Dead Sea ancient texts reveal 'miracles' that 2,000 years of material did not disintegrate

US scientists have unraveled an interesting secret about the most beautiful, well-preserved, Dead Sea ancient scroll of the nearly thousands unearthed from more than a dozen Qumran caves in the eastern Judae Desert , West Bank.

Written around 408 BC to 318 AD, the Dead Sea archeology is one of the most valuable ancient documents of mankind , with the main content being the Hebrew Bible , the oldest bible containing a lot of valuable historical documents. All were put into a ceramic jar, buried in caves to avoid the destruction of the Romans.

Unusual intact Dead Sea fragments, although kept in the cave for 2,000 years, most of the damage was due to the excavation and research of modern humans

The ancient Dead Sea archeology also has a great mystery that scientists have difficulty understanding: they are written on parchment, which should have long since disintegrated. Professor Admir Masic, materials scientist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), a member of the research team this time discovered the kind of "panacea" that makes it: a mysterious preservative salt mixture.

A piece from the neck roll of only 0.1 mm thick was examined under a microscope, using both X-ray and Raman spectroscopy. Scientists have discovered a mysterious mixture of salt with different proportions of calcium, sodium and sulfur, which are not found in nature around the Dead Sea.

This mysterious brine is soaked in parchment, to evaporate. After that, an additional amount of salt is rubbed against the paper surface to complete the creation of a material that does not disintegrate after 2,000 years and has an exceptionally bright brightness compared to other types of leather paper. The basic material of this parchment is animal skin, carefully removed the hair and fat, then scraped off and stretched on the frame.

"We collected hundreds of thousands of different elemental and chemical spectra on the sample surface, outlining its transformations in very detailed detail" - scientist James Weaver from Harvard University (USA), a Other members of the team, said.

According to Professor Masic, the longevity of the ancient Dead Sea scrolls is more amazing than we see. Much of the damage came not from the 2,000-year-old storage in Qumran caves, but by modern people who tried to soften the scrolls and read and research after digging them.

New research also shows that this mineral layer can still take moisture from the air, gradually damaging the underlying material when taken by modern humans. Therefore, to store them, further studies on Dead Sea archeology need to be more cautious.

The research has just been published in the scientific journal Science Advances.

Hidden text on manuscript 'Dead Sea Bible'