The writings discovered on the Dead Sea are among the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century. Researching them is like doing a puzzle because they involve thousands of fragments. Researchers have now tried a new approach.
Tel Aviv (dpa) - Scientists have been trying to put together famous Dead Sea scrolls for more than 70 years. With more than 25,000 often tiny fragments of biblical texts, this is a major challenge.
With the help of genetic analysis, they have now made progress with the so-called Qumran roles. As the researchers around the Israeli professor Oded Rechawi report in the specialist magazine "Cell", they obtained DNA from the documents made from animal skin. In conjunction with text analysis, this helped them to bring the oldest handwritten Bible texts into context and order.
According to the post, the scrolls include more than 25,000 fragments of old manuscripts. The first of the approximately 2,000-year-old documents were found more than 70 years ago by a shepherd in a cave on the Dead Sea, and later fragments were discovered. After their location, Chirbet Qumran, they are called Qumran roles. The ancient writings are among the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century.
So far, scientists have tried to put the documents together like a puzzle. They mainly relied on external appearances. According to the researchers, the DNA analyzes now show that most of the documents are made of sheep skin. This was previously unknown. The scientists then assumed that documents made from the skin of the same sheep should belong together. In addition, it is likely that roles from the skins of closely related sheep belong together.
In one case, where research has previously assumed that two documents belonged together, it was found that they were made from different animal skins - that of a sheep and that of a cow. Noam Mizrahi from Tel Aviv University concludes that fragments made from cowhide must very likely have originated elsewhere, since cow breeding was not possible near where the Dead Sea documents were found.
The researchers emphasize that DNA analysis can only contribute to the research of the documents. However, they hope that further roles can be examined in the future. For many, no genetic analysis has yet been carried out.
Emanuel Tov, emeritus professor of Bible studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, speaks of an "extremely important project". The specialist work brings research in the area decisively and is also very promising with regard to future investigations. The analysis of ancient DNA from the rolls is "a big step forward". While this type of DNA analysis has no disadvantages, "but this study still needs to be expanded to include many more samples and ultimately a large database," said Tov.
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