The Dead Sea Scrolls are possibly some of the world's most prized artifacts. They were discovered during a 10-year span between 1946 and 1956 in the West Bank. A group of Bedouin shepherds and a team of archeologists found them spread throughout 12 different caves located near the Dead Sea.
After having been discovered, the scrolls were hidden beneath floorboards by an antiques dealer for more than 10 years, wrapped in cellophane. Once they were located by scholars and brought out again, the scrolls had suffered significant damage due to moisture, but one of the scrolls, the Temple scroll, held up beautifully.
These 2,000-year old Hebrew writings are ancient records that are believed to hold great historical importance. Even though most are torn, brittle, or otherwise damaged, there are still a few in relative good shape. The Temple Scroll is one of the more special of the scrolls, not only because of what's written on it, but also because of just how well it has withstood the test of time.
To this day, the Temple scroll can still be unrolled as far as eight meters and has maintained an incredible ivory color. All the more impressive considering the scroll is exceptionally thin, measuring only one-tenth of a millimeter.
The Temple scroll is a one-of-a-kind amongst the collection. While the other Dead Sea Scrolls are made of the traditional animal skin-based parchment, with the text being written on the "hair side" of the material. The Temple scroll appears to have a thin inorganic layer used as the writing surface.
In a recent paper published in Science Advances, researchers described the method as "unique" and that understanding the technique used to create the inorganic writing surface is essential for "the preservation of these invaluable historical documents."
To determine just exactly what is on the scroll, researchers began examining the document using non-invasive methods.
"These methods allow us to maintain the materials of interest under more environmentally friendly conditions," explains James Weave, a scanning electron microscopist from Harvard University, "while we collect hundreds of thousands of different elemental and chemical spectra across the surface of the sample, mapping out its compositional variability in extreme detail."
The researchers made a startling discovery. Evidence from the tests suggests that a previously unknown technique was used when preparing the parchment over 2,000 years ago. The team identified an odd mix of sulphur, sodium, and calcium, a mixture that seems to have been applied to the animal skin parchment before anything was written on it.
"[T]his study has far-reaching implications beyond the Dead Sea Scrolls," says chemist Ira Rabin from Hamburg University in Germany.
"For example, it shows that at the dawn of parchment making in the Middle East, several techniques were in use, which is in stark contrast to the single technique used in the Middle Ages."
The research team thinks that the Temple scroll may have been produced using an extremely rare technique that effectively preserved the ancient text.
"The [Temple Scroll] can, therefore, be classified as a Western parchment that was modified through the addition of an inorganic layer as a writing surface," the authors conclude.
This amazing discovery has potentially raised more questions than it answered. According to the findings, the composition of the inorganic layer does not match water found in the Dead Sea. So of course, the water used was from somewhere else, however, the researchers are not sure of just where that is.
