Team members are delighted to share Dr Dennis Mizzi’s recent publication, “Qumran at Seventy,” which appeared in Strata: The Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Association (2017): 9-45. Many thanks to Dr David Milson, and the society’s editorial committee, for allowing the network to reproduce this article here: Mizzi_Qumran@70
International conference at State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz.
On Thursday 25 January 2018, Dr Dennis Mizzi will deliver the lunchtime seminar: Were Scrolls Susceptible to Impurity? The View from Qumran. Further details https://www.ochjs.ac.uk/academic-activities/lectures/
On 17 July 2017 Professor Marcello Fidanzio undertook a mission within the framework of The Qumran Caves Publication Project (Ecole biblique et archéologique française, Jerusalem [EBAF] and ISCAB-FTL; series editors J.-B. Humbert and M. Fidanzio) focusing on a large selection of (undisplayed) textiles in Amman, whose professional examination has been entrusted to Dr Mireille Bélis and Dr Christophe Moulherat.
Reporting from the Jordan Museum in Amman Professor Marcello Fidanzio, of the Istituto di Cultura e Archeologia delle terre Bibliche (ISCAB), and Research Associate at the École Biblique et Archeologique Française de Jérusalem, confirms that several types of material found in the Qumran caves are preserved in the Jordan Museum Amman. These include manuscripts from the caves 1Q and 4Q and the Copper Scroll from 3Q cave; pottery and a large amount of textiles, as was first observed by George Brooke over twenty years ago (Brooke 1996, 1997, 2000). These materials can now be understood in connection with the archival records related to the time of the excavation held by the Ecole biblique et archéologique française, Jerusalem (EBAF), and remain important assets in the care of the Jordanian authorities.
Further information regarding the manuscript collection at Amman has been published by George Brooke, from his study at the museum in 1996 as follows:
‘Amman Museum,’ in Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: OUP, 2000).
‘The Dead Sea Scrolls in the National Archaeological Museum, Amman,’ al-Nadwah (al-Bayt University Journal) 8 (1997), 23-35.
‘The Dead Sea Scrolls,’ Jordaniana (Summer, 1996), 16-17.
Work on John Allegro’s extensive photographic records continues. During March these Manchester Museum pictures were scanned showing members of the first Scrolls team, led by Père Roland de Vaux from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem (ÉBAF).
In addition to digitising the extensive collection of photographs taken by John Allegro, a number of images feature in Judith Brown’s biography of her father, John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), which have also been made available to the Network. This picture of Professor Wright Baker, from the former Manchester College of Technology (now UMIST), shows him here in profile working on the Copper Scroll, complements the film footage which the project has digitised and made freely available on our recent post at https://dqcaas.com/2016/11/24/1953-film-of-cutting-open-of-the-copper-scroll
Judy Brown, daughter of John Allegro, has generously supplied the Network with many materials related to her father, and we are moving forward with investigating them. Included in these materials was a mysterious roll of film in a metal spool, shot by John Allegro. In order to find out what it was, Joan Taylor visited film archive expert Tim Emblem-English at his London studio: http://www.theflyingspot.co.uk/. Tim was able to recognise that this film was developed as a ‘reversal’ straight out of the camera that shot it, and its Kodak serial number could be traced to 1953. That date turned out to fit perfectly with the contents, as it showed, amazingly, the Copper Scroll being cut into with a circular blade. Thanks to Professor H. Wright Baker, at the former Manchester Institute of Technology (now The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), the scroll was first opened on 1 October 1955, and this film was shot on 3 October at the time of a second cut. The film duration is only 1.21 seconds long, at 25 frames a second, but the quality (silver nitrate on celluloid) is excellent. We have digitised this footage and here make it available on this site for viewing. You may want to imagine the sound of an electric cutter as you watch it!
Kindly note that this film is copyright. For any use of this footage, please be in touch with DQCAAS at joan.taylor@kcl.ac.uk. We thank Judith Brown very much for allowing us to make use of this amazing piece of visual history and permitting us to digitise the footage.
Further details available in J.A. Brown, “Opening the Copper Scroll,” in John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge UK; Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 60-75.
The Caves of Qumran
Edited by Marcello Fidanzio, Facoltà di Teologia di Lugano
Continue reading “Just Published by Marcello Fidanzio: The Caves of Qumran”
Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources (DQCAAS) 