Dead Sea Scrolls

Last week, I saw the Dead Sea Scrolls on exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It was a great exhibit, full of interesting information about the area where the scrolls were discovered, their archaelogical history, and how historians have preserved them. The exhibit talked about the Bedouins who initially disovered the scrolls and fragments in subterranean caves in the Israeli desert, then showed pictures of the "scrollery" where eight full-time scholars spent about a decade grouping and identifying over 40,000 fragments of documents. After reading about the scrolls upstairs, we got to go downstairs to view actual specimens. These included both biblical and non-religious texts, as well as documents in Greek. Some of the fragments were fairly clear and easy to read; others had darkened to a near black, making it impossible to see the script. There was even one scroll written on a sheet of copper! It was a fascinating exhibit, and makes me thankful that the worst I have to deal with in MY archival work is crumbling Victoriana and vinegared films. ^_^