Deadseascrolling

Discovery

One day in 1947 a Bedouin shepherd named Jum’a Muhammed was looking for a lost goat that had wandered among the rocky cliffs in a place known as Khirbet Qumran, by the shores of the Dead Sea.  He peered into an opening in the rocks but could see nothing, however when he threw in some stones he heard the sound of breaking pottery.  As it was getting dark he returned the next day with his two cousins, one of whom cleared away some rocks and wriggled inside into the cave.  Inside were a number of pottery jars, most of which were empty although a few of them contained musty old scrolls of parchment wrapped in cloth.  Being poor illiterate shepherds they were disappointed that they had not found anything they could recognise as valuable yet they took them back to their camp.  Later on when they took the scrolls to Bethlehem no-one they spoke to had any idea what they were but someone suggested taking them to the shop of the local boot-maker, who also happened to be a part-time antique dealer.  He realised they might be worth something and paid the men, sources say anything between $US7 and $US14, and agreed to share any profits from the eventual sale of the scrolls, he also agreed to become their agent for any subsequent finds.  The boot-maker and a friend of his were both Syrian Orthodox Christians and during Holy Week of 1947 the friend mentioned the scrolls to one of the clergy in a Jerusalem church who bought four of the scrolls for $US34.  Meanwhile a well-respected archaeologist named Eleazer Sukenik who worked at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had been offered two complete scrolls plus some fragments from another dealer and recognising the similarity of the script to that which he had seen on grave inscriptions he had studied, realised they were authentic.  He immediately purchased them on behalf of the University and a few months later in December 1947, obtained a further scroll from the same source.  His purchases turned out to be the Book of Isaiah, the Thanksgiving Hymns, and the War Scroll.  Between 1951 and 1956 a total of 11 caves had been excavated each containing some literary remains.  The total fragments discovered represent the remains of around 850 scrolls, but in only ten cases has more than fifty percent of the original scroll survived and only one scroll can be called complete.