FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
The Dead Sea Scrolls give up more of their secrets, while doubt is cast on treasure find
DEAD SEA SCROLLS [FT393:12]
In contrast to the US Museum of the Bible’s dismay that 16 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments purchased at great expense are fakes, study of the genuine scrolls continues to yield new secrets. In the 1950s, a collection of fragments from the original Qumran discovery were given by the Jordanian government to Ronald Reed, a leather and parchment expert then at the University of Leeds. There is no doubt as to their authenticity since they are known to have been found during the official Qumran caves excavations in the 1940s and 1950s and were never channelled through the antiquities market.
At the time of the gift, these fragments were thought to be blank, and after analysis of their physical and chemical composition, they were donated to the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library in 1997. They remained there, untouched and in storage, until earlier this year, when Joan Taylor, professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London began examining them with a view to identifying items suitable for radiocarbon analysis. Surprised to see what appeared to be a faint, small lamed (the Hebrew letter ‘L’) on one of the ‘blank’ fragments, she then selected all fragments larger than 0.4 inches (1cm); a total of 51 pieces.
Multispectral imaging, a technique whereby objects are photographed digitally using several wavelengths of light on the electromagnetic spectrum (including infrared) was employed. It revealed that four of these supposedly blank fragments contained letters, sewn thread, ruled lines and even a discernible word. One bears four lines of text, with a total of 15 or 16 complete or partially preserved letters in either Hebrew or Aramaic. The word shabbat (‘Sabbath’) is clearly visible, which, together with some other clues, suggested the text was a version of Ezekiel 46:1-3.
The project’s findings, part of the Network for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources (DQCAAS), will be published in a forthcoming report. “With new techniques for revealing ancient texts now available, I felt we had to know if these letters could be exposed,” said Professor Taylor. “There are only a few on each fragment, but they are like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle you find under a sofa.” livescience. com, 19 May; kcl.ac.uk, 29 May 2020.
And in another example of cutting-edge technology used to shed new light on these 2,000-year-old fragments, a team of Israeli, Swedish and American researchers have been using advanced genetic testing in attempts to piece together the 25,000 pieces of ancient parchment that comprise the Dead Sea Scrolls. Researchers have spent decades attempting to laboriously piece together the ancient scraps of parchment made from animal skins, found at Qumran in the West Bank, 6 miles (10km) from the Jordanian border, in the 1940s and 1950s.
The new findings show that at least some of the material, written between the second century BC and the second century AD, most likely originated from other parts of the region than Qumran. These new discoveries also suggest that the Judeans of the period were less concerned with precise wording of ancient religious texts than were later Jews and Christians.
But the most enticing prospect for Dead Sea Scroll scholars is that it may finally be possible to match up some of these thousands of fragments, which in some cases bear only a few letters, by means of analysing their DNA. “There are many scrolls fragments that we don’t know how to connect,” said geneticist Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University, “and if we connect wrong pieces together it can change dramatically the interpretation of any scroll.”
For example, two pieces, long thought to be part of a single manuscript from the book of Jeremiah, have now been shown to be unrelated, as one had been made from sheep hide, while the other was composed of cow hide. “Analysis of the text found on these Jeremiah pieces suggests that they not only belong to different scrolls, they also represent different versions of the prophetic book,” said biblical scholar Noam Mizrahi, also of Tel Aviv University.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include biblical texts as well as hymns, prayers, and apocalyptic works, had been hidden in jars in caves near Qumran, home to the ascetic Jewish Essene sect. It had been thought the scrolls had been produced by scribes living in the Qumran community, but it is now believed they were a collection of documents
written in Jerusalem and other Judean locations. All but two of the 26 fragments tested were made from sheep hide, with the research even able to distinguish the genetic signature of different flocks of sheep.
Pnina Shor, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls projects unit, said that this ancient DNA work will complement other reseach currently being undertaken at Israeli and German universities, creating computer algorithms to establish each fragment’s proper place. “This will allow us to use different approaches to the puzzle,” she said. “And this study is just the start.” nationalgeographic.com, 2 June 2020.
BOOK OF DEATH [FT395:10]
On 7 June 2020, eccentric millionaire Forrest Fenn announced that someone had found the treasure chest containing gold coins, gold nuggets, a vial of gold dust, two gold discs, antiques, jewelry and other valuable items, with a value estimated at between $2 million (£1.6 million) and $5 million (£4 million) that he had buried in the Rocky Mountains in 2010, with clues to its whereabouts concealed in a poem that appeared in his self-published memoir. Five people have died trying to locate the treasure.
There is some doubt at Fenn’s claim that his code had been cracked and the booty located. He has refused to reveal the identity of the prize winner, on the basis that the man “from back East” wanted to avoid publicity. Tony Dokoupil, news anchor for CBS This Morning, who claims to have helped Fenn publicise the treasure hunt back in 2012, says he doesn’t believe this is the real treasure. Although Fenn offered photos of the treasure as proof that it had been discovered, Dokoupil is not convinced, arguing that the photos don’t constitute proof because they are undated, and are accompanied by no other details. He believes photos of Fenn posing with the treasure are old ones, taken prior to the alleged burial of the chest.
“There’s no proof that it’s been found,” Dokoupil pointed out. “He’s offered none. And he’s 89 now. It’s possible that what he’s actually doing is creating an opening for himself to complete the rather dark and bizarre plan he explained to me nearly a decade ago.”
That plan, according to Dokoupil, a Newsweek reporter when he first met Forrest Fenn in August 2012, was that Fenn intended to have his own bones buried with the treasure.
“When people find the treasure, they’ll find my bones,” Fenn allegedly told Dokoupil. “But my bio will be inside, so at least they’ll know who I was.” At the time, Fenn had been diagnosed with kidney cancer and believed he had only a short time to live. While not revealing how Fenn intended to carry out his plan, Dokoupil believed the chest would contain at least some of Fenn’s own bones.
Fenn was an amateur archaeologist himself, and in the late 1990s had been accused of disturbing Native American graves and removing bones. He escaped prosecution by pointing out that the state had illegally trespassed on his property to obtain evidence and that he had reburied the bones, only not in their original graves.
“I think the treasure is in a location where an older man can still get to it and crawl or insert himself in and alongside the chest,” Dokoupil said. “I mean, that’s how it was explained to me. You have a guy who’s been collecting archaeology his whole life, is so in love with it he’s hatched a plan to make himself part of that record for all time and invite the public in to try to find it and his bones. I am confident it is not a hoax. Forrest wants to be remembered for thousands of years, and this is his way of doing so.” mysteriousuniverse. org, 20 June, 2020.