(Newswire.net — March 19, 2020) — A valuable collection of Dead Sea Scroll fragments on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC has been found to be counterfeits, the BBC reports.
The Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran scriptures contain about 900 documents, including texts from the Tanakh and Hebrew Bible, of exceptional historical and religious significance, as they contain the only known surviving copies of Bible texts dating from around 100 BCE.
The scrolls were discovered in the middle of the last century, in caves near Qumran, on the northwest coast of the Dead Sea.
Most of the ancient documents and texts are currently on display in Jerusalem, but quite a few are in private possession and are in high demand by collectors and museums. The Washington Bible Museum has as many as 16 fragments on display, all proven to be forgeries.
A thorough investigation of one of the most valuable collections of the Dead Sea Scrolls has now led to the conclusion that none of the 16 fragments of the collection kept at the Washington Museum is authentic. The scrolls, considered to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars seem to have been fabricated in the 20th century.
That was partially confirmed in 2018 when the Washington Bible Museum revealed that at least five fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in their collection, estimated at half a billion dollars, are counterfeits.
To make convincing fakes, researchers estimate the forgers coated the scraps with a “shiny amber material… most likely animal skin glue”.
Since then, the museum has begun the action of authenticating other pieces from their collection. It turns out that the entire collection is not credible. “After an exhaustive review of all the imaging and scientific analysis results, it is evident that none of the textual fragments in Museum of the Bible’s Dead Sea Scroll collection are authentic,” said in a statement Colette Loll, the head of Art Fraud Insights.
Moreover, each of the fragments is a deliberate copy made in the 20th century in order to imitate parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls that are actually authentic.
In an exhaustive 212-page report, she explains that all 16 pieces of the collection have been subjected to a number of scientific tests, including numerous scanning multispectral analyzes, traditional and 3D microscopy microchemical testing.