Aware that Dr G. Bushnell at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology had helped Elizabeth Crowfoot mount the Qumran linen in perspex, Joan Taylor got in touch with Imogen Gunn (Collections Manager, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge), to find out whether there may have been any Qumran materials held in their collection.The museum holds a piece of linen (Accession No. 1952:21, currently identified as “cotton”), catalogued as “prehistoric,” and described as  follows: “Piece of plain woven cotton textile, mounted between two thin Perspex sheets. Wrapping from biblical scrolls.(Dimensions 11 inches in length; width 15 inches; source: Jordanian Department of Antiquities; place: Asia, West Asia, Palestine.” A further note on the catalogue card states: “Part of the wrappings of the recently discovered Biblical scrolls found in a cave in the Jordan valley. “ And in a later hand “i.e. the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

A handwritten letter from Dr Gerald Lankaster Harding, dated 27 July 1951, to Dr G. Bushnell confirms that the material was gifted to the University of Cambridge from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, in acknowledgment of the help and kindness shown to Ms. Crowfoot. The letter has no archive reference and is currently held in the Museum’s 1951 correspondence file. https://www.instagram.com/p/BI5IV4hD-WB/