Looking Dodgy: Aberrant Dead Sea Scroll Now Known to Have Another Singularity

The Dead Sea scrolls 'have given up fresh secrets, with researchers saying they have identified a previously unknown technique used to prepare one of the most remarkable scrolls of the collection' (Nicola Davis, 'Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins' Guardian Fri 6 Sep 2019) Analysis shows that an alum sizing layer under the writing on the Temple Scroll differ from the methods used to prepare the other Qumran scrolls

The results suggest the writing surface is largely composed of sulfate salts, including glauberite, gypsum and thenardite – minerals that dissolve in water and are left behind when the water evaporates. However, the researchers say these salts are not typical for the Dead Sea region, raising questions of where exactly they came from.

It also raises the question of whether that scroll really was found (as the Bedouin artefact hunters who sold them to a local dealer in or about 1956 said) in the Qumran caves at all. It is not a properly grounded artefact.