Dead Sea Archives - Page 13 of 30

Leviticus Scroll Discovered at En Gedi

A 6th-century AD scroll discovered inside a Torah Ark at En Gedi 45 years ago has recently been deciphered to reveal the first 8 verses of Leviticus, making it the oldest scroll discovered since the Dead Sea Scrolls. From a press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority:

Summary: Modern technologies made it possible for the first time to read the contents of a burnt scroll that was found forty five years ago in archaeological excavations at Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Surprisingly the scroll is a 1,500 year old copy of the beginning of the Book of Leviticus….
Details: The parchment scroll was unearthed in 1970 in archaeological excavations in the synagogue at Ein Gedi, headed by the late Dr. Dan Barag and Dr. Sefi Porath. However, due to its charred condition, it was not possible to either preserve or decipher it.
The Lunder Family Dead Sea Scrolls Conservation Center of the Israel Antiquities Authority which uses state of the art and advanced technologies to preserve and document the Dead Sea scrolls enabled the discovery of this important find. It turns out that part of this scroll is from the beginning of the Book of Leviticus, written in Hebrew, and dated by C14 analysis to the late sixth–century CE. To date, this is the most ancient scroll from the five books of the Hebrew Bible to be found since the Dead Sea scrolls, most of which are ascribed to the end of the Second Temple period (first century BCE-first century CE).

There are no English articles yet posted, but you should be able to find them as they appear with this link. Haaretz has the story in its Hebrew edition. High-res images may be downloaded here. Thanks to Joseph Lauer for sending the press release and related links.

Ein Gedi Scroll Fragment-Shai Halevi-IAA

Scroll fragment before study, Shai Halevi, IAA

Suggested Merged Text Layer after Unrolling-Seth Parker-University of Kentucky

Virtual Unrolling and Suggested Merged Text Layer, Seth Parker, University of Kentucky and Ehud Shor, Jerusalem

Ein Gedi Potential Scroll Fragments for further research, Shai Halevi, IAA

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Technology

Weekend Roundup

This summer’s excavation on Mount Zion begins soon. Here’s how you can help even if you can’t be in Jerusalem.

Leen Riitmeyer reports on a second arch of Titus uncovered in Rome. And he describes how his search to find the Dedicatory Inscription in the Colosseum ultimately succeeded.

If you’ve ever wondered how they raised animals from underneath the floor of the Colosseum, the

Telegraph has an illustrated article showing a reconstruction of the elevators. A 2-minute video shows the process. This is part of a government project to restore the floor of the Colosseum.

James H. Charlesworth has written a lengthy and informative review rebutting David Stacey and
Gregory Doudna, Qumran Revisited: A Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and its Texts.

Wayne Stiles explains how the four quarters of Jerusalem will be united.

“Wilderness” is the title of a symposium of Biblical scholars from the Universities of Manchester, Sheffield and Lausanne University of Lausanne.

The British Museum is lending 500 artifacts to a new museum in Abu Dhabi for five years. This includes “the world’s finest single Assyrian panel: the Banquet Scene (645-635BC).”

There is fear in Iraq for the safety of the traditional tomb of the prophet Nahum.

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review includes articles on Solomon’s temple, Akhenaten’s monotheism, the Gospel of Thomas, and the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex.

Congress has passed legislation making it illegal to sell looted artifacts from Syria.

The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. hosted a Tyre Day Symposium to raise awareness about the city’s history.

“Of Kings and Prophets” is a new series beginning this fall on ABC.

A clumsy tourist fell and smashed a 4,000-year-old vase in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on the island of Crete.

Barry Britnell is sharing photos of last year’s trip as he prepares to lead next year’s trip. Today: Northern Galilee and the Hula Valley.

HT: Ted Weis, Agade, Joseph Lauer

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Dead Sea, Galilee, Italy, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Weekend Roundup

Dead Sea Beaches Closing

The declining water level of the Dead Sea is creating sinkholes which are in turn threatening roads, campsites, and beach areas. This past winter two free beaches along the western shore of the Dead Sea have been closed, leaving visitors with fewer and more expensive options.

Nir Hasson writes in Haaretz on the damage to the area, including this part about the En Gedi area.

About two months later it was decided to close the part of the highway opposite Kibbutz Ein Gedi, which is prone to sinkholes, to be replaced by a bypass road. This has led to transportation snarls. Thousands of day-trippers were stuck in a kilometers-long traffic jam. For the kibbutz members every trip takes between 10 minutes to an hour and a half longer. Nimrod Hacker, the head of the community, says that people reserve a room in the hotel and are unable to get there, goods are stuck, farmers who go down to the orchards get stuck in traffic jams.
The 1.5- kilometer section of highway between the nature reserve and the kibbutz must be the most expensive section in the history of the country. In the past decade tens of millions of shekels have been invested, most of which went to waste because of the sinkholes. In 2009 a new and very expensive bridge was dedicated above Nahal Arugot. In recent years the bridge had been “attacked” by sinkholes, and it was recently put out of service along with the section of the highway.
Many solutions have been proposed, any one of which would require an investment of hundreds of millions of shekels, and perhaps over a billion ($255 million), for a 1.5 kilometer section.
It’s no longer sinkholes, it’s massive sinking of land along 700 meters. The wild animals and the Nahal David and Nahal Arugot nature reserves are also liable to suffer from the road that will be dangerously close to them.
Another blow for Ein Gedi came when the Tamar Regional Council and Netivei Israel, the transportation infrastructure company, decided to close the last free beach at the Dead Sea, along with the gas station, the kiosk and the new camping area that were inaugurated on Sukkot. The regional council invested 4 million shekels in improving the beach, and a festive opening was planned for Passover. In addition, a large percentage of the kibbutz’s date orchards, as well as camping grounds, were abandoned years ago because of the sinkholes.
Closing the last free beach now presents a major challenge for those who want to bathe in the Dead Sea. The last organized beaches charge dozens of shekels per person, and bathers also have to descend steps and terraces or travel in a special train, whose route lengthens by the year, in order to reach the water. In the hotel area you can still swim in Dead Sea water – not at the beach but in the industrial swimming pool built by the Dead Sea Works.

The full article is here.

En Gedi new bridge over Nahal Arugot, tb010810115

Bridge over Nahal Arugot, after dedication in 2009; this bridge is no longer in use.

Dead Sea beach at En Gedi, now closed

Tagged Dead Sea, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

The Big Picture has 13 great photos of the declining level of the Dead Sea.

Why visit the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem? Bible History Daily points out 10 great biblical artifacts.

That same museum is hosting a new exhibit “By the Rivers of Babylon” that is profiled in Haaretz.

The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem is using iPads and phones to improve the visitor’s experience (NYTimes).

The Melbourne Museum has produced a recreation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii.

Illegal excavations in Alexandria have revealed a Graeco-Roman necropolis.

An update on the Nineveh destruction from Agade: “Reliable reports from the Mosul that for good reason cannot be attributed are that the fortifications of Nineveh have not been damaged in any way.

Unfortunately, Nabi Younis, however, is now completely destroyed.”

HT: Agade

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Egypt, Jerusalem, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Weekend Roundup

Dead Sea Scroll Thieves Caught Red-Handed

Antiquities thieves plunder sites all over the biblical world year after year, but rarely are they caught, especially in the act. The Israel Antiquities Authority nabbed a group of illegal diggers working near the Dead Sea. This press release has all of the fascinating details.

Today (Sunday) an indictment was handed up against antiquities robbers who tried to loot Dead Sea scrolls from the Judean Desert. This comes in the wake of a dramatic capture carried out last weekend by inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery of the Israel Antiquities Authority, with the assistance of the Arad Rescue Unit. The apprehension of the robbers was part of a complex operation to locate the Dead Sea scroll robbers, which lasted more than a year.

Early in the morning hours members of the Arad Rescue Unit, which were undergoing routine training at the time, identified suspicious movement in a cave in the northern cliff of Nahal Ze’elim, in the region of the Leopard’s Ascent.

Inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery of the Israel Antiquities Authority were called to the scene and they placed the cave under surveillance utilizing observation and photographic equipment. The suspects were observed in the cave carrying out an illicit excavation while using a metal detector and a large amount of excavating equipment.

The suspects dug in an ancient cave which is known in archaeological circles as “The Cave of the Skulls”. They caused tremendous damage in the cave by digging through layers of earth while destroying archaeological strata and historical evidence from the Roman period c. 2,000 years ago and the Chalcolithic period c. 5,000 years ago.

The cave is located in the side of the cliff, 150 meters above the bottom of Nahal Ze’elim and some 70 meters below the top of the cliff. It can only be reached on foot via a narrow goat’s path on top of rock fall, that passes upright bedrock walls and is extremely dangerous.

The suspects – all young men from the village of Seir in the vicinity of Hebron – demonstrated considerable expertise in reaching the cave by climbing and rappelling from the cliff while using special equipment they possessed.

After observing and documenting the suspects in action, the suspects began climbing to the top of the cliff during the evening while carrying on their back ancient finds (such as a 2,000 year old lice comb from the Roman period) and all of the digging equipment that included excavation tools, break-in equipment, two sophisticated metal detectors, lighting equipment and ropes, as well as large amounts of food and water, which indicate their intention to remain in the cave for many days. Inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery awaited the suspects at the top of the cliff. Upon arrival the suspects were immediately caught by the Israel Antiquities Authority personnel. They were detained and taken for questioning to the Arad police station where, with the assistance of the Arad police and investigators, they were interrogated for many hours and gave their version of events.

The press release continues here. The story is reported by the Jerusalem Post, the Associated Press, and the BBC. Nahal Ze’elim is located south of En Gedi and a few miles north of Masada.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Charles Savelle

Looted cave in Nahal Ze’elim
Photos courtesy of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery of the Israel Antiquities Authority

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Dead Sea

Weekend Roundup

Anna Moseley Gissing writes about three lessons she learned from archaeology about the spiritual life.

Haaretz reports that the appointment of Israel’s new antiquities chief is embroiled in politics.

Should the Vatican return the menorah from the Jerusalem Temple? Steven Fine assigned his class the task of refuting the notion that the Vatican has it.

Greek archaeologists excavating a fourth-century BC tomb at Amphipolis have made an “extremely important find.”

~~Camels~~ Mummification existed in Egypt 1,500 years earlier than scientists have long believed.

The Egyptian government has asked the Ashmolean museum to lend it the personal collection of Howard Carter.

Brian Daniels discusses Preserving Culture in War on this week’s broadcast of The Book and the Spade.

What is the relationship between the archaeology of Jerusalem and the Book of Mormon? SourceFlix has produced a new video that answers this question.

Wayne Stiles describes two oases along the shore of the Dead Sea. (Can you guess which ones they are? Neither one ends with “Gedi.”) He includes photos, a video, and a map.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Triumphal procession depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands, volume 15

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Jerusalem, Museums, Weekend Roundup