Copper Scroll

The Copper Scroll (3Q15) is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Cave 3 near Khirbet Qumran, but differs significantly from the others. Whereas the other scrolls are written on parchment or papyrus, this scroll is written on metal: copper mixed with about 1 percent tin. The so-called 'scrolls' of copper were, in reality, two separated sections of what was originally a single scroll about in length. Unlike the others, it is not a literary work, but a list of 64 places where various items of gold and silver were buried or hidden. It differs from the other scrolls in its Hebrew (closer to the language of the Mishnah than to the literary Hebrew of the other scrolls, though 4QMMT shares some language characteristics), its orthography, palaeography (forms of letters) and date (50–100 CE, possibly overlapping the latest of the other Qumran manuscripts). Since 2013, the Copper Scroll has been on display at the newly opened Jordan Museum in Amman after being moved from its previous home, the Jordan Archaeological Museum on Amman's Citadel Hill. A new facsimile of the Copper Scroll by Facsimile Editions of London was announced as being in production in 2014. While most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by Bedouins, the Copper Scroll was discovered by an archaeologist. The scroll, on two rolls of copper, was found on March 14, 1952 at the back of Cave 3 at Qumran. It was the last of 15 scrolls discovered in the cave, and is thus referred to as 3Q15. The corroded metal could not be unrolled by conventional means and so the Jordanian government sent it to Manchester University's College of Technology in England on the recommendation of English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John Marco Allegro for it to be cut into sections, allowing the text to be read. He arranged for the university's Professor H. Wright Baker to cut the sheets into 23 strips in 1955 and 1956. It then became clear that the rolls were part of the same document. Allegro, who had supervised the opening of the scroll, transcribed its contents immediately.