaeologists are always finding creative new ways to use them to learn more.
Text: Anna Sunneborn Gudnadottir. MENAM Archaeology. Copyright 2023.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
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