A book for the ages
A new analysis reveals the chemistry of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
By
David L. Chandler archive page
October 24, 2019
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/10/24/132384/a-book-for-the-ages/
Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Admir Masic and colleagues used specialized tools to map the chemical composition of a one-inch fragment from the Temple Scroll at submicron scale. They found that the parchment was coated with an unusual mixture of brine evaporates—including sulfur, sodium, and calcium—that did not match the composition of the Dead Sea. The fragment “allowed us to look deeply into its original composition, revealing the presence of some elements at completely unexpectedly high concentrations,” Masic says.
The coating helped give the parchment its unusually bright white surface and shows that the Temple Scroll was produced using techniques atypical of the region. Understanding the details of this ancient technology could provide insights into the culture and society of that time and place, revealing trade routes used to obtain the material. It could also help preserve the manuscripts, which appear to have been damaged by efforts to unroll them immediately after their discovery. The mineral coatings might absorb moisture from the air and degrade the underlying material if they do. The research underscores the need to store the parchments in a controlled-humidity environment at all times.
Newsweek
Mystery of How the Ancient Hebrews Created the Longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls Solved by Scientists (2019)
Hannah Osborne
https://www.newsweek.com/dead-sea-scroll-preservation-mystery-1457864
A team of researchers, led by Admir Masic from MIT, was provided an inch-sized fragment of the Temple Scroll to study. At almost 25 feet in length, this document is one of the largest of the scrolls. It is also one of the thinnest, measuring about a tenth of a millimeter. Yet the Temple Scroll is also one of the best preserved of all these historic texts, having the clearest and whitest writing surface.
Masic and his team carried out a chemical analysis of the text to find out how the parchment was made using specially developed, non-invasive techniques that allowed them to identify thousands of elements on the surface of the text.
Their findings, published in scientific journal
Science Advances, shows the Temple Scroll has a layered structure and was processed with a mix of salts left over from the evaporation of brines—a mix different to what was used on other scrolls. Elements found include calcium, sodium and sulfur. The concentrations of these elements were "at completely unexpectedly high concentrations," Masic said in a statement.
Researchers say this salt coating is what gave the Temple Scroll its bright white surface and may have helped preserve it. The significance of the text may be why it was treated with a different mix of salts. In an email to
Newsweek, Masic and co-author Ira Rabin said: "The Temple Scroll was very special. Not just holy text. Some considered it to be a sixth book of Moses. It is conceivable that this very costly and unusual preparation of the Temple Scroll was done to produce a specifically beautiful scroll."
Where the salts came from is unknown—the composition does not match what would come from the Dead Sea, so it must have come from another source of brine from another location.
