 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls from 1946 through 1956 was one of the most mind-opening discoveries in the history of our people regarding the piecing together of the lost and ancient past. The sensational find may be one of the most prized ancient artifacts ever discovered and indeed ever produced by human hands, but one recent discovery by researchers at the Journal of Science Advances have added another layer of intrigue to the mystery that is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Wait to hear this. The ancient scrolls were miraculously preserved in the natural limestone and man-made moral caves of the Judean desert and the main collections are held in the Israel Antiquity Authority, the Shrine of the Book and Jordan. Apart from having inherent textual value, the legendary scrolls also carry historical information related to the materials processing technologies that were used to produce them. According to the Journal for Science Advances, which we will link below, a detailed understanding of these ancient technologies could be used for forgery identification purposes and for the development of modern antiquity-inspired collagen-based materials. In the recent study, the researchers are exploring an integrated methodology for determining the original and acquired properties of the scrolls has been developed. Using a combination of x-ray Fourier transform infrared and Raymond techniques, it was possible to identify the organic and inorganic phases present in the scrolls. It was shown that the organic parchment and inorganic sediments from the cave, phases of the ancient fragments were not completely intermixed and could be spatially resolved. In most of the cases studied, the mineral deposits that were detected on the surface of the scrolls could be linked to those of the caves. In a smaller number of fragments, however, the surface was coated with a thin mineral layer that presumably oriented from the parchment production process. These investigations led to the conclusion that the skin-based writing surface of the Dead Sea text could be roughly grouped into three different categories, leather parchment, parchment of various shades of brown which were tanned using the eastern practice and light-colored untanned parchment which were produced using the western practice. The similarities of the second and third of these categories of the DSS to Babylonian documents from the 5th century BC and early Greek parchment led to the hypothesis that eastern and western parchment production technologies coexisted at the time of the production of the scrolls. Among all the scrolls, there is one particular document that has peaked the research, the Temple Scroll from the Israeli Museum's collection which is especially notable because of its physical appearance. The Temple Scroll is written on a bright ivory-colored parchment. Its recovery history is more complicated than that of other scrolls in the collection. Allegedly, a group of Bedouins found it wrapped in cloth and a jar in 1956 in Cave 11 of Qumran and then sold it to an antiques dealer who replaced the original encasement with cellophane and then transferred it from the jar into a shoebox that he hid under the floor in his house. When scholars finally accessed the scroll some 11 years later, it was severely damaged by moisture particularly on its outer sheets and upper edge. Previous studies have confirmed that the Temple Scroll was retrieved from Cave 11. However, minerals found deposited in the fragments cannot be found anywhere else in the region. Leading to the question as to where exactly the enigmatic text came from, the answer may surprise you guys. Dr. Ira Rabin of the Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing at Hamburg University, who was involved in the study states, this study has far-reaching implications beyond the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, it shows that at the dawn of parchment making in the Middle East, several techniques were in use, which is in stark contrast to the single techniques used in the Middle Ages. According to the researchers, the scroll has a multi-layered structure with the text written on an ivory-colored inorganic layer, mostly made up of salts on the inner side of the skin. The findings suggest a unique ancient production technology in which the parchment was modified through the addition of the inorganic layer as a writing surface. The researchers analyzed the chemistry of this layer and found it to contain a range of minerals, mostly salts. While the team cannot say definitively where most of the minerals came from, they have determined that the salts did not originate in the caves and are not common in the Dead Sea region. The process used to produce the different scrolls were similar to both ancient Babylonian and Greek techniques, suggesting that both Eastern and Western parchment production technologies were used by the scroll's creators, suggesting a connection between cultures that was not previously known. Only on the temple's scroll, though, only techniques similar to those used in the West were identified, meaning it must have been produced elsewhere. These implications are massive for history. One of the researchers, Professor Jonathan Dove, states, I am not the least bit surprised to learn that a part of the scrolls was not prepared in the Dead Sea region. It would be naive to assume that they were all prepared there. So there you have it guys, an ancient connection between the Dead Sea, ancient Babylon, and Greek preservation techniques. Apparently a first in the field of discovery and interest. What do you guys think about this anyway? Comments below, and as always, thank you for watching.