The dead sea scrolls

Yesterday, I went to an exhibition about the dead sea scrolls. It was pretty amazing. In reality it was about the bible, the people involved and the scrolls. I would mention the scrolls discovery and what interests me, the copper scroll.

The dead sea scrolls were found near the dead sea, in a place called Qumran. There are 9 caves and all contained items. Cave 4 is the most productive with 15000 pieces from 200 texts. According to the guides at the exhibition, the scrolls were found be a boy looking for a missing goat. On the way, he found a cave. He thought the goat might be in it, so he trew stones in to try to scare the goat out. Instead of finding his goat, he heard sounds of breaking pottery. Under investigation, he discovered the pottery were filled with scrolls. This cave would turn out to be cave three.

Now about the particular item that interests me. The copper scroll was the last one of 15 scrolls found in cave 3. It is written on a thin sheet of copper, and rolled up. Iy=t is actually 2 pieces, presumely because it broke in half when it was rolled up. The copper scroll was ultimately cut into sections by a saw as it could not be openned by conventional means due to large amounts of erosion. The scroll is actually a list of specific places, 64 in total, and the large amount of treasure hidden at those places. The treasure consists of mainly talents of gold or silver or other precious metals. The total is estimated in tons. The list also mentions another list in which there would be further intructions and directions. The interesting thing is, it could not be a hoax. At that time people did not really have such a good sense of humour as to write a treasure map and hide it among other well known documents in order to trigger a massive treasure hunt for nothing in the future.

The other scrolls were written on animal skin. This made it very difficult for the scholors to read what was on the scrolls as the skins blackened the invention of infra-red technology finally gave the scholors a look at the scrolls and try to piece them together. The first thought was to use the handwriting style to piece them together until the scholors realised that the same scribe could be copying the same script over and over again, so they realised they had to use another different method. The use of DNA testing came about. The animal skins pieced together had to have the same DNA. All together, the testing cost a lot. The translation however, has yet to be completed, even though the scrolls have been discovered half a century ago.