The summary

1 THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Bodouin shepherds were responsible for the findings of seven scrolls or parts of scrolls and fragments, along with the store jars and broken pottery jars in a cave over looking the northwest end of the Dead sea in 1947. The scrolls were then sold by a dealer on behalf of the shepherds.A scholar in Jerusalem had a view of the scrolls and then the whole scholarly world noticed it.



Cave at qumran and One of the dead sea scrolls jars on display at the Amman Archaeological Museum

A team of investigators then excavated those area of caves which ultimately led to the discovery of documents present within the eleven caves of Qumran. And the excavated site was named as Khirbit(the ruin of) Qumran.This occured as Israel was coming into an existence of modern state when all the political were involved in development. So did scholars continued to study the recovered fragments trying to attempt the assess of their significance. Even though the scrolls were incomplete there were more than eight hundred documents represented by the whole scrolls. Except for the book of Esther, the myriad of fragments which have been recovered were complete copies of all the books in the Hebrew Bible. The texts used were older by at least a thousand years than any previous biblical texts written in Hebrew.

A part of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem had been resided as the home for the dead sea scrolls and the copper scrolls can be seen in the archaeological museum in Amman,Jordan whereas the small fragments are housed in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem. It is said that researchers would still be working on the scrolls until fifty years hence.

The House Of David Inscription

Over a quarter century before, a team of excavators headed in north of Israel at the foot of mount Hermon, a place called Tel Dan. It was around 1966 when Dr. Avraham Biran and his team of Israeli archaeologists excavated the area and discovered a broken fragment of basalt stone in a secondary wall.On a closure look of the afternoon sun they saw something encripted within the fragment measuring about 32 cm high and 22 cm width,which turned out to be alphabetical letters and indeed, they had found an inscribed stone. But the stone had been purposely broken in antiquity and turned out the fragments found mentioned King David's Dynasty,"The House Of David." However the other two fragments of stele were recovered in separate location at around 1994.

The reconstructed text read as....

• .... and cut .....
• .... my father went up against him when he fought at ....
• And my father lay down , he went to his ancestors. And the king if I[-s]
• rael entered previously in my father's land . [And] hadad made me king
• And Hadad went in front of me, [and] I departed from the seven [....-]
  
• s of my kingdom, and i slew [seve]nty kin[gs], who harnessed thou[sands of cha-]
• Roits and thousands of horsemen (or horses).[ I killed jero]ram son of [Ahab]
• king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin-]
• g of the house of David.And I set [their towns into ruins and turned]
• their land into [ desolation.....]
• other [ ....and Jehu ru-]
• led over Is[rael .... and i laid ]
  
• siege upon [ .... ]

According to the fragments found it is said that the fragments were laid at hte end of 9th or the beginning of the 8th century BC. This discovery provides an archaeological connection to the biblical references to the ruling dynasty established by King David approximately two centuries before the events th at are mentioned in the inscription.

The Amulet Scrolls

Israel archaeologist Gabriel Barkay and a group of student of Jerusalem University exavated several tombs in Jerusalem on the "Shoulder Of Hinnom," on the southwestren slope of Hinnom Valley right across the scottish Presbyterian Church of St. Andrew in 1979. According to them, they found some repository for grave goods approximately 700 items, including burial gifts of pottery vessels, over 100 pieces of silver jewelry, arrowheads, bone and ivory artifacts, alabaster vessels, 150 beads and a rare early coin. The silver were rolled up in amulet bearing the tetragrammaton,the name of the God ( the consonantal letters yod, he, waw, he), YHWH.....

According to the research the tombs were built at the end of Davidic dynasty, at around 7th century.The silver amulet thus dates to the end of the 7th or early 6th century. Of secondary interest is the fact that the evidences from the shoulder of HInnom tombs indicates population in the Jerusalem area in the aftermath of the babylonian destruction of the city. The evidences also indicates a certain level of wealth on the part of those buried in the tombs.