THE CHALLENGES WE’RE WORKING ON

Local Bedouins and archaeologists discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s in caves located near the northern edge of the Dead Sea. Excavations in the following decades turned up tens of thousands of parchment and papyrus fragments that were dated up to 2,000 years ago.

Initially, there were so many small and fragile fragments that archaeologists placed them in boxes to be studied at a later date. Now, that time has come.

HOW WE’RE SOLVING THEM

Thanks to technological advances, previously hidden text on fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls have now become readable, revealing a possible undiscovered scroll and solving a debate about the sacred Temple Scroll. 

These fragments looked blank to the naked eye. But, by using infrared imaging, researchers discovered that they held Hebrew letters and words. Researchers then deciphered the script and even connected the fragments to the manuscripts that they had likely been attached to before crumbling away.

THE IMPACT OF OUR WORK

The scrolls are primarily religious manuscripts containing 230 texts from all the books of the Hebrew Bible except for the Book of Esther. They also contain non-biblical Jewish texts from the end of the Second Temple period, apocalyptic and liturgical essays, and descriptions of daily life.

The surprising discovery, representing a milestone in Dead Sea Scroll research, was made by Dr. Oren Gutfeld and Ahiad Ovadia from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, with the help of Dr. Randall Price and students from Liberty University in Virginia.

The recent discovery of another scroll cave suggests that much work remains to be done in the Judean Desert and finds of huge importance are still waiting to be discovered.

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