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The Dead Sea Scrolls have given up new secrets, the researchers claiming they identified a previously unknown technique used to prepare one of the most remarkable scrolls in the collection.
Scientists say the study poses a puzzle because the salts used on the Temple Scroll writing layer are not common to the Dead Sea region.
"This inorganic layer that is really clearly visible on the scroll of the Temple surprised us and made us consider in more detail how this roll was prepared, which turns out to be quite unique," said the Professor Admir Masic, co-author of the research. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
"These salts are not typical of everything we knew about the period and the making of parchment"
Founded in the mid-twentieth century, but dating back to the third century BCE to the first century AD, the Dead Sea Scrolls consist of copies of writings that are part of the Hebrew Bible, hymns, and writings on religious texts and practices. . Some sections are only fragments while others are intact scrolls.
The discovery of the ancient texts itself is like something extraordinary: nomadic Bedouin shepherds found rolled coils of tissue hidden in pots in Qumran caves in the West Bank.
Most of the writings are on parchment sheets – some have been tanned, one Oriental practice, while others are untanned or slightly tanned, a Western practice.
One of the most remarkable intact manuscripts is the Temple manuscript, a manuscript that would have been sold by the Bedouins to an antique dealer who wrapped it in cellophane and stuck it in a shoebox under his floor. The parchment is now installed with most other Dead Sea Scrolls in the book sanctuary, which is part of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The bright, pale parchment – which is over 8 meters long and is written on parchment leaves bleached by a salt treatment called alum – has a number of unusual features. It is very fine – experts have suggested that it could have been made from an animal skin split in half – and unlike most parchments, the text lies on the side of flesh. Even more surprising, the text is written on a thick layer containing minerals that forms a writing surface on collagen.
"The layer reminds [one] of plaster on a wall, "said Dr. Ira Rabin, another author of the study.
Now, in the journal Science Advances, Masic and his colleagues wrote that they analyzed a fragment of the scroll of the Temple to undo the composition of this layer containing minerals.
The results suggest that the writing surface is largely composed of sulphate salts, including glauberite, gypsum and thenardite, minerals that dissolve in water and are left when the water is wet. water evaporates.
However, the researchers say that these salts are not typical of the Dead Sea region, which raises the question of their exact origin.
Professor Timothy Lim of the University of Edinburgh, who did not participate in the study, said the results did not show that the Temple scroll did not come from the area. even if the salts used in its preparation could come from elsewhere.
However, Professor Jonathan Ben-Dov of Haifa University is not of the same opinion: "I am not at all surprised to learn that part of the rollers do not belong to the world. was not prepared in the Dead Sea region. It would be naïve to assume that they were all prepared there.
Rabin said, "We believe that the [Temple scroll] primary treatment corresponds to the "western" way [of parchment preparation]. But the detailed treatment is rather unique. "
According to the team, the results raise questions about the best way to keep the Dead Sea rolls, noting that sulphate salts could mean that the rolls are more sensitive to small changes in moisture than they are in the water. it was previously thought.
Dr. Kipp Davis, of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in Canada, is one of the academics who recently revealed that trading Dead Sea Scrolls scroll fragments was synonymous with counterfeiting.
"This is an important study that reveals a number of things that promise to continue to be useful in the study of ancient Jewish scribal culture, but also in our efforts to develop more robust and reliable techniques for assessing authenticity." and forgery in ancient manuscripts, "he said.
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