The Temple Scroll: Reconstructing an ancient manufacturing practice

Abstract

The miraculously preserved 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts of invaluable historical significance, were discovered in the mid-20th century in the caves of the Judean desert. The texts were mainly written on parchment and exhibit vast diversity in their states of preservation. One particular scroll, the 8-m-long Temple Scroll is especially notable because of its exceptional thinness and bright ivory color. The parchment has a layered structure, consisting of a collagenous base material and an atypical inorganic overlayer. We analyzed the chemistry of the inorganic layer using x-ray and Raman spectroscopies and discovered a variety of evaporitic sulfate salts. This points toward a unique ancient production technology in which the parchment was modified through the addition of the inorganic layer as a writing surface. Furthermore, understanding the properties of these minerals is particularly critical for the development of suitable conservation methods for the preservation of these invaluable historical documents.

Parchment characterization by multiphoton electron extraction spectrometry

“…Spectroscopy combined with microscopic surface resolutions (μ‐spectroscopy) is gaining increasing attention, for example, μ‐FTIR, μ‐XRF, μ‐Raman, and μ‐LIBS (Li et al, 2019; Mas et al, 2014; Pronti et al, 2018; Schuetz et al, 2019). In a related example, μ‐ablation followed by μ‐spectroscopy have been developed for the identification of collagen‐based materials (Pagnotta, 2018).…”

“…On the grain side, hair follicles (sample 46 and sample 48) and texture (sample 51) are visible. Whereas, on the flesh side, the surface looks more homogeneous, and it was mainly used in ancient times for text writing (Schuetz et al, 2019). Writing on the grain side was also practiced, for example, the historical sample 21.…”

“…Parchments are made from processed animal skin, predominantly from calf, sheep, and goat (Van Der Werf et al, 2017). Production of parchments includes four main steps: de‐hairing, thinning, drying under tension, and finishing (Schuetz et al 2019). With removal of the outer epidermal layers, the finished parchment is composed of approximately 95% collagen.…”

Towards an understanding of the chemo-mechanical influences on kidney stone failure via the material point method

“…This has made it an apt choice for the study of complex composites, including Roman concrete and sea urchin teeth, particularly when combined with other complementary characterization techniques such as Raman spectroscopy [ 26 , 27 ]. The high throughput nature of EDS mapping has made it possible to combine quantitative EDS data with clustering techniques to map the distribution of chemically distinct phases throughout the mapped area of a sample [ 28 ].…”

Interpol questioned documents review 2019–2022

“…including any other technology used to prepare the document. The following 64 articles [ [548] , [549] , [550] , [551] , [552] , [553] , [554] , [555] , [556] , [557] , [558] , [559] , [560] , [561] , [562] , [563] , [564] , [565] , [566] , [567] , [568] , [569] , [570] , [571] , [572] , [573] , [574] , [575] , [576] , [577] , [578] , [579] , [580] ] [ [581] , [582] , [583] , [584] , [585] , [586] , [587] , [588] , [589] , [590] , [591] , [592] , [593] , [594] , [595] , [596] , [597] , [598] , [599] , [600] , [601] , [602] , [603] , [604] , [605] , [606] , [607] , [608] , [609] , [610] , [611] ], combined with 17 presentations [...…”