Original subtitles

disregarding everything else at the

site Space Age Technology is shedding

new light on Ancient

kumran

NASA's synthetic aperture radar s for

short is designed to read the Earth's

surface even when obscured by dense

cloud cover today's Palestine can be

seen in detail and physical features are

enhanced by the satellite technology but

the amazing feature of this technology

is that it allows us to see beyond the

observations of the naked eye ey it can

actually work as a time machine and

allow us to glance back into

history the same technology mounted on a

small plane will allow the scientist to

probe even further seeing caves hidden

underground Trails covered over time and

objects only cenm

big on the ground a number of metal

cones are deployed to form a grid on

which the photographs can be

aligned the flight route is carefully

mapped out as they need to fly as low

and level to the surface of the ground

as possible to get the best

reading some believe that there are

still sites to be une Earth at kumran

that we have not yet found all the

details about this community new

technology paired with ancient texts

could hopefully give us a better picture

of the religious group that lived

here Doug Thompson collects data as they

fly over the site at this stage he has

no visual control of the images the

system captures only later in the lab

will he be able to analyze the

material

but it's already clear that the kumran

site was not an isolated island in the

desert it was a place well connected

with nearby communities such as Jericho

Ein feska and a

guar another space age method developed

by Dr Greg bman at the jet propulsion

laboratory is put to use on the Scrolls

themselves at the invitation of the

Israeli Antiquities Authority

something7 selected fragments darkened

by aging and deteriorating rapidly are

put to the

test I guess this is reverse writing

there's three of those images and

they're kind of on their side Berman's

technology is based on using infrared

light to capture the Lost images just as

the satellite's camera can reveal

stories about life on Earth he can see

beyond the limitations of the naked

eye the situation is tense in the room

whatever is on the piece of parchment no

one has seen it for almost 2,000

years is this oh look at that that's

what you want look at

attack in an instant Greg bman washes

away 2,000 years of dirt bat dung and

animal urine revealing for the first

time lines of text that will divulge

even more about the Suns of

light what we found out was that as you

move further in the infrared this is 640

and 680 this is the red part uh 720 this

is infrared you see as you move further

out the text begins to emerge from from

the background and down here at the

bottom is uh an enhanced version of 970

NM once in the computer scientists can

work with the new images and texts the

dazzling magic of this new digital

technology masks flaws that some

Scholars find troubling although an

advocate of this new road of research

Bruce Zuckerman of the West citic

research project at the University of

Southern California is quick to point

out the potholes in digital

reconstruction of scroll fragments let

me show you what what I mean here we

have up here a uh a Dead Sea scroll or a

section of same from the Genesis

apocryphon one of the more interesting

Dead Sea Scrolls of what I would call a

good use of uh computer Imaging a kind

of Imaging that no one would argue with

you see here there's a tear in the text

you see where the ink was and uh the

piece just sort of Jags down because of

of the tear now what we did here is we

simply cut this little piece out

electronically I should add you know

it's not done don't try this with the

real thing and we simply shoved it up

and when you shoved it up we it became

quite uh nice you'll notice that we left

a line that's very clear that shows that

we have done something to the fragment

we it would be very easy to go in and

make this Edge sort of melt away and

just become part of the fragment above

it you would not be able to tell and

most Scholars would have no idea that

you've done any kind of manipulation so

this is a good example of of a type of

manipulation G that one could do with

the real text if uh the real text were

not so fragile but there are other types

of manipulation which uh uh one would

say are a little bit more questionable

now here's a text uh where we have done

some computer image can have it see here

is the on this one end this is the raw

image or the image that is UN

unprocessed and here on the other end is

a really absolutely gorgeous if I do say

so myself image of the text and we could

say computer enhancement yielded that

but you see hiding behind that is a

multitude of sins this image in some

respects is a fake now what do I mean by

that here I can show you how we quote

faked it okay I am lightening the image

around this what turns out to be a yud

so that you can very clearly see where

the letter begins and where it ends as

if it had been originally written by The

Scribe I'm taking all of that little

bleeding that has taken place because

of uh the deterioration of the text you

can also let's make it a little darker

on there you can now no problem see now

see now beautiful ink original looks

like it was written

yesterday pull it back now zoom

out when we pull

back if I were to show people this

material and this material and said

computer Imaging yielded that if I don't

explain what I did they would assume

that that is a totally objective

maneuver and it's not it's a highly

selective highly idiosyncratic maneuver

indeed using this type of technology I

can put your name in a Dead Sea

scroll but the one name everyone has

looked for in the Scrolls is the one of

Yeshua Ben yosf known to Christians as

Jesus and to the Muslims as Isa iban

Maran

but his name is nowhere to be found the

texts have been grouped by Scholars into

three categories biblical books

sectarian documents and non-biblical

religious

writings the first third of the library

was comprised of the oldest known copies

of the Hebrew Bible including the great

Isaiah scroll older than any previously

known copy by a thousand years the

second category of the library was the

sectarian literature or the group of

manuscripts that were written by the

Essen themselves to govern daily life

the third group of documents is harder

to categorize but they offer the first

Glimpse that Scholars have had into the

great ferment that was taking place in

Judaism during this period they include

retold biblical stories new Psalms works

of biblical commentary and

interpretation as well as mystical

writings describing Angelic

Journeys after a period of confus

confusion a great leader emerged whom

the Scrolls refer to as the teacher of

righteousness under his Direction the

disciples devoted their lives to the

production collection and study of The

Great Library of

Scrolls could this teacher have been

John the Baptist could Jesus himself

have been part of this

community speculations abound because

there is still a lot we do not

understand about this group of people

and the Mystery deepens as Scholars have

found cryptic texts among the Scrolls

sacred teachings that were not for the

eyes of Outsiders could the name of

Jesus be hidden in these secret

documents Steven Fawn of the University

of the holy land has worked to decipher

the unusual alphabet he has not found

the name of Jesus in the text but

apparently the cryptic writing was

divised Ed by a man called The mosil Who

was a Visionary or prophetic leader in

the community in a way the text reads

like an instructional manual and fawn

believes the musel kept this text close

to his heart and carried it with him at

all times this new alphabet which he

developed was one that uh was his own

personal alphabet and perhaps of a few

other people who he

trusted and this was in order to uh help

to keep pure and separate knowledge that

others aren't allowed to have access to

yet it is easy to believe that the texts

of the community such as the M's coded

language were actually written at kumran

where the community was established and

where the Scrolls were found 2,000 years

later but could some of the Scrolls have

been written somewhere else and then

brought to kumran for safekeeping during

the Jewish Revolt in 68 CE scientists

from new Fields have joined the biblical

scholars in their search for answers

microbiologist Scott Woodward at Brigham

Young University has worked on

extracting ancient DNA from mummies in

Egypt the Israeli Antiquities Authority

approached him regarding DNA sampling of

the

Scrolls when we were originally

approached by the Antiquities Authority

in Israel the idea was what can we do

with all of these fragments

of the Scrolls the pieces that didn't

belong uh in some large scroll was there

any way that we could put those back

together and reconstruct some of the

Dead Sea Scrolls uh from from a pile of

unconnected

fragments because the parchment on which

the texts are written is leather and

comes from animals the scientists can

look for the genetic material found in

the cells finding small parts of DNA

strings in the so-called mitochondria of

cells scientists can create a genetic

fingerprint of each individual Animal by

testing piece after piece they can see

if they come from the same original

parchment thus likely belonging together

in the same sequence of text a little

bit of that put on the key and we'll go

from there

okay not only can fragments be pieced

together DNA and genetic signatures can

reveal even more information

we have been able to show that the

technology Works what that will be able

to do for the scholars is help answer

the question where were the Scrolls

written in order to do that we have to

take the genetic signature that we now

have from some of these Scrolls match it

with the genetic signature that we would

find from Bones from some of the

archaeological sites Bones from kumran

Bones from Jerusalem uh and other sites

throughout the holy

land and then probably finally the other

the next thing that we ought to be able

to do is take some of the unidentified

fragments that are still sitting in in

boxes waiting to be pieced back together

to see if we can in fact reconstruct

some new pages from which the scholars

would then be able to get new

information so DNA could help reveal

whether the parchments were actually

from Kuman or from elsewhere in the

Middle

East goats had always been Prime

suspects as the source of scroll

material common domestic animals they

were a natural fit because they could

thrive in the harsh climate of the Dead

Sea and were acceptable to use as skin

for sacred or biblical text ibec skin a

wild animal was also found in Scrolls

which were not biblical in nature but in

sectarian documents that were written

for the regulation of the community IEX

was an interesting choice but not a

surprising one it was with more sampling

however that the DNA work took an

unexpected turn startling Scholars and

raising more questions about the

[Music]

Scrolls but what we found in this case

was that these Scrolls seem to have been

written on parchment from bovine or from

cows there may be a problem W with cows

here where where do you raise cows on

the shores of the Dead Sea it's not very

easy easy uh I think most people would

agree that they they probably weren't

there so where did they come from so the

origin of the Scrolls is called into

question by yet another

source the shards and jars of the kumran

pottery may be the key to answering the

fundamental questions of kumran when and

why was the site established and where

did the Scrolls come

from Professor Yan gun of the Hebrew

University is applying the technology of

nuclear activation to find out if the

jars were made at the communities kill

in kumran or were perhaps brought here

from another location such as

Jerusalem in police records all over the

world are stored uh Fingerprints of

criminals According to which every

individual can be

identified so what we are doing here is

the same more or less the same we are

taking a chemical profile of a uh Kil

which is called a chemical fingerprint

and we can match it later with the

ceramic which is found at the

site after Gathering clay samples from

the Kil and kumran gon goes to the

Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem where

the jars are kept one interesting

characteristic the scroll jars display

is a blistering effect on the ceramics

surface gun offers several theories to

explain the effect one of the more

intriguing is the idea that the jars

were made quickly to hide the Scrolls

perhaps when the kumran knites Learned

of the advancing Roman

army people uh were in hurry know to uh

produce the jars and therefore they took

whatever they could uh uh lay their

hands on in order to produce these jars

as soon as possible

and therefore when they are going in the

Kil you get different shrinkages now

after that they are fired of the clay

and the calcium carbonate and then you

get blisters all over the

place but not all jars look the same and

they are found in different places and

containing different Scrolls one

conclusion doesn't answer all the

questions if DNA analysis takes the

scroll research to the molecular level

Neutron analysis takes it further into

the building blocks of all

matter after the samples are packed in

vials numbered and identified they are

sent to the Technical University of

budapes

gun's partner Dr Marta Bala prepares

them for the nuclear

reactor the samples are bombarded with

neutrons which render the powder samples

radioactive the radiation given off by

the sample is converted into electric

pulses which are converted into numbers

which show the quantities of chemical

elements ments within the clay this is

the fingerprint that will point the way

to the location where the jar was made

and a possible clue to the origin of the

Scrolls themselves in Jerusalem gon can

compare the result with an extensive

Data Bank from around the Middle

East I have 100 samples the results of

samples and these indicate that there

are four chemical compositions at

kumra

the first group matches the inner lining

of the Kiln at kumran and was made from

the same clay as the Kiln these are

utility vessels of various

kinds secondly there are cooking pots

that match throwaways found near the

Kiln and were obviously fired

there third are vessels of various types

made from clay that came from north or

south of kumran this group includes some

scroll

jars finally there is a fourth group of

scroll jars that is not from kumran and

not from Jerusalem this is a surprise

because some have guessed that the jars

containing the Dead Sea Scrolls may have

come from the Jerusalem

Temple the neutron analysis shows that

some pottery from the caves and some

from the settlement have the same

chemical fingerprint proof that the

Scrolls and the community are linked as

dvo thought gun's research also confirms

that some pots were imported into kumran

from Jericho and

Jordan but a mystery Still Remains 36

samples comprising most of the scroll

jars from the caves remain

unidentified where were the jars made

that held the precious

Scrolls the members of the kumran

community with a strong apocalyptic

belief were not surprised that they were

having heading into a final battle the

long hours of study and discussion had

prepared them for a great battle at the

end of days between the sons of Light

and the Suns of Darkness with the hosts

of Heaven fighting on their

side in the year 68 CE the Roman army

marched south from Jericho they

mobilized the Army to curb the Jewish

Rebellion the kumran knites were

probably not the prime target but they

would not escape the Romans rage

the essenes look to the cave surrounding

kumran to protect their precious library

of

Scrolls the scroll s were safe but the

men who hid them never returned they

went out to fight the battle they had

prepared for and the Scrolls had

described in

detail on the points of the javelin they

shall write shining Javelin of the power

of God bloody spikes to bring down the

slain by the wrath of God flaming blade

to Devour the wicked struck down by the

Judgment of

God

1,000 men ranked seven lines deep they

shall each hold Shields of bronze

burnished with

mirrors the sons of Light waited more

than 200 years in the desert for this

holy war what signs they were waiting

for is unknown but when the Roman army

was mobilized to curb the Jewish

Rebellion they believed the day had

come the historian Josephus tells us of

the fate of the essenes at the hands of

the

Romans the war with the Romans tried

their souls through and through by every

variety of test racked and twisted

burned and broken and made to pass

through every instrument of torture in

in order to induce them to blaspheme

their

lawgiver smiling in their agonies and

mildly deriding their tormentors they

cheerfully resigned their souls

confident that they would receive them

back

again the Jewish Revolt was an ironic

end to the apocalyptic vision of the

sons of Light for it was the Romans who

had a dizzying array of weapons and

Legions of men archaeologist Dr menen

brochi well they took their

revolt against the Romans too seriously

they believe that this is the

apocalyptic War they were expecting so

they entered the war with

abandon so much so that they perished in

the war they were just killed on the

battlefields and after the battles they

were hunted down by the Romans and

butchered and how did they know the fact

that we have 800

Scrolls I mean there was nobody to

retreat

it hidden away in a forgotten Crypt

beneath the busy streets of modern

Jerusalem is the grave of the remarkable

man whose ghost still haunts the

archaeologists and scientists eager to

know the mysteries of the Scrolls and

those who hid them what Secrets did

Father Roland devau take with him to the

grave and why does his name still awaken

controversy

the Dead Sea Scrolls are accessible to

everyone now why is the archaeological

material from Kuman not accessible the

same argument that was made about the

Dead Sea Scrolls why should the Dead Sea

Scrolls be made accessible to everyone

that same argument should be made about

the archaeology of Kuman we are 52 years

after that the Dead Sea Scrolls were

found but from a point of view in

archaeology we just start the arguments

are spinning faster and faster around

the ruins of kumran a place that has not

yet given up all its Secrets there are

still surprises in store and many new

questions to ask was Devo write about

the celibate monastic Community are

there more Scrolls to be discovered that

will reveal the source of the essen's

wisdom What secrets do the ancient grave

still

hold what is the future of the

archaeology of kumran

the dreams and visions that drove these

men Into the Wilderness are not yet

fully understood it is the science of

the 21st century that will bring us

closer to these forgotten voices in the

desert in this area the quite a number

of artificial caves that caved in that

crumbled we believe that there might

have been even

20 the fact that they are crumbled is an

advantage because they haven't been

rifled nobody Disturbed them if they

have crumbled in the right time so there

is a very good possibility that if we'll

dig those caves we'll find

utensils and God willing even

manuscripts even de se Scrolls though

lost in the aftermath of the Roman

military campaign the voices of kumran

can once again be heard because of the

painstaking work of dozens of scientists

and Scholars around the world but for

every question answered many others are

being asked and perhaps many answers

still lie hidden in the desert in many

ways the real work on the Dead Sea

Scrolls is just beginning