TY - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira ED - Ciner, P. ED - Nunez, A. T1 - Writing Materials of the Dead See Scrolls N2 - The first manuscripts from the Qumran caves were found in 1947. Within the following 10 years, clandestine and legal excavations revealed some 900 highly fragmented manuscripts from the late Second Temple period. This collection is generally known as Scrolls of the Judea Desert or Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). For many years after their discovery, text analysis and fragmeents attribution were the main concern of the scholars dealing with the scrolls. The uncertain archaeological provenance of the larger part of the collection added an additional difficulty to the formidable task of sorting some 19000 fragments. After 60 years of scholar research the question of origin, archaeological provenance and correct attribution of the fragmenst are still hotly debated. To dtermine a possible contribution to the debate from the point of view of writing materials, we used otpical and electron microscopy, various X-ray based techniques as well as vibratiional sprectroscopy. We validated our approach with SY - based studies using the advantages of the synchroton radiation source with respect to the benchtop devices. Our laboratory studies showed that often production and storage locality could be distinguished thenks to the specific residues ("fingerprint") they left on the material. Moreover, we have diescovered that diferrent parchment production processses coexisted in the antiquity, and the resulting writing materials can readily be distinguished. T2 - 2nd International Conference on Patristic Studies CY - San Juan, Argentina DA - 28.03.2017 KW - Dead Sea Scrolls KW - Text analysis KW - Fragmented manuscripts KW - X-ray based techniques KW - Archaeological provenance PY - 2021 SN - 978-2-503-59149-0 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1484/M.STR-EB.5.1211558 SN - 2566-073X VL - 0095/ 19 SP - 325 EP - 331 PB - Brepols CY - Turnhout, Belgium AN - OPUS4-54593 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Material studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls N2 - Our study is dedicated to non-destructive characterization of the support and the inks of the DSS. To that aim we use micro-XRF, 3D- SY-XRF, different IR methods including synchrotron radiation based reflectance spectroscopy, optical and electron microscopy. The lecture discusses advantages and the shortcomings of the non-destructive testing approach. T2 - Seminar CY - Freie Universität Berlin, Germany DA - 04.02.2019 KW - Dead Sea Scrolls PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-48132 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schütz, R. A1 - Maragh, J. A1 - Weaver, J. A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Masic, A. T1 - The Temple Scroll: Reconstructing an ancient manufacturing practice N2 - The miraculously preserved 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts of invaluable historical significance, were discovered in the mid-20th century in the caves of the Judean desert. The texts were mainly written on parchment and exhibit vast diversity in their states of preservation. One particular scroll, the 8-m-long Temple Scroll is especially notable because of its exceptional thinness and bright ivory color. The parchment has a layered structure, consisting of a collagenous base material and an atypical inorganic overlayer. We analyzed the chemistry of the inorganic layer using x-ray and Raman spectroscopies and discovered a variety of evaporitic sulfate salts. This points toward a unique ancient production technology in which the parchment was modified through the addition of the inorganic layer as a writing surface. Furthermore, understanding the properties of these minerals is particularly critical for the development of suitable conservation methods for the preservation of these invaluable historical documents. KW - Temple Scroll KW - Dead Sea Scrolls PY - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-495314 VL - 5 IS - 9 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - AAAS AN - OPUS4-49531 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Kohl, Anka A1 - Bicchieri, M. A1 - Sodo, A. A1 - Piantanida, G. T1 - New results in Dead Sea Scrolls non-destructive characterisation. Evidence of different parchment manufacture in the fragments fromReed collection N2 - This work presents the non-destructive spectroscopic characterisation of original Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS)parchment fragments from Ronald Reed collection. The fragments are of paramount importance becausethey have never been subjected to any treatment of preservation and restoration, this allows to investi-gate the manufacturing method of real original Jewish parchments. The manufacture of “sacred” Jewishparchments, in fact, is traditionally supposed to use a superficial tannin treatment. To study the DSS frag-ments, it was necessary both to analyse mock-up samples, especially manufactured in order to reproduceancient Oriental Jewish ritual parchments, and to compare the results with those obtained in the analysisof modern and ancient Western Jewish ritual parchments, in order to test the effectiveness of the selectedspectroscopic techniques. Traditionally, the main difference between Oriental and Western traditionalparchment preparation consisted in the dehairing method: enzymatic for Oriental and lime-based forWestern. Moreover, a finishing treatment with tannin was supposed to be applied on ritual Jewish parch-ments. The need of reference samples derives from the knowledge that each parchment preparation,treatment and degradation can induce structural modifications that affect the spectral features. FourierTransform Infrared Spectroscopy by Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR-FTIR), FT-Raman and m-Ramanwere used in this study. The experimental results allowed us to recognise, with different sensitivity, thepresence of tannin by using m-Raman and IR spectroscopies and to prove that not all the archaeologicalsamples were manufactured in the same way with vegetal extracts. Many salts (tschermigite, dolomite,calcite, gypsum and iron carbonate) were found on the surface of DSS fragments. They can derive fromthe degradation processes and storage environment before the discovery or from the manufacture. More-over, the different sensitivities and instrumental characteristics of the used techniques permitted us toestablish an analytical protocol, useful for further studies of similar materials. KW - ATR-FTIR KW - Tannins KW - Dead Sea Scrolls KW - Raman KW - FT-Raman PY - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2018.01.014 VL - 32 SP - 22 EP - 29 PB - Elsevier Masson SAS AN - OPUS4-49533 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Rimon, Hasia A1 - Rabin, Ira ED - Fuller, R.E. ED - Lange, A. T1 - Conservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls N2 - The current state of preservation of the DSS results from the synergetic effect of various factors such as great age, post-discovery treatments, poor storage conditions, environmental influences and exhibitions. With rare exceptions, neither the initial state nor a list of the treatments performed on each DSS fragment is known. Reconstruction of the individual fragment history will have to rely upon advanced analytical techniques to identify the treatments and their effects. Management of the scrolls may be divided roughly into three periods: a) the scholarly archiving period, from 1948 to the mid-1960s; b) first attempts at conservation, from the mid-1960s to late-1980s; c) Israel Antiquities Authority Scrolls Lab, from 1991 onwards. KW - Preservation KW - Dead Sea Scrolls PY - 2023 SN - 2468-3027 VL - 3D SP - 102 EP - 105 PB - Brill CY - Leiden / Boston AN - OPUS4-58910 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Caldararo, N. A1 - Rimon, H. ED - Russel, R.E. ED - Lange, A. T1 - The Role of DNA Analysis in the Study of the Biblical Manuscripts N2 - Interest in the type of skin used in scriptural materials and preparation methods increased from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. This was due partly to the number of newly discovered fragments and to the invention of new instruments and scientific procedures to identify animal skins and produce qualitative means to demonstrate specific preparation reagents and techniques. The invention of various means of analyzing the DNA of organic materials brought about a revolution in archaeology and in conservation. Difficulties in overcoming contamination of archaeological samples resulted in a number of controversies but also produced advances and improvement in the techniques of ancient DNA analysis and interpretation of results. KW - DNA KW - Dead Sea Scrolls KW - Parchment PY - 2023 SN - 2468-3027 VL - 3D SP - 120 EP - 123 PB - Brill CY - Leiden / Boston AN - OPUS4-58914 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -