Category:Qumran Studies--1940s

The two Bedouin shepherds credited for the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in Cave 1

Kando, the cobbler who acted as mediator for the selling of the first Dead Sea Scrolls

The initial discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls took place between November 1946 and February 1947. Two Bedouin shepherds discovered seven scrolls housed in jars in a cave now known as Cave 1, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Qumran site. These scrolls were later identified as the complete Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule, the Pesher Habakkuk, a second Isaiah Scroll, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Hymns, and the Genesis Apocryphon.

For some time the Bedouin kept the scrolls in their tents, later they contacted some antiquities dealers in Bethlehem in the hope of selling the manuscripts, but without success. Eventually the manuscripts were offered to a Syrian Orthodox cobbler, Khalil Iksander Shahin, nichnamed Kando. Acting as an agent for the Bedouin, Kando sold four manuscripts to the Syrian metropolitan archbishop of Jerusalem, Mar Athanasius Yeshua Samuel (i.e. the complete Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule, the Pesher Habakkuk, and the Genesis Apocryphon). The remaining three mss (i.e. the Thanksgiving Hymns, the War Scroll, and then the second Isaiah Scroll) were purchased by Israeli archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik in Nov-Dec 1947 with funds from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Already in the last week of July 1947, the Syrian Archbishop had contacted Profs. Sebastianus Marmardji and Johannes van der Ploeg at the Ecole Biblique and Archeologique Francaise de Jerusalem. They identified among the scrolls a copy of Isaiah and a commentary on Habakkuk, but concluded that they were late medieval manuscripts. The Syrian Archbishop then contacted in mid-February 1948 the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). Realizing the antiquity of the scrolls and the importance of the discovery, John C. Trever on 21 February 1948 photographed, both on black-and-white and standard color film, three of the scrolls (i.e. the complete Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule, and the Pesher Habakkuk; the Genesis Apocryphon was too fragile to be unrolled). Trever immediately called back from Amman, Jordan the head of ASOR, Millar Burrows, and another American young researcher at ASOR William H. Brownlee. On 11 April 1948, Burrows announced to the scholarly community the discovery of the scrolls in a general press release; the announcement was followed on April 26 by an analogous press release by Sukenik about Hebrew University's scrolls.

At the end of 1948, the government of Jordan finally gave permission to the Arab Legion to search the area where the original Qumran cave was thought to be. Consequently, Cave 1 was identified on 28 January 1949, by Belgian United Nations observer Captain Phillipe Lippens and Arab Legion Captain Akkash el-Zebn. A preliminary excavation of the Cave was conducted from 15 February to 5 March 1949 by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities in collaboration with the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique, under the direction of Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux. Additional Dead Sea Scroll fragments, linen cloth, jars, and other artifacts were recovered.

In the meantime, on January 29, 1949, the Metropolitan archbishop took the four scrolls in his possession to the United States for exhibition and to secure a buyer. On April 10-14, 1949, the Genesis Apocryphon was unrolled for the first time at Fogg Museum, Harvard University. The four scrolls "from St. Mark Monastery" were publicly displayed on October 1949 at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and then in February 1950 at Duke University.

The first scholarly reports were published in 1948-49 by Eleazar Sukenik and Gerald Lankester Harding.

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