One of the oldest Dead Sea Scrolls in the world has been discovered 6,000 miles from its original location.
This scroll is approximately 2,700 years old and is one of only three surviving papyri from the First Temple period.
It was largely forgotten by scholars until the death of ancient Hebrew character researcher Ada Yarden in 2018.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew and Jewish religious manuscripts discovered in 1946-1947 in the Qumran caves of Palestine in what was then ordered.
Professor Shmuel Ahitouf was commissioned to complete Ms Yarden’s unfinished book, but it was only while working on it that he discovered fragments of photographs and launched a campaign to find the missing documents.
Now in Montana, the owner says it was given to him by his mother during a visit to Jerusalem in 1965.
Their owner visited the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) laboratory where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept and agreed to leave them there for future preservation.
To confirm the authenticity of the document, it was radiometrically dated at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.
It was probably taken from the same desert caves in Judea where the other Dead Sea Scrolls were preserved for thousands of years in a dry and stable climate.
Joe Uzziel, Director of the IAA Judean Desert Scrolls Division, said:
However, there are very few documents from the First Temple period that were written on this organic, papyrus-like material.
“There are thousands of scroll fragments from the Second Temple period, but only three from the First Temple period, including the newly discovered ones.
“Each new document sheds more light on the literacy and administration of the First Temple period.”
This fragment contains only four broken lines beginning with the words “Send Ishmael…” in ancient Hebrew.
A complete message is thought of as a set of instructions to the recipient.
“The name Ishmael mentioned in the documents is a common name in biblical times and means ‘God listens,'” said Ahitouf, a professor at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev.
It first appeared in the Bible as the name of the son of Abraham and Hagar, and later became the personal name of various people in the Bible.
“It also appears in the administration of the kingdom of Judah as the name of the official of the discovery of ancient documents such as the brae (clay seal) to seal royal documents.”
This document will be preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls section of the IAA for future generations.
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Source: Metro
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