Story of Dead Sea scroll

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32536, 20 February 1971, Page 9

Story of Dead Sea scroll

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) JERUSALEM, ; February 19.

An Israeli archaeologist has described how a torn fragment, stuck together with a British postage stamp, led him to discover the largest of the ancient Dead Sea scrolls, hidden in a shoe box in the Arab section of Jerusalem.

Professor Yigal Yadin revealed the details of a seven-year-long business intrigue, cutting across the lines of the Middle East conflict, which finally put the 2000-year-old “Temple Scroll” in the hands of the Israeli Government.

Professor Yadin, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Army, told a historical convention in Jeru-

salem that while on sabbatical leave in England in 1961 he was approached by a man who offered him the scroll for between SUSIm and SUS2m. Dr Yadin told him he could not decide anything until he saw proof of the scroll.

Shortly afterwards the man returned, pulled out of his pocket a crumpled fragment stuck together with a British postage stamp, and said he was acting for an Arab antique dealer in the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem. HAGGLING After much haggling, the professor concluded a deal for the whole scroll at SUSIOO,OOO and paid SUSIO,OOO immediately, with the rest deposited in a bank pending delivery. But the go-between disappeared and continued efforts to find him or the scroll proved fruitless until Israeli forces occupied the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem in the six-day war in 1967. Professor Yadin eventually tracked down the antique dealer who at first denied any knowledge of the scroll, since it was also an offence under Jordanian law for a private individual to keep such a document. But finally the dealer pulled the scroll, wrapped in. a plastic bag, out of an old shoe box. DAMAGED

The scroll suffered more damage in the brief time it

was stored in the box than in the 2000 years it lay hidden in the Qumran caves at the northern end of the Dead Sea until its discovery in 1947, the professor said.

Israeli archaeologists are still working on restoring and deciphering the scroll. The document is known as the “Temple Scroll” because it carries Biblical passages referring to the building of King Solomon’s temple. It also carries passages concerning the way of life of the Essenes, the ascetic Jewish sect which lived in Qumran at the time of Rome’s occupation of Judea.